I think anyone traveling those roads who were unknown to the area would fall under immediate suspicion and could well find themselves under the questions of a sheriff or justice of the peace. This would be true particularly during conditions of War.
People are often subject to an indeologically imposed delusion about the freedom of our forefathers who, in actuality, lived under the eye of their neighbors and were expected to live up to a moral code far more strict than ours. Thus, those things we take for granted such as freedom of opinion (say speaking against slavery in the South) or association (say, an adulterous relationship) often found the participant run out of town on a rail, fined or put in stocks. In some states refusal to serve on Slave Patrol provoked fines.
The degree of Social control as well as legal that our forefathers lived under was often very high and for many TOTAL. No tyranny we can even pretend to predict comes close to the tyranny of Slavery under which millions suffered and many more degraded.
I'll take being monitored by, and having to get to know, my neighbors, over having the Feddle Gummint try to protect me, *any day of the week*. I'd rather have to depend entirely on myself than to have to sign up with the Gummint like some sort of cow with a tag on my ear, if that's really the alternative.
Your point is well taken, though - this is to some extent another example of how the depersonalization of society has led to people relying on the Gummint to take care of them, where previously they could rely on their friends, family, and neighbors.
You've reminded me of something else, too... Massoud Ayoob made the interesting observation that in the event of a war or other catastrophe causing breakdown of the social order, those most likely to survive will be people who have previously formed "bonded groups" (his term) with their neighbors, for collective defense and survival.
I don't have a problem with local law enforcement stopping and talking to me, either. That's what the John Birch Society meant with their slogan, "Support Your LOCAL Police". The alternative - as you point out - is registering everyone like cattle and leaving their (wholly imaginary) "security" to Uncle Bug-Breath...