Rural Economy in New England 311 



The Roads and Highways. 



The Connecticut River and the two other water routes parallel with 

 it served the transportation needs of the towns on their banks, and 

 carried produce for farmers living within a distance of fifteen to 

 twenty miles on either side. In the intervening territory between 

 the three river valleys, all transportation had to proceed overland 

 on the common highways. All roads in the country at this time 

 were poor; those in New England only somewhat less so than in 

 other sections. The task of laying out and repairing highways 

 had been originally entrusted to the town governments. The select- 

 men of the town determined what roads were necessary and two 

 "surveyors" were annually appointed to clear new roads and to 

 make such repairs as they deemed advisable. No taxes were col- 

 lected for this purpose, but the surveyors were empowered to call 

 out all the able-bodied men with their teams on certain days "hav- 

 ing respect to the season of the year and the weather" to work on 

 the roads.^ In spite of the fines which were imposed for neglecting 

 this duty, many absented themselves and often those who did ap- 

 pear seem to have regarded the occasion as a sort of junketing party. 2 



in salt, iron and tinplate, linseed oil, paints and varnishes, leather, bottles and 

 paper. 



In another issue, that of August 5th of the same year, a general store offers 

 to buy brown tow cloth, 10 firkins of butter, 200 bushels of potatoes, 500 ropes of 

 onions, and 10 three-year-old mules. Other dealers will buy cider, livestock, 

 apples, hay, rags, hides, skins, oak and hemlock bark, and beeswax. 



In the columns of the Hartford Courant the same sort of advertisements ap- 

 peared including, however, a somewhat greater variety of "European goods." 



' See Province of the Massachusetts Bay, Acts and Resolves, 1693-1694. Ch. 

 6, Vol. I., p. 136. Also Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, 1643. Vol. 

 I., p. 91. 



^ In many Massachusetts towns this practice of "working out the highway 

 tax" persisted until after the Civil War. In the Report of the (U. S.) Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture for 1866 the methods pursued and the results accomplished 

 are described as follows: "No one who has once witnessed the process of 'mending 

 roads' in a small New England country town, needs any argument to convince 

 him that a system more ingeniously devised to accomplish nothing was ever 

 invented. The surveyors, in the first place, are usually elected at the town meet- 

 ings, and, as the oQice of surveyor is of no pecuniary profit beyond mere day wages, 

 persons of peculiar skill, could such be found, would not usually accept it. In 

 fact, the farmers of the district take their turns in the office, any respectable man 

 being deemed fully competent. Often some citizen who lives on a road out of 

 repair seeks the office, and is elected, and takes the opportunity to expend most 

 of the tax for the year on his own road, and leaves the rest of the district to be 

 attended to in the future. The surveyor selects, not the season when repairs 



