The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-05-12

road were trebly verified by the result. 1t
was the main thoroughfare over which
passed panorama of passengers freight,
produce and livestock almost beyond the
ability of ones Imagination to conceive.
There were the stage coaches carrying the
mails and passengers, loaded to their ut
most capacity from the first, and con-
stantly increasing in number from that
time until the opening of the railroads
banished them forever. By these convey
ances all the prominent public men of the
West and many of those from the South;
Presidents-elect from Tennessee, Ohio and
Louisiana, on their way to inauguration |;
Presidents in Office, passing to and fro
between the city of Washington and their
of Congress, and numberless officials of
lesser degree, all making the National road
their highway to and from the National
capital. Then there were the long lines Of
Conestoga wagons (prairie schooners), laden
on their eastward trips with flour, whisky,
bacon and other produce, and returning
west with loads of iron, salt and every kind
of merchandise, their numbers being
swelled on the return to the West by the
addition of equally numerous trains of the
same kind of wagons, freighted with the
families and household effects of emil
grants from the East bound in quest of
new homes beyond the Ohio. Besides
these the road was crowded with various
descriptions and kinds of wagons, laden
and unladen, with horsemen and private
carriages lnnumerable.
But the passengers on foot outnumbered
and outate them all. The long line of
hogs, cattle, sheep and horses working
their way on the hoof by the month to an
Eastern market was almost endless and
countless. They were gathered in from the
Wabash, the Scioto, the Muskingum and
fha VOL 4 har oil fIrnH or,d
dry and hungry, had to be cared for at a
great cost, for it was like feeding an army
every day and night. To furnish food and
other accommodation for all this vast
throng of travellers, brute and human, a
great number of public houses were needed
and these sprang up Immediately along
the road. The mum Der of public houses of
all kinds which the National road brought
into existence was fully equal to one for
each two miles of it's entire length, from
Cumberland to the Ohio. The keepers of
these houses, as well as the wagoners and
drivers of stages, and, in fact, the greater
part of the population along the route,
looked upon the Cumberland road as one OF
the chief of earthly blessings, and would
have regarded with alright the idea of its
ever being abandoned or superseded by
other avenues or modes of travel.
1t may be of interest to note the width,
grade and manner of construction as shown
by the specifications of the work required
from the contractors, among which was
included the following, viz: The natural
surface of the ground to be cleared OF trees
and other wooden growth, and also of logs
and brush, the whole width OF sixty-six
feet, the bed of the road to be made even
81 feet in width, the trees and stumps to be
grubbed out, the graduation not to exceed
five degrees in elevation and depression,
and TO be straight from point to point, as
laid off and directed by the superintendent
of the work. Twenty feet in width of the
graduated part to be covered with stone,
eighteen inches in depth at the center,
tapering to twelve inches at the edges,
which are to be supported by good and
solid shoulders of earth or curbstone, the
upper six inches of stone to be broken so
as to pass through ring of three inches in
diameter, and the lower stratum to be
broken so as to pass through seven-inch
ring. The stone part to be well covered
with gravel and rolled with an iron-faced
roller four feet in length and made to bear
three tons in weight. The activity and
declivity of the banks at the side of the
road not to exceed thirty degrees.
1t was general belief that the substan-
tally built road with its firm founda-
ton of packed stone would remain smooth