Assume the usual caveats, i.e., some folks did it one way and some folks 
did it another: Courts issued "road orders" upon the request or petition 
of the public.  The road order usually designated the span of the road 
(from A to B) and identified the Overseers, usually a committee of up to 
a half dozen or so.  The Overseers, by some authorities, were major 
tithables living in proximity or to benefit from the new road.  There 
job was to oversee construction and repair of that particular stretch of 
road.  The overseers received authority to conscript labor from militia 
aged men in the vicinity of the road to be constructed.  Men 16 to 60, 
by an English law of 1555 owed the King six days of work on the roads 
per year.  My impression is that Surveyors and Overseers were synonymous 
terms but I would be delighted to learn otherwise.  The law of 1555 
specified that the roads would be 10 ft wide and, judging by the many 
remnants to be seen in VA and the Carolinas, the militiamen seldom gave 
one inch more.  There was, apparently, considerable tension between the 
Labouring Tithables and the ruling elites, particularly in frontier 
zones where the former settled land that looked like prime road land 
only to have the primary road located on a poorer ridge or ford owing to 
the political pull of a Johnny-come-lately.  Herman Husband identified 
excess road labor and class stresses there associated with as causes for 
the War of the Regulation in NC.

tom

Sandy Sellers wrote:
> I think if I could get a few definitions, the "road orders" of various counties 
> would become a little more meanful.
>
> For instance, "View the way" was a task assigned to individuals in a county, 
> how they were selected is not mentioned.  "Male Labouring Titheables" I 
> assume are the workers assigned to create the roadbed?  "Overseers of the 
> roads" and "Surveyor of the road" were these men the closest in the area of 
> the road or were these positions actually sought after?
>
> As my ancestors were on the road order lists, any information or best guess 
> would be helpful.
>
>
>   

-- 
T.R. Magnuson
Trading Path Association
PO Box 643
Suite 203, 124 S. Churton St
Hillsborough, NC  27278
919-644-0600
www.tradingpath.org