and they shall have power to compel payments by the sale of delinquent shares, in such a manner as shall be prescribed by their by-laws, and transfer the same to purchasers: Provided, That if any subscriber shall at any time be a contractor for making any part of the said road, or in any other manner become a creditor of the company, he shall be entitled to a proper set-off in the payment of his stock, or any requisition made thereon....”[19]

A mistake which doomed these plans to failure was in arbitrarily outlining a road by way of the important towns without due consideration of the nature of the country between them. The mountains were not to be thus mocked; even the buffalo had not found an east and west path here easily. As noted, the towns where subscriptions were opened were Winchester, Romney, Moorefield, Beverly, Kingwood, Pruntytown, Clarksburg, and Parkersburg. When the engineers got through Hampshire County by way of Mill Creek Gap in Mill Creek Mountain and on into Preston County, insurmountable obstacles were encountered and it was reported that the road would never reach Kingwood. From that moment the North-western Road Company stock began to languish; only the intervention of the state saved the enterprise. However, in 1831, a new and very remarkable act was passed by the Virginia Assembly organizing a road company that stands unique in a road-building age. This was “An act to provide for the construction of a turnpike road from Winchester to some point on the Ohio river.” The governor was made president of the company and he with the treasurer, attorney-general, and second auditor constituted the board of directors. The 1st, 2d, and 4th sections of this interesting law are as follows:

“1.   Be it enacted by the general assembly,   That the governor, treasurer, attorney general, and second auditor of the commonwealth for the time being, and their successors, are hereby constituted a body politic and corporate, under the denomination of ‘The President and Directors of the North-Western Turnpike Road,’ with power to sue and be sued, plead and be impleaded, and to hold lands and tenements, goods and chattels, and the same to sell, dispose of, or improve, in trust for the commonwealth, for the purposes hereinafter mentioned. And three of the said commissioners shall constitute a board for the transaction of such business as is hereby entrusted to them; of which board, when present, the governor shall be president: And they shall have power to appoint a clerk from without their own body, and make such distribution of their duties among themselves respectively, and such rules and regulations ... as to them may seem necessary....

“2.   Be it further enacted,   That the said president and directors of the North-Western turnpike road be, and they are hereby empowered as soon as may be necessary for the purposes herein declared, to borrow on the credit of the state, a sum or sums of money not exceeding one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, and at a rate of interest not exceeding six per centum per annum....

“4.   Be it further enacted,   That the said president and directors, out of the money hereby authorized to be borrowed, shall cause to be constructed a road from the town of Winchester, in the county of Frederick, to some point on the Ohio river, to be selected by the principal engineer. And for the purpose aforesaid, the principal engineer, as soon as may be after the passage of this act, shall proceed to lay out and locate the said road from the points above designated. He shall graduate the said road in such manner that the acclivity or declivity thereof shall in no case exceed five degrees. The width of the said road may be varied, so that it shall not exceed eighteen feet, nor be less than twelve feet. Through level ground it shall be raised in the middle one-twenty-fourth part of its breadth, but in passing along declivities it may be flat. Bridges, side ditches, gutters, and an artificial bed of stone or gravel, shall be dispensed with, except in such instances as the said principal engineer may deem them necessary....”[20]

Other sections stipulated that the state had the right to survey any and all routes the engineers desired to examine, and that persons suffering by loss of land or otherwise could, if proper application was made within one year, secure justice in the superior or county courts; that the company appoint a superintendent who should have in charge the letting of contracts after such were approved by the company; that, as each stretch of twenty miles was completed, toll gates could be erected thereon, where usual tolls could be collected by the company’s agents, the total sum collected to be paid into the state treasury; that the company had the right to erect bridges, or in case a ferry was in operation, to make the ferryman keep his banks and boats in good condition; that the company make annual reports to the State Board of Public Works; and that the road be forever a public highway.

The roadway was now soon built. Not dependent upon the stock that might be taken in the larger towns, the road made peace with the mountains and was built through the southern part of Preston County in 1832, leaving Kingwood some miles to the north. Evansville was located in 1833, and owes its rise to the great road. The route of the road is through Hampshire, Mineral, Grant, Garrett, Preston, Taylor, Harrison, Doddridge, Ritchie, and Wood Counties, all West Virginia save Garrett which is in Maryland. Important as the route became to the rough, beautiful country which it crossed, it never became of national importance. Being started so late in the century, the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, which was completed to Cumberland in 1845, stopped in large part the busy scenes of the Old Northwestern Turnpike.

Yet to the historic inquirer the old turnpike, so long forgotten by the outside world, lies where it was built; and can fairly be said to be a monument of the last of those stirring days when Virginia planned to hold the West in fee. Hundreds of residents along this road recall the old days with intense delight. True, the vast amount of money spent on the Cumberland Road was not spent on its less renowned rival to the south, but the Cumberland Road was given over to the states through which it ran; and, in many instances, was so neglected that it was as poor a road as some of its less pretentious rivals. A great deal of business of a national character was done on the Northwestern Turnpike. Parkersburg became one of the important entrepôts in the Ohio Valley; as early as 1796, we shall soon see, a pioneer traversing the country through which the Northwestern Turnpike’s predecessor coursed, speaks of an awakening in the Monongahela Valley that cannot be considered less than marvelous. Taking it through the years, few roads have remained of such constant benefit to the territory into which they ran, and today you will be told that no railway has benefited that mountainous district so much as this great thoroughfare.

But in a larger sense than any merely local one, Virginia counted on the Northwestern Turnpike to bind the state and connect its eastern metropolis with the great Ohio Valley. Virginia had given up, on