Turnpike

TURNPIKE, a pike or pointed bar or stake which turns or revolves, hence the name given to a form of barrier consisting of three or more horizontal bars, with one end sharpened, revolving on a pivot. Such barriers were used across roads, and, when tolls were exacted from passengers along highways to raise the money for the upkeep of the roads, the name, though not the form, was given both to the toll-gates set up at different places where the tolls were collected, and to the highways repaired under the system (see H…

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OCR text aligned to scanned pages

Pages

Vol. 27, pp. 480-480