remain a lasting monument to the courageous, progressive, and patriotic men whose capital entered into and made its construction possible."
The principal rivals of the macadamized roads were the plank roads. The first plank road in America was built at Toronto, Canada, in 1835–36, during Sir Francis Bond Head's governorship. It was an experiment and one Darcy Boulton is said to have been the originator of the plan.[1]
In 1837 this method of road-building was introduced into the United States, Syracuse, New York, possessing the first plank road this side the Canadian border. In fifteen years there were two thousand one hundred and six miles of these roads in New York State alone, and the system had spread widely through the more prosperous and energetic states. Usually these roads were single-track, the track being built on the left hand side of the roadway; the latter became known as the "turn-out." The planks, measuring eight inches by three,
- ↑ For these and other facts concerning plank roads we are indebted to W. Kingsford's History, Structure and Statistics of Plank Roads (1852).
