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Pequot Path: Difference between revisions
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=== History === | === History === | ||
The '''Pequot Path''' ran about 69 miles (111 kilometers) near the mainland ocean shore from Providence | The '''Pequot Path''' ran about 69 miles (111 kilometers) near the mainland ocean shore from '''[[Providence, Rhode Island|Providence, Rhode Island]]''' to '''[[New London, Connecticut|New London, Connecticut]]''' (formerly Pequitt).<ref>William Davis Miller, ''Ancient Paths to Pequot'' (Providence: E.L. Freeman, 1936), 8. [http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015070269447;view=1up;seq=7 Hathi Trust Digital Library edition].</ref> At least one authority asserts the route also included the island community of Newport on Rhode Island.<ref>[http://qb.mindhenge.org/PostRoad.html On the Trail of Benjamin Franklin: The Lower Boston Post Road] (accessed 20 October 2014).</ref> All seem to agree the route was certainly extended into central Connecticut, but the earliest name of the trail in Connecticut beyond New London is unclear (before it was called the Boston Post Road). The Pequot Path route was part of the American Indian foot trails that were widened by European colonists into horse paths, and then wagon roads<ref>Frederic J. Wood, ''The Turnpikes of New England and the Evolution of the Same Through England, Virginia, and Maryland'' (Boston: Marshall Jones, 1919), 25. [https://archive.org/details/turnpikesofnewen00woodrich Internet Archive version online].</ref> | ||
Starting as a horse path in the 1670s, the "Post Road" was a chain of shorter roads strung together end-to-end to form the '''lower fork of the [[Boston Post Road]]''' (Boston-New York) with connecting legs from Boston to Providence ([[Old Roebuck Road]]); Providence to New London ('''Pequot Path'''); New London to New Haven, Connecticut, and then to New York City. The same long route from Boston to New York to Charleston, South Carolina was also known as the [[King's Highway]] from the 1750s to about 1780. | '''Overlapping routes.''' Starting as a horse path in the 1670s, the "Post Road" was a chain of shorter roads strung together end-to-end to form the '''lower fork of the [[Boston Post Road]]''' (Boston-New York) with connecting legs from Boston to Providence ([[Old Roebuck Road]]); Providence to New London ('''Pequot Path'''); New London to New Haven, Connecticut, and then to New York City. The same long route from Boston to New York to Charleston, South Carolina was also known as the [[King's Highway]] from the 1750s to about 1780. | ||
'''Overlapping routes'''. Part of the '''Old Roebuck Road''' followed the exact same route as a part of the '''[[Bay Road]]''' (to New Bedford) at least as far as Norwood. Moreover, the whole of the Old Roebuck Road also became a leg on the '''''lower [[Boston Post Road]] ''''' between Boston and New York City. In the 1760s and 1770s it was also part of the '''''[[King's Highway]] ''''' from [[Boston, Massachusetts|Boston]] to [[New York City New York genealogy|New York City]] and all the way south to [[Charleston, South Carolina|Charleston]], South Carolina. | |||
'''Stagecoach service'''. In the 1760s stagecoaches began to traverse these roads carrying regular mail and passengers. Inns for stagecoach passengers and other travelers usually were established near the time of American Revolution. By 1800 an advertisement suggested stage service from Boston to Providence took only ten hours, but service to New York City took the rest of the week.<ref>Frederic J. Wood, ''The Turnpikes of New England and the Evolution of the Same Through England, Virginia, and Maryland'' (Boston: Marshall Jones, 1919), 86-87. [https://archive.org/details/turnpikesofnewen00woodrich Internet Archive version online].</ref> Nevertheless, travel between colonial towns was more often by sea than it was over land until just before the American Revolution.<ref>Wood, 25.</ref> | |||
'''Toll roads'''. Rhode Island and Connecticut developed turnpike (toll) systems for wagon roads in the early 1800s including most of the route from Providence to New London. The Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike in Massachusetts charged tolls from 1806 to 1856.<ref>Wood, map between 56 and 57, and 86-100.</ref> The Providence and Pawtucket Turnpike in Rhode Island was authorized in 1807 and the last toll houses were closed in 1869.<ref>Wood, map between 286 and 287, and 302-306.</ref> Most of these early pathways continue as roads today. Modern freeways usually parallel the older road systems. | |||
'''Decline'''. However, the use of early roads and turnpikes for moving settlers waned with the introduction of railroads. Settlers could travel faster, less expensively, and safer on railroads than on wagon roads. So, as railroads entered an area, the wagon-road traffic in that area declined. The first railroad from Boston to Providence opened in 1835.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_and_Providence_Railroad Boston and Providence Railroad] in ''Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia'' (accessed 29 October 2014).</ref> Also, another important railroad from Boston reached Worcester in 1835,<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_and_Albany_Railroad Boston and Albany Railroad] in ''Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia'' (accessed 29 October 2014).</ref> and then reached to Providence, Rhode Island in 1847.<ref>Wood, 305.</ref> In 1863 a horse-rail line from Providence to Central Falls laid its tracks in part of the Providence - Pawtucket Turnpike and travelers on that horse-rail line had the experience of passing turnpike toll houses until they were closed six years later.<ref>Wood, 305-306.</ref> | |||
=== Route === | === Route === | ||