Chapter XIII: Appendix: D

ADVERTISEMENT OF CUMBERLAND ROAD TAVERN IN OHIO--1837

Tavern Stand for Sale or Rent.--A valuable Tavern Stand Sign of the Harp, consisting of 25-1/2 acres of choice land partly improved, and a dwelling house, together with three front lots. This eligible and healthy situation lies 8 miles east of Columbus City, the capital of Ohio, on the National Road leading to Zanesville, at Big Walnut Bridge. The stand is well supplied with several elegant springs.

It is unnecessary to comment on the numerous advantages of this interesting site. The thoroughfare is great, and the growing prospects beyond calculation. For particulars inquire of

T. ARMSTRONG, Hibernia.
Dec. 4-14.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _United States Statutes at Large_, vol. ii, p. 173.

[2] _Senate Reports_, 9th Cong., 1st Sess., Rep. No. 195.

[3] Keyser's Ridge.

[4] The dates on which the three states gave their permission were: Pennsylvania, April 9, 1807; Maryland, 1806; Ohio, 1824.

[5] Richardson (editor): _Messages and Papers of the Presidents_, vol. ii, p. 142.

[6] Harriet Martineau's _Society in America_, vol. ii, pp. 31-35.

[7] See Appropriation No. 27, in Appendix A.

[8] For specimen advertisement for repairs see Appendix B.

[9] The early official correspondence concerning the route of the road shows plainly that it was really built for the benefit of the Chillicothe and Cincinnati settlements, which embraced a large portion of Ohio's population. The opening of river traffic in the first two decades of the century, however, had the effect of throwing the line of the road further northward through the capitals of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. Zane's Trace, diverging from the Cumberland Road at Zanesville, played an important part in the development of southwestern Ohio, becoming the course of the Lancaster and Maysville Pike. See _Historic Highways of America_, vol. xi.

[10] See Appropriation No. 14, in Appendix A.

[11] See Appropriations Nos. 20 and 21, in Appendix A.

[12] _Private Laws of the United States_, May 17, 1796.

[13] _Springfield Pioneer_, August 1837; also _Ohio State Journal_, August 8, 1837.

[14] Harriet Martineau's _Society in America_, vol. i, p. 17.

[15] Wabash-Erie, Whitewater, and Indiana Central Canals and the Madison and Indianapolis Railway. Cf. Atwater's _Tour_, p. 31.

[16] _Illinois in '37_, pp. 766-767. This was probably passenger and freight traffic as the mails went overland from the very first, until the building of railways.

[17] _Ohio State Journal_, January 8, 1836.

[18] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 500.

[19] See Appropriation No. 27, in Appendix A.

[20] _Laws of Ohio_, XXIX, p. 76. For specimen advertisement for bids for erection of tollgates in Ohio see Appendix D.

[21] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 419.

[22] _Id._, p. 523.

[23] _Id._, p. 477.

[24] _Laws of Ohio_, XXXIV, p. 41; XXV, p. 7.

[25] _Id._, XXIII, p. 447.

[26] _Id._, XLIII, p. 89.

[27] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 477.

[28] _Laws of Ohio_, XLIII, p. 140.

[29] _Id._, LVIII, p. 140.

[30] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 500.

[31] _Laws of Ohio_, XXVI, p. 41.

[32] _Id._

[33] Concerning the celerity of opening the road after the completion of contracts, Captain Weaver, Superintendent in Ohio, made the following statement in his report of 1827:

"Upon the first, second and third divisions, with a cover of metal of six inches in thickness, composed of stone reduced to particles of not more than four ounces in weight, the travel was admitted in the month of June last. Those divisions that lie eastward of the village of Fairview together embrace a distance of very nearly twenty-eight and a half miles, and were put under contract on the first of July, and first and thirty-first of August, 1825. This portion of the road has been, in pursuance of contracts made last fall and spring, covered with the third stratum of metal of three inches in thickness, and similarly reduced. On parts of this distance, say about five miles made up of detached pieces, the travel was admitted at the commencement of the last winter and has continued on to this time to render it compact and solid; it is very firm, elastic and smooth. The effect has been to dissipate the prejudices which existed very generally, in the minds of the citizens, against the McAdam system, and to establish full confidence over the former plan of constructing roads.

"On the first day of July, the travel was admitted upon the fourth and fifth divisions, and upon the second, third, fourth, and fifth sections of the sixth division of the road, in its graduated state. This part of the line was put under contract on the eleventh day of September, 1826, terminating at a point three miles west of Cambridge, and embraces a distance of twenty-three and a half miles. On the twenty-first of July the balance of the line to Zanesville, comprising a distance of a little over twenty-one miles, was let."

[34] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 419.

[35] _Laws of Ohio_, XXVI, p. 41; _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 102.

[36] _Id._, XXVI, p. 41.

[37] Tolls for 1845 were based on number of horses, each additional horse being taxed about .20. Tolls for 1900 (in Franklin County) were practically identical with tolls of 1845.

[38] _Laws of Ohio_, XXX, p. 321.

[39] _Id._, XXX, p. 8.

[40] _Id._, XXXIV, p. 111.

[41] _Id._, XLIII, p. 89.

[42] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), pp. 534, 164, 430-431.

[43] _Laws of Ohio_, XXXV, p. 7.

[44] _Laws of Pennsylvania_ (pamphlet), p. 353.

[45] _Laws of Ohio_, XXX, p. 8.

[46] _Id._, XXIX, p. 76.

[47] _Id._, XXX, p. 8.

[48] _Id._, XXX, p. 7.

[49] _Id_., XXXII, p. 265; XXX, p. 7.

[50] Searight's _The Old Pike_, p. 298.

[51] _Id._, pp. 362-366.

[52] _Id._, pp. 367-370.

[53] _Laws of Ohio_, LII, p. 126.

[54] _Id._, LVI, p. 159.

[55] _Id._, LXX, p. 194.

[56] _Id._, LXXIII, p. 105.

[57] _Laws of Ohio_, LXXIV, p. 62.

[58] _Report of the Superintendent of the National Road, with Abstract of Tolls for the fiscal year_ (1837).

[59] _Laws of Ohio_, XXX, p. 8.

[60] Thackeray's _The Newcomes_, vol. i, ch. x.

[61] In one instance a struggle between two stagecoach lines in Indiana resulted in carrying passengers from Richmond to Cincinnati for fifty cents. The regular price was five dollars.

[62] An old Ohio National Stage driver, Mr. Samuel B. Baker of Kirkersville, Ohio, is authority for the statement that the Ohio National Stage Company put a line of stages on the Wooster-Wheeling mail and freight route and "ran out" the line which had been doing all the business previously, after an eight months' bitter contest.

[63] The following appeared in the _Ohio State Journal_ of August 12, 1837: "A SPLENDID COACH--We have looked at a Coach now finishing off in the shop of Messrs. Evans & Pinney of this city, for the Ohio Stage Company, and intended we believe for the inspection of the Post-Master General, who sometime since offered premiums for models of the most approved construction, which is certainly one of the most perfect and splendid specimens of workmanship in this line that we have ever beheld, and would be a credit to any Coach Manufactory in the United States. It is aimed, in its construction, to secure the mail in the safest manner possible, under lock and key, and to accommodate three outside passengers under a comfortable and complete protection from the weather. It is worth going to see."

[64] Before the era of the Cumberland Road the price for hauling the goods of emigrants over Braddock's Road was very high. One emigrant paid $5.33 per hundred for hauling "women and goods" from Alexandria, Virginia, to the Monongahela. Six dollars per hundredweight was charged one emigrant from Hagerstown, Maryland, to Terre Haute, Indiana.

[65] _Ohio State Journal_, February 9, 1838. "The land mail between this and Detroit crawls with snails pace."--_Cleveland Gazette_, August 31, 1837. Cf. _Historic Highways of America_, vol. i., p. 29.

[66] The northern and southern Ohio mails connected with the Great Eastern and Great Western mails at Columbus. They were operated as follows:

NORTHERN MAIL: Left Sandusky City 4 A. M., reached Delaware 8 P. M. Left Delaware next day 3 A. M., reached Columbus 8 A. M. Left Columbus 8:30 A. M., reached Chillicothe 4 P. M. Left Chillicothe next day 4 A. M., reached Portsmouth 3 P. M.

SOUTHERN MAIL: Left Portsmouth 9 A. M., Chillicothe 5 P. M., Columbus 1 P. M., day following. Delaware 7 P. M., Sandusky City 7 P. M. day following. A Cleveland mail left Cleveland daily for Columbus via Wooster and Mt. Vernon at 3 A. M. and reached Columbus on the day following at 5 P. M., returning the mail left Columbus at 4 A. M. and reached Cleveland at 5 P. M. on the ensuing day.

[67] "The extreme irregularity which has attended the transmission of newspapers from one place to another for several months past has been a subject of general complaint with the editors of all parties. It was to have been expected that, after the adjournment of Congress, the evil would have ceased to exist. Such, however, is not the case. Although the roads are now pretty good, and the mails arrive in due season, our eastern exchange papers seem to reach us only by chance. On Tuesday last, for instance, we received, among others, the following, viz., _The New York Courier_ and _Enquirer_ of March 1, 5 and 19; the _Philadelphia Times_ and _Saturday Evening Post_ of March 2; the _United States Gazette_ of March 6; and the _New Jersey Journal_ of March 5 and 19. The cause of this irregularity, we have reason to believe, does not originate in this state."--_Ohio State Journal_, March 30, 1833.

[68] _Ohio State Journal_, August 9, 1837

[69] It may be found upon investigation that the portions of our country most noted for hospitality are those where taverns gained the least hold as a social institution. Cf. Allen's _The Blue Grass Region of Kentucky_, p. 38.

[70] The Virginian House of Burgesses met in the old Raleigh Tavern at Williamsburg, in 1773. (Woodrow Wilson's _George Washington_, p. 146.)

[71] For advertisement of sale of a Cumberland Road tavern see Appendix D.

[72] Mr. Edward P. Pressey in _New England Magazine_, vol. xxii, no. 6 (August, 1900).

[73] Grahame's _The Golden Age_, p. 155.

[74] "The proper limits of the road are hereby defined to be a space of eighty feet in width--forty feet on each side of the center of the graded road-bed."--Law passed April 18, 1870, _Laws of Ohio_, LVIII, p. 140.

[75] Everett's _Speeches and Orations_, vol. i, p. 202.

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Transcriber's Notes:

1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.

2. Obvious errors in spelling and punctuation have been corrected.

3. Footnotes have been moved to the end of the main text body.

4. Images have been moved from the middle of a paragraph to the closest paragraph break.

5. Certain words use an oe ligature in the original.