Rise and Fall of Plank Roads in Central New York

 

 

     We take many things for granted. The convenience and usefulness of paved roads may serve as an example.

     In New York State, during the first half of the 19^th century, rivers, canals, and dirt roads were the main arteries of transportation. Railroads were in early development, peeking around the bend. Dirt roads, which people relied upon for most transportation, were often in a state of disrepair. It wasn’t unusual to see a heavy wagon pulled by four or six horses stuck on a muddy road pockmarked with holes of standing water.

     The Dutch commissioned the first post road in New York between New York City and Albany. Early Dutch mail carriers rode their horses on a road which was as narrow as a foot path in many places.  

     In 1703 the English Province of New York declared the same road a “public and common general highway” and renamed it the Queen’s Road. A fifty foot right-of-way was established. Improvements were made to the road surface and all wooden bridges, and later mile markers were added. At the conclusion of the American Revolution, the road was renamed Albany Post Road.

     The Albany Post Road was a dirt and gravel road like so many others. Horse and rider, and carriages or wagons pulled by horses, had to traverse ruts, holes, flooding, and thick mud. Mud season occurred during the months of April and May, dust season throughout the summer, and more mud and flooding could be expected in autumn. Travel was difficult for horse and rider on these roads.

 

     Mud season and the weather were subjects for conversation and letter writing. In 1789 a Connecticut minister visiting Vermont in mud season wrote that he found himself “mud belly deep to my horse and I thought I should have perished.”

     At social gatherings, real experiences were mixed with tall tales. A mud season story was passed down from generation to generation in the Town of Preble, and it is still told today with minor variations:

      After several days of heavy spring rain, a farmer hitched his horses to a wagon and went into the woods for some firewood. About eight miles from home, the horses and wagon got stuck in deep mud. The farmer had a pair of long snow shoes in the wagon and he put them on and then started for home to get help. He guessed the depth of mud at several feet in some places, but his snow shoes kept him from sinking in it. On his way home, in sight of his house and now walking smoothly on the muddy surface of the town road, he saw a western hat on the road.

     “There’s only one man around here who wears a western hat and that would be Brother John, my neighbor. I reckon the wind took it for a ride. I’ll take it to the house, clean it up and return it to him tomorrow,” he mused.

     The farmer broke off a stick from a tree beside the road and used it to lift the cowboy hat. Brother John’s head appeared as the hat was lifted.

     “Brother John, looks like you be in deep distress,” said the farmer.

     “Well, I suppose I’m all right, Brother Bill.  But I’m not so sure ‘bout this horse I’m sittin’ on.”

     Snow-covered dirt roads made a good surface for sleighs hauling heavy loads of logs. Blizzards and deep snow in winter slowed or stopped transportation. Drifting snow was always a problem. But nothing was more aggravating or disliked than travel during mud season.

     Between 1789 and 1846, state surveyors supervised the building and repair of post roads. Private roads were commissioned, and many of these were turnpikes with toll houses. The first turnpike was chartered in Pennsylvania in 1792.

     As traffic on dirt roads in New York State increased, the condition of roads was a major concern of state surveyors, farmers, businessmen and civil engineers. George Geddes, a civil engineer who lived on a farm near Syracuse, visited Toronto twice to inspect the newest road technology--a plank road. Canadians built the first North American plank road in 1836.

     Plank roads promised to be cheaper than macadam roads, more reliable for the transportation of heavy wagon loads, and plank roads promised to give a return of at least ten percent on capital investment. George Geddes and other investors formed the Salina-Central Square Plank Road Company and completed a 16.5 mile plank road by July 1846. It was the first plank road in the United States. The road cost $23,000 to build. It had four toll stations. The road company charged one cent per head of cattle, five cents for a horse and twenty-five cents for a horse and wagon. There were two utilitarian sides to the road. One side of the road was built of sills (runners) and planks 8 feet wide for the use of loaded wagons. The other side of the road was dirt. Empty wagons and single horses used the dirt side for passing. Bicycles used the planked side on Sundays for racing. Maintenance crews were always busy making repairs. Horse shoes and iron-hooped wagon wheels “took a toll” from the toll road.

     Geddes wrote about the road building in the Scientific American:

 

The road is of hemlock plank, four inches thick and eight feet long, laid on four-inch sills. The earth was broken up fine, the sills bedded into it, the surface graded smooth and firm and planks laid on the sills, care being taken that the earth is up to and touches the plank at every point. This is very important, for, if any space be left underneath for air, dry rot ensues. We did not let out to con­tractors the construction of the road, for the reason that we were desirous of securing the bedding of the timber perfectly, a thing that my observations in Canada convinced me was not always done when the work was done by the rod. By doing our work by the day, we not only secured a perfect construction in this particular, but we saved some thousands of dollars in the cost. If you make a plank road, I advise you, by all means, to do the work by the day, and to put at the head of the business a man competent to engineer and direct the whole business. A variation of a few inches in the line of the road may tell largely in the cost. The estimated cost per mile for a single track, eight feet wide, is $1,500

 

     Plank roads were an exciting new experiment for transportation. The train had not yet achieved parity with roads or surpassed the utility of roads. A plank road building boom started in 1847. The New York State legislature passed a law making it easier to incorporate plank roads. The legislature also regulated the roads and established a price structure for tolls. Within a short period of time, 3,500 miles of plank roads were built in New York.

     The Cortland-Homer Plank Road Company was chartered in 1848. The company built a plank road at Main Street from the junction of Tompkins Street and Port Watson Street to Homer and then to Syracuse. At the completion of the road in 1851, Cortland was two years short of incorporation as a village. In 1854 a railroad station was built on the east side of the village for the Syracuse-Binghamton railroad trains. In the following years, a plank road was built from Cortland to Afton [Rt. 41].

     A Minute Book (1850-1868) compiled by the Board of Directors of the Cortland-Homer Plank Road Company is available at: Syracuse University Library--Homer-Cortland Plank Road Company. The book describes operations of the road, meetings, and subscriptions of stock.

     During the plank road boom, with the excitement of profits in the air, it was often suggested that plank roads would last 7-12 years. Most were worn or rotted in 3-4 years. Eventually, the high cost of maintenance and the superior transportation and economy of railroads put an end to the plank road boom in Central New York. Many plank roads were converted to macadam roads.

References:
1) 1885 History of Cortland
2) Plank Roads of Jersey County
3) Internet Archives--Plank Roads by W. Kingsford (includes letter by Charles E. Clarke and remarks by F.G. Skinner.
4) Rootsweb Ancestry--The First Plank Road by Jo Anne Bakeman
5) Genesee County Village and Museum--Toll House
6) Wikipedia--History of NYS Department of Transportation
7) Wikipedia--Old Albany Post Road
8) Teach Us History--Roads and Travel in New England, 1790-1840
9) UCTC.net--Plank Road Fever