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HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.
 

CHAPTER  XLVIII.
 

EOADS.
 

Roman maxim.—Roads like the arteries and veins.—Our great highways.—Path from
the falls down.—No roads before Penn.—Penn's system of roads.—North-west
lines.—Road from Falls to Southampton and Philadelphia.—Ancestor of Bristol
turnpike.—Poquessing to Neshaminy.—Durham road,—Begun in 1693.—Ex¬
tended to Tohickon and Easton.—The York road starts at Willow Grove.—
Opened to the Delaware.—Easton road.—Opened to Point Pleasant.—The Street
and Bristol roads.—County line.—-Old and New Bethlehem roads.—River road.
—Middle road,—All lead to Philadelphia.—Post-roads.—Philadelphia and
Trenton railroad.—When opened.—North Pennsylvania railroad.—Early stage-
lines.
 

K
 

Those avIio settled the wilderness Avest of the Delaware both un¬
derstood, and practiced, the maxim of the Romans, "that the first
step in civilization is to make roads," for the opening of highways
Avas one of their first concerns. The roads of a countrv, in their
uses, are not unlike the arteries and veins of the human body, and a
properly arranged system of the former is as necessary to a prosper¬
ous condition of society as the latter to the hfe of man. Through
the one the blood courses to the common centre, giving health and
vigor to the system, Avhile along the roads the products of labor are
carried to the marts of commerce, which brings prosperity to the
state.

If the palm of the hand be laid upon the site of Philadelphia, and the
thumb and fingers extended, they Avill mark five of tbe great highways
of the county, namely : the Bristol turnpike, the Middle, or Oxford,