IMH 75:2 172

"Chronicles of Upper Burnet" (1)

1881

Sunday, February 13th.

It snowed in light squalls occasionally and was disagree­
ably cold. In fear of another convulsion of nature nobody got
very far from the house till about four o'clock when I went
down to Wat's gassed to Em and him till about 9 o'clock and
came home. I spent part of the day in writing a letter to
Grandmother. The road between here and Donald Bain's will
have to [be] worked before it will be safe to drive teams over it
as great holes are scooped out of it.

Teaching note: As mentioned in the teaching note for yesterday, February12, the
Township trustee was possibly partially responsible for the road maintenance. The
elected officials that were charged with that were the commissioners. In fact they
were often referred to as "Road Commissioners." Having been elected to
as a County commissioner ( in Morgan County), I can attest that much of the commissioner's
service still is centered around roads and bridges. One item that today's commissioners
cannot do that was done in the period of the journal was to allow citizens a credit on their
property taxes for service they gave in maintaining the road. In fact the county would in
some instances provide the equipment ( a horse drawn grader for example) for the use of
maintaining the road. Sadly, there is nothing similiar to that being practiced today.