"When I was a boy, and for quite some time after that,  all work on Township roads was done by the farmers living on that road.  When the tax slip came around, besides the taxes in dollars and cents it had so many day's road work.  I suppose that would be for a man and a team [heavy horses] because about all that was done on them was team work ~ levelling or putting earth in low places with a scraper. 

Every once in a while, depending on the road boss who was one of the farmers, the big grader was brought on. I don't know who appointed him. That required one or two furrows to be plowed in the ditch and three teams were put on the grader and the road was graded.  Needless to say, for some time after that, it wasn't any more than fit to drive on but there were no cars and roads were all alike.  It wasn't noticed, only when a low spot was raised with scrapers and not levelled off was there fault found and some bosses were noted for that.  Needless to say, they weren't popular and their term was short.

Most road work was done after seeding and before haying.  That was always a big day for the kids.  They lived on the road that day while the men went back and forth on the road.

That system probably was the best for the time but times have changed and the Township got road machinery and lately steady-paid workers and the roads are kept up to a much higher standard than they were.  Change is always going on.  For the better?  Sometimes that might be debatable but we will have to give the ones that are responsible at the particular time of doing the best they think.  If it doesn't work that way, the next council will change it.  The country has been brought to the present state by the trial and error method and probably that is the best method to follow."

~ J. A. Turnbull (1890 - 1975)  East Seneca, Haldimand County.

Looking West Over the Unfinished Bridge

CAYUGA FINALLY HAS LINES