CHAPTER VII.

                        THE NATIONAL ROAD.

    Emigration from the east to Indiana and the states farther west,
three-quarters of a century ago, was encouraged and facilitated by the
extension of the Cumberland, or National Road, into the heart of the
great Mississippi Valley. This thoroughfare was named “Cumberland
Road,” because of its having been projected from Cumberland, Maryland,
as its eastern terminus, and the “National Road,” for the equally pertinent
reason that it was founded and improved by the aid of the national or
general government. The advantages afforded emigration by this system
of roadway were—direct line of travel by the removal of obstacles and
bridging of the streams, and improved road-bed by grading and drainage.
In 1832 this road was surveyed through the north part of Clay county
by the way of Williamsburg, then the only town in the county north of
Bowling Green. In the spring of 1833 advertisements were placed in
Indianapolis and Terre Haute papers for the letting of contracts on the
work of construction, which was commenced at some time within that
year. The territory of this county was at that time but very sparsely
inhabited, the population then being less than five per cent of what it
now is. It is said by pioneers of that period yet surviving that John
Huffman, the original settler on the site of the town of Cloverland, who
located there in 1831, after having lived in Putnam county thirteen years,
was awarded the contract for removing the timber and clearing the right
of way, a width of eighty feet, but for what distance and in what
particular locality is not remembered.
This improvement afforded the very early settlers the opportunity
to earn and accumulate a little cash money, and quite a number took
advantage of it. The wages for shoveling dirt was 62 1/2 cents a day,
which was 12 1/2 cents on the day more than the standard price for labor
in private pursuits. The bonus of a bit, or shilling, was at that time
accepted as a big inducement. Among the Clay county pioneers who
wielded the shovel and otherwise plied their muscles and energies on the
construction of this national thoroughfare may be enumerated at this day,
James Yocum, John Crooks, Job Combs, Berryman James, Nathan
Williams, Jesse Yocum, John McBride, David Myers, Samuel Moore,
Moses Parr, Morgan B. Ringo, Jonathan Yocum, Isaiah S. Myers, Henry
Yocum, James Harlan, Esau Presnell, Preston Yocum, Henry Bemis,
David Moore, Absalom Slack, Levi Brackney, Thomas Moore,
Marmaduke Brackney, who, with but few exceptions, became land holders
and, in part, to say the least, owed their start in life and future success
to their earnings from this source. Of this number and all their fellow-

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