Norwich bulletin., 1920-12-18
ODD INCIDENTS IN AMERICAN
 HISTORY
EARLY METHODS OF TRANSPORT.
 ALTON,


 Prior to the Revolution transporta- ton throughout the country was ex- cluSively by pack-horses, but as the Indian trails were widened and modi- fled for the use of wagons, it was the slow moving, cumbersome four-ox, or four horse Wain that took the place of the pack-horse. In the eastern or At lantlc coast section of the countr5 pathways were followed through the woodlands only by notches cut in trees
 -'fblaZed pathways" as they were call ed. In the newly opened regions of the near west there was not even a beaten pathway, and 1t was necessary to ford all the streams.
 About 1716 a trade route was open ed between the Miami and the Wabash in Ohio, and Virginia opened a way for emigration across the Blue Ridge. A year later Connecticut granted a seven year privilege for wagon trans portation between Hartford and New Haven. Four year later there appears the record of an express" from Bos- ton to Newport, and the following year recorded the first trip of 9 team from Connecticut to Providence, and seven years before the war of the Rev olutiOn a wagon express made the trip from New York to Philadelphia in two days and was known as a Flying Machine
 Up to 1900 methods of conmunica- tion had improved but little. The some bad roads and difficult rivers, connect ing the same small towns, stretched into the same forests, as when the armies of Braddock and Amherst Cierced the western and northern vii derness. Travel along the seaboard was slow and irregular. Between New York and Albany there was no regu- ! 1...A York and Boston there was a tolerable road along which thrice a week light stage coaches passed.
 The average speed of the stage coach was four miles an hour, and III I most sections the mails were carried on horseback. The stage coach that ran between Charleston and Savannah appears to have been the only public
 conveyance in the three southern 1 states.
 "Of eight rivers between here and l Washington" wrote Jefferson from l Monticello in 1901, five have neither bridges nor boats'' From Baltimore 1 to Philadelphia, less than one hundred 1 miles, the fare was $6, and the charges at the inns en route were $2.25 day. Turnpikes had been built or begun | in some localities, notably in Pennsyl- vania, but such innovations progress | ed slowly. In Rhode Island, for eX-
 ample, the legislature refused to ap- propriate money for the completion Of
 a road, the principal objection of one member being that turnpikes and the establishment of religious worship had | their origin in Great Britain, the gov
 ernment of which was a monarchy and l the inhabitants slaves; that the peo- 1 pie of Massachusetts and Connecticut
 were obliged by law to support min
 isters and pay the fares of turnpikes 1 and were, therefore, slaves also, that if they chose to be slaves they un- doubtedly had a right to their choice, l but that free-born Rhode Islanders
 ought never to submit to be priest rid
 den, nor to pay for the privilege to travel on the highway
 l In 1900 there were twenty thousand miles of so-called post noads and nine hundred postofices, but it required twenty days to carry a letter from Maine to Georgia and the gross re- ceipts of the postal department for the first fiscal year of the past century were only three hundred and twenty thousand dollars. The average adult mailed only about one letter. a year. The first important advancement in the United States in transportation was the building of the national pike, or Cumberland road, which ran from Washington, by way of Wheeling, Co.,
 lumbus and Vandalia, to the Mississip-
 pi river, which was built in sections from 1908 to 1887. The great advan- I tage of such road was early realized and from this on the work was spread out in every direction and before the middle of the last century the facili- ties for getting about" were as good in this country, considering the cir
 cumstances, as in any other country
 of the globe
 fMondey--First Great Ra.:gious
 PnvivaL1