The Erie & Waterford Plank Road was commenced in 1850 and
completedin 1851, one year in advance of the similar improvement to
Edinboro. Col.
Irwin Camp was President of the company, John Marvin had the contract
for building the road; Wilson King was the chief engineer, and David
Wilson
was the first assistant. In laying out the road an entirely new route
was adopted, following the valleys of Mill Creek, Walnut Creek and
LeBoeuf Creek,
and obviating the heavy grades of the old turnpike. The road, for a
good part of its length, is nearly or seemingly level, and the only
grades of consequence
are at the summit hills between the streams, which are overcome by
comparatively easy approaches. So skillfully was the engineering and
grading
performed, that a horse can trot most of the length of the road. The
stranger traveling over this easy route would scarcely believe that at
the Walnut Creek
summit he was about 500 and at Graham's summit between 650 and 700 feet
above the level of Lake Erie. There were three toll gates on the
line— one
a short distance north of Waterford, another at Capt. J. C. Graham's,
in Summit, and the third near Eliot's mill, a mile or more outside of
the then city
limits. The road never paid a profit, and was abandoned to the
townships in 1868 or 1869. No towns or villages are located along the
line of the road, unless
the little settlement at the Erie County Mills might be classed as such.
The distance between Erie and Waterford is slightly more than by the
turnpike. About the same time that the above plank roads were built,
another was
pushed through from Waterford to Drake's Mills, Crawford County, to
prevent the diversion of travel that was feared from the opening of the
Erie & Edin
boro and Edinboro & Meadville roads. This enterprise was no more of
a financial success than the others, and, like them, was given up to
the townships.
from The History of Erie County,
pennsylvania (1884, in the public domain)