Taming the Wilderness
Roads
(This is an online version of a 1996 exhibit that was held in the Weaver Gallery at Conner Prairie.)
Indiana Roads
Roads in early Indiana were often roads in name only. In actuality they were sometimes little more than crude paths following old animal and Native American trails and filled with sinkholes, stumps, and deep, entrapping ruts.
Hoosier leaders, however, recognized the importance of roads to the growth and economic health of the state and encouraged construction of roads which would do for Indiana what the National Road was doing for the whole country.
As early as 1821 the legislature earmarked funds for more than two dozen roads throughout the state. Roadbuilding was often the responsibility of the counties, which were empowered to call out a local labor force for construction and provide road viewers, or supervisors.
Indiana's first "super highway" was the Michigan Road, which was built in the 1830s and 1840s and ran from Madison to Michigan City via Indianapolis. Like the National Road, it did much to spur settlement and economic growth.
THE NATIONAL ROAD
The first cries for a "national road" were heard prior to the founding of the United States. As early as the 1740s, groups were lobbying for a road that would facilitate settlement, boost the economy, and help tame the "wilderness areas."
After the troubled birth of the United States, Thomas Jefferson and his Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, became prime movers behind the project. Gallatin's 1802 funding proposal spurred interest in the road which would ".... make the crooked ways straight, and the rough ways smooth, .... will, in effect remove the intervening mountains." It would be, they said, the "cement of the union."
In 1805 Jefferson signed the bill authorizing a road from Cumberland, Maryland, to the Mississippi River, with the stipulation that it run through each capital along the route. Construction did not begin until 1811. By the late 1830s it stretched across the country to Vandalia, Illinois, which became the western terminus after the road fell victim to internal squabbling and funding cuts.
Despite not reaching its avowed final destination, the National Road (also called the Cumberland Road and National Pike, and, now, US 40) integral to the peopling of the wilderness, the burgeoning of the American economy, and the growth of the United States.
The National Road in Indiana
Surveying for the road began in 1827. Chief surveyor Jonathan Knight (after whom Knightstown is named) noted that he "commenced for the continuation of the Cumberland road [from a stake marking the Ohio/Indiana state line] 1 chain and five links from the notched beech & 1 chain and nine links from the notched poplar."
Construction began in 1829 with crews working simultaneously east and west from Indianapolis, and by 1836 the road stretched across the state, though it was not considered "completed" until 1850 (Indiana carried on the task after federal funding had all but stopped in 1841). However, "completed" did not mean the road was uniformly finished. Some portions were still only partially graded or paved.
Despite its shortcomings, the National Road was a vital force in the growth of Indiana. The Hoosier state's population more than doubled in the decade after its inception as settlers flocked in over the roadway. Towns grew up along the route (Indianapolis was virtually the only town between Centerville and Terre Haute in 1827) and a community's viability often depended upon its proximity to the road. Such was case of Vandalia, a once-prospering town that withered because it was too far removed from the road, and saw some of its buildings dismantled and moved to one of the new towns springing up along the road, Cambridge City.
On The Road Roadways were often heavily travelled, especially main thoroughfares like the National Road or the principal state roads. One Hoosier noted in the 1840s that "From morning til night, there was a continual rumble of wheels... when the rush was greatest there was never a minute that wagons were not in site [sic], and as a rule, one company of wagons was closely followed by another."
Travellers encountered surfaces ranging from pitted, stump-strewn mudways to plank roads to inviting macadam roads. British traveller J. Gould commented upon the vagaries of roadbuilding in America after his journey along the National Road in 1839. It was, he noted, "Macadamized and finished in a most desirable manner as far as Columbus, Ohio," but conditions were often different in Indiana, where ".... about four miles at Richmond...., a short piece at Centerville, about six miles at Indianapolis, and three miles at Terre Haute, together with a few bridges, are competed in the same substantial manner." However, he found that in some areas of Indiana the "road bed had been formed with earth.... and in wet weather holes wash out and logs must be thrown in, often by the travellers themselves.
Macadam Roads
Macadamization was the nearly ideal road surface of the mid-nineteenth century, but due to its expense and rather sophisticated engineering techniques it was not adopted everywhere. The brainchild of Scottish engineer John Macadam, the method used layers of stone to build the road.
The lowest layer was 12-18 inches deep and consisted of base stones approximately seven inches in diameter. The road was then graded up with smaller stones (three inches or less) and gravel. The surface layer of small stones was mixed with soil, compacted, and rounded off to allow drainage. Drainage ditches were dug along the side to carry off water.
Well built macadam roads were prized by travellers for their smoothness and durability.
Plank Roads
Plank roads, literally the building of a floor of timber as roadways, were once considered a viable solution for transportation problems in the United States. This was especially true in muddy, rural areas where they were looked upon as the perfect answer to providing smooth, dust-free roads.
A plank road craze swept Indiana in the early 1850s as builders foresaw a way to provide cheap, efficient toll roads. Ft. Wayne and Indianapolis constructed their first plank roads in 1849 and within two years over 400 hundred miles of the timber highways had been built throughout the state.
The plank road phenomenon ebbed before the Civil War due to the rapid deterioration of the roads, insufficient revenues, and competition from railroads.
On the Road
Travel on the roads of the young United States was not limited to settlers (often called immigrants or movers). They were often packed with teamsters, drovers, and travellers of all sorts.
Six-horse team Conestoga freight wagons competed with stage coaches, wagons, buggies and animals! Farmers and stockmen often drove their livestock to market along the same roads used by travellers. Cattle, sheep, and pigs were all part of the heavy traffic. Pig drives were a familiar sight on Indiana roads well into the 1830s.
Business Of The Road
Roadbuilding-- especially major highways like the National Road or the Michigan Road-- was a boon to communities and the economy.
New towns seemingly sprang up over night along the routes and many villages and hamlets too far removed from the roads withered. Brazil, Indiana, is a perfect example of this phenomenon. It grew from a stage line relay station to become the county seat of Clay County, taking over from Bowling Green, a once-thriving town which had the misfortune to be situated too far from the National Road.
Many businesses grew from the need to provide goods and services to the traffic on the road. Blacksmith shops to make repairs, stores to supply travellers, and livery stables for horses lined the roads. The most renowned and numerous of the services were the inns. Inns were everywhere. It is estimated that they averaged one per mile along the National Road in Pennsylvania and one every five miles in Indiana. Cambridge City, Indiana, alone had three inns, the most notable being the Huddleston House, now a museum.
Building A Road
Roadbuilding was often a gargantuan task and an amazing variety of skills was needed. Surveyors laid out the path; engineers oversaw construction. Carpenters framed bridges; masons cut and worked stone. Numerous laborers pulled and tugged, cut and hauled, and drained and leveled to clear the path.
Roadbuilding, like canal construction, could be a fulltime job. Irish immigrants were one group particularly identified with the National Road; they would later help dig the canals and build the railroads. They joined other laborers who struggled with the back-breaking tasks for wages of fifty cents to a dollar a day.
The costs of roadbuilding varied greatly, depending upon the terrain and proposed road surface. The initial cost estimate for the National Road was $6,000 per mile, but in hilly sections it sometimes rose to $13,000 per mile. Expenditures were lower in the relatively flat areas of Indiana and Illinois.