ehigh
Coal Company constructed the first roadway in America built on the
principle--later adopted by the railway--of dividing the total distance
by the total descent in order to determine the grade. Not to be outdone
in point of ingenuity, the Lehigh Navigation Company, then suffering
from an unprecedented dearth of water, adopted White's invention of
sluice gates connecting with pools which could be filled with reserve
water to be drawn upon as navigation required. By 1819 the necessary
depth of water between Mauch Chunk and Easton was obtained. The two
companies were immediately amalgamated under the title of the Lehigh
Coal and Navigation Company and by 1823 had sent over two thousand tons
of coal to market.

As most of the efforts to improve the rivers, however, met with
indifferent success and many failures were recorded, the pendulum of
public confidence in this aid to inland commerce swung away, and highway
improvement by means of stone roads and toll road companies came into
favor in the interval between the nation's two eras of river improvement
and canal building.

CHAPTER IV. A Nation On Wheels

In early days the Indian had not only followed the watercourses in his
canoe but had made his way on foot over trails through the woods and
over the mountains. In colonial days, Englishman and Frenchman followed
the footsteps of the Indian, and as settlement increased and trade
developed, the forest path widened into the highway for wheeled
vehicles. Massachusetts began the work of road making in 1639 by passing
an act which decreed that "the ways" should be six to ten rods wide "in
common grounds," thus allowing sufficient room for more than one track.
Similar broad "ways" were authorized in New York and Pennsylvania
in 1664; stumps and shrubs were to be cut close to the ground, and
"sufficient bridges" were to be built over streams and marshy places.
Virginia passed legislation for highways at an early date, but it was
not until 1669 that strict laws were enacted with a view to keeping the
roads in a permanently good condition. Under these laws surveyors were
appointed to establish in each county roads forty feet wide to the
church and to the courthouse. In 1700, Pennsylvania turned her local
roads over to the county justices, put the King's highway and the main
public roads under the care of the governor and his council, and ordered
each county to erect bridges over its streams.

The word "roadmaking" was