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was perforce carried by ferry, the canoe and the keel boat of the
earliest days gave way in time to the ordinary ‘flat’ or barge
On the broader streams, where fording was impossible and traffic
was perforce carried by ferry, the canoe and the keel boat of the
earliest days gave way in time to the ordinary ‘flat’ or barge.
At first the obligation of the ferryman to the public, though
recognized by English law, was ignored in America by legislators
and monopolists alike. Men obtained the land on both sides of the
rivers at the crossing places and served the public only at their
own convenience and at their own charges. In many cases, to
encourage the opening of roads or of ferries, national and state
authorities made grants of land on the same principle followed in
later days in the case of Western railroads. Such, for instance,
was the grant to Ebenezer Zane, at Zanesville, Lancaster, and
Chillicothe in the Northwest Territory. These monopolies
sometimes were extremely profitable: a descendant of the owners
of the famous Ingles ferry across New River, on the Wilderness
Road to Kentucky, is responsible for the statement that in the
heyday of travel to the Southwest the privilege was worth from
$10,000 to $15,000 annually to the family. But as local
governments became more efficient, monopolies were abolished and
the collection of tolls was taken over by the authorities. The
awakening of inland trade is most clearly indicated everywhere by
the action of assemblies regarding the operation of ferries, and
in general, by the beginning of the eighteenth century, tolls and
ferries were being regulated by law.

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preeminently American institution, the ridge road, came about
Even this necessarily brief survey shows plainly how that
preeminently American institution, the ridge road, came about.
East and west, it was the legitimate and natural successor to the
ancient trail. With the coming of the wagon, whose rattle was
heard among the hills as early as Braddock”s campaign, the
process of lowering these paths from the heights was inevitably
begun, and it was to the riverways that men first looked for a
solution of the difficult problems of inland commerce. Eventually
the paths of inland commerce constituted a vast network of
canals, roads, and railway lines in those very valleys to which
Washington had called the nation”s attention in 1784.

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test drive the brand new Ferrari F430

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the Governor of New France, his message was that ‘the Governor of
Canada desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English
Traders from amongst them and discharge them from ever coming to
trade there again, or on any of the Branches
When Celoron de Blainville was sent to the Allegheny in 1749, by
the Governor of New France, his message was that ‘the Governor of
Canada desired his children on Ohio to turn away the English
Traders from amongst them and discharge them from ever coming to
trade there again, or on any of the Branches.’ He sent away all
the traders whom he found, giving them letters addressed to their
respective governors denying England”s right to trade in the
West. To offset this move, within two years Pennsylvania sent
goods to the value of nine hundred pounds in order to hold the
Indians constant. The Governor had already ordered the traders to
sell whiskey to the Indians at ‘5 Bucks’ per cask and had told
the Indians, through his agent Conrad Weiser, that if any trader
refused to sell the liquor at that price they might ‘take it from
him and drink it for nothing.’ There was but one way for the
French to meet such competition. Without delay they fortified the
Allegheny and began to coerce the natives. Driving away the
carpenters of the Ohio Company from the present site of
Pittsburgh, they built Fort Duquesne. The beginning of the Old
French War ended what we may call the first era of the pack-horse
trade.

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catch, in something of its actual grandeur, the vision of a
Republic stretching towards the setting sun, bound and unified by
paths of inland commerce
But it remained for George Washington, the Virginia planter, to
catch, in something of its actual grandeur, the vision of a
Republic stretching towards the setting sun, bound and unified by
paths of inland commerce. It was Washington who traversed the
long ranges of the Alleghanies, slept in the snows of Deer Park
with no covering but his greatcoat, inquired eagerly of trapper
and trader and herder concerning the courses of the Cheat, the
Monongahela, and the Little Kanawha, and who drew from these
personal explorations a clear and accurate picture of the future
trade routes by which the country could be economically,
socially, and nationally united.

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Maryland and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from
each State for opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac
to either the Cheat or the Monongahela, ‘as commissioners
The Potomac Company, authorized in 1785 by the legislatures of
Maryland and Virginia, received an appropriation of $6666 from
each State for opening a road from the headwaters of the Potomac
to either the Cheat or the Monongahela, ‘as commissioners…
shall find most convenient and beneficial to the Western
settlers.’ This was the only public aid which the enterprise
received; and the stipulated purpose clearly indicates the fact
that, in the minds of its promoters, the transcontinental
character of the undertaking appeared to be vital. The remainder
of the money required for the work was raised by public
subscription in the principal cities of the two States. In this
way 40,300 pounds was subscribed, Virginia men taking 266 shares
and Maryland men 137 shares. The stock holders elected George
Washington as president of the company, at a salary of thirty
shillings a year, with four directors to aid him, and they chose
as general manager James Rumsey, the boat mechanician. These men
then proceeded to attack the chief impediments in the Potomac–
the Great Falls above Washington, the Seneca Falls at the mouth
of Seneca Creek, and the Shenandoah Falls at Harper”s Ferry. But,
as they had difficulty in obtaining workmen and sufficient liquor
to cheer them in their herculean tasks, they made such slow
progress that subscribers, doubting Washington”s optimistic
prophecy that the stock would increase in value twenty per cent,
paid their assessments only after much deliberation or not at
all. Thirty-six years later, though $729,380 had been spent and
lock canals had been opened about the unnavigable stretches of
the Potomac River, a commission appointed to examine the affairs
of the company reported ‘that the floods and freshets
nevertheless gave the only navigation that was enjoyed.’ As for
the road between the Potomac and the Cheat or the Monongahela,
the records at hand do not show that the money voted for that
enterprise had been used.

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distant overland, Baily proceeded to Lake Pontchartrain and
thence ‘north by west through the woods,’ by way of the ford of
the Tangipahoa, Cooper”s Plantation, Tickfaw River, Amite River,
and the ‘Hurricane’ (the path of a tornado) to the beginning of
the Apalousa country
Joining a party bound for Natchez, a hundred and fifty miles
distant overland, Baily proceeded to Lake Pontchartrain and
thence ‘north by west through the woods,’ by way of the ford of
the Tangipahoa, Cooper”s Plantation, Tickfaw River, Amite River,
and the ‘Hurricane’ (the path of a tornado) to the beginning of
the Apalousa country. This tangled region of stunted growth was
reputed to be seven miles in width from ’shore to shore’ and
three hundred miles in length. It took the party half a day to
reach the opposite ’shore,’ and they had to quench their thirst
on the way with dew.

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interest was the Potomac Valley, towards whose strategic head
Virginia and Maryland, by river-improvement and road-building,
were directing their commercial routes in amiable rivalry for the
conquest of the Western trade
Through a long preliminary period the principal center of
interest was the Potomac Valley, towards whose strategic head
Virginia and Maryland, by river-improvement and road-building,
were directing their commercial routes in amiable rivalry for the
conquest of the Western trade. Suddenly out from the southern
region of the Middle Atlantic States went the Cumberland National
Road to the Ohio. New York instantly, in her zone, took up the
challenge and thrust her great Erie Canal across to the Great
Lakes. In rapid succession, Pennsylvania and Maryland and
Virginia, eager not to be outdone in winning the struggle for
Western trade, sent their canals into the Alleghanies toward the
Ohio.

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To the west rise the somber heights of Cumberland Gap. Through
this portal ran the famous ‘Warrior”s Path,’ known to wandering
hunters, the ‘trail of iron’ from Fort Watauga and Fort Chiswell,
which Daniel Boone widened for the settlers of Kentucky. To the
southwest lay the Blue Grass region of Tennessee with its various
trails converging on Nashville from almost every direction. Today
the Southern Railway enters the ‘Sapphire Country,’ in which
Asheville lies, by practically the same route as the old
Rutherfordton Trail which was used for generations by red man and
pioneer from the Carolina coast. In our entire region of the
Appalachians, from the Berkshire Hills southward, practically
every old-time pathway from the seaboard to the trans-Alleghany
country is now occupied by an important railway system, with the
exception of the Warrior”s Trail through Cumberland Gap to
central Ohio and the Highland Trail across southern Pennsylvania.
And even Cumberland Gap is accessible by rail today, and a line
across southern Pennsylvania was once planned and partially
constructed only to be killed by jealous rivals.

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the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi to a company on the
condition that a thousand families should be settled on it within
seven years
* Deane”s plan was to grant a tract two hundred miles square at
the junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi to a company on the
condition that a thousand families should be settled on it within
seven years. He added that, as this company would be in a great
degree commercial, the establishing of commerce at the junction
of those large rivers would immediately give a value to all the
lands situated on or near them.

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