Tag: roads and highways

No Lighted “Segars”: Rules for Nashville’s First Bridge

Primary Source Document, transcribed by Debie Cox, author of Nashville History blog.

Note: These items from the Nashville Whig newspaper were discovered by Debie Cox among the papers of Judge Litton Hickman and submitted to us. The 1823 bridge was located at the site of the present Victory Memorial Bridge. Additional information about this bridge, including other citations from the Whig, can be found in the book Building of Nashville by Wilbur Foster Creighton.

Nashville Whig – Wednesday, June 11, 1823

The bridge across the Cumberland river at this place is so far completed that horses, carriages do now pass over it.

The sign on this early Nashville bridge reads, “Keep to the right. $5.00 fine for driving faster than a walk. Foot Passengers must keep to the right Footway. $1 fine for walking on the carriageway.” (photograph courtesy of Tennessee State Library and Archives)

Nashville Whig – Wednesday, July 21, 1823

Extract from the By-laws and rules adopted by the Directors of the Nashville Bridge Company…

Sec. 4 Be it resolved, that the following rules, by laws and regulations shall be observed by the gate-keeper and by all persons in using, passing or being on said bridge to wit: It shall not be lawful for any person or persons, having or driving any drove of horses, mules, cattle or hogs to drive or pass on said bridge in one drove at the same time in more than the following number to wit: horses, mules or cattle, not more than ten head, of hogs not more than twenty head, and it shall not be lawful for any loaded wagon to pass on or cross said bridge within less than one hundred yards of another loaded wagon, and that it shall not be lawful for any person passing over said bridge on horseback or with a cart, wagon or carriage or with a drove of horses, mules, cattle or hogs to make any delay on said bridge except such as is unavoidable, and it shall not be lawful for any person riding on horseback or driving any cart, wagon or carriage on said bridge or driving any drove of horses, mules, cattle or hogs over same to drive faster than a walk.

It shall not be lawful for any foot passenger to travel on the road allowed for horses and carriages at the time that there is any horses or drove of horses, mules cattle or any wagon, cart or carriage passing thereon except it be such person as shall have the same charge, nor shall it be lawful for any foot passenger to molest, disturb, frighten any horse or drove of horses, mules, cattle or hogs, when passing on said bridge.

It shall not be lawful for any person to carry over or have on said bridge any coal or chunk of fire, nor to make or carry with him on said bridge any lighted segar or pipe, and if any person or persons shall willfully commit a violation of any of the rules above described he, she or they so offending shall be subject to pay the sum of five dollars for every such offence to be recovered before any tribunal having jurisdiction thereof by a warrant in the name of the Nashville Bridge Co., for the use of the said company.

It shall be the duty of all foot passengers to pass the footway on the right hand as they are going, and it shall be the duty of all passengers on horseback or driving any wagon, cart or other wheel carriage or driving any drove of horses, mules, cattle, sheep or hogs to pass over on the right hand way.

It shall not be lawful for the gate-keeper to permit any slave to pass said bridge at any time after nine o’clock at night and before day light in the morning without a written pass from his or her master or mistress expressing such permission.

The Mill Creek Valley Turnpike

by Susan Douglas Wilson.

Antioch Pike, a well-traveled road in southern Davidson County, has origins much earlier than most people realize. Before it became designated as Antioch Pike, it was known as the Mill Creek Valley Turnpike. Work began on the turnpike in the middle of the last century during a time of considerable road development in Tennessee.

An act to incorporate the Mill Creek Valley Turnpike Company was passed by the Tennessee General Assembly on January 21, 1846. E.C. Butler, Dr. Lafayette Ezell, Hinchy Petway, Clement W. Nance, Charles M. Hays, Hays Blackman, James Hamilton, Thomas Bell, Alexander Carper, John G. Briley, William H. Haynes, Nathan H. McFadden, David R. Gooch, Joel A. Battle, and William M. Battle of Davidson County, along with Joseph Kimbro, William Roulhac, John Shacklett, John C. Gooch, and Charles H. Walden of Rutherford County were named commissioners of the turnpike. The commissioners were appointed to open the books for the subscription of stock to be used in constructing a macadamized turnpike from Nolensville Road to Bowling Green in Rutherford County. The capital stock of the company was thirty thousand dollars divided into shares of twenty-five dollars each.

The turnpike was to be located near the four-mile point of the Nolensville Turnpike, running near Thompson’s Mills, up the valley of Mill Creek, crossing Mill Creek near Rains’ Mills, continuing up the valley of Mill Creek, passing Antioch meeting house, across Collier’s Creek to Bowling Green in Rutherford County. The road was to be graded twenty-five feet wide and within five degrees of level, and covered with fine-beaten stone or gravel, sixteen feet wide and nine inches deep, with ditches on both sides.

The Turnpike Company could erect a gate in order to charge and receive tolls every five miles. The tolls would be the same as those established for the Franklin Turnpike Company: ten cents for every twenty head of sheep or hogs, twenty-five cents for every head of neat or horned cattle, three cents for every horse or mule not employed in drawing a carriage, twenty-five cents for every four-wheel carriage, twelve and one-half cents for every two-wheel riding carriage, twenty-five cents for every loaded wagon and twelve and one-half cents for every empty wagon, six and one-fourth cents for every man and horse, and six and one-fourth cents for every hogshead of tobacco. The tolls were to be applied to the finishing and the completing of the turnpike. (1997)