the twelve months of 1843 were $32,157.02. At the same time the tolls
charged in Ohio were a trifle in excess of those imposed in
Pennsylvania, therefore, Ohio's advantage must be curtailed slightly. On
the other hand it should be taken into consideration that the Cumberland
Road in Pennsylvania was almost the only road across the portion of the
state through which it ran, while in Ohio other roads were used,
especially clay roads running parallel with the Cumberland Road, by
drivers of sheep and pigs, as an aged informant testifies. As Mr.
Searight has said, the travel of the road west of the Ohio may have been
chiefly of a local nature, yet his seeming error concerning the relative
amount of travel on the two divisions in his own state, makes his
statements less trustworthy in the matter. Still it can be readily
believed that a great deal of continental trade did pass down the
Monongahela after traversing the eastern division of the road and that
increased local trade on the western division rendered the toll receipts
of the two divisions quite equal. Local travel on the eastern division
may have been light, comparatively speaking. Mr. Searight undoubtedly
meant that two-fifths of the through trade stopped at Brownsville and
Wheeling and one-fifth only went on into Ohio. The total amount of tolls
received by Pennsylvania from all roads, canals, etc., in 1836 was about
$50,000, while Ohio received a greater sum than that in 1838 from tolls
on the Cumberland Road alone, and the road was not completed further
west than Springfield.
A study of the amounts of tolls taken in from the Cumberland Road by the
various states will show at once the volume of the business done. Ohio
received from the Cumberland Road in forty-seven years nearly a million
and a quarter dollars. An itemized list of this great revenue shows the
varying fortunes of the great road:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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