page_title: Ontario Highway 2
section_title: Stagecoach and mail road
hierarchical_section_title: Ontario Highway 2 / History / Stagecoach and mail road
caption_attribution_description: Mile 0 on this 23-mile portion of the 1817 York Road (Ontario Highway 2) from Napanee was near the centre of town (Dundas and Centre, Hwy 2/41) and from Kingston was at the former highway 2/33 crossroads (Princess and Bath), then outside the city. Originally a muddy horse path, this was converted to toll road and macadamised (as a form of gravel road) in the late 1830s. The stones are engraved on two of the four faces; facing southwest 'N' and the number of miles to Napanee, facing southeast 'K' and the miles to Kingston. These predate the Ontario numbered highway system (the Provincial Highway was assembled from smaller intercity roads in 1917-1918 and the tolls removed); at the time, each section was maintained by local companies as a gravel stagecoach road. There were no motorcars, no 18-wheel lorries, no kilometres and no 401 in this era. The distances are in miles and are Roman numerals. One of the original milestones is still extant in the former Kingston Township at the northeast corner of Princess Street (old Highway 2) and Collins Bay Road, "K - V": Kingston mile 5. Others are still standing in Lennox and Addington counties in rural areas. A sign at Kingston 5 (Napanee 18) indicates these as: "Original milestone Kingston-Napanee toll road First Macadamized highway in Canada Commenced 1837 Completed 1839"
context_page_description: King's Highway 2, commonly referred to as Highway 2, is the lowest-numbered provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario and was originally part of a series of identically numbered highways in multiple provinces which together joined Windsor, Ontario to Halifax, Nova Scotia.
  Once the primary east–west route across the southern portion of Ontario, most of Highway 2 in Ontario was bypassed by Ontario Highway 401, completed in 1968. The August 1997 completion of Highway 403 bypassed one final section through Brantford. Virtually all of the 837.4 km length of Highway 2 was deemed a local route and removed from the provincial highway system on January 1, 1998, with the exception of a 1-kilometre section east of Gananoque. The entire route remains driveable, but as County Road 2 or County Highway 2 in most regions. In Toronto, "Highway 2" shields are still found along Lake Shore Boulevard and Kingston Road.
context_section_description: The creation of a post road extended year-round communication which had already existed on the Chemin du Roy from Quebec City-Montreal westward, with the first stagecoaches reaching York (Toronto) in January 1817. This link proved economically vital to enterprises such as the Bank of Montreal, established 1817 with branches in Quebec, Montreal, Kingston and Toronto. The original coaches left Montreal every Monday and Thursday, arriving in Kingston two days later; the full Montreal-York run took a week.
  As with earlier routes (such as the Danforth Road), coaching inns prospered in every wayside village as the stagecoaches made frequent stops for water, food or fresh horses.
  The original York Road (from Kingston) aka Kingston Road (from York) was initially little more than a muddy horse path. In 1829, a ferry crossing on the Cataraqui River in Kingston was replaced by a draw bridge. In the 1830s, efforts were made by various toll road operators to macadamise the trail as a gravel stagecoach road. On one section between Cobourg and Port Hope the Cobourg Star on October 11, 1848, expressed "surprise and deep regret, that the Cobourg and Port Hope Road Company have placed a tollgate on their road, although only just gravelled" adding a week later "On Sunday night last, the Toll House and Gate on the Port Hope Road were burned to the ground. We regret to say that there is no doubt as to its having been done designedly as a very hard feeling has grown up against the Company, from their having exacted Toll before the road was properly packed. They might have known that no community would quietly submit to drive their teams and heavy loads through six inches of gravel and pay for the privilege. But we would not be understood to sanction the lawless proceeding which has taken place."
  Despite these issues, this road would remain the principal means of winter travel until the Grand Trunk Railway connected Montreal and Toronto in 1856. As intercity traffic formerly carried by the various stagecoach operators migrated to the iron horse, stagecoach roads faded to primarily local importance, carrying regional traffic.
  This changed as the 20th century and the invention of the motorcar quickly made evident a need for better roads in the young but growing Dominion. The macadamised Lake Shore Road between Toronto and Hamilton, in poor condition with ongoing erosion, was the first section to be bypassed with concrete highway. The Toronto–Hamilton Highway, proposed in 1914, was opened along the lakeshore in November 1917. The Cataraqui Bridge, a toll swing bridge, was replaced by the La Salle Causeway that same year.
  In 1918, the province subsidised the county and municipal purchase of various former toll roads (Brockville-Prescott, Paris-Brantford, Cobourg-Port Hope and Cobourg-Baltimore) to be improved and incorporated into the provincial highway system. Later acquisitions included a road from Cobourg to Grafton. As the roads became publicly owned, toll gates were removed.
  In 1925, the Galipeault Bridge and Taschereau Bridge, both adjacent to 1854 Grand Trunk Railway bridges which were the first fixed mainland links to Montreal, brought Route 2 onto Montreal Island.
caption: Original milestone marker in Kingston
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