History of Western Maryland. J. Thomas Scharf
he found Jackson going down stream, and waving his hat to a crowd from the stern of the boat. Steinrode was very much crestfallen, and I had to laugh at him until my sides ached.' An echo of the mirth convulsed the old gentleman now, and when he recovered he spoke of Clay, who was 'courteous, but not familiar.' One time Clay was coming East on the mail-coach, which was upset upon a pile of limestone in the streets of Uniontown. After the accident he relighted his cigar, looked after the other passengers, and said, " This, gentlemen, is undoubtedly mixing the clay of Kentucky with the limestone of Pennsylvania." Mr. Clay was a very witty man, and very clever, too. He bowed to every one along the road who bowed to him.' Another survivor of the old 'pike' is Samuel Nimmy, a patriarchal African, who played tambourine fur Gen. Jackson and drove on the road for many years. He is an odd mixture of shrewdness, intelligence, and egotism. His recollections are vivid and detailed in point of names and dates, although he is eighty-six years old, and he describes his experiences in a grandiose manner that is occasionally made delicious by solecisms or sudden lapses info negro colloquialisms. He lives in a comfortable cottage at Hagerstown; the walls of his parlor are hung with certificates of membership in various societies, and with various patriotic chromos; the center-table is loaded with books, principally on negro emancipation and the events of the civil war.
"West of Cumberland the road was bordered by an extraordinary growth of pines, the branches of which were so intermeshed that they admitted very little daylight, and from its prevailing darkness the grove was called the ' Shades of Death.'
Uncle Sam Nimmy and others declare that on the most effulgent day not a ray ever penetrated it, and that it was absolutely black, which is a piece of picturesque exaggeration. It was very dark, however, according to the statements of more exact observers, including Mr. B. F. Reinhart, the well-known painter, and it afforded a favorable opportunity for highwaymen. ' I had a very keen team, sir', said Uncle Sam; 'a very keen team indeed, and nobody knows more about a horse than I do. I drove that team, sir, nine months without the least sickness to the horses, and I flatter myself that we had some rough service. Well, sir, one day I was driving through the Shades of Death with a few passengers. It was darker than usual; it was Cimmerian— Cimmerian, sir; and one said to me, '' Don't you hear the sound of horses walking?" I listened. I did hear the sound of walking, and seemed to see — although it was so dark — several figures in the woods. Someone then opened the pistol-case and examined the weapons. The flint had been removed from each pistol, and about that time, sir, my hair began to get curly. The passengers did not like the way affairs were looking, and I thought that if big men were scared there was no reason why a little one shouldn't be scared too. I admit, sir, I was scared, and I just assure you, gentlemen, that I made every horse tell until we came to a tavern. But I wasn't naturally timid: I was puzzled as to how the flints came out of those pistols, and we never could unravel the mystery. I've had a varied life, sir, and always took an interest in general travel to see if anyone was bigger than I was, sir. I started a company of volunteers in the war, and then started a lodge, and bought up all the blue cambric there was in town for sashes. We had a parade, and Hagerstown never seen the like since she became a tavern. Next I started the Sons of Freedom, and came in contact with the law, because it was supposed we had an underground railroad on hand. I was vindicated, of course, and was as big as a dog at hog-killing. I was born on the 29th of August, 1793, and I am just as bright as ever I was. I've been frozen on the box, but I never allowed anybody to compose upon me.'
" Beyond Hagerstown the road is level and uninteresting, save for the capacious taverns, mostly in disuse, the stables, and smithies which time has left standing. Some of the old forges are exceedingly picturesque, notably one near Fairview.
" Three brothers named Boyd, all of them veterans in the stage-line, formerly resided at Clear Spring, but they are all now dead. In a yard at Clear Spring we found the last of the coaches, a massive vehicle in faded grandeur, with paneled landscapes and a superabundance of gilt ornamentation, with springs so flexible that the pressure of as light a foot as you please sways it, and with a commodious interior upholstered in crimson damask, out of which all the brilliancy has been extracted by time. If the road between Hagerstown and Clear Spring is unattractive, between Clear Spring and Hancock it approaches in beauty the grandest passes of the Sierras. There is a salient resemblance between the scenery of the Alleghanies and that of the Sierras. The two ranges have the same dusky and balsamic profusion of evergreens, the same deep and ever-silent glens imprisoned by almost sheer walls of pine, the same continuity and multiplicity of ridges, and in many other superficial points the similarity is sustained. The difference in altitude is not observable without instruments, and the affinity continues to the end with two exceptions. Above the evergreen ridges of the Sierras an occasional and perpetually snow-clad peak lifts a glistening apex to the azure: that is one difference; and while the majesty of the Western mountains is harrowing, the beauties of the Alleghanies are invariably soothing and comprehensible. The road begins the ascent of the mountain at Clear Spring, and is overarched with oaks, chestnuts, and sugar-maples. As the grade increases the pines multiply, and near the summit the hardy evergreens are almost alone. The view expands, and throughout the tangled shrubs and loftier foliage, between which the road is cut, glimpses are revealed of pale-green valleys and mountain walls, singular even along their crests. At the summit of Sideling Hill there is an immense prospect of ridges beyond ridges visible along their whole length, which look like the vast waves of a petrified ocean. The basin disclosed is of extraordinary extent, and the mountains are crowded together with little more than gorges between, in which lie depths of blue and purple haze.
"The turmoil of traffic here, the beat of hoofs, the rumble of wheels, the tintinnabulations of the teamsters' bells, the bellowing of cattle, the bleating of sheep, and the cries of the drovers, once so familiar, would now sound strangely inappropriate; but even in the travelers of long ago a thrill of novelty must have been excited by the stream of commerce flowing through these mountain confines.
" From the crest we drove down the farther slope, which has a break-neck grade, through avenues of pines and over rushing little brooklets, spending their crystal force across the road. We passed Indian Spring, the site of a noted tavern, and many primitive log cabins, which shelter the few agriculturists of the region, and in about an hour we came into a long, narrow valley, with the Chesapeake Canal embanked between the road and the flashing Potomac, on the farther side of which we could see the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad traced in the mountain-side, with the oblique dip of the rock and the ferruginous color of the earth revealed. There was an old toll-house by Che road, and not far beyond a swift curve is made around an embankment, which extends far below, and here, at Millstone Point, one of the many fatal accidents of the old times occurred. Either when the driver was intoxicated or asleep, he drove his coach down the embankment, and several persons were killed. Overfast and reckless driving often led to disasters, the liability to which was compensated for in the minds of many passengers by the speed and exhilaration of the journey. At Millstone Point, also, a committee from Hancock once came out to meet Gen. Jackson. Some excavations were being made in the neighborhood, and several blasts were fired in honor of the occasion as ' Old Hickory' approached. 'Didn't the detonations alarm your horse, general?' inquired a solicitous committeeman. 'No, sir,' said Jackson, emphatically; 'my horse and I have heard a similar sort of music before.'
" Hancock, which was one of the busiest villages on the road, is now lugubriously apathetic, and the citizens sit before their doors with their interest buried in the past. The main street is silent, and the stables are vacant. No one who ever traveled over the road can fail to remember the many excellences of Ben Bean's [tavern], which stood midway on the main street. The old house is still standing, in much the same condition that it was, — with a long white front shaded with chestnuts and locusts, with a trough of water rippling before the door, with a breezy and commodious porch, and with low-ceilinged apartments, cleanly sanded. But Ben Bean has long been gathered to his fathers, and the gayety and activity that made his tavern in a measure famous have left no echo.
"His successors are two elderly nieces . . . . . . The little alcove in the top room, where the glasses, flasks, and demijohns confronted the thirsty and exhausted traveler, is closed beyond appeal.
"Between Hancock and Cumberland the road is almost deserted,