learn more about the turnpike

READ MORE ABOUT IT: A short brochure about the Staunton-Parkersburg Turnpike is available at the VISITOR'S CENTER for $1.50, ($2.00 post-paid) A Four-Part AUDIO HISTORY  of the Turnpike is also available at the Visitor's Center. Additional Audio History CD's are now in production. Return here for release dates!

Some Turnpike Facts...

• WHAT IS A TURNPIKE?
  A turnpike is a toll road; in other words people had to pay to use the road. At intervals along the road there were tollhouses. These were strategically placed to avoid efforts to bypass the tollhouse. They were at places where the valley narrowed, where there was only one way to cross a stream, or simply at regular intervals where a person was willing to be a toll collector.
  
  Someone was always in the tollhouse to collect fees. Travelers were forced to stop because there was a long pole, or pike across the road. The pike was situated on a base post that allowed the toll house keeper to pivot or turn the pike to allow passage after the toll was paid. Hence the name Turnpike.
  
  The purpose of collecting fees was to pay for maintenance on the road. As it turned out, the money collected did not cover this cost, especially when a storm washed out part of a road, or a bridge needed to be replaced.

• WHAT WERE THE FEES TO USE THE ROAD?
  People, wagons, and animals all had different tolls, and the costs varied through the years. A wagon, team, and driver, 25 to 55 cents; four-wheeled riding carriage, 20 to 45 cents; cart, or two-wheeled riding carriage, 12 ½ to 20 cents; man and horse 6 ¼ cents; cattle per head ¼ cent; sheep or hogs, 3 to 5 cents per score (20).

• RIDING THE ROAD - See an early ad for travel

• WHY DOES THE ROAD WIND SO MUCH?
  Some of the Staunton Parkersburg Turnpike followed old Indian trails. Indians had lived here for thousands of years, and knew the easiest way to walk from one place to another. The way to get from one spot to another often is not a straight line. Their trails followed the contours of the land. When it came to crossing streams, they often went upstream to a point where crossing was safe and easy. To go over mountains, they crossed at the lowest point or saddle of a ridge.
  
  Early explorers found these ancient routes to be the safest and easiest ways to travel whether on foot or on horseback. So Indian foot trails became horse trails, and later these became roadways, and still later the roadway became the Turnpike.

• WHO BUILT THE TURNPIKE?
  At the time the Turnpike was built, there was no West Virginia. We were part of Virginia. So it was the Virginia Chief Engineer, Claudius Croset who surveyed the road. He often followed the old Indian trails. His mission was to lay out a route for a road from Staunton to Parkersburg, and the road should have a grade of no more then 4%. This means there should be no more than a 4 foot rise with every 100 feet of road:

If you drive the Turnpike through the mountains, you realize that he did not succeed in this request, although he tried. This is why the road makes so many curves and switchbacks, to try to reduce the climb and descent to a gentle 4%.

Local workers did the actual building. The Turnpike was divided into 20 mile segments, and each segment was awarded to a local contractor, who then hired local people to work on the road. The contractor paid these workers. Overseers earned $31 a month, wagoners $15 per month, blasters, blacksmiths, and wall builders earned $12-$13 per month. Laborers made up the majority of the workforce earning between $7.50 and $10 per month. The lowest paid workers were cart drivers at $8 and cooks at $6 per month. Some of the 20 mile segments were in the valleys, on relatively flat ground, and some were over the mountains, and harder to build and supply. The work started at either end, and they worked toward the middle. The last segment to be completed was between Buckhannon and Weston. The road was complete in 1845.

Bridges were separate contracts. Lemuel Chenoweth was an excellent bridge builder, and he was the successful bidder on many of the bridges along the route. He built the bridge that was once in Beverly, and you can still admire his work in the famous Phillippi covered bridge. The bridges were complete in 1849.

• A NEW GOVERNMENT
  After Virginia seceded from the Union, the loyal Virginians set up a Restored Government of Virginia in Wheeling. As a new state government, they had no money for urgent expenses - or anything else!
  
  Shortly before war had broken out, the rebel Virginia government in Richmond had sent funds to Weston for the construction of the Trans Allegheny Insane Asylum. In June of 1861, Governor Peirpont, newly elected by the Restored or Loyal Government of Virginia, ordered the money to be seized and transported to Wheeling.
  
  In response, General Mc Clellan sent a detachment of Ohio Volunteer Infantry to Weston under the command of Col. Tyler. Tyler and his troops camped on the grounds of the unfinished hospital, then marched to the bank to force the surrender of the money. This money was intended for miner’s payroll and for hospital construction. The soldiers recovered $27,000 in gold.
  
  The new Governor considered this action merely a reappropriation of Virginia funds. That much gold is extremely heavy, so the money was transported in a hearse.  It was one of the best guarded "funeral" processions ever!
  
  This event is still celebrated at Weston in June of each year.