USA > Indiana > Delaware County > A twentieth century history of Delaware County, Indiana, Volume I > Part 10
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The proposition for a National road first took practical shape in 1806, when an act passed Congress authorizing the appointment of three com- missioners to lay out a road from Cumberland, at the head waters of the Potomac in Maryland, to the state of Ohio. This was the beginning of the
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
old Cumberland or National Road, the only highway of its kind ever wholly constructed hy the government of the United States, and a road of wonderful significance in the development of the west and the greatest and one of the most romantic highways of America. The National Road, though it was finally extended across Indiana, did not touch Delaware county. But it was none the less a factor in the county's history. The existence of this road, and the part it played in directing and distributing emigrants, should be thoroughly understood and constantly kept in mind in the discussion of the carly settlement of the county. The detailed history of the "Old Pike" has been told, in a most interesting way, by T. B. Scaright, under the title given. He generalizes the importance of the highway in the following language: "It was a highway at once so grand and imposing, an artery so largely instrumental in promoting the early growth and development of our coun- try's wonderful resources, so influential in strengthening the bonds of the American Union, and at the same time so replete with important events and interesting incidents, that the writer of these pages has long cherished a hope that some capable hand would write its history and collect and pre- serve its legends. . .
. From the time it was thrown open to the public, in the year 1818, until the coming of railroads west of the Alleghany mountains in 1852, the National Road was the one great highway over which passed the bulk of trade and travel, and the mails between the east and west. Its numerous and stately stone bridges with handsomely turned arches, its iron mile posts and its old iron gates, attest the skill of the work- men engaged on its construction, and to this day remain enduring monu- ments of its grandeur and solidity." For most parts of the west and a great . part of the southwest, this was the most direct route to Washington city. For this reason all classes of people from this part of the country having business at the national capital made it their highway to and from Washing- ton. The stage coaches for the carrying of the mails and passengers were taxed to their utmost capacity, and their numbers were constantly increased. So great was the travel that it is said as many as twenty-five coaches could be seen leaving Wheeling at one time for Cumberland, and as many would leave Cumberland for the west. The freight traffic was even greater. Long and almost interminable lines of huge Conestoga wagons, drawn by four, six and sometimes by eight horses, with their loads of flour, bacon, tobacco, whisky, butter and other products, on their eastward way, or with loads of every imaginable kind of merchandise when bound for the west, might be seen at all times. Then, too, there might be seen similar trains of wagons laden with the household effects of those who were seeking new homes in the west. Thousands of cattle, horses and hogs were wending their way to the castern markets. "From morning till night," is the description given
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
by another observer, "there was a continual rumble of wheels, and when the rush was greatest there was never a minute that wagons were not in sight, and as a rule one company of wagons was closely followed by another." By day the eye could follow the route from horizon to horizon by the clouds of dust raised by the crowding caravans, and by night the camp fires blazed at brief intervals as far as one could see.
Here was the great avenue by which the western expansion that began after the war of 1812 advanced into all the fertile places of the west. For some years the National Road carried the travelers only to the eastern bor- ders of Ohio, and thence they followed the course of the Ohio to their desti- · nation, usually continuing the journey by boats, but also by overland jour- neys. "It is estimated," says Mr. Searight, "that two-fifths of the trade and travel of the road were diverted at Brownsville [in southwest Pennsylvania, near Pittsburg] and fell into the channel furnished at that point by the slack water improvement of the Monongahela river, and a like proportion de- scended the Ohio river from Wheeling, and the remaining fifth continued on the road to Columbus, Ohio, and points further west. . . . .' Before the era of railroads Columbus derived its chief business from the National Road."
In 1827 the National Road was completed through Wayne county, In- diana. The tide of migration, much smaller in volume, to be true, than when it passed over the mountains, was by this means brought within the state of Indiana before being dispersed to individual settlements. Herein we see the principal reason why so large a proportion of the early settlers of this county came from Wayne county. In 1829 Congress appropriated money for open- ing the road, eighty feet wide, east and west from Indianapolis, and in the course of the next few years about a million dollars was appropriated for continuing the road in Indiana. But before the road was completed through this state, and could assume such importance as it enjoyed along the eastern sections, the railroad era had come and the decline of overland travel was rapid. A rhetorical picture of this change was drawn by Mr. Yancey in Congress in 1846, when he spoke of the road as follows: "When the project of the Cumberland road was first conceived, it was needed as a great high- way for the trade and produce of the fertile west to find an outlet on the Atlantic coast. The mountains intervened between the Ohio valley and the Atlantic coast. Steam, not then in such general use as now, had not rendered the upper Ohio navigable ; railroads had not clamped as now with iron bands the trembling earth. The rich produce of the soil found its way to market over rough roads upon the lumbering wagons, and the traveler when jolted over them at the rate of sixty miles a day considered himself as doing a good day's work. How different now! The broad Ohio is navigable by
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY 81
hundreds of floating palaces, propelled against its current by fire-breathing engines. The mountains are pierced by railroads and canals. . . . Why, sir, men are behind the times with this old road. The spirit of the age is on- ward. Thirty miles an hour on land; a thousand miles a minute on Pro- fessor Morse's wires is deemed ordinary speed. On this road, my friend from Indiana (Mr. Owen), informs me that during parts of the year he has been able to make but two miles an hour on horseback."
State Geologist Blatchley of Indiana relates what became of the Indiana division of the road. "In 1848 the road was turned over to the respective states through which it passed. In 1850 the Wayne County Turnpike Com- pany was organized and took over, under a charter granted by the state, that portion of the road, twenty-two iniles in length, within that county. The · company then graveled the road and operated it as a toll road until 1890-94, when it was purchased by the several townships through which it passed and made free from tolls. From Wayne county westward the road passed through Henry, Hancock, Marion, Hendricks, Putnam, Clay and Vigo coun- ties. That portion in Henry county was secured by a private corporation, graveled, and made a toll road about 1853. In 1849 the Central Plank Road Company, composed of prominent citizens of Marion and Hendricks counties, was granted that portion of the road extending from the east line of Hancock county to the west line of Putnam county, for the purpose of constructing a plank road. With the granting of it to these several corporations the old National Road as a public institution, fostered by the nation or the state, ceased to be. It had fulfilled its high purpose, and was superseded by bet- ter things which owed to it their coming." As a final tribute to this old high- way it "carried thousands of population and millions of wealth into the west, and more than any other material structure in the land served to harmonize and strengthen, if not save, the Union."
So we saw, during the twenties and thirties, a constant stream of popu- lation flowing along the Old Pike by way of Wayne county. Very early in the history of Delaware county, probably at the time the county was organ- ized, there was a well defined and well traveled road leading from Richmond northwest into this county. This was not a way that had been marked by surveyors and legally "made," but was blazed through by the settlers, each party that came that way adding some little improvement-cutting down a few trees, wearing away the undergrowth, dropping logs in the low places- by which this became a highroad.
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Erie Canal.
One other route by which the population of the east found outlet to the new west calls for mention here, though it was of very much less importance to the settlement of Delaware county. In 1825 the Erie Canal, after eight
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
years in building. was opened to traffic, and the waters of Lake Erie flowed across the state of New York into the Hudson river. The land-bound com- merce of the Atlantic seaboard found, in this direction, outlet to the eager west, and, borne along the same channel, the grain harvests of the inland were brought to the markets of the world. It was no uncommon thing for fifty ark-like boats, loaded with passengers and freight, to depart from the castern terminus of the Erie canal in a single day, passing to the west at the rate of four miles an hour. Before the waters were turned into the "Big Ditch" the toilsome urging of creaking wagon had not carried a fraction of the commerce that passed along this waterway.
The Erie canal not only gave a tremendous impetus to western expan- sion and development, but it partly changed its direction. Before 1825 the trend of westward emigration had been down the Ohio valley. The great water courses were fringed with settlements, when the inland country was still an unbroken wilderness. The regions bordering the riverways and great lakes were populous before a tree had been felled for a settler's cabin on the fertile prairies and woodland of northern Indiana and southern Michigan. A map of the highways of traffic of the United States in the year 1825 shows a network of routes along the Ohio valley, but very few north of the watershed into the great lakes. The homeseckers who traveled across Lake Erie to its western end would, on their arrival at Detroit, find one generally used road to the west. That led southwest to Monroe, up the valley of the Maumee, past Defiance, Ohio, through Fort Wayne, Indiana, thence northwesterly around the lower bend of Lake Michigan to Chicago or farther west. Fort Wayne, built on the site of the old Indian trading post, Kekionga, already mentioned, had been a recognized station and meeting point for a century, and was, in 1825, the converging point for several other roads leading from different points along the Ohio river. This northern road undoubtedly had its influence on the settlement of counties as far south as Delaware, but it was small as compared with the National Road. In the northwestern counties of Indiana, however, the larger part of first settlers came in by way of Fort Wayne. Since the land office at which was entered most of the land now comprising this county was located at Fort Wayne, that town had an important relation to the early settlers. Many who came to the county by way of the southern route were compelled to make the journey of seventy miles to Fort Wayne in order to secure land certificates. It is related that to avoid this trouble the settlers often employed some one who was familiar with the procedure at the land office and who became a sort of agent for the settlers in negotiating their land entries, making the trip frequently between this county and the seat of the land office.
Of the shorter roads-branches of the two principal routes just de- scribed-first of all should be mentioned what was known as "the govern-
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
ment road," which is the oldest road defined by white men in Delaware county. It was laid out in the carly twenties in order to provide a route by which the Delawares, who had ceded their land at the treaty of St. Mary's, might be moved to the west. Its course approximated very closely the pres- ent line of the Big Four Railroad, running from Greenville, Ohio, through Randolph county at Union City, passing in the vicinity of Smithfield and leaving the county at the present site of Daleville.
CHAPTER X.
TURNPIKES AND RAILROADS.
About the time the last public lands were entered and Delaware county became "settled up," the economic needs of the people called for improved facilities of transportation ; at the same time the material resources of the . county had increased far enough to warrant such public improvements. The closest kind of relation existed between the welfare of the farmer and the kind of roads over which to carry crops to market. The condition of the early roads and their effect on the farmer are described by Prof. E. Tucker in a former history.
"In making the roads," says this writer, "men drove through the woods, cutting out brush and poles when necessary, to admit the passage of the wagon. . . And when actual roads, intended for traveling by wagon, began to be made, it was done simply by removing some of the largest trees, so as to give room for the wagon to pass, and building bridges, not merely over the streams, but across the swamps also, of poles or logs laid crosswise of the track. Sometimes earth was thrown upon the bridge thus made, but oftener the poles or the logs were entirely bare. And the wagons would thump and bounce in passing over that wonderful highway. Pork and grain had to be hauled to Cincinnati, and instances were frequent in which pork brought only $1.50 net in the market. Some of the early settlers of Wayne county tried in vain to sell as good wheat as ever grew for twelve and a half cents a bushel to pay their taxes." With prices so low and the roads so wretched, there were times when it did not pay to haul the farm products to market. Even when prices for grains were high, and farmers' wagons followed in close succession on the way to market, the roads were such that men and teams both were exhausted by the time they had gone twenty miles. It is not strange, then, that the problem of transportation was the most vexatious and the one that received the most consideration among the first generation of citizens.
Canals, turnpikes and railroads were discussed and planned for in every part of the middle west during the forties. In 1842 a charter was granted the Muncietown and Fort Wayne Railroad for a line seventy-five miles long be- tween those two points. But it was nearly thirty years before a railroad was constructed over this route. In a Muncie paper of December, 1843, is a discussion of the proposed turnpike road from Muncie northwest to the Wa-
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
bash river at Lagro. The building of railroads was earnestly pleaded for in press and in public meeting, but shortly before the beginning of the railroad era in the actual construction of lines through the west there was inaugurated another movement designed to meet the urgent necessity for better trans- portation. This was the "plank road idea," an innovation which, accord- ing to a recent contributor to the Indiana Magazine of History, originated in Russia, thence found its way to Canada, and from there into the northern United States. "In a country," continues this writer, "where timber was not merely abundant, but an actual incumbrance, the conversion of this timber into a solid road as smooth as a floor was a captivating proposition, and the fever caught and spread. In no place was there better reason for it spread- .. ing than in Indiana, and accordingly for nearly ten years (through the fifties ) we had the plank road era. The promise of immediate returns was, presumably, sufficient to attract capital, and the state very wisely handed over the new movement to the capitalists. From 18448 we find laws authoriz- ing corporations to take possession of the existing roads, to convert them into plank roads, and to crect and maintain toll houses for revenue along the same."
The first laws with reference to gravel roads are found in 1858. Plank roads had only a brief vogue, and yet were a very useful institution while they lasted. It was found that these roads endured the stress of weather and heavy travel only a few years, and unless expensive repairs were under- taken the warping and working loose of the planks soon put these highways in a condition of almost impassability. About the close of the fifties legisla- tion on plank roads ceases. Another reason for the decadence of plank roads was the appearance of the long awaited railroads west of the Alle- ghanies. With the construction of the Bellefontaine and Indianapolis Rail- road through Delaware county its farmers found that their produce could be shipped almost from their doors, and that a haul of a few miles at most was all that was necessary to place their grain and stock in easy reach of market. So the former agitation for long commercial thoroughfares ceased, and thereafter the improvement of roads became largely a matter of local concern and usually was undertaken by private capital.
Toll Roads.
The first toll road in Delaware county was constructed by the Cam- bridge City, Simons Creek and Muncie Turnpike Company during the carly fifties. This connected Cambridge City in Wayne county with Muncie.
But the era of gravel pikes, with their toll houses and sweep poles, such as are familiar to the majority of people in Delaware county, did not really begin until the late sixties. By that time conditions had vastly changed in the county over those that existed when the road question was first agitated.
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
The county was no longer a pioneer region, with its resources largely unde- veloped, and the people dependent on their constant industry to obtain means of living and the conveniences of civilization. Notwithstanding the economic drain caused by the war, all parts of the country were prosperous, and the foundation of solid wealth had been laid beyond the power of temporary reverses to destroy. Accordingly, it seems that the principal avenue in which many citizens of Delaware county turned their energies and capital during the latter part of the sixties wa" the construction of gravel turnpikes. As a result we find, in 1880, when the agitation for free gravel roads was at its heiglit, a Muncie editor referring proudly to the "eleven grand" turnpike roads radiating in every direction from Muncie, bringing people to market from all parts of the county, and removing the usual obstacles to trade of muddy roads. A brief history of each of these roads follows :
Muncie and Middletown: Muncie and Middletown Turnpike Company organized June 29, 1866, directors being James W. Heath, Asher Storer, J. E. Wilcoxen, William J. Hurst, James A. Tomlinson. The following year an extension of the road was authorized. The road was eight and a third miles long, extending southwest from Muncie into the south part of Salem township.
Blountsville and Morristown: Chartered in December, 1866, by thir- teen persons resident of Henry, Delaware and Randolph counties. Road to run from Blountsville, in Henry county, touching the southeast corner of Delaware county, to Morristown, in Randolph county.
Range Line road: Articles of association filed May 16, 1867. The road was made three miles long, extending from the Middletown and Muncie road south on the range line, to the northeast corner of section 24, Salem township.
Middletown and Range Line: This road was built from the northeast corner of section 24 on the east line of Salem township, west four miles, then south to the county line. The right of way was granted in June, 1867, and the articles of association were filed the same month.
Muncie and Wheeling: This road, for which right of way was granted by the county commissioners in June, 1867, extends in a northwesterly direc- tion through the northern part of Center, the western part of Hamilton and the northeast corner of Harrison to Washington township, and thence north to Wheeling. It is about thirteen miles in length.
Middletown and Daleville: The company was organized and the right of way granted in June, 1867, for a north and south road four and one-quar- ter miles long. running from the Daleville pike, at the northeast corner of section 7 in Salem township, south over the line into Henry county.
Daleville and Bell Creek: Right of way granted in June, 1867. Con- structed from Daleville east to Middletown avenue.
Muncie and New Burlington : Constructed by a company organized in 1867, a total length of ten .and three-quarters miles, from Muncie southeast to New Burlington.
Muncie and Yorktown: The company was granted right of way in
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
January, 1868, and the pike was laid from the west edge of Muncie along what is called State avenue to the bridge over Buck creek at Yorktown.
Jackson Street : This road, for which right of way was given in Janu- ary, 1868, was made a toll road from the Calvert strect bridge at Muncie to the west line of the county, a distance of ten and a quarter miles.
Muncie and Bethel: The Bethel pike runs from the northwest corner of Muncie in a northwesterly direction ten and one-half miles to the west side of Harrison township. The right of way was granted in March, 1869.
Muncie and Eaton: This pike, beginning at a point between sections 34 and 35 of Center township, and extending north about eight miles to the Mississinewa river at Eaton, was built by the Studebaker Turnpike Com- pany, and is generally known as the Studebaker pike. The right of way was granted in Match, 1867.
Muncie and Granville: Constructed nine and one-half miles in length northeast through Center, Hamilton, Delaware townships to Granville.
Centennial : This pike, so named because right of way was granted in June, 1876, begins on the Granville pike on the north side of Muncie and runs cast along the south side of sections 2 and I in Center township, con- tinuing in the same direction into Liberty township.
Junction : Right of way granted March, 1868. Commenced on east side of county near Windsor, thence west along State road to intersection with New Burlington pike.
Smithfield and Albany: Right of way granted April, 1869.
Mississinewa and Albany: Right of way, April, 1869.
Mississinewa Valley: Right of way granted April, 1869.
Muncie and Smithfield: Right of way granted April, 1869, for road extending from New Burlington pike, about a mile east of Muncie, across the Helvie bridge, and, with several turns, to a point north of Smithfield.
Blountsville and Smithfield: Right of way granted July, 1869. Road extended from southwest corner of section 23 in Perry township north to junction with Winchester and Muncie road.
New Corner: This turnpike company filed articles of association in December, 1870, for the purpose of constructing a road from the west side of Hamilton township, at a point on the south side of section 7, in a north- west direction, by angling route, to New Corner.
Free Roads.
The gravel pikes of Delaware county were of tremendous advantage to the material welfare of the county. They brought city and country together, and, as elsewhere stated, were specially beneficial to the city of Muncie. These roads began the work of consolidating the people and their interests, which the later development of interurban railroads has brought, seemingly, to the highest state of perfection.
But within twenty years after the beginning of the turnpike era in Delaware county there appeared a change of sentiment regarding those roads. It is a popular belief of long standing that the highways are free and public, and only in return for a great general benefit will the people allow
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HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY
an individual or corporation to tax the use of such highways. Accordingly, during the late seventies and early eighties Indiana experienced an agitation for free pikes, resulting finally in a law by which each county, when the people so willed, could purchase the pikes and open them to all, toll free.
The question first came to vote in Delaware county in April, 1882, at · which time 2,252 votes were cast against free roads and 1,514 in favor of the purchase. This did not settle the matter, however, and the following year a special election was appointed to decide. A warm campaign was in- dulged in by the advocates and opponents of free pikes. One of the strong- est supporters of the free-pike movement was R. S. Gregory of Muncie. In a speech made before the election he declared that according to the sworn reports of the directors of the toll roads the 107 miles of pike in the county had, in the past five years to June 30, 1883, received in tolls, $83,714.68, or $778.68 to each mile. Of this the officers received as salaries $13,281.84, or $2,656.57 each year, and expended in maintaining the roads $30,000, leaving $53,625 to be divided among stockholders and officers. "There are 45 miles of free gravel roads," asserted Mr. Gregory, "and an assessment of one cent per hundred dollars has kept them up for one year, at a cost of $1,000 for 45 miles. Now, the Granville, Studebaker, Central,, Wheeling and Bethel pikes, which aggregate the same distance-45 miles-collect annually $8,- 697.02 in tolls, or $7,697.02 more than it takes to keep up the same length of free gravel roads."
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