eeling. The method
of construction was that which had lately been devised by John McAdam
in England, and involved spreading crushed limestone over a carefully
prepared road-bed in three layers, traffic being permitted for a time
over each layer in succession. This "macadamized" surface was curved to
permit drainage, and extra precautions were taken in localities where
spring freshets were likely to cause damage.

Controversy raged over proposals to extend the road to the farthest
West, to provide its upkeep by a system of tolls, and to build similar
highways farther north and south. But for a time constitutional and
legal difficulties were swept aside and construction continued. Columbus
was reached in 1833, Indianapolis about 1840; and the roadway was graded
to Vandalia, then the capital of Illinois, and marked out to Jefferson
City, Missouri, although it was never completed to the last-mentioned
point by federal authority. When one reads that the original cost of
construction mounted to $10,000 a mile in central Pennsylvania, and
even $13,000 a mile in the neighborhood of Wheeling, one's suspicion is
aroused that public contracts were not less dubious a hundred years ago
than they have been known to be in our own time.

The National Road has long since lost its importance as the great
connecting link of East and West. But in its day, especially before
1860, it was a teeming thoroughfare. Its course was lined with
hospitable farmhouses and was dotted with fast-growing villages and
towns. Some of the latter which once were nationally famed were left
high and dry by later shifts of the lines of traffic, and have quite
disappeared from the map. Throughout the spring and summer months there
was a steady westward stream of emigrants; hardly a day failed to bring
before the observer's eye the creaking canvas-covered wagon of the
homeseeker. Singly and in companies they went, ever toward the promised
land. Wagon-trains of merchandise from the eastern markets toiled
patiently along the way. Speculators, peddlers, and sightseers added to
the procession, and in hundreds of farmhouses the womenfolk and children
gathered in interested groups by the evening fire to hear the chance
visitor talk politics or war and retail with equal facility the
gossip of the next township and that of Washington or New York. Great
stage-coach lines--the National Road Stage Company, the Ohio National
Stage Company, and others--advertised the advantag