Blackstone and Edward III were hurled at the heads of the "venal"
legislators who had made this "monstrosity" possible. The
opposition died down, however, in the face of the success which
the new road instantly achieved. The Turnpike was, indeed,
admirably situated. Converging at the quaint old "borough of
Lancaster," the various routes--northeast from Virginia, east
from the Carlisle and Chambersburg region and the Alleghanies,
and southeast from the upper Susquehanna country--poured upon the
Quaker City a trade that profited every merchant, landholder, and
laborer. The nine tollgates, on the average a little less than
seven miles apart, turned in a revenue that allowed the
"President and Managers" to declare dividends to stockholders
running, it is said, as high as fifteen per cent.

The Lancaster Turnpike is interesting from three points of view:
it began a new period of American transportation; it ushered in
an era of speculation unheard of in the previous history of the
country; and it introduced American lawmakers to the great
problem of controlling public corporations.

Along this thirty-seven-foot road, of which twenty-four feet were
laid with stone, the new era of American inland travel
progressed. The array of two-wheeled private equipages and other
family carriages, the stagecoaches of bright color, and the
carts, Dutch wagons, and Conestogas, gave token of what was soon
to be witnessed on the great roads of a dozen States in the next
generation. Here, probably, the first distinction began to be
drawn between the taverns for passengers and those patronized by
the drivers of freight. The colonial taverns, comparatively few
and far between, had up to this time served the traveling public,