The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1882-03-04
For the Free Trader
Our Country Roads.


might that Is in him or, as Abraham Lincoln
once said on memorable occasion, he Is ex-
pec,ed to keep on ''pegging away" Under
this inspiration, and with the advice and con.
sent of some of the advocates of the cause, /
propose to inflict upon your readers another
article on the above named subject, hoping
that, If no other object is attained, the discus
sion of the question will be kept, as the poll.
ticlans would say, before the people"
If by writing articles for the papers could
do anything to bring about the desired state of
affairs in regard to our public hlghways,l could
furnish you with an article of some kind
touching upon this subject every week, so
long as you would allow space IN your col
umns, and your readers would notregard them
as infections or vlsitatlons; and weuu cheer
fully do so If thought any good could be ac-
complished; but think we need something
more substantial than these, and am as will
ing to lay down the one as the other, SO tar as
my ability may go.
If writing would do any good might furn-
ish an essay upon the roads Of the ancient Ro-
mans, to show that they nearly two thousand
years ago, knew the Importance, to use an
anachronlsm, of macadamised roads, for they
were built of alternate layers of gravel, sand
cement and stone, but regardless and in viola
ton of all the obstacles of nature and SCIENCE
and the rights of individuals. They were
built in as straight line as possible, begin
nlng at the market-place of the city of Rome
and extending to the extreme limits of the en-
pire. Mountains we're in measure dug down,
valleys filed, and bridges were thrown across
rivers and ravines as often as they occurred,
the remains of which, together with portions
of the road, are still extant after lapse of
more than seventeen hundred years.
These roads were not only intended as mill
tary roads in order to keep IN subsection the
more distant provinces of the empire but that
those provinces also might have an easy access
to and intercourse for themselves and their
productions with their great metropolitan
city, a circumstance that the remote towns OF
La Sale county do not have at all times with
their growing and important metropolis.
l might also write an essay and give sketch
of the life and works OF that celebrated engi
neer McAdam, who devoted the greater part
of long and useful life to the study of road
making, and has lief. his name engraven, so to
speak, on the roads OF Great Britain and por
tons of our own country: but l do not see
that any thing that might say on this point
would have any effect on the minds Of those
who should be interested in the ideas advanced
and taught by HIM. / might under similar
inspiration, grow patriotic, and write glow.
ing description Of our great national road, as
it was called, and speak in euloglstic terms of
Henry Clay, its father and of those other great
advocates of internal improvements, who pro-
iected this and other similar roads some fifty
years ago. | might give some personal Iecol-
lections of this road-both instructive and
amusing-for lived on one of its principal
points during my boyhood, before the whistle
of the locomotive was heard among the Allie
ghanies. ! have seen long lines of stage
coaches and heavily loaded road wagons, as
they were called, winding their way over and
around the mountains, transporting passengers
to and fro, and the products Of the world
merchants going east to buy goods, and those
goods to be subsequently scattered to the re-
hottest settlements Of the west. | have seen
long lines of emIgrant wagons filled with hap.
Ply faces and personal effects jogging slowly
along to the distant west, and droves of horses
and cattle and hogs from Indiana and Ohio,
bound for the markets OF the east. And | saw
at ione time-not wishing, however, to COM
pare them TO hogs and cattle-a tribe of In
dams, who preferred to go afoot from Wheel
ing TO Washington rather than endure the
|joltings and fittings of those numbering old
stage coaches; a mode of travelling that they
had never been accustomed to.
The flush days Of that good Old road, togeth-
er with those of the Ohio and Mississippi rlv-
ers, have long since passed away. The stage
coach, the road wagon, and the steamboat are
things of the past The science of modern
engineering has made the railroad practicable
through the mountains and b. spread out It's
arms throughout -" v&..Cy vi The west. But
| am prepared t. say that this road and these
rivers have done more, comparatively, towards
the settlement, the improving and building up
of the Great West-the states Of Ohio, Indiana
and Illinois-than all of the railroads that
have since been projected and finished through
those states.
i This road was built on more scientific prln
cples, and just as substantially, as those of the
Caesars, and 1t will stand for ages yet to come.
if not as 6 general thoroughfare, quiet and
easy route from east to west; but as An accom-
: mediation to the farmer, the merchant, and
!, others who live in and near those fiourishing
cities and towns upon It's route. 1t has not
Outlived It's Usefuleness-lt is not worn out and
dIlapldated IF the horn of the stage driver is
: no longer heard, and the tinkling OF the little
bells on the horses Of road wagons are no long
er heard; if the Good Intent" the Stockton
|, & Stakes" and the Opposition" lines Of
coaches are no longer run: if those heavy, but
} slow and sure old wagons are no longer used
for the transportation of goods, the road is
still there, and is as useful IN other respects
it ever was. 1t is not only useful to the farm
er and tradesman, but, like other turnpike