he privilege was worth from $10,000 to $15,000 annually to
the family. But as local governments became more efficient, monopolies
were abolished and the collection of tolls was taken over by the
authorities. The awakening of inland trade is most clearly indicated
everywhere by the action of assemblies regarding the operation of
ferries, and in general, by the beginning of the eighteenth century,
tolls and ferries were being regulated by law.

But neither roads nor ferries were of themselves sufficient to put a
nation on wheels. The early polite society of the settled neighborhoods
traveled in horse litters, in sedan chairs, or on horseback, the women
seated on pillions or cushions behind the saddle riders, while oxcarts
and horse barrows brought to town the produce of the outlying farms.
Although carts and rude wagons could be built entirely of wood, there
could be no marked advance in transportation until the development
of mining in certain localities reduced the price of iron. With the
increase of travel and trade, the old world coach and chaise and
wain came into use, and iron for tire and brace became an imperative
necessity. The connection between the production of iron and the care of
highways was recognized by legislation as early as 1732, when Maryland
excused men and slaves in the ironworks from labor on the public roads,
though by the middle of the century owners of ironworks were obliged to
detail one man out of every ten in their employ for such work.

While the coastwise trade between the colonies was still preeminently
important as a means of transporting commodities, by the beginning of
the eighteenth century the land routes from New York to New England,
from New York across New Jersey to Philadelphia, and those radiating
from Philadelphia in every direction, were coming into general use.
The date of the opening of regular freight traffic between New York and
Philadelphia is set by the reply of the Governor of New Jersey in 1707
to a protest against monopolies granted on one of the old widened Indian
trails between Burlington and Amboy. "At present," he says, "everybody
is sure, ONCE A FORTNIGHT, to have an opportunity of sending any
quantity of goods, great or small, at reasonable rates, without being in
danger of imposition; and the sending of this wagon is so far from being
a grievance or monopoly, THAT BY THIS MEANS AND NO OTHER, a trade has
been carried on between Philadelphia, Burlington, Amboy, an