Before there were Highway Departments, roads were built by neighbors. Local residents were expected to provide free labor to build and repair roads in each Town. Huntington’s early town meetings included the designation of several men as overseers of the highways, who would coordinate needed road repairs. Residents could pay to be relieved of their obligation or be subject to a fine.
In New York, eligible males were assessed
a minimum of three days of roadwork under penalty of fine of one dollar. The labor requirement could be avoided if the worker paid a fee of 62.5 cents a day. As with public works of any kind, incentives were weak because the chain of activity could not be traced to a residual claimant – that is, private owners who claim the “residuals,” profit or loss. The laborers were brought together in a transitory, disconnected manner. Since overseers and laborers were commonly farmers, too often the crop schedule, rather than road deterioration, dictated the repairs schedule.*
In order to address this problem and to help provide better access to markets, in 1807, the State of New York passed “An Act Relative to Turnpike Companies,” which authorized private investors to lay out and construct roadways and to charge a toll for their use. By 1830, hundreds of turnpike companies were incorporated throughout New York State; although not all proposed turnpike roads were seen through to completion
In 1817, the legislature passed “An Act to incorporate the Huntington and Smithtown Turnpike company.” The new company was authorized to sell stock to finance the construction of a toll road to run from the head of the Nissequogue River west to the Jericho Turnpike, which had been authorized four years earlier and which terminated at the county line. The act authorized Silas Wood, Abel Ketcham, Charles H Havens, Jacob Harned, and Walter Jones “and all such others as shall associate with them to make a good and sufficient turnpike road.”
The road was to run “on or near the post road,” indicating that there was already a road covering at least part of this east-west route. Two toll gates were to be established, one with a mile of the house of Jeffrey A. Woodhull in Comac and the other within a mile of the end of the Jericho turnpike. The map below shows the location of the toll gate in Comac. The section of the map that includes the western end of the turnpike does not show a toll gate. Perhaps it was never built.
By June 1819, the road was being advertised as a convenient route to the trout fishing in central Suffolk county, noting it was seven miles shorter than the route from Brooklyn along the south shore.
1858 map showing the toll gate just west of Townline Road in Comac.
The toll depended on what was being driven as follows:
- For every score of sheep or hogs, 12½ cents
- For every score of cattle, horses or mules, 15 cents
- For every horse or mule and rider, or led horse or mule, 7 ½ cents
- For every chair, chaise, gig or sulkey, drawn by one horse 15 cents and for every additional horse 7½ cents
- For every coach, coachee, chariot, phaeton or curricle drawn by two horses 37½ cents and for every additional horse 7½ cents
- For every cart, stage, waggon (sic) or other four wheeled carriage, not before mentioned, drawn by two horses, mules or oxen 12½ cents and for every additional horse, mule or ox 6 cents
- For every cart, waggon, sleigh or sled drawn by one horse or mule, 7½ cents
- For every sleigh or sled drawn by two horses, mules or oxen, 9 cents, and for every additional horse, mule or ox, 4½ cents.
Frequent ravelers could buy a pass “for the privilege of using the road by the year, or for any less time.” Travelers to and from public worship were excused from paying the toll.
Turnpikes promised little in the way of direct dividends and profits, but they offered potentially large indirect benefits. Because turnpikes facilitated movement and trade, nearby merchants, farmers, land owners, and ordinary residents would benefit from a turnpike.*
No records of the Huntington and Smithtown Turnpike company have been located, so we do not know if that general rule applies.
Likewise, no information about early toll collectors has been found. In the 1840s, David Conklin was “the keeper of the toll gate” until he died suddenly in his sleep on September 26, 1844. By 1850, Samuel Brown was collecting the tolls. Brown also operated an inn known as the Comac House, similar to the Huntington House and Northport House hotels in those communities—only they didn’t have a toll gate attached. It is assumed that the hotel was located adjacent to the toll gate.
Tolls ceased to be collected when the turnpike company was abolished in 1856 and the road was declared a public highway. Later the road acquired the name of its companion turnpike to the west.
*Klein, Daniel and John Majewski. “Turnpikes and Toll Roads in Nineteenth-Century America”. EH.Net Encyclopedia, edited by Robert Whaples. February 10, 2008. URL http://eh.net/encyclopedia/turnpikes-and-toll-roads-in-nineteenth-century-america/
Huntington History 
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