Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 10).djvu/179

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CONCLUSION
179

road are of iron and were made at the foundries at Connellsville and Brownsville. Major James Francis had the contract for making and delivering those between Cumberland and Brownsville. John Snowdan had the contract for those between Brownsville and Wheeling. They were hauled in six-horse teams to their sites. Those between Brownsville and Cumberland have recently been reset and repainted. The milestones west of the Ohio River are mostly of sandstone, and are fast disappearing under the action of the weather. Some are quite illegible though the word "Cumberland" at the top can yet be read on almost all. In central Ohio, through the Darby woods, or "Darby Cuttings," the mileposts have been greatly mutilated by vandal woodchoppers, who knocked off large chips with which to sharpen their axes.

The bed of the Cumberland Road was originally eighty feet in width. In Ohio at least, property owners have encroached upon the road until, in some places, ten feet of ground has been included within the fences. This matter has been brought into notice