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Murfreesboro 28^th Sept^r 1819

May it please your Excellency

The undersigned contractors for
transporting the U S Mail from Knoxville to Sparta
beg leave respectfully to represent that they labor under
considerable disadvantages arising from the rough state
of that part of the road called the Turnpike, by which
numbers who would otherwise prefer traveling in the stage
are deterred therefrom and indeed were they to offer they could
not to be carried with safety as it is evident were the stages
to take in as many on that road as is usual on other roads
they must frequently break down and many failures of
the mail be thereby incurred

The Officers of the Gen^l Post office Dep^t
complain that the support of a line of stages from
Knoxville to Sparta not being productive of passage
money bears heavy on that office and have lately sent
an agent to examine the state of those roads and report
whether in his judgment stages can be run ^therein with certainty

That Agent has reported the roads in general much out of
repair and that the part of the road that is called the Turnpike