National Road

Identification: First federally funded interstate transportation project Date: 1811-1840

Location: Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia (then part of Virginia), Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois

Significance: This trans-Appalachian highway provided both employment for new im-

Migrants in its construction as well as a central artery for their westward migration, traveling across mountains and rivers and through the state capitals of Columbus and Indianapolis. Although originally planned to extend to St. Louis, political wrangling, the advent of the railroad, and the end of congressional support caused the road to terminate in central Illinois.

As early as 1802, U. S. Treasury secretary Albert Gallatin articulated the need for a National Road. In 1806, and with the support of President Thomas Jefferson, Congress passed a bill that provided for such a highway between Cumberland, Maryland, and the Mississippi River with the provision that it run through state capitals along its route. In 1811, the work began on the western edge of Cumberland, Maryland, on a twenty-foot-wide roadway with a sixty-six-foot right-of-way, built initially of stone, earth, and gravel, and later of macadam. There was no provision for eminent domain and no compensation provided to landowners, since the course of the road itself was considered sufficient recompense.

Although local citizens and farmers were employed on the project, there was a significant coterie of recent Irish immigrants who followed the westward course of the road, some of whom worked as well on the building of the Erie (completed 1825) and other canals. Mail delivery was facilitated as sections ofthe National Road were completed, connecting literate immigrants with family and friends on the East Coast and in Europe. The final federal appropriation was in 1838, and construction concluded in 1840 in Vandalia, Illinois.

Richard Sax

Further Reading

Dunaway, Wilma A. TheFirst AmericanFrontier: Transition to Capitalism in Southern Appalachia, 17001860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.

Raitz, Karl B., ed. A Guide to the National Road. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.

See also: Canals; German immigrants; History of immigration, 1783-1891; Iron and steel industry; Land laws; Mississippi River; Railroads; Transportation of immigrants; Westward expansion.