The Fare Well

By the early 1770s the taxation on the American Colonists by the loathsome British Empire had become unbearable. In 1771 a consortium of colonial leaders came to the conclusion that the only way to bring an end to the taxation was to hit the British where it hurts - in the money pouch! After the failure of the Boston "Tea Party" to elicit any response from the British Oppressors, Ben Franklin and his cronies in Philadelphia hatched a new plan. It centered around the British and their monopoly on toll roads. In Colonial America, between New York, Boston and Philadelphia there was only one available route for a carriage to travel and along the way the British troops had stationed their relentless toll collectors, demanding every last farthings from the hapless patriots. In March of 1772 Benjamin Franklin and his "Franklin Construction Company" began a major construction project, constructing the "Franklin Highway" - an alternate route to travel all the way from Boston down the eastern coast to Savannah Georgia (bypassing every British toll station, of course). By 1773 the roadway was complete but the mounting maintenance costs demanded a financial solution. Being the brilliant thinker that he was, Ben Franklin built numerous wells along the road in between state borders, where the loyal patriotic traveler would deposit a fixed low fare. These "Fare-wells" as they came to be called came to be well known as a symbol of America's rebellion against the British Tyranny. In fact, the Revolutionary Army had a small image of the Fare Well embroidered on their flags and uniforms they proudly wore into battle.

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