Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 11).djvu/50

 States did "wagoning" and "wagoners" become so common or do such a thriving trade as on three or four trans-Allegheny routes between 1785 and 1850. The Atlantic Ocean and the rivers had been the arteries of trade between the colonies from the earliest times. The freight traffic by land in the seaboard states had amounted to little save in local cases, compared with the great industry of "freighting" which, about 1785, arose in Baltimore and Philadelphia and concerned the then Central West. This study, like that of our postal history, throws great light on the subject in hand. Road-building, in the abstract, began at the centers of population and spread slowly with the growth of population. For instance, in Revolutionary days Philadelphia was, as it were, a hub and from it a number of important roads, like spokes, struck out in all directions. Comparatively, these were few in number and exceedingly poor, yet they were enough and sufficiently easy to traverse to give Washington a deal of trouble in trying to prevent the avaricious country people from treacherously feeding the British invaders.