As settlement spread there arose a demand for wagon roads, which the colonial governments ordinarily met by compelling each householder to expend a certain number of days' labor yearly on the public highways. Usually these highways were little more than widened bridle paths or Indian trails, impassable except under the most favorable circumstances. Later the frontier states provided for elaborate systems of wagon roads, many of which never got beyond the projection stage. Aside from a few roads which connected the more important settlements, early state enterprise seems to have done little for the construction of permanent wagon roads. The farthest advances in this direction were made by state-incorporated turnpike companies. These companies had a direct interest in encouraging travel over the wagon roads which they controlled. Consequently, they constructed them with considerable care, often laying down stone, logs, or sawed timbers, and kept them in good repair. In return for the expenses thus incurred, the companies were authorized to charge tolls. Wagon roads, it was soon seen, were too intimately bound up with the welfare of society to permit private individuals or corporations to fix charges and lay down regulations for their use. Consequently, the turnpike companies were compelled one* after another to relinquish their control over highways.