Originally GCGS Journal #159. Road records are a frequently neglected source of information about the early inhabitants of any county. In the nineteenth century and before, a county’s able-bodied male citizens over 16 and under 45 years of age were responsible for maintaining its transportation infrastructure. Any young man living within a few miles of a given road could be required to perform a certain amount of labor for its maintenance. Guilford County’s road dockets, covering the 1820s through the 1860s, show just which young men were assigned to work on particular roads at particular times. These names often do not appear in other records, particularly when men died young or moved away without acquiring significant property. A man’s relationships with others of his surname may be revealed because they worked on the same road in spite of a lack of probate or other property-related indicators. Many older landmarks are noted along these stretches of road.  110 pages.

 

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