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Historian Finds Unseen Documents Related To National Road

WVU Professor Writes Dissertation With Papers Over a Century Old

WHEELING –Historian Billy Joe Peyton drew upon official documents, unseen for over a century, to write his doctoral dissertation on the National Road.

Peyton, a professor of history at West Virginia State University, shared his findings about the engineering and construction of the National Road with a Wheeling audience last weekend.

He was the keynote speaker for the Ohio Valley History Expo, which celebrated the 200th anniversary of the road’s completion from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling. The program was held at Monument Place, known earlier as Shepherd Hall.

Emory Kemp, Peyton’s doctoral adviser at West Virginia University, suggested that he check the National Archives in Washington, D.C., for documents related to the National Road. Upon investigation, Peyton found that wax seals were intact on the records, which had not been opened since the 1800s.

“He (Kemp) was right,” Peyton said. “There were records at the National Archives that no one had ever looked at.”

Setting the stage for the road’s construction, he said the Constitution in 1789 empowered Congress to establish post offices and post roads. Under the 1802 Ohio Statehood Act, Treasury Secretary Albert Gallatin directed that 2 percent from sales of public lands in Ohio be used for roads to and through the new state. However, the fund collected only $12,652 by 1805, Peyton said.

Charlestown (now Wellsburg) wanted to be the new road’s western terminus, but Wheeling was the favored choice from an early point because it was a booming town and its island broke up the journey across the Ohio River, he said.

In 1806, Congress authorized President Thomas Jefferson to appoint three commissioners to lay out the road and oversee construction. Chosen were Thomas Moore, a farmer, engineer and inventor from Maryland; Elie Williams, an Army captain and surveyor from Maryland; and Joseph Kerr, a clerk, surveyor and judge from Ohio.

Field work began in Cumberland on Sept. 4, 1806, with a final report submitted in 1808. The plan called for a 131-mile route to Wheeling at an estimated cost of $6,000 a mile, Peyton said. The actual cost, though, was $1.7 million, or $13,000 a mile, he added.

The original route did not include Uniontown and Washington, Pennsylvania, but Gallatin told Jefferson that he would lose Washington County in the next election if the two towns were bypassed, the historian said.

David L. Shriver Jr. was hired of superintendent of construction in 1811, and the first 10 miles of the road were completed that year, Peyton said. Work lagged during the War of 1812; the 45-mile point was completed by 1815 and the road reached Wheeling in 1818.

Josias Thompson, surveyor and superintendent for the western division, settled Triadelphia and donated land for a Catholic cemetery, he said. Mordecai Cochran and his 1,000-strong Irish brigade built the roadway.

Peyton said the U.S. Army of Corps of Engineers were not involved until the 1820s, when the road was in disrepair. Heavy traffic and poor construction led to a rapid decline of the road surface. “The pride of the nation became a disgrace,” he remarked.

In 1835, the federal government transferred ownership of the National Road to Maryland, Pennsylvania and Virginia to operate as a toll road, he said. The western extension, through Ohio and Indiana to Vandalia, Illinois, was built from 1825-40.

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