90 Notes and Sketches. 



but it was not till close on the end of the century 

 that the system came north of the Dee. 



In October 1769, the question of turnpikes came up 

 for the first time at the Aberdeen County Meeting, in 

 consequence of a scheme being " presently in agitation 

 among gentlemen of the neighbouring county of 

 Kincardine, for an application to Parliament to have 

 turnpike roads in that county." The meeting declared 

 " they were not presently ripe to give their opinion 

 upon the expediency and consequences of the plan pro- 

 posed." Before the year was out, however, they 

 unanimously resolved to oppose the introduction of 

 turnpikes into Kincardine county, unless the road 

 'twixt the Bridge of Dee and Stonehaven were kept 

 free of tolls : the town of Aberdeen which had been 

 equally moved on the subject," having made offer to 

 maintain the road in question by calling out the 

 statute labour. This question of turnpikes was the 

 subject of much discussion a quarter of a century 

 later, a draft Turnpike and Commutation Eoad Bill 

 being at last ordered to be printed in 1794. This 

 Bill, which provided for the levying of a money pay- 

 ment in lieu of statute labour became an Act of Parlia- 

 ment in 1795. The turnpike system came into 

 operation in Aberdeenshire three years after, by the 

 construction of the Deeside Turnpike, in 1798. This 

 was followed by the Ellon and Peterhead turnpike in 

 1799. Most of the other roads of this class in the 

 county were made during the first twenty-four years 

 of the present century. 



The current ideas on the subject of roads when im- 

 provement in that direction began, were somewhat 

 conflicting. The minister of a West Highland parish 

 says, a consequence of the formation of General Wade's 

 Highland Roads and Bridges, was, " that the mind 

 expanded by degrees to embrace within its grasp people 

 of other denominations, and to weaken that prejudice 

 which it conceived in favour of an individual and a 



