The Penn's Grove record., 1921-05-27
LAST TOLL ROAD GONE
Gloucester Woodbury. Pike Taken BY
The State On May 10Th

Motorists from many States who
flock to the ocean Fairgrounds and re-
sorts of New Jersey this summer will
be able to travel elsewhere over the
public highways without having their
way barred by a single toll gate. The
last of the old toll roads to be abol-
ished is the Gloucester-Woodbury
turnpike. a short stretch of road on
n of the main arteries of traffic IN
and out of South Jersey. The State
Highway Commission has purchased
this road for $4,000. Toll houses at
South Gloucester. or Pine Grove, and
at North Woodbury., which have taken
tolls for nearly three-quarters of a
century, are closed and the gates re-
moved.
While the last of these toll roads is
in itself rather insignificant, its abol-
isment marks an epoch in the good
roads movement. With it there passes
in New Jersey a system that gave the
first real impetus to the improvements
of highways in the then youthful and
none too prosperous colony OF Il
United States. at a period OF paying
for road service as it was used was
preferred to a scheme of general taxa
ton for constructing better highways
and maintaining them.
First To Establish Pixies
New jersey was among the mist OF
the original thirteen States IN the
Union to establish toll roads IN the
early part of the nineteenth century
as a means of facilitating travel be-
tween the then upspringing metro
poIises of New York and Phiiadeiphla.
In the first quarter of the nineteenth
century there were more than fifty
turnpike companies chartered and
about $50 plank and gravel toll roads
constructed in New Jersey.
lust as in this day when license
TAGS of every State may be sped on
motor ears at some season OF the
year on the much-trayeled routes laid
across New Jersey to the country
greatest metropolis, or to Atlantic
CITY. so in the day of the stage-eoach
the currents Of colonial commerce n
intercourse flowed back and forth
across this State. In no other quarter
was the building of better roads OF 50
much Importance to the progress oil
the new nation as here. New Jersey
then had more than 1000 miles, large
supplies of lumber, cattle, gram, o
and flax and sufficient iron ore to sup
plv the needs of all the country I that
dav.
As long as horse-drawn vehicles had
the MONOPOLY of the toll roads, the
rural landscape was dotted with toll
houses and gates, which the young
bloods of that day, who drove FAST
stepping. nags to their cutters, found
bobbing up at aggravating intervals.
Then the toll gates were accepted as
a necessary evil. 70 very successful
agitation was carried out against
.Hem except on some of the principal
bigbv.avs where drivers and farmers
finally began to realize that it was
inst as economical and much more
convenient to pay out their money IN
= hmm in the form of annual taxes
for road improvements as to dole out
tbeir D~ennies on a mileage basis when
ever +bav used the roads.
Motors Mean Smash
TLan along came the automobile
ord toll o9tes began to be smashed
fg1,a+iveIv as well as literally. Mo-
to7.ic+. cbafed over the nuisance of be
mo stopped every two or three miles
and REQUIRED to pass out their pennies
or nickeis for the use of the road, es-
pecjaIiy when many of the toll roads
we're Kent in none too good repair. A
tour of twenty-five or fifty miles thru
the country in the days when toll
oates Aourished required that an auto
6artv be well supplied with coppers
before hey started.
With the development of the auto
mobile, the traffic upon the highways
became much greater. Toll gates,
where it previously had been no trouble
TO Ass through teams as fast as they
came up, began to be jammed with
ears and wagons. When these toll
gates got to be mere clogs to traffic,
the original purpose of the turnpikes
nassed and there was no longer any
excuse for their existence for the bet
terment of road travel.
No better illustration of this con
r~og+ion could he found than in the