The Railway Library, 1909. Various
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or of oxen. No distance was then too great, and hundreds of them would make their way from Salem and Boston to Augusta and Savannah. An estimate made towards the close of the year (1814) places the number of wagons thus employed at four thousand, and the number of cattle, horses and oxen at twenty thousand; nor does this seem excessive, for a traveler who drove from New York to Richmond declares that he passed two hundred and sixty wagons on the way."
THE CAPITALIZATION OF TURNPIKES.
Both overland trade and westward migration drew attention to the importance of good roads, both swelled the receipts of turnpike companies, and gave encouragement to investment of local capital in transportation improvement. By 1804 the Lancaster road had been extended to Pittsburg, and a regular stage line established which made a trip each way once a week. State governments lent every encouragement to the building of turnpike roads, even to the extent of subscribing to their stock. From contemporary writings and charter grants, it is estimated that nearly eight hundred turnpike companies were organized before the end of the war of 1812. Pennsylvania was pre-eminent in granting liberal charters, and toll rights, thereby encouraging the people of the more thickly settled districts to make such improvements for themselves. The corporations thus formed had little difficulty in obtaining capital subscriptions, whether for the construction of turnpikes or bridges, or for the operation of ferries. To the stock of these corporations several of the states subscribed in varying amounts. Although a few toll roads were constructed before that time, the turnpike movement may be said to date from the opening of the nineteenth century. Turnpikes (so called from the revolving, or turning bar, or pike which, when set across a toll road, prevented passage until charges were paid) were macadamized or otherwise improved at a cost varying from $500 to $10,000 per mile. Almost without exception they followed in a general way the old lines which had been worked out when travel on foot or on horseback was the chief method of communication, but wherever possible they were made straight, going over and not around hills and other obstacles. When the Boston and Salem turnpike was built a small but deep pond was encountered, but instead of going around the road crossed on a floating bridge. The construction of bridges and the operation of ferries were parts of this larger turnpike movement, and like the turnpikes themselves, they were usually disappointing to those who had invested with the hope of large dividends. At best, this movement did but little to supply the great need for improved transportation. To passenger service it was a great boon, in that it added much to personal comfort, though the time and cost of travel were little reduced. It required five dollars and fifty cents to pay tolls from Philadelphia to New York, besides the hotel bills and other expenses of the road. It took a week to go from Philadelphia to Pittsburg. What the country most needed—a cheap method of handling the bulky products of the interior—was not supplied. Freight was carried upon the turnpike with great difficulty and expense, and heavy goods were compelled to remain untouched on account of the high tolls.
REVIVAL OF CANAL CONSTRUCTION.
To meet this situation, canals had been proposed long before the period of turnpike building, and some surveys had been made, but because of lack of capital, construction was deferred. The earliest projects were for short cuts around rapids or falls, or between neighboring waters, but bolder plans followed. The first canal of any importance actually begun in the United States was the two-mile cut through the rocks about the South Hadley falls of the Connecticut. The Massachusetts legislature passed an act in 1792 incorporating the "Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on Connecticut River." Work was begun at once with Dutch capital, and in two years the canal was completed.
The Santee canal in South Carolina was the first large work of this kind constructed in the United States. It connected the Santee river with the Cooper river at Charleston, and it was opened in 1800. Its length was twenty-two miles, and its cost $600,000.
A much more important project was the Middlesex canal in Massachusetts, a charter for which was obtained in 1793. This canal extended from the Charles river to the Merrimac, twenty-seven miles, and was designed to attract to Boston the trade normally tributary to Portsmouth. Work was begun in 1794, and ten years later the canal was opened for traffic, though it was not entirely completed until 1808.
The successful completion of the Erie canal, which became an assured fact long before its actual accomplishment in 1825, stimulated similar projects all over the country. The local strife between trade centers, combined with the local demand for outlet, set a number of private projects in motion. Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Georgetown were successfully appealed to for support for transportation routes which would enable them to compete with New York for the trade of the West. The Blackstone Canal Company, chartered by Rhode Island and Massachusetts in 1823, began the construction of a canal along the Blackstone river to connect Providence and Worcester, and this route was opened for traffic in 1828. Another New England project started at about the same time was for a canal to extend from New Haven northwards to Northampton, and on up the Connecticut valley into Vermont. Two companies were chartered for this purpose, the Farmington canal in Connecticut in 1822 and the Hampshire and Hampden canal in Massachusetts in 1823. The Farmington canal was completed in 1830; but the work on the Hampshire and Hampden project was for a time abandoned for want of funds, and the canal was not cut through to Northampton until 1835. While carrying a large traffic this canal, like the Blackstone canal, was more beneficial to the general business of the section traversed than to those who held its stock. Other private works of this period upon which large sums were expended were: The Delaware and Raritan canal, connecting Philadelphia with New York; the James River and Kanawha, an unfinished canal project in Virginia; and the Chesapeake and Ohio canal, which was not extended further west than Cumberland.
SCARCITY OF CAPITAL FOR CANALS.
On account of local needs, few canal or navigation companies had difficulty in obtaining their first subscriptions, but most of them experienced trouble in collecting assessments and in obtaining additional subscriptions. This timidity of investors, it now appears, was not without ground, for few of the private canal companies were able to bring their construction work to completion, and fewer still paid any dividends to their stockholders. The Middlesex canal was profitable until the building of a parallel line of railroad; the Montague canal, also in Massachusetts, yielded a fair return during the first twenty years that followed its completion in 1800. The Delaware and Schuylkill canal may be cited as a third exception. But it early became evident that public works of the number and magnitude required could be constructed only at national expense. As the constitution contains no direct provision for internal improvements, the subject became a party question.
From the first Congress had appropriated money for lighthouses, public piers, buoys and other aids to navigation, and about such action there had been no dispute, for it was agreed that these matters lay strictly within federal jurisdiction. From the first, also, Congress had been petitioned for appropriations for internal improvements. Most of these demands were local in character, and so were easily disposed of; but when the directors of the Chesapeake and Delaware canal asked Congress to supply the funds which they had been unable to obtain from sales of shares, the question was forced to an issue. Two facts were incontestable, the general importance of the work, and the ability of the national government to carry it on in view of the revenue surplus in the treasury.
In another way Congress had already committed itself to the support of public works. So long as the country was made up of states bordering on the Atlantic seaboard, improvements were matters of interest to all alike, but with the admission of new states in the interior, and the prospect of future accessions to the westward as the country expanded, an element of injustice seemed to enter these appropriations, which benefited the seaboard states at the expense of all. The feeling of discontent was intensified by the fact that the favored states were more thickly settled, and therefore better able to incur the expense. With the admission of Ohio, however, this was remedied by the establishment of the five per cent. land fund, and the self-interest of the seaboard was appealed to by the argument that the building of roads into the West would so stimulate sales of the public lands as to increase the national revenues.
The matter of national aid to internal improvements was again brought before Congress in 1816 by Calhoun, who presented a bill providing for the direct construction of roads and canals and the improvement of waterways out of a fund to be created by setting apart the