Highways
and Roads of the Colonial Era
The
best way to get a feel for the trials of travel in colonial Connecticut
is to read contemporary accounts of people who jiggled and joggled
over those rocky old roads. There is a considerable published
travel literature on the subject, beginning with The Journal
of Madam Knight (Boston: David R. Godine, 1972), the account
of a lady who made her way through the Long Island Sound towns
in 1704. There is not space or time to list the many diaries,
journals, and accounts of travelers through Connecticut, but
researchers should be aware of such a body of literature, and
there are bibliographies, most notably Edward G. Cox’s A Reference
Guide to the Literature of Travel (Seattle: University of
Washington Press, 1935). Road-building was one of the two or three
most frequent topics at town meetings and the subject of much
legislation by the General Assembly as well. Serious students
will want to consult the Public Records of the Colony. Isabell
S. Mitchell’s Roads and Road-Making in Colonial Connecticut,
Tercentenary pamphlet XIV (1933), is a very competent short description
of how towns went about the business. Mitchell includes an excellent
map of intertown and post roads as they existed about 1760. The
field has not been well explored, and serious researchers should
consult the dissertations by Saladino and Jodziewicz. A few published
articles that are useful and available are the following:
Allen,
Richard Sanders. Covered Bridges of The Northeast: The Complete
Story in Words and Pictures. Brattleboro: Stephen Greene Press,
1957. A popular but useful account, with many illustrations.
Pindar,
Peter Augustus (pseud.) The Stage Coach Road from Hartford
to Litchfield. A White Pine Series monograph 10(October, 1923)5.
Well-researched, reliable, hard-to-find, descriptive material.
Sage,
Henry P. “Ye Milestones of Connecticut.” Papers of the
NHCHS 10(1951):1-101. Antiquarian but interesting. Illustrated
with photographs. Sage observed the milestones between 1922 and
1931, but they date to the colonial period.
Stanton,
Lewis E. “History of the Highways of Connecticut” (1637-1856).
CHS Bulletin 19(0ctober, 1954)4:109-17. A paper read to
the Society in 1913. Miscellaneous gleanings about roads in many
Connecticut towns.
Terry,
Marian Dickinson, ed., Old Inns of Connecticut. Hartford:
Prospect Press, 1937. A beautifully illustrated volume, with much
interesting material about early highway travel.
Warren,
H. A. “Clearing the Trail for Civilization: Penetrating the Great
Woods ... Laying Thoroughfares and Highways.” Connecticut Magazine
3(1903)1:193-200. This is a gem; antiquarian in approach, but
full of hard-to-find information.
The
Boston Post Road has a much-studied history of its own. The works
listed here are not confined to the colonial era.
Holbrook,
Stuart. The Old Post Road. New York; McGraw Hill, 1962.
A standard work by a professional popular historian.
Jenkins,
Stephen. The Old Boston Post Road. New York, G. Putnams,
1913. More than 200 illustrations in 453 pages. Jenkins limits
his story to the section between Boston and New York, and so
there is much on Connecticut here.
Mather,
Austin W. “What’s to Become of the Post Road?” Connecticut
Woodlands 2(May, 1937)2:4-6. In 1937, some 70 percent of the
Post Road in Fairfield County was zoned for business, but only
25 percent was used that way. The author deplores the numerous
run-down hot dog stands and urges better planning by town boards.
Pindar,
Peter Augustus (pseud.) “The Boston Post Road” [in Connecticut].
A White Pine Series monograph 6(February, 1920)1. Useful and reliable.
Talcott,
Norman. “The Tavern and the Old Post Road.” Connecticut Magazine
10(1906)4:647-56. Focus on the Knapp Tavern in Greenwich and
Israel Putnam, but some nice photographs of the Post Road in 1906.
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