1833 ad for competing coach service over National Pike (HISTORY)

Here's an advertisement for a new coach service between Frederick (where TOLLROADSnews is based) and Hagerstown Maryland - one of the first improved roads over the Appalachians. The ad is part of a Historic Marker recently placed by the site of the National Pike in Hagerstown.

From the ad it seems service was something of a monopoly before the Union Line got going. It advertises FARE REDUCED.

They don't boast of the superiority of their coach line over any other, they note, but say their coach vehicle stock is "inferior to none in the U. States."

They trust the public will honor them with their patronage, or else they may not be around when needed.

"Ride with us now or we'll be out of business and you'll have your monopoly back," they seem to be saying.

We're not clear what "OPPOSITION AGAINST IMPOSITION!" means.

Maybe an established coach line was trying to "impose" on the public a charter license giving them a monopoly on the route?

National Pike and National Road

The National Pike started off as a chain of privately financed turnpikes Baltimore-Ellicott-Frederick-Hagerstown-Cumberland.

Cumberland MD-Uniontown PA-Washington PA-Wheeling WV, (pretty much what is now US40) called the National Road, was built initially as a free road with federal funds from 1811, and the name National Road came to be applied all the way back east to Baltimore.

The National Road soon fell into disrepair as a free road and in 1835 the US Government transferred it to the states which made it into chartered turnpikes (private toll concessions). Ed Rendell is proposing for the state Turnpike now what was done in the 1830s for the National Road through southwest PA.

Tolls continued to be collected until the early 20th century.

Other pictures follow:

TOLLROADSnews 2008-03-24