Ohio History Journal

AUTO TRIP OVER THE OLD NATIONAL ROAD.

 

 

ALBERT DOUGLAS,

Member Congress, Trustee Ohio State Archaeological and Historical

Society.

When the extra session of the 61st Congress adjourned on

the 5th of August, we had bought our railroad tickets, reserved

berths in the sleeping car and expected to proceed home to Chilli-

cothe by the conventional railroad train; but when I suggested

to my wife that instead of shipping our motor car we should

ride home in it over the old National Road she readily agreed.

So the next day at noon, with our driver at the wheel and

our light luggage by his side, we started from our Washington

abode and took the Seventh street pike right north out of the

city for Olney and Ridgeville, Md., where we were to strike

the old road.

The old National Pike! To one who knows its history the

name is full of romance and woven intimately into the history

of the country; especially this middle western country of which

it was the principal commercial outlet for more than thirty

years. It had its legal history and its constitutional history as

well. Jefferson, Madison and Monroe of the old Virginia school

of strict constructionists opposed many acts of Congress relating

to the road. As it was the first great national highway over

the Appalachians so it was indeed the first highway over the

unexplored constitutional mountains in its pathway. Said one

of these Presidents in a veto message to Congress - "A power

to establish turnpikes with gates and tolls, and to enforce the

collection of tolls by penalties, implies a power to adopt and

execute a complete system of internal improvements." But the

power "to establish post offices and post roads" with the powers

necessarily incident thereto was invoked then, as some of us are

trying to invoke it now to secure help from the National Treasury

for our roads over which pass the free rural mail routes, and the

people had their way and their highway.

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Auto Trip Over Old National Road.         505

 

"The Cumberland Road" as it was usually and legally desig-

nated, from Cumberland over the ridges of the Alleghanies to the

"Big Crossings" of the Youghiogheny, then over the intervening

hills and Laurel Mountain, by Uniontown to "Old Red Stone

Fort" at the head of navigation on the Monongahela, now

Brownsville, and on across the Panhandle of Virginia to the

Ohio River near Wheeling, was opened for traffic in the year

1818. It continued to flourish, with its hosts of stage-drivers,

wagoners, blacksmiths and hostlers, its six horse teams, Conestoga

wagons, Concord coaches and private carriages, its numerous

taverns and landlords, its stone paved way, its stone culverts,

arches and bridges, its curious triangular stone mile-posts and

oddly constructed toll houses, its manners and customs, its usages

and traditions and all of its busy traffic, until in the early fifties

came the railroads. Over it went Andrew Jackson to be inaugu-

rated President of the Republic, the first "Westerner" to achieve

that honor; and snowbound at Tomlinson's tavern, high up among

the mountains he is said to have passed the time playing "old

sledge" with his retinue. President Monroe made a triumphal

progress over the road as far as Uniontown. Henry Clay, the

road's best friend in Congress, travelled it habitually to and

from his Kentucky home; as did also Polk, Harrison, Benton,

Cass, Allen, Crittenden and all of the public men of their gen-

eration living west of the mountains.

It should be borne in mind that, while the National Road

so-called, extended from Baltimore to the Mississippi, it was

only that portion of it from Cumberland to Wheeling that was

originally constructed directly by the federal government, out

of appropriations made between March 1806 and March 1810,

amounting to about a million and a half dollars. Between Cum-

berland and the City of Baltimore the road was built principally

by private capital, and it is older than the Cumberland road

proper. West of the Ohio the road was built largely from the

proceeds of public lands in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri,

reserved by Congress for this purpose when these states were

admitted into the Union.

A couple of hours brought us to Ridgeville and then, after

a good dinner at "The Eagle" a road-house well known to local

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tourists, we started over the famous old Pike towards the setting

sun. "Betsy," as we familiarly call our little Ford machine,

was in good humor, and though the road was hilly and somewhat

rough we reached Frederick, fourteen miles away, before four

o'clock. Barbara Fritchie's house no longer "stands in Frederick-

town," as it had to be pulled down to make way for a viaduct

over a stream where this crosses the principal street; but what-

ever of historical accuracy there may be in the incident, Whittier

has certainly forever linked her name with that of this prosper-

ous Maryland town. It was in Frederick, too, that Francis Scott

Key. the author of our Star Spangled Banner, was born.

The road from Frederick to Hagerstown, crossing the Catoc-

tin and South mountains, was familiar to us as we had passed

over it on former visits to the battlefields of Antietam and Get-

tysburg; but the road itself is good, the country through which

it passes beautiful as well as full of historic interest, and the

afternoon ride was most enjoyable. We had expected to spend

the night at Hagerstown at a good hotel we knew there, but

when we reached the city about six o'clock and made some in-

quiries we determined to push on. It is this independence and

the feeling that you are not imposing upon a good horse as well

as the lust for "pushing on" that are elements in the pleasure of

travelling by automobile.

From Hagerstown to Cold Springs the road is made of

blue limestone, crushed and machine-rolled, so that it is about

as smooth and hard as concrete. The evening ride with the

great ridges of the Alleghanies before us looming up in the light

of the sinking sun was most enjoyable; so that when a half hour's

ride brought us to the pretty village of Cold Spring we decided to

go on to Hancock. It was after leaving Cold Spring that our

real mountain ride began, for we had to climb several long ridges

on the "low speed," and it was after eight o'clock when we

reached Hancock, the speedometer registering 103.5 miles.

The less said about the Maryland-Inn at Hancock, the bet-

ter and we were not sorry to leave betimes in the morning.

"Betsey" had received a satisfactory breakfast of oil and gasoline

and seemed glad to be off. A motor car comes with familiar

use to have a sort of personal character and it seems in no-wise

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Auto Trip Over Old National Road.         507

 

out of place to speak of her "humor," as one would of any human

thing. Her temper was sorely tried however before she reached

the friendly shelter of the garage at Cumberland shortly before

noon, for she had a rough road to travel, and up and down five

great ridges of that system of mountains we call Appalachian.

Sideling Mountain, one of the longest and one of the roughest of

the whole trip, besides Green Ridge, Town Mountain, Polish

and Flintstone. It would indeed be interesting to know how

and where in the pioneer days of old these great ridges obtained

their queer names. Some suggest their origin but others do

not, and they probably owe their names differing as they do at

different points in their latitude to some early incident or settler.

The machine growled up the long rocky ridges on the "low

gear," and sometimes, as we were in no haste to catch a train

or "make" any particular point by a fixed hour, she would stop

a bit, not to rest but to let the boiling water in her tank cool a

little. Then the wife and I would get down and walk on ahead,

picking the blackberries ripening on every hand, gathering flow-

ers or drinking from some of the many roadside springs, walled

and protected so well by the wagoners in other days that they

still furnish cool and attractive places to rest and drink.

High up on the side of Polish Mountain, as we strolled along,

I found in the road a dead sora-rail, a bird essentially of the

marshes and seashore. It had probably, in its migration the night

before, flown against the wires which lined the road, and its soft

olive-brown plumage with its pretty markings was hardly ruf-

fled; a somewhat sad commentary on Bryant's:

 

"He who from zone to zone

Guides through the boundless air thy certain flight."

 

The telephone companies have taken advantage of the direct

and convenient route of the National Road to erect their lines,

and for the whole way through Maryland, Virginia and West

Virginia to Wheeling, three systems of poles and wires follow

the pike.

At "Fort" Cumberland we were met by a hospitable friend

and after a pleasant visit of two hours including luncheon, he

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accompanied us on our way as far as Frostburg, returning by the

trolley line. Frostburg, once only a village on the old pike

where the stage coaches changed horses and where was located

the famous old tavern known as "Highland Hall," is now a

prosperous and growing center of a great and populous coal

field. In its principal street there still stand, some ten feet

high, two of the old square iron posts to which were hung the

iron toll gates of the olden time; and many of the queer tower

like toll houses of brick or stone are still seen along the road,

some occupied and some in ruin. At Frostburg our crossing of

the Alleghanies really began only to end at Somerfield at the

"Big Crossings," the name given by the wagoners and stagemen

to the three sturdy stone arches which form the bridge over the

Youghiogheny, and which, completed as its tablet testifies on

July ₄th, 1818, still stands seemingly as secure as ever.

The intervening ridges of the mountains bear the following

quaint names: Big Savage, Little Savage, Red Hill or the

Shades-of-Death, Little Meadow, Negro Mountain, Keyser

Ridge, and Winding Ridge. Just out of Frostburg we passed

one of the finest of the many beautiful springs along the road.

The many old taverns or road houses were usually located near

a spring and a big log or stone trough brimming with the

crystal water was an excuse for the wagoner to stop his team for

a drink, and the whiskey within sold at "two for a fip."

We found the road up Big Savage, a grade of about 1,800

feet in two miles, one of the worst on the whole trip, and a

disgrace to whomsoever may be responsible for its condition.

For this there might be some excuse if it were comparatively

unused, but on the contrary we found it on that Saturday after-

noon thronged with teams. The stones out of which the old road

was constructed, lay loosened amid the sand and dust, and

through them "Betsy" had to fairly plow her way. The sun

was hot too and that half hour was the only one approaching

discomfort on our long ride. But when we came to the summit,

and caught the glorious view to the West and Southwest, of

meadows, fields, woods, and piled up mountains, our discomfort

vanished and there followed a long afternoon of unalloyed pleas-

ure; up hill and down, through the forests and mountain farms,

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Auto Trip Over Old National Road.        509

 

meadows and pastures, through fields of blooming buckwheat,

the prettiest crop the farmer grows, over mountain brooks and

streams suggestive of trout, stopping for a glass of fresh butter-

milk at an attractive old stone tavern, now a farm house, where

a bonnie lassie, from far off Sweden as she told us, was taking

the golden butter from her churn; until at five o'clock we reached

"The vera tapmost tow'ring height" of Keyser Ridge, the highest

point on the old National Road, 2,900 feet above the sea and

2,400 above the Potomac at Cumberland. The air was cool and

invigorating and the view both West and East superb.

The road down the West slope of Keyser mountain to the

Eastern slope of Winding Ridge was very good and in a few

moments we reached the spot, about three miles from the top,

where the state line between Maryland and Pennsylvania crosses

the Pike. The road here runs in a Northwesterly direction and

so is crossed diagonally by this historic line. Surveyed by Ma-

son and Dixon long before the American revolution, it became in

popular parlance the dividing line between freedom and slavery,

and the surname of Jeremiah Dixon has been conferred by song

and story upon the whole south-land: "the land of Dixie." On

the Northeastern side of the road the line is marked by an old

post much defaced by the rust of many decades, and on the

Southwest side by a new square block of limestone. The iron

post gives the distance to Wheeling as 96 3/4 miles, and to Cum-

berland as 34¼ miles, making the total length of the famous

Cumberland Road 131 miles.

Passing the crest of the Winding Ridge we began the

long slope down towards the "crossings" of the Youghiogheny.

Part of the road here had been newly repaired with crushed

and rolled limestone, and we flew over it towards the fast setting

sun through pretty, well kept villages filled with summer board-

ers, past beautiful homes with close clipped lawns, beautiful gar-

dens and handsome buildings and through well cared for meadows

and farm lands, until we crossed the river on its historic bridge at

Somerfield, called "Smithfield" on the mile-posts. The place

looked very attractive and it was the ending of a long day, but

we had been told of a pleasant hotel on "Chalk Hill" some miles

westward and so we did not stop; but took Beaver Hill on the

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high gear, then coasting down it and running up the next ridge,

we crossed Mount Washington, near which point Washington

built Fort Necessity and had his very first experience of actual

war. This part of the road coincided substantially with the old

"Braddock Road," the route of that General to his memorable

defeat near Fort Duquesne; and the brave old Scotsman, mortally

wounded, was carried back this far by the retreating survivors

of his little army. Here he died and was buried near this road,

in a spot which has recently been identified.

Shortly after sundown we drew up with sounding horn in

front of the attractive looking hotel on Chalk Hill, only to find

every room taken and nothing to do but to push on to Union-

town some ten miles further. However our lamps were soon

lighted, the road was good, the evening fine and by eight

o'clock we had passed the Summit House on Laurel Ridge, a

favorite resort for the people of Uniontown, down the long

four mile grade, past the romantic glen called "Turkey's Nest,"

and past gleaming rows of coke-ovens on the opposite hillsides,

into the city of Uniontown and into the very excellent hotel kept

by a Mr. Tetlow and bearing his name. We did full justice

to the good supper served us and to the excellent "room with a

bath, please" to which we were shown.

We woke to another fine morning, and at nine o'clock bowled

out, through the "West End" of Uniontown, with the top of the

machine down and the sun once more behind us. Our way this

day lay through Brownsville and Washington to Wheeling, and

then over the river once more into that part of the "Northwest

Territory" allotted by Congress in 1802 to "Ohio."

The country was rolling and beautiful, but we missed the

hills and woods and looked back with regret to the misty moun-

tain tops. Brownsville at the head of navigation on the Monon-

gahela was an important place in the palmy days of the old pike.

A great part of the West-bound traffic, both freight and passen-

ger, left the road here to embark on the river boats for Pitts-

burgh and the West, and another good part left it at Wheeling

for the boats on the Ohio. The old covered wooden toll bridge

over the river at Brownsville, built on stone piers and supported

by great arches of hewn oak, is rather archaic, and the same

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Auto Trip Over Old National Road.          511

 

may be said of the condition of its streets, but much may be for-

given the town that gave James G. Blaine to his country.

At Washington we visited the buildings and campus of the

Washington and Jefferson college, gave "Betsy" a drink of gaso-

line and telephoned ahead to Claysville for luncheon to be ready

in an hour. But that lunch had to wait, for by some unaccount-

able mischance we took the wrong turning somewhere between

Washington and Claysville and spent an extra hour finding our

way across the country. After all the luncheon was not very

good anyhow even if the town was named for "Harry of the

West."

Two miles west of Claysville the road ascends one of its

longest and steepest hills to West Alexander and from this vil-

lage to Wheeling the road is fine with a steady descent of about

twelve miles. As we passed through the suburban part of

Wheeling we were impressed by the many handsome and attrac-

tive residences, indicative not only of the wealth but of the

taste of their builders. Then we climbed a long. rough hill and

came down into the business streets of this old and prosperous

city; from which Ebenezer Zane blazed his famous "Trace," to

Limestone (Maysville) Kentucky, and "at the crossings of

each navigable stream" acquired a large tract of land under his

contract, thus fixing the locations of the towns of Zanesville,

Lancaster and Chillicothe at the crossings respectively of the

Muskingum, Hocking and Scioto Rivers.

As it was just five P. M. when we reached the top of the

Alleghanies, so by chance it was exactly twenty-four hours later

that we rolled upon the great suspension bridge at Wheeling, paid

our two tolls and crossed over Jordan into the promised land.

Motoring on, we passed through the beautiful county seat

of Belmont County, concerning which town Jake Pugsley of

Hillsboro, in the days of her bitter contest with Bellaire, and

using a St. Clairsville weekly for his text, made one of the

funniest speeches ever heard in the Ohio Legislature, and quite

worthy to rank with Proctor Knott's "zenith city of the unsalted

seas."

We passed the night in a little roadside inn at Hendrys-

burg, near the borders 'of Guernsey and Belmont, made our

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third and last morning's start at seven o'clock, passed Cambridge

at nine, and into Zanesville before eleven. After rest and refresh-

ment we left Zanesville and the National Road at one o'clock

and travelling over the route of the old "Zanesville and Mays-

ville Turnpike" through Somerset, Rushville, and Lancaster,

arrived at Chillicothe at six, without a single serious mishap or

detention, and after a most enjoyable and informing journey.

The National Road today as a way of travel may be de-

scribed by the old phrase, "good, bad and indifferent." In spots

it is excellent, and in spots it is execrable. But its most serious

defect and discomfort for motoring are the bumps, breakers or

"thank-you-marms" on every hill, no matter what the grade.

Modern road-making of course knows them not; and in the old

specifications of the government engineering department for re-

pairing the road as far back as 1832, I find this language: "At

proper intervals on the slopes of hills, drains or catch-waters

(they seem to have had the same trouble then as now in giving

the things a name) must be made across the road *  * *  *

These catch-waters must be made with a gradual curvature so

as to give no jolts to the wheels of carriages passing over them."

But the "gradual curvature" is omitted now-a-days and the

jolts are there. As the years pass and "horseless carriages"

become as common as horses, and pleasant travel by private con-

veyances increases, we may expect to see the roads repaired by

modern methods and "catch-waters" will no more vex and delay

the traveller.

With all these changing conditions who can say what the

future history of this famous old National Pike may be? Our

children may see its glories revive, its way repaved with modern

metal, its broken and defaced old mile-posts repaired or replaced,

its toll houses rebuilt or re-occupied, its iron gates once more

threatening the "joy-rider," its sides lined with colossal adver-

tising signs, "darkening the view," and its old taverns renovated

rebuilt, re-established, -but with "soft drinks" perhaps sub-

stituted for the "fifteen-cent-a-gallon" of other days. Who can

tell! But in any event to fond students of the past, to men

who love to revive in imagination the days of the pioneers and

to dwell in thought among the days that are no more, the romance

of this old pathway of the nation will live forever.

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