In the late eighteenth century, much of the traffic to the West was funneled through two points, the Cumberland Gap, for the Wilderness Road, and Wheeling, (now) West Virginia. Traffic was becoming heavy on some of the routes. To encourage more settlers, the state of Kentucky widened the Wilderness Road to twelve feet in 1796. Road building was an expensive undertaking.
Toll roads, often operated by a private company, came into use. One of the first was the Lancaster Pike in Pennsylvania, which ran from Philadelphia to Lancaster. Past this point, the road branched into the Great Wagon Road to the south, and Forbes' Road to the west. The state of Pennsylvania gave the right-of-way to a private company, which financed the construction of a new road. The technique of the road construction itself was borrowed from England. For the 70-mile length of the road, a trench was dug that was three feet deep. Then this was filled with stones, large ones on the bottom and smaller ones on top. On the surface, melted tar was poured on to make a hard, smooth surface that was water proof. Water actually ran off the road instead of soaking in and making a mud puddle. The cost of the construction was recovered by charging fees to use the road.
About the same time, toll roads were developed across upper New York along the Mohawk River. This was another well-traveled route which opened the west even more so after the Erie Canal was built in the nineteenth century.
After the success of the private land developers, especially in Ohio, the Federal government decided that it should enter the business itself. The first Government Land Office opened in Ohio in 1800. The public domain lands excluded the land that had been reserved for the Revolutionary War soldiers, but there was plenty of land left to sell. This successful system was repeated again and again as expansion to the west continued. The typical pattern was that the Federal government would buy the land from the Indians, have it surveyed, and then sell farms and lots.
Congress decided to set aside five percent of the proceeds from the public land sales in the new state of Ohio for road construction. Roads increased the market for land. Land sales provided funds for new roads. In 1806, the planning began for the National Road, the first interstate highway system financed by the Federal Government. Construction was underway by 1815, having been delayed by the War of 1812. If you check today's US-40 highway, from Baltimore to St. Louis, you will have a good idea of the route of the National Road. Construction took several years and there were heated debates about who owned the road and who was responsible for its maintenance. The positive effect was a big increase in the migration of eastern families to the frontier areas. Have you ever wondered why so many Germanna families moved to Missouri in the 1830's?
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.