Among American inventions the Conestoga wagon must forever be remembered with respect.Originating in the Lancaster region of Pennsylvania and taking its name either from the horses of the Conestoga Valley or from the valley itself, this vehicle was unlike the old English wain or the Dutch wagon because of the curve of its bed.This peculiarly shaped bottom, higher by twelve inches or more at each end than in the middle, made the vehicle a safer conveyance across the mountains and over all rough country than the old straight-bed wagon.The Conestoga was covered with canvas, as were other freight vehicles, but the lines of the bed were also carried out in the framework above and gave the whole the effect of a great ship swaying up and down the billowy hills.
The wheels of the Conestoga were heavily built and wore tires four and six inches in width.The harness of the six horses attached to the wagon was proportionately heavy, the back bands being fifteen inches wide, the hip straps ten, and the traces consisting of ponderous iron chains.The color of the original Conestoga wagons never varied: the underbody was always blue and the upper parts were red.The wagoners and drivers who manned this fleet on wheels were men of a type that finds no parallel except in the boatmen on the western rivers who were almost their contemporaries.Fit for the severest toil, weathered to the color of the red man, at home under any roof that harbored a demijohn and a fiddle, these hardy nomads of early commerce were the custodians of the largest amount of traffic in their day.
The turnpike era overlaps the period of the building of national roads and canals and the beginning of the railway age, but it is of greatest interest during the first twenty-five years of the nineteenth century, up to the time when the completion of the Erie Canal set new standards.During this period roads were also constructed westward from Baltimore and Albany to connect, as the Lancaster Turnpike did at its terminus, with the thoroughfares from the trans-Alleghany country.The metropolis of Maryland was quickly in the field to challenge the bid which the Quaker City made for western trade.The Baltimore-Reisterstown and Baltimore-Frederick turnpikes were built at a cost of $10,000 and $8,000 a mile respectively; and the latter, connecting with roads to Cumberland, linked itself with the great national road to Ohio which the Government built between 1811 and 1817.These famous stone roads of Maryland long kept Baltimore in the lead as the principal outlet for the western trade.New York, too, proved her right to the title of Empire State by a marvelous activity in improving her magnificent strategic position.In the first seven years of the nineteenth century eighty-eight incorporated road companies were formed with a total capital of over $8,000,000.
Twenty large bridges and more than three thousand miles of turnpike were constructed.The movement, indeed, extended from New England to Virginia and the Carolinas, and turnpike companies built all kinds of roads--earth, corduroy, plank, and stone.
In many cases the kind of road to be constructed, the tolls to be charged, and the amount of profit to be permitted, were laid down in the charters.Thus new problems confronted the various legislatures, and interesting principles of regulation were now established.In most cases companies were allowed, on producing their books of receipts and expenditures, to increase their tolls until they obtained a profit of six per cent on the investment, though in a number of cases nine per cent was permitted.When revenues increased beyond the six per cent mark, however, the tendency was to reduce tolls or to use the extra profit to purchase the stock for the State, with the expectation of ultimately abolishing tollgates entirely.The theories of state regulation of corporations and the obligations of public carriers, extending even to the compensation of workmen in case of accident, were developed to a considerable degree in this turnpike era; but, on the other hand, the principle of permitting fair profit to corporations upon public examination of their accounts was also recognized.
The stone roads, which were passable at all seasons, brought a new era in correspondence and business.Lines of stages and wagons, as well known at that time as are the great railways of today, plied the new thoroughfares, provided some of the comforts of travel, and assured the safer and more rapid delivery of goods.This period is sometimes known in American history as "The Era of Good Feeling" and the turnpike contributed in no small degree to make the phrase applicable not only to the domain of politics but to all the relations of social and commercial life.
While road building in the East gives a clear picture of the rise and growth of commerce and trade in that section, it is to the rivers of the trans-Alleghany country that we must look for a corresponding picture in this early period.The canoe and pirogue could handle the packs and kegs brought westward by the files of Indian ponies; but the heavy loads of the Conestoga wagons demanded stancher craft.The flatboat and barge therefore served the West and its commerce as the Conestoga and turnpike served the East.
