User:DiltsGD/Sandbox1

Toll roads. Massachusetts and Connecticut developed turnpike (toll) systems for wagon roads in the early 1800s including part of the route from Boston to Springfield (Palmer to Warren "Massachusetts 1st Turnpike"). Likewise, most of the more direct Boston to Hartford route became a turnpike (Hartford and Dedham, Center, and Hartford Tolland, turnpikes). Most of these early pathways continue as roads today. Modern freeways usually parallel the older road systems.

Decline. However, the use of early roads and turnpikes for moving settlers waned with the introduction of railroads. Settlers could travel faster, less expensively, and safer on railroads than on wagon roads. So, as railroads entered an area, the wagon-road traffic in that area declined. The first railroads in Massachusetts and Connecticut were built in the late 1830s. A rail line from Providence, Rhode Island reached Hartford, Connecticut and New York City about 1847.