178 
Frank Carney 
in the bargain which Engineer Zane made with Congress. He 
agreed to survey this line, on condition that he should receive 
one square mile of territory at each of the points where his line 
crossed the three rivers, the Muskingum, the Hocking, and the 
Scioto. Wilderness land was not then at a premium in the esti- 
mation of Congress, so, with the settling of a few other condi- 
tions, the bargain was completed, and Mr. Zane located the road. 
Immediately afterwards postmen commenced to ride through, 
and the first mail to cross the state went over this highway. The 
first town Zane located, he named after himself, Zanesville; 
the next was named Lancaster, and the third Chillicothe. It is 
interesting to study the influence of this trace (the Maysville 
Road, as it is sometimes called) on population in later decades; 
its effect is indicated in the decennial population maps. 
Readjustments due to the canals. Later, centers of population 
developed for other reasons. The markets formerly had been 
reached by ox teams or horses, and, naturally, were limited. 
When canals commenced to operate, new places appeared on the 
map. The principles above stated, however, were still in oper- 
ation, because the canals followed valleys, wherever possible. 
Villages were already scattered through the valleys. The influ- 
ence of the canals was observed, however, in giving certain towns 
an advantage over certain other towns; for example, if, in a val- 
ley fifty miles long, there were three places of about equal impor- 
tance, all reached by highways, and the business carried on by 
trucking, the particular town best situated, both in reference to 
the farm regions and the canal, soon had a handicap on the other 
two places. 
The Ohio canal follows the Scioto from Portsmouth to Lock- 
bourne; then it turns eastward into the old Newark river valley, 
which it follows to Hanover; from this point it continues along 
the Licking river to Toboso, thence it enters the Muskingum 
valley which it follows northward towards Akron, north of which 
its course is along the Cuyahoga valley to Cleveland. The 
Miami and Erie canal extends from Toledo, southward through 
Dayton, to Cincinnati. A few laterals from these canals reach 
territory east and west. But the day of the canal was short, 
because steam traffic on land was instituted not long after the 
canals were built, and railroads took the place of canals. The 
canal period, however, was long enough to change many ordinary 
towns into important cities. 
