"You will often wonder as you pass over this highway, remembering the often-stated fact by some ancient wagoner or stage-driver (who today is scarcely to be found, most of them having thrown down the reins and put up for the night), that at that time there were almost continuous lines of Conestoga wagons, with their feed troughs suspended at the rear and the tar can swinging underneath, toiling up the long hills (for you will observe there was very little grading done when that roadway was constructed), and you wonder how it was possible to accommodate so much traffic as there was, in addition to stagecoaches and private conveyances, winding in and out among these long lines of wagons. But you must bear in mind that the roadway was very different then from what it is at the present time.
"The narrow, macadamized surface, with its long grassy slope (the delight of the tramp and itinerant merchant, especially when a neighboring tree casts a cooling shadow over its surface), which same slope becomes a menace to belated and unfamiliar travelers on a dark night, threatening them with an overturn into what of more recent times is known as the Summer road, did not exist at that time, but the road had a regular slope from side ditch to center, as all good roads should have, and conveyances could pass anywhere from side to side. The macadam was carefully broken and no stone was allowed to be placed on the road that would not pass through a two-inch ring. A test was made which can be seen today about six miles east of Lancaster, where the roadway was regularly paved for a distance of one hundred feet from side to side, with a view of constructing the entire line in that way. But it proved too expensive, and was abandoned. Day, in his history, published in 1843,[17] makes mention of the whole roadway having been so constructed, but I think that must have been an error, as this is the only point where there is any appearance of this having been attempted, and can be seen at the present time when the upper surface has been worn off by the passing and repassing over it."
The placing of tollgates on the Lancaster Pike is thus announced in the Lancaster _Journal_, previously mentioned, where the following notice appears: