In many people's minds, frontier life was fee of many of the duties and obligations of modern times. But, no only was survival a matter of daily hard work, there were also certain civic duties and obligations which no longer exist. One of these responsibilities involved the county roads. Each county was divided by it's court into precincts or boundaries of road. A commission of viewers would be appointed to view and mark a section or boundary of road.

In 1831, John Creech, Abner Field and Bennett Ball viewed and marked the ground along which a proposed road was to run and reported that the road was to begin on the north side of the Poor Fork about a hundred yards above John Creech's. From there it was to cross the river and go up a branch called the Clover Gap branch to the fork, then up the fork ridge, through the Clover Gap to Bennett Ball's. They reported that this road across the mountain from Poor Fork to Clover Fork would "save the citizens 20 miles in traveling else crossing the mountain with no road."

The court would appoint a surveyor or overseer of each boundary of road who was then responsible for maintaining existing roads and for cutting out new roads in his precinct. The road across the mountain from Poor Fork to Clover Fork was approved by the court and John Creech was appointed overseer. He was allotted the hands from two existing boundaries of road, one on Poor Fork and one on Clover Fork, to "cut out the road and put the same in repair."

At the same term of court, March, 1831, Jacob Woolum was appointed overseer of the road from John Hendrickson's barn at the cane bottom field to the Clay County line with the hands living within said bounds and Jon C. Miller to keep the balance of said road to the Knox County line. This supply of `hands' was drawn from all males, black or white, who were over the age of 16 and not excused by reason of age (over 50) or infirmity, as when, in 1831, Martin Saylor and William Mark were both exempted from working on the roads "during inability." A substitute not living in the same precinct could be provided. Refusal or avoidance of the required work on the roads could result in arrest, fines and imprisonment.

There are many county court orders referring to the allotment of hands to each precinct as in 1831 when Joseph Bengey and Elijah Green were appointed to allot the hands between James Barnett's and Gabriel Jackson's on the Pucketts Creek Road and the hands on Catrons Creek from David Fee's precinct of road. The hands furnished their own tools and the surveyors or overseers were impowered to take from adjacent landowners whatever materials in the way of timber, earth and stone were necessary ad to likewise impress the use of oxen, horses, etc. The owners would be reimbursed by the court.

When a local property owner altered the road in any way, it then had to be approved by the court as in June of 1851 when the court accepted the change John Lewis had made in the road above the corner of his meadow and ordered it be kept in repair by the overseer of that precinct. Bridges were also the responsibility of the court and were let to the lowest bidder when the construction of a bridge was necessary, as in October 1831, when the following county court order was recorded:

"Whereas, it is represented to this county court that the citizens of this county hath subscribed something upwards of two hundred dollars for the purpose of building a bridge across Straight Creek at or near the mouth thereof. It is therefore ordered that Samuel G. Hogan, James B. Dorton and Samuel Woolum be appointed as commissioners to let out the building of said bridge after the following manner, to wit, with a butment on each bank of hewed oak timber filled with stone so as to leave a vacancy of not more than 50 feet between said butments and the vacancy to be overlaid with five sleepers hewed and made of oak puncheons 12 feet long and two and a half inches thick and a mud sill under each pen with two uprights in each sill squaring fifteen inches all to be done in a workmanlike manner."

Nowadays we just have to pay the taxes to support the county highway department instead of having to actually get out there and work on them ourselves.