"I sing the day in which the BRIDGE Is finished and done. Boston and Charlestown lads rejoice And fire your cannon guns.
"The BRIDGE is finished now I say Each other bridge outvies For London Bridge compared with ours Appears in dim disguise.
"Now Boston Charlestown nobly join And roast a fatted Ox On noted Bunker Hill combine To toast our Patriot Cox.
"May North and South and Charlestown all Agree with one consent To love each one like Indian's rum On publick good be bent."
A perfect epidemic of bridge-building broke out all over the states. In our pride we wished to exhibit our superiority over the English everywhere. Throughout Maryland, Pennsylvania, and upper Virginia, fine wooden and stone bridges were built. On all the turnpikes the bridges equalled the roads. Many of those bridges still are in use. The oldest suspension bridge in America, the "chain-bridge" at Newburyport, Massachusetts, is still standing. A picture of it here is shown. It is a graceful bridge, and its lovely surroundings add to its charm.
The traveller Melish noted specially, in 1812, the fine Trenton Bridge, "very elegant, nine hundred and seventy feet long, with two carriage ways"; the West Boston Bridge "three thousand feet long, with a causeway three thousand more"; the Schuylkill Bridge, which cost over two hundred thousand dollars.
So bad was the state of English roads at the end of the eighteenth century that it took two days' and three nights' incessant travel to get from Manchester to Glasgow. The crossroads were worse. In many cases when mail-coaches had been granted, the roads were too poor to receive them. The ruts, or rather trenches, were up to the axletrees. When a mail-coach was put on the Holyhead Road in 1808, twenty-two townships were indicted for having their roads in a dangerous condition. This road had vast sums spent upon it; in the six years succeeding 1825 it had £83,700 for "improvements," and repairs were paid by the tolls. Its condition now is very mean, grass-grown in places, and in ill-repair.
[Illustration: Old Chain bridge, Newburyport, Massachusetts.]
The system of road-making known as macadamizing received its name from Mr. Loudon McAdam, who came to England from America in 1783 at a time when many new roads were being made in Scotland. These roads he studied and in 1816 became road surveyor in Bristol, where he was able to carry his principles into practice. The leading feature of his system was setting a limit in size and weight to the stones to be used on the roads, the weight limit being six ounces; also to prohibit any mixture of clay, earth, or chalk with the stone. Similar roads had been made in Pennsylvania long before they were laid in England, and had been tested; and without doubt McAdam simply followed methods he had seen successfully used in America. Among others the Salem and Boston Turnpike, the Essex Turnpike (between Salem and Andover), and the Newburyport Turnpike, all macadamized roads, were in successful operation before Telford and McAdam had perfected their systems.