New York, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, and Virginia, all subdivided by the mountains into eastern
and western sections, fostered roads and chartered turnpike and
canal companies. Pennsylvania was pre-eminent in this movement even
before the close of the eighteenth century, subscribing large
amounts to the stock of turnpike companies in order to promote the
trade between Philadelphia and the growing population in the region
of Pittsburgh. So numerous were the projects and beginnings of roads
and canals in the nation, that as early as 1808 the far-sighted
Gallatin made his famous report for a complete national system of
roads and canals. [Footnote: Cf. Hart, Slavery and Abolition (Am.
Nation, XVI.), chap. iii.]
When New York undertook the Erie Canal in 1817 as a state
enterprise, and pushed it to such a triumphant conclusion that
before a decade after its completion its tolls repaid the cost of
construction, a revolution was effected in transportation. The
cheapness of water carriage not only compelled the freighters on the
turnpike roads to lower their charges, but also soon made it
probable that canals would supersede land transportation for heavy
freights, and even for passengers.
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