. American highways; a popular account of their conditions, and of the means by which they may be bettered . characteristically devel-oped in the States above mentioned, and there remain tothis day a feature in their economic system, such roadswere also common in all parts of the United States in theearly part of this century. Even in New England manyof the greater ways of intercommunication were originallybuilt under the toll system. A half-dozen or more of thesemain ways radiated from Boston, Massachusetts, and arestill generally known as turnpikes, a name which markstheir original condition
. American highways; a popular account of their conditions, and of the means by which they may be bettered . characteristically devel-oped in the States above mentioned, and there remain tothis day a feature in their economic system, such roadswere also common in all parts of the United States in theearly part of this century. Even in New England manyof the greater ways of intercommunication were originallybuilt under the toll system. A half-dozen or more of thesemain ways radiated from Boston, Massachusetts, and arestill generally known as turnpikes, a name which markstheir original conditions. In general, however, provisionshave been made in the laws of all the seaboard States northof Virginia, and to a great extent in all the so-called North-ern States,which have cleared away the turnpike companiesrights in the roads they once possessed, returning theseways to the free use of the public. The greater economicadvance of the non-slaveholding portions of this countryin the time before the Civil War is well indicated by thischange in the highway system. So far as the writer has a (>o M 3 oI. EARLY AMERICAN ROADS 23 learned, there are now perhaps not more than three orfour toll-roads in New England, and perhaps not morethan that number of bridges where toll is to be exceptional cases in which the ways remain ob-structed are all under peculiar conditions which for onereason and another justify the ancient method of chargingthe traveler a fee for a peculiar privilege. In the greater part of our frontier country the processof road-making, as the settlements advance westward, hasin the first instance consisted in granting a location forthe road along the most practicable way for use. In thebeginning those who used the roads were compelled tomake them fit for their needs as they might be able to the local governments were organized, small appropri-ations were made to better the least passable portions ofthe route. Gradually there came to be some appropri
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1896
