Trails, Rivers, and Roads

In 1825-1826, Quincy was the northern most post office in the Mississippi Valley. The post office was a box in the cabin of Quincy and Adams County founder John Wood. Letters to the settlers would come to Quincy via Carrolton and Atlas delivered on horseback or wagon on primitive trails. Trails, not roads, were between forts. The original trails through the forests and prairies in Illinois were built by Native Americans and followed by the early settlers to Illinois and beyond to the West. 

 Rivers and streams were used in the summer for transportation and supplies, but in the winter the goods traveled by horseback or wagon. There were several trails though Adams County, but the first traveled road was from Atlas through Quincy to Fort Edwards in Hancock County. There was not a great need for roads in 1825 as there were so few people living in Adams County. That same year saw the naming of the first five streets in Quincy: Maine, York, Jersey, Hampshire, Vermont.

After 1825, if a farmer needed a road to transport his crops, he contacted the County Board who would send a “road viewer” to decide on the best location for a road. By 1826 consideration was given to build a state road from Springfield to Quincy. The first part of the proposed road in Quincy was down Hampshire from Third Street to Front Street. Macadam (three layers of compressed stone) was laid 25 feet wide. Progress continued on road building and in 1828 the county was divided into fourteen road districts. Road commissioners were appointed in each district. Citizens were taxed for roads, but most residents paid their tax by helping to build the road.

The Kaskaskia to Cahokia trail through the bottom lands by Prairie du Rocher in southern Illinois is the oldest land highway in Illinois. George Rogers Clark used it in 1778 when he captured the British fort at Kaskaskia and then traveled overland to re-capture the fort at Vincennes Indiana in 1779. He claimed the land as the Illinois County of Virginia. Illinois then became part of the Northwest Territory organized in 1787. The territory established a Public Road Act in 1792. The first two counties in the territory were St. Claire and Randolph in southern Illinois. By 1811 there were seventeen road districts in St. Claire County. All roads previously laid out were to be declared public roads when Illinois became a state in 1818. 

Vandalia, Illinois, was the terminus of the National Road which began in Cumberland, Maryland, in 1811. It was the first major highway in the United States. The route is now U. S. 40. By 1823, there were eight roads leading to Vandalia, then the capital of Illinois.

In 1825, the first roads in central Illinois were from Springfield (not the state capital until 1839) east to Paris, and west to the Illinois River and later to Quincy. The first road listed to Quincy from the east was Beard’s Ferry Road from Beardstown, crossing the Illinois by ferry, then on to Quincy. 

State roads were fixed by the state road law which said, “If they shall believe the road applied for to be necessary, [they] shall proceed to locate the same on the nearest and best route, marking its course through prairies and improved lands by fixing stakes in the ground and through timbered lands by marking the trees.” Springfield “became the center of the highway system of Illinois,” according to Josephine Boylan in her 1933 article in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. Her premise was that “The State of Illinois has one of the oldest and most consistently developed road systems in the United States…”

Water transportation was a natural conveyance in Illinois as the state was bordered by three major rivers and had 24 navigable streams and rivers according to the General Assembly early in the state’s history. Beginning in 1823 steamboats on the Mississippi River were replacing flatboats to carry goods and people. In 1843, the General Assembly believed that the Mississippi River was too big to be managed by Illinois and that Congress had the authority to clear obstacles and build canals by rapids to improve travel. 

 The first Illinois General Assembly in 1819 enacted a Public Roads Act which included ferries and toll bridges. The act stated those public works were under the control of the County Commissioners. But the land owner had preference in where to build a bridge. Sales from the salt licks or Saline Reserves in southern Illinois provided the revenue needed to build roads and bridges in the early days of the statehood. Unfortunately, those funds were mostly depleted by 1837 and many of the waterway improvements, roads, and railroad projects were subsequently halted.

Roads could be built by individuals and county commissioners. They could be toll or free. State roads were laid out by statutes resulting in a mostly complete road system by 1848. State roads to and from Quincy began in 1833 with the Quincy to Macomb road, 1834 Beard’s ferry (Beardstown) to Quincy, 1836 Quincy to Pittsfield, 1837 Atlas to the Adams County Line and Quincy to Phillips Ferry, also known as Griggsville Landing on the Illinois river, 1839 Quincy to Mt. Sterling, and 1843 Quincy to Augusta. 

That period in state history, 1833 to 1848, was the greatest period of macadam highway building in Illinois. Highways throughout the state eventually replaced travel by river and trails. Many of today’s highways follow those trails.

Sources

Boylan, Josephine. “Illinois Highways, 1700-1848: Roads, Rivers, Ferries, Canals.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, Vol 26 No. ½ (Apr-Jul., 1933) 5-59. 

Hilbing, Jack. “Once Upon a time in Quincy: Mailing a Letter in Early 1800s was Expensive.” Quincy Herald Whig, November 8, 2015.

Wilcox, David F. Quincy and Adams County History and Representative Men. Vol I. Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1919.