Head Out On the (Colonial) Highway

From King Nutmeg:

Get your horse and cart runnin', head out on the Colonial Highway!

What's that you say? You have not a horse nor a cart? Well, then put on your best hobnail boots and walk alongside. We're going over the mountain! We'll gather nutmeg and pippins to accompany our potted meat and pepper cake. What a feast we shall have when we dost arrive in Hartford!

Hmm. Methinks this path has been overtaken by Satan! Or perhaps the glawackus has frightened away those who maintain the highway. Oh bugger!

Shall we gather our scramasaxes and carve a path? No, well what then?

What ho! Dost I spy an inn? There shall be much jollification this evening!

...Sorry, lost my mind there for a minute.

I stayed at the Avon Old Farms Hotel in Avon, Connecticut, recently. A friend told me about a sign for an old pathway behind the hotel. So I found it. What I couldn't find was any information about this "Colonial highway." I find it odd that a hotel would erect a sign for the sole purpose of driving history buffs like me absolutely crazy. But that's what these fine folks did.

Is this a remnant of a private turnpike, like many others built in Colonial New England to allow greater ease of movement throughout the territory? Perhaps. These turnpikes charged tolls to pass through, but the private companies that operated them weren't necessarily raking it in.

"The financial success of individual Connecticut turnpikes varied greatly, depending on the volume of traffic and the availability of nearby public roads that travelers could use to avoid a particular turnpike or toll gate," per the article linked above. "Only 20 of the 100 operating turnpikes in Connecticut during the 19th century showed profits ranging from 3-10% for 10 years or longer....Many individual turnpike corporations found themselves unable to maintain their routes as required by their charters due to low revenues, so their roadways were returned to public ownership and toll-free travel."

Anyway, it's a cool little bit of hidden history.

Here's the inspiration for the headline on this post: