By Mike McCormick
Between 1829 and 1839, the federal government was responsible for constructing the Cumberland Road — also known as the National Road, the Old Pike and U.S. Highway 40 — through Indiana and Illinois.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers assumed command of the work.
Terre Haute’s unique status as headquarters for the superintendent of the National Road between 1834 and 1840 is frequently overlooked.
If the federal government is applauded for conceiving the fabled national highway and building it through the states of Maryland, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, it should bear the brunt of criticism for leaving the highway rickety and unfinished in 1840.
Jonathan Knight, for whom Knightstown is named, initiated the National Road survey at the Indiana-Ohio state line in early 1827 when only four communities were on the proposed route: Richmond, Centerville, Indianapolis and Terre Haute.
Knight and his crew reached the Jenckes distillery, then five miles east of Terre Haute at the present site of Highland Lawn Cemetery, on Oct. 13, 1827.
Three days later, Knight encountered the east end of “Wabash Street” in Terre Haute. Road Commissioner Joseph Shriver — who came to Terre Haute on June 26, 1828 — took charge of the 90-mile survey from the Indiana-Illinois state line to Vandalia. He reached his destination on Sept. 20, 1828.
By the time contracts were awarded in Indiana, the road was finished through Maryland, Pennsylvania and West Virginia and almost complete in Ohio.
A $51,600 appropriation on March 3, 1820 for the 150-mile Indiana portion permitted work to begin on an 80-foot wide path, with 30-foot center strip. Congress expected contractors to clear the route of trees and stumps, grade it, “macdamize” it with crushed rock in layers and construct stone culverts and bridges.
Bids were awarded at $121 per mile but specifications did not require removal of stumps less than 15 feet tall. “Stump-grubbing” contracts later were dispersed at $75 a mile.
The next Indiana appropriation was $60,000 on May 31, 1830. Subsequent state allotments were $75,000 in 1831, $100,000 each in 1832 and 1833, $150,000 in 1834, $100,000 in 1835, $250,000 in 1836, $100,000 in 1837 and $150,000 on May 25, 1838.
Between 1829 and 1833, contracts in Indiana were let on a mile-by-mile basis. Construction progressed slowly. Working in the winter months was almost impossible. And prairie flies were a constant nuisance during the summer.
During the early years, most work was restricted to a 25-mile stretch around Indianapolis, 12 miles to the east and 11 miles to the west. New towns sprouted up along the proposed route, awaiting the road’s arrival.
William Greenup was appointed state superintendent of the Illinois section in 1830. When Congress passed a bill June 24, 1834 providing for its annual appropriations, it included a provision authorizing the War Department to select a Corps of Engineers officer to exercise control over National Road operations in Indiana and Illinois.
Capt. Cornelius Austin Ogden, an 1819 West Point graduate, was named superintendent of the 240-mile extension between the Indiana-Ohio state line and Vandalia, Ill.
Capt. Ogden arrived in Terre Haute in August 1834 and was appalled by the highway’s dilapidated condition, particularly in Illinois. By 1835, Ogden eliminated the private contract system and hired laborers directly. Under the new method, he wrote, “what is of no little importance, it is free from all extra allowances and after claims.”
Instead of letting contracts by the mile, he divided the road into ten-mile increments and was superintendent of all operations, hiring only men who provided their own tools. He paid workers east of the Wabash River 62 cents a day, sunrise to sunset, and those west of the river 70 cents a day.
Intemperance, insulting travelers, fighting, quarreling, idleness, “want of moral character” and conspiring “to effect a purpose” were just reasons for immediate dismissal.
The 1834 statute which created his position also made the superintendent personally accountable for every disbursement of funds received from the Treasury.
As a result, Ogden refused to hire laborers at locations too far from Terre Haute, his home base. When the town was awarded a branch of the Second State Bank of Indiana on Dec. 8, 1834, it made things easier. While the branch bank building on Ohio St. was under construction, Chauncey Rose provided a structure for the bank’s temporary use.
Ogden was provided two grading supervisors in Indiana, each with an assistant, one in Illinois, as well as two carpentry inspectors and two masonry inspectors in each state.
Yet he did not have enough manpower “to attend to extended works” in Richmond, Indianapolis, several sites in Illinois and the area extending east from the Illinois state line to 13 miles east of Terre Haute.
Ogden appealed for six assistants. Gen. Charles Gratiot, Chief Engineer of the Army Corps of Engineers, endorsed the request. When help was not forthcoming, Ogden advised Gen. Gratiot that “I must, therefore, decline making further disbursements that do not immediately come under my own eye.”
By letter dated July 2, 1836, the War Department confirmed Ogden’s interpretation.
The decision to confine Cumberland Road operations to “within 30 miles of the Wabash River” drew the ire of elite Indianapolis business leaders Calvin Fletcher, Nathaniel Bolton, James Blake, Benjamin Blythe, Seton W. Norris and Bethuel F. Morris.
After Marion County citizens met at the courthouse in Indianapolis on Aug. 6, 1836, the leaders demanded a meeting with Capt. Ogden and enlisted advice from President Andrew Jackson and Congressman George L. Kinnard. But Ogden held his ground.
In 1838, funding for the road in Indiana and Illinois ended. A Cumberland Road convention convened at Terre Haute that on June 8 and 9, 1839. Memorials were dispatched to Washington pleading for continuing subsidies. None were forthcoming.
Promoted to major in 1838, Ogden stretched his final appropriations through 1840 and in late 1839. prepared mile-by-mile estimates for future work: $3,144,250 to complete the road in Indiana; $2,448,838 to finish the 90-miles from the state line to Vandalia, Ill.
In the throes of bankruptcy due to the canals, the Indiana government was unable to finish the road. Privately-owned plank road companies assumed the responsibility. The Western Plank Road Co. was founded in Vigo and Clay counties for that purpose in 1852.
