If I wanted to ride my horse from Boston to Philly in 1776 how would I know how to get there? I assume they had some kind of maps. Did the dirt roads/trails have signs to point the way? I assume there was 1 main road that connected the major cities back then so maybe it wasn’t that hard to follow.
(I know back then people could also take a ship from Boston to Philly which was an easier method)
You’d have maps like this
There were also major routes. I know the Boston Post Road ran from Boston to NYC, and there were certainly similar roads from there to Philadelphia. These were the main coach routes and there would usually be guideposts along the way (“50 mi. to Stanford”). Routes would be well traveled, not just with long routes, but from one town to the next, and a road of the time would be pretty obvious.
There would also be plenty of inns along the way that could give directions.
I believe US Highway 1 (aka “Route 1”) is composed largely of the main roads that connected major East Coast cities. There is (or was) an exhibit at the US Postal Museum in Washington, DC that asserted that Route 1 between Boston and NYC originated as a British Royal Mail route known as the “King’s Highway” in the colonial days. This is probably the same road as the “Boston Post Road”.
I originally saw this at FlowingData but http://www.mnn.com/green-tech/transportation/stories/how-fast-could-you-travel-across-the-us-in-the-1800s at Mother Nature Network has it as well.
Travel times change dramatically even between the 1800s and 1830s.
The opening of “John Adams” by David McCullough traces one of Adams’s trips from Boston to Philadelphia in late fall, early winter, and gives a good feel for what such travel was like.
mostly on the 1830 side of it. The Erie Canal opened in 1825 and that provided access from the East Coast to Lake Erie and the river systems associated with it. That venture spawned a series of canals that followed shortly thereafter.
Caesar Rodney famously rode on horseback overnight from Delaware to Philadelphia to cast the tiebreaking vote on ratifying the Declaration of Independence. That’s 70 miles in about half a day, probably as fast as it got back then.
Even in the 1800’s, travel by covered wagon across the U.S.A. would take months, if not longer. (Ever play Oregon Trail?)
As others have noted, the Boston Post Road is about 100 years older than our country and connected Boston with New York.
US Route 1 is one branch of the Post Road, while others ran through Hartford. Near the University of Connecticut you will find roads named Old Post Road.
I suspect there may have been signs to guide you, and I know there were occasional inns where one could ask directions.
Like others, I assume there were similar roads from New York to Philidelphia, but have no personal experience thereof.
A fifty mile trip for the average Joe would have been a pretty big deal. Wouldn’t it? As others have said there would be inns and small trading posts along the way that could give directions.
And I would think some commerce. People that regularly travel between different towns to trade. They would know the way.
Hah. The first WWW.
IIRC, the King’s Highway was laid out from Boston to Charleston. This road ran to Philly along the way.
Boston, NYC, Trenton (NJ), Philly, Baltimore, Norfolk and Charleston were all on the route along with another dozen towns I cannot recall.
There was also a road from NYC to Albany. Another that ran down the Jersey Shore into Middletown at least.
ETA: Somewhere in my book collection is an old book about these much older roads. I’ll try to find it in the next few days if this thread stays active.
How safe from crime would these inter-city roads have been back then? I assume that there would have been no regular law-enforcement presence, and the wealthy would have traveled with protection, but was there enough traffic to make it worth the while for brigands, cutpurses, and footpads to hang around?
Thank you. I love maps, and I did not have this one.
Curiously, Manhattan isn’t actually delineated.
Am I missing something?
Several comments -
The linked map does not appear to have roads on it either.
I assume travel in those days was like packets travelling the internet today. To get there, know what the next leg is, then look from there. “You want to go to Philly? That’s via New York, to get there, go either via Hatford or New Haven, and they’ll know the road from there…” the route to the next big town was probably fairly well known, well marked, well travelled,and all the along the way innkeepers could direct you.
The problem with any travel in those days was the effort. Your average Joe probably needed to work every day just to feed himself. Taking a week or two (each way) and buying food for himself and a horse all the way required some serious assets. They didn’t have American Express… maybe you could arrange for money to be waiting at a bank, friend, or business associate at the destination - things were a bit more organized than the middle ages - but along the way it was cash, which made you the traveller a prime target. This is why the Canterbury Tales travellers travelled in packs along the main road, you were less likely to be picked on as a large group, unless the highwaymen also were a large band of merry men.
This really isn’t accurate, as I mentioned the King’s Highway actually ran from Boston to Philly on its long journey south. So following it would be easy enough. There were plenty of Inns, carriage stops and taverns along the way. A small purse of coins could get you pretty far and the room and board on the way was not terribly expensive. Many men of even slight means made these trips as needed.
Even farmers have some pretty serious downtime call winter and I know I read of how the Hudson River would become a high speed highway to NYC in the winters and it would freeze over and farmers would break out there ice boats would would allow swift travel to and from the City. Ice boats could go upriver swifter then anything in those times. Probably downriver too as I know the speed record for humans was held by ice boats into the 1900s.
Back to Colonial times, the town I grew up in already had a carriage stop for travelers to and from New York City or you could take it to somewhere like New Brunswick I believe to also go to Trenton and then on to Philly. Travel existed, trade happened and many people did travel to visit family or more likely on business.
How you know you’re getting directions in Boston. 
Paul Revere put in some serious mileage as a courier for the Sons of Liberty between Boston, Philadelphia and New York City before the Revolution broke out. See Robert Lawson’s Mr. Revere and I (a kids’ book, but well-researched and worth a read for anyone) for a good description of the rigors of horseback travel back then. The main roads between cities were well-known and well-marked; anything else and you might have to ask the locals. No mention of highwaymen or footpads that I recall.
Who built the roads? I assume it was not government. Or maybe they were really just trails that got made better by all the travel.
The King ordered it built and it was built. Wiki shows the path of the King’s Highway.
Later Kings also had officials send out surveyors throughout the land. One of them was a young George Washington who along his travels surveyed and marked Natural Bridge, once a renown natural wonder of America.
After the Civil War ended, Clara Barton’s Red Cross turned its attention to ameliorating issues in her home region of New England, starting with an 1870 shipment of five tons of the letter R to linguistically challenged regions in the Boston metro area.