
A road in South Kingstown.
Quahog.org > Facts and folklore > Mass Transit in Rhode Island Mass Transit in Rhode Islandby D. Scott Molloy The early turnpikes from Indian trails to tollgates. The following article originally appeared in Old Rhode Island magazine, February 1994. It is reprinted here with permission of the author. ![]() A road in South Kingstown. Most public bus routes that crisscross Rhode Island today overlay track beds that once supported electric trolleys and horse cars. Before the railways, the rickety omnibus and its rough and tumble predecessor, the stagecoach, plied these same highways on primitive turnpikes. Post roads, maintained by the state, guided the country's early postal delivery system. The transportation lineage spirals even further back in time to isolated white settlers venturing into Rhode Island hinterlands over frontier bridle paths. But the transportation matrix does not stop here either. Before the arrival of white European settlers, Native Americans had developed a system of paths through the forests of the Narragansett Bay region. The primitive pathways
During the first two hundred years of Rhode Island's development, many of its citizens looked to the sea as a way to travel and make a living. Canoes, sloops, ships, and other wooden vessels slipped out from a hundred points along the indented coast of the "Ocean State," carrying travelers and goods to places far and near. Fresh water and waterfallsAt the beginning of the nineteenth century the state began an economic transformation that no longer required a maritime compass. Colonial entrepreneurs slowly abandoned chancy international sea trade. The manufacturing experiments of Samuel Slater and Moses Brown created an opening for the English Industrial Revolution in America. The success of Slater's Mill in Pawtucket created a modest industrial hub in the Blackstone Valley. Many investors now turned the navigator's eyepiece, not seaward, but inland along the many streams that flowed into the Narragansett Basin. Fresh water and waterfalls, not salt water and sea winds, would churn Rhode Island's next economic gale. As early as the seventeenth century a string of ferries provided direct crossings over salt-water barriers. As technology developed and the wealth of the colony increased, bridges slowly replaced the shorter ferry routes. The new industrial workshops, however, required a land-based system of transportation to service the factories that dotted the inland waterways. A web of turnpikes and roads threaded their way across the state's industrial valleys connecting mills to markets and supplies. For isolated village factories, a turnpike to the port of Providence was a lifeline. The growth of mills actually increased traffic on Narragansett Bay. Turnpike corporations, often subscribed to by local cotton merchants, petitioned for state charters to build private toll roads. Visionary Zachariah Allen
Turnpike owners imposed various fees for the passage of animals, vehicles or freight. The Providence and Boston Turnpike, chartered in 1800, was the busiest in the state. A horseman paid six cents; a wagon was charged twelve cents; and a single pig cost a penny with a one-third discount for a herd of ten or more. Local residents influenced passage of state legislation to exempt them from paying a fee when traveling to religious services, a mill, or a town meeting. End of a golden ageThe golden age of the turnpike in Rhode Island, as elsewhere, spanned the decade before and after the War of 1812. The state or local towns eventually took over most roads, especially during the generation between 1853 and 1873. In 1864 the Rhode Island General Assembly authorized turnpike and toll bridge corporations to sell their property to the government. The nine remaining franchises soon passed out of the realm of private enterprise. One corporation that dragged on for almost a century was the Glocester-West Glocester turnpike. At its decrepit demise in 1888, it was allegedly the last remaining road with tollgates in the nation. [Toll roads came back into fashion in the late 1940s; most of the nation's present turnpikes were built in the 1950s and '60s —Ed.] Stockholders were glad to get what they could for the profitless roads especially, after the introduction of the railroad. Historian George Rogers Taylor, in his influential work, The Transportation Revolution, maintained that the toll roads were mostly obsolete before trains made an appearance. The Providence-Pawtucket route was a profitable exception, serving as a link between the two cities and as a gateway to Boston. Taken over by the state in 1833, the road brought in over $4,000 a year. It became a "free" way in 1869. More Mass Transit in Rhode Island...Part 2: The stagecoach era; symbol of rapid transportation in 1815Part 3: The omnibus, a crucial urban link Part 4: Rhode Island's first horsecar, Providence to Pawtucket Part 5: Horsecar workers Part 6: Horsecar drivers and customers Part 7: The first Rhode Island trolleys: Woonsocket and Newport Part 8: New England's only cable car, the Providence Cable Tramway: the struggle on 'Quality Hill' Part 9: The Providence Cable Tramway becomes a reality Part 10: The first trolley in Providence, 1892 This article last edited August 7, 2015 © 1999–2021 Quahog.org (with the exception of elements provided by contributors, as noted). |
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