CHAPTER XVIII

THE STORY OF A ROAD

As the Indian read in the signs of the trail--the depth of a moccasin print or the direction of a broken twig--the story of those who had journeyed over the path before him, so we can find in the tale of successive kinds of roads the record of the advance of the white man into the West. For roads the French traders used those of the original occupants of the land,--the buffalo tracks and the Indian trails. English-speaking settlers, coming from the Atlantic seacoast, used two main routes. They came either by river and portage up the Ohio and its various tributaries to Presque Isle on Lake Erie, or from Albany across western New York to Niagara. The story of early voyages and of the founding and life of Detroit gives a picture of French exploration and settlement; in like manner there is written in the rapid change of the land and water thoroughfares across New York State, from Indian trail and river course to turnpike, canal, and railroad, the tale of the settlement of the lake region, and of the change from a wilderness to a thickly populated country.

As soon as the explorer landed on the southern shores of Lake Erie, Lake Michigan, and Lake Superior, he came upon buffalo roads or “traces.” Sometimes these were narrow ditches, a foot wide and from six inches to two feet deep, trodden down by the impact of thousands of hoofs as herd after herd of buffaloes had stamped along in single file behind their leaders. When the first path became too deep for comfort because of repeated travel, the buffaloes would abandon it and begin a second path alongside the first, and thus the frequented traces would be gradually widened. Again an immense herd of these heavy animals would crash through the forest, breaking in their rapid progress a broad, deep road from one feeding-ground to another. As this route would be followed again and again by this and other herds, it would become level and hard as rock, so that there was great rejoicing in pioneer settlements when the weary road-makers, struggling with log causeways and swampy hollows, came upon a firm, solid buffalo trace. Nor was this an uncommon experience. The line of many of these roads is followed to-day by our railroads and canals as it was followed in the middle period by log roads and turnpikes. The buffalo was a good surveyor. He did not reason out why he should go in a certain direction, but his sure instinct took him by the easiest and most direct paths over high lands and low to the salt licks and watercourses which were his goal. Indeed, he observed precisely the principles which govern to-day the civil engineer. He followed the level of the valley; he swerved around high points wherever it was possible, crossing the ridges and watersheds at the best natural divides and gorges; and he crossed from one side of a stream of water to the other repeatedly in order to avoid climbing up from the level, after the fashion of our modern loop railways.

Not so conspicuous, but more numerous, were the Indian trails. Where their destination was the same the Indians used the buffalo roads, but their own paths were quite distinct. These were narrow foot-paths, usually from twelve to eighteen inches wide, through which the Indians travelled single file. Three things were necessary for an Indian trail: it must be secluded, hidden if possible from hostile eyes; it must be direct; and it must be dry. Over these narrow lanes the trees and bushes interlaced so closely that it was impossible to see more than a rod or two ahead, and a neglected path soon became impassable. To know which paths could be traversed at each season of the year, and where storm, flood, or fire were likely to have had the least effect, and to be able to follow the forkings and windings of these forest routes, was to be skilled in the art of the woodsman and to be valuable as a guide.

Like the buffalo traces the Indian paths were often worn deep, almost always six inches and sometimes a foot. So well-travelled was the Indian trail of our story, the Iroquois trail across New York, that it was called by the Jesuit fathers “The Beaten Road.” That buffalo came as far east as the present city of Buffalo, New York, is beyond question. Whether they penetrated farther into the interior of the state is not known, but in every other respect this region had each kind of road in turn. It is not only one of the main thoroughfares of travel, but is also a typical scene of pioneer adventure and achievement.

The main Iroquois trail led from Albany, the eastern door of the “Long House,” to Niagara, the western door. It followed the natural geographical route along the Mohawk Valley to Schenectady, Utica, and Rome, where stood the great Mohawk “castles,” and turned from this point south to Onondaga (Syracuse), the centre of the confederacy, and westward by the heads of Lake Seneca and Canandaigua to Lewiston and Niagara. It is unusual among Indian trails because it was notably a peace-path. The Six Nations rarely quarrelled among themselves, but kept up an interchange of goods and gossip that was remarkable among savages. Runners were trained to carry summonses to councils and to spread the news. It was said that it took only three days and three runners to send a message from one door of the “Long House” to the other, from Albany to Niagara, a distance of three hundred miles, each Indian being expected to make in a day his “century run.”

[Illustration: Map: “By trail and turnpike to Lake Erie” depicting the area between Niagara Falls and Albany]

Along the line of this trail the American pioneer built, in the twenty years from 1785 to 1815, his log roads and turnpikes. They were crude, rough affairs, “very grievous to the limbs,” and called forth the maledictions of the travellers who ventured off the usual routes into the outskirts of civilization. As the district grew more populous the roads came gradually under state control. Commissioners and improvement companies connected and made better the separate stretches of highway. In 1794 the legislature passed a law, directing the state road to be extended from Fort Schuyler (Utica) to the Genesee River, and four years later it was voted to extend it “westward to the extremity of the state.” This western end of the road, from the Mohawk River to Lake Erie, was, as it happened, incorporated by the state under the name of “The Genesee Turnpike” in 1800 before that from Albany to the Mohawk was given formal recognition. We have thus the unusual spectacle of a road established in the remote sections of the country before the connecting road to the nearest city is completed. To raise money for its construction all kinds of methods had been used, from government appropriations to lotteries.

The method of road-building in the pioneer settlements was one that developed throughout the colonies, as here in New York, into the establishment of turnpike roads. At first the local governments, the townships, or counties, built the roads. As these became inadequate, corporations of individuals were given permission to build roads and charge tolls for their use. The name of turnpike was given to these private highways because at the place where toll was to be collected there was placed a gate hung in such a way as to turn on a post. This gate was made of a long pole and could be swung across the road to stop carriages, animals, and people till the toll fees had been collected. When a corporation was given a charter, the legislature prescribed the number of toll-gates to be set up on the given length of road, and gave the usual form for tolls. The directors were left to fill in the fees in each case. This accepted table of tolls shows the kind of vehicles in use in New York at this time. A one-horse two-wheeled carriage was called a sulky, chair, or chaise. A chariot, coach, coachee, or phaeton might be drawn by one horse, but was more commonly specified to have two. Stage-wagons, stages, and other four-wheeled carriages drawn by two horses had their separate fee. Just as our highway commissioners of to-day encourage wide tires because they put less wear on the road, so in these days there was a rule that carriages with tires twelve inches wide should pay no tolls, nine-inch tires should exempt the vehicle from three-quarters of the tolls, and six-inch from one-half. It was required that the table of tolls be posted in a conspicuous place over the gate.

In March, 1813, Nathaniel Rochester and other gentlemen were given permission to form a turnpike company for a road from Canandaigua to the falls of the Genesee River. As this was not a thickly settled region the table of tolls is a simple one without elaborate specifications as to the kinds of carriages and with only two toll-gates, but as part of our historic road it is of special interest.

_Table of Tolls of Rochester Turnpike Company, March 31, 1813_

CENTS For every cart, wagon, or other wheeled carriage, drawn by 2 horses, mules, or oxen 12-1/2 And for each additional horse, mule, or ox 6 For every cart, wagon, or other two-wheeled carriage drawn by 1 horse or mule 9 For every horse rode, led, or driven 6 For every four-wheeled pleasure carriage or wagon drawn by 2 horses 25 And for each additional horse 6 For every sleigh or sled drawn by 1 horse, mule, or ox 6 And for every additional horse, mule, or ox 6 For every score of horses, mules, or cattle 20 And in like proportion for a greater or less number For every score of sheep or hogs 8 And in like proportion for a greater or less number

In the next chapter the experiences of two travellers are given, the first in 1796, the second in 1811. The two accounts of their journeys show the wonderful transformation wrought along the line of this highway in fifteen years. By the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century New York State had one hundred and thirty-one turnpikes, and our second traveller was constantly hearing discussion of a new project to which the enterprising leaders of the state were turning their attention. For purposes of trade the new land route had never supplanted the old waterways. With the rapid occupation of the region of the Great Lakes this trade was increasing at a surprising rate, and much of it was being diverted to the English merchants of the St. Lawrence River, because of the greater facility of the route to Montreal over that to New York. It cost only a dollar and a half to send a barrel of flour from Cayuga in western New York to Montreal, while it took at least two dollars and a half to get the same barrel from Cayuga only as far as Albany. If this were true of western New York, it was even more true of the southern shores of the Great Lakes.

Only an artificial canal could overcome the natural obstacles to water transportation, and this the leading men of New York were urging with all their power. Since 1792 the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company had been seeking systematically to improve the existing water route by building canals around the worst obstructions to navigation, the various falls and rapids of the Mohawk River. From the success of these small ventures and the no less convincing evidence of the ability of the canal to solve the whole problem, came in the minds of Gouverneur Morris, Jesse Hawley, and others the plan to connect the Atlantic with the lakes by an artificial waterway. To Governor De Witt Clinton and his associates belongs the credit of working out this stupendous undertaking. The story of its progress and achievement is too long a tale to be summarized here, but must be reserved for another chapter. In 1825 the Erie Canal of three hundred and sixty-three miles was completed and opened with appropriate ceremonies.

The turnpike had followed the line of the old Iroquois trail. The canal had followed it in certain sections but had swerved off and gone northward along a minor Indian trail which passed over a natural highway formed by a wide ridge from four to six miles inland from the shores of Lake Ontario. This was what was called by the pioneers the Ridge Road from Lewiston to Rochester. One more kind of road was destined to cross the state, supplanting the lumbering stage-wagon and the slow canal-boat for the purposes of travel, and even as time went on for the carrying of freight. The first piece of railroad to be built in New York State, and one of the oldest in the United States, was the Mohawk and Hudson. It was chartered in 1826, the year after the completion of the Erie Canal, and work was begun upon it in 1830. Seventeen miles of this road, connecting Albany and Schenectady, were opened in 1831; the remaining part from Schenectady to Utica five years later. Horses were used when the road was put into operation, so that it was in reality little more than a tramway, but locomotives were soon substituted. The third engine built in the United States was sent from the West Point Foundry Works to this little piece of road. It was called the De Witt Clinton, and was built in 1831. It weighed three and a half tons where now two hundred tons is not considered especially heavy for an engine, and was fed by anthracite coal. Mr. William H. Brown, who was one of the passengers on the first trip, was so impressed by the appearance of this “singular-looking affair and its equally singular-looking appendages,” that he sketched on the back of a letter a drawing of the engine and the passenger-cars, with correct likenesses, which he afterwards enlarged to a picture six feet long which was cut out of black paper in silhouette fashion and is in possession of the Connecticut Historical Society. Reproductions of this picture give a good idea of the first locomotive and train of passenger-cars ever run in the state of New York. The cars are those which had been used for a year with horses on this same route.

A great crowd assembled on August 9, 1831, to see the train start. The fortunate guests of the road climbed into their seats, the engineer took his place on the tender, a tin horn was sounded, and the train with its five passenger-coaches started off. The outside passengers had no awning or roof to protect them, and as the sparks and smoke were blown back they began to fear for their combustible straw hats and summer garments; but no accident happened. The passengers had hardly had time to adjust their high beavers and settle themselves after the shock of starting, which had been with such a jerk that they had been knocked into each other and against the low roof, when the train stopped abruptly at the first water station on the road. Here a halt was made and an experiment tried to avoid these unpleasant jerks. The links in the couplings of the cars were stretched to their utmost length, and rails, borrowed unceremoniously from a neighboring fence, were bound to these couplings, one between each pair of cars, to hold the coaches steady. This arrangement worked well, and in a short time the train pulled into Schenectady, where thousands of people were lined up to await its coming.

As in the case of the canal and the turnpike, small sections of the railroad were built first, and finally joined into one long highway. Eight short lines were built in New York along the line of the road to Lake Erie and were put in operation at different times. These lines were owned in 1842 by eleven companies. The tendency to consolidation reduced the number to seven by 1850, and then the great era of concentration brought them all under the New York Central management.

From the leaf-strewn path for the moccasined Indian the road of our story has become a part of a system of seventy thousand miles of highway which replace the turnpikes in connecting the towns of New York State. Its turbulent streams have become the feeders for a great artificial waterway, and an iron-railed road-bed stretches along its route, over which flies a limited train at the rate of seventy miles an hour. The lumbering stage-wagon has given way to the smooth-running drawing-room car. The rivers and swamps are spanned by fine bridges. The story of the road has been one of swift change and rapid advance.