Baltimore and Reisterstown Turnpike

The Baltimore and Reisterstown Turnpike, officially The President, Managers and Company of the Reisterstown Turnpike Road, was a 19-mile (31 km) privately financed stone surfaced toll road chartered by the Maryland General Assembly on 17 January 1805. Construction began that spring, and the pike was opened to Reisterstown on 8 January 1810, becoming the first leg of a continuous turnpike corridor from Baltimore to the National Road at Cumberland, Maryland. The original alignment survives today as Maryland Route 140 within Baltimore and Baltimore County and as Maryland Route 30 north of Reisterstown. Remnants include a dressed stone “15 M to B” milepost and archaeological remains of the Reisterstown tollhouse, both listed in the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties.

History

The turnpikes of 1804-1805

Old signboard giving the rates of toll on animals and vehicles on Maryland turnpike.

Between 1787 and 1801, the Maryland General Assembly empowered the Baltimore County Levy Court to improve the Reisterstown Road and three companion routes with county taxes. Chapter XXIII of the 1787 session laws prescribed a 66 ft (20 m) right of way, a 40 ft stone-crowned carriageway, and authorized toll gates funded by a county property levy of US$0.19 per $100 plus optional convict labor. The first gate opened only in October 1793, and receipts never equaled outlays. Despite ten amendments, a 1801 surtax, and authority to borrow US$1,600, auditors still reported a US$21,000 deficit (recorded as £7,864) and a backlog of unpaid vouchers in October 1801. In 1802, fifteen years after the original act, it was ordered that the Reisterstown turnpike should be recorded as completed.

Charter and financing (1804–1805)

“An Act to Incorporate Companies to make Several Turnpike Roads through Baltimore County” (1804 sess.,ch. 51) created three turnpike corporations; the second—The President, Managers and Company of the Reisterstown Turnpike Road—was empowered to build from Baltimore through Reisterstown toward Hanover or Westminster and thence to the Pennsylvania line. The charter fixed capital at US$160,000, divided into 3,200 shares at US$50 each; directors could levy assessments up to US$1.25 per share per month. It also required:

• 66 ft (20 m) right of way made over and upon the beds of existing roads with,
• a 20 ft (6.1 m) stone or gravel roadway,
• the center line of the road was to be raised eighteen inches above the side ditches,
• a compacted broken stone crown to shed water,
• maximum gradient 4 percent (6 percent over the Catoctin and South mountains), and
• Continuous maintenance by the company.

Baltimore, Anne Arundel, and Frederick counties were to be reimbursed for the construction costs of their respective roads. After each ten-mile section passed state inspection, the governor licensed a toll gate. Statutory rates ranged from 12½ ¢ for a single horse and rider to 3¢ per mile for a four-horse coach; dividends were capped at 10 percent.

Construction (1805–1810)

Road construction using stone crushed by hand in Maryland

Survey work began in mid-1805 under superintendent David Shriver Jr., a mill owner and self-taught civil engineer from Union Mills.Except where straighter cuts reduced cost, the alignment followed existing county roads.

A January 1805 supplement (ch. 15) allowed construction to begin once two-thirds of the shares were subscribed and one-tenth of the capital had been paid. By 1807, the company reported ten miles finished at about US$10,000 per mile.The roadway used a 12 in (30 cm) compacted broken stone base, influenced by McAdam’s work.An 1818 executive report put total cost near US$638,000—about US$11,000 per mile. Dividend statements filed with Governor Charles Goldsborough show payouts rising from 3 percent in 1813 to 6 percent by 1817.

Decline and dissolution (1890s–1915)

Rail competition eroded toll traffic after 1873, and collection north of Owings Mills ceased in 1899. State Roads Commission ledgers show limited but continuous maintenance until Maryland purchased the right of way in 1915 and dissolved the corporation.

Transition to state control

The road became part of the state network; it was numbered US 140 in 1926 and redesignated MD 140 ⁄ MD 97 in 1977..

Route description

Mile 0 begins at North Howard & West Madison Streets, climbs to Druid Hill ridge (mile 1.5), crosses Gwynn’s Falls at mile 4.3, and follows today’s MD 140 past the Worthington milestone at mile 6.0. It reaches Cherry Hill (mile 13.8) and ends at Main St. Reisterstown (mile 18.9).

Legacy

Convict labor

See also: Penal labor in the United States

In 1788, Maryland passed legislation that created a new court in Baltimore County, the Court of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery. The penal statute of 1788 in Maryland authorized the erection of a new Court of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery in Baltimore County, according to the Maryland State Archives. This court was established to handle criminal cases within Baltimore County. The Court of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery had jurisdiction over all felonies, as well as other crimes, offenses, and misdemeanors, and over all matters arising within the city and precincts of Baltimore. The Court could sentence convicted men to up to seven years' hard labor, working on the public roads of Baltimore County or building, repairing, or cleaning the streets or basins of Baltimore. The law also authorized counties to use men at hard labor on the county roads; such laws were known as "wheelbarrow" laws. Later, the Turnpike Laws of 1805 added the option to use convict labor in their construction.

Persons convicted of vagrancy were ordered to work on the construction of these turnpikes in Baltimore, as well as the other counties with turnpikes. Convict labor provided most of the labor force to construct these turnpikes in Baltimore County. In 1809, convicts condemned to laboring on road construction could appeal their sentence to penal confinement. This system of contract labor continued until 1935, when "federal legislation outlawed the practice.." (Chapter 213, Acts of 1937).

National road

The Baltimore and Reisterstown Turnpike formed the eastern leg of a continuous private turnpike route connecting Baltimore to Cumberland. Although the federally funded National Road officially began at Cumberland in 1811, Maryland merchants and travelers used the Reisterstown and successor pikes (e.g., Westminster and Hagerstown turnpikes) to reach its eastern terminus.

This corridor became functionally complete by the early 1810s, long before Maryland formally accepted the National Road in 1833. Reisterstown served as a major rest and relay point on this route, linking southern Pennsylvania to Baltimore by stagecoach and freight wagon. The turnpike corridor was later incorporated into the U.S. numbered highway system as US 140 in 1926, and redesignated as Maryland Routes 30, 140, and 97 in 1977.