History of Western Maryland. J. Thomas Scharf

      Bridges, Railroads, and Canal. — In a letter from George Washington, dated July 21, 1758, to Col. Bouquet, written from " Camp near Fort Cumberland," he says, " The bridge is finished at this place, and to-morrow Maj. Peachey, with three hundred men, will proceed to open Braddock's road." This bridge was across Will's Creek. In 1755, Braddock's men had prepared the timbers for it, but it is not known whether or not they completed it. They probably made a temporary structure during the fall and spring rises, when the creek was too high to allow the passage of wagons over the fords. The bridge alluded to by Washington was carried away by a flood after the town was laid out. In 1790 there was a small bridge built over Will's Creek, near the Baltimore Street bridge of today. In 1791, by order of the Levy Court, Alpheus and Thomas Beall repaired it at a cost of twenty pound;., and in the following year Joseph Kelly and William McMahon expended the same amount of money on it by the court's order. In 1795 the court selected Patrick Murdoch, John Graham, and David Hoffman to erect a bridge over Will's Creek for thirty pounds. They contracted with William Logsden in April, 1796, to rebuild the old bridge and finish it by September following. The specifications stipulated that it should be five feet higher than the old one, and sixteen feet in width, with a railing of three feet. Logsden contracted to preserve it for seven years, and to put it up again if carried off by floods, save when the water became so high as to float the bridge and thus sweep it away. His securities were Ralph and John Logsden. In 1799, £26 12s. 13d. were further levied to pay the remainder due and to improve it with extra additions. This bridge was originally built in 1790 upon wooden piers, and by occasional repairing did good service till 1804, when the high freshets injured it. The Legislature, in 1805, authorized by special act a lottery for raising two thousand dollars to erect a bridge over Will's Creek and to purchase a fire-engine for the town. The commissioners to manage the scheme were George Hoffman, William McMahon, Thomas Thistle, Upton Bruce, and David Hoffman. The bridge was built, but it was swept away by the great flood of 1810, which inundated Mechanic Street. A ferry was then substituted. A rope was run across the creek from the foot of Baltimore Street, the ends being fastened to large trees, and a boat was attached to a ring slipping along the cable. In a year or two a new wooden bridge was erected, which stood until 1820, when another flood swept it off. The county authorities then entered into an agreement with Valentine Shockey to build a chain bridge, an invention of James Finley, of Fayette County, Pa., in 1796. There were two piers at each end of single locust posts, braced together at the top. The span was one hundred and fifteen and a half feet in the clear. The deflection of the two chains stretched from one side of the creek to the other was one-sixth of the span. Trautwine's " Civil Engineer's Pocket-Book" says, " The double links, of l ¾ inch square iron, were ten feet long. The center link was horizontal, and at the level of the floor and at its ends were stirruped the two central transverse girders. From the ends of this central link the chains were carried in straight lines to the tops of the posts, 25 feet high, which served as piers or towers. The back-stays were carried away straight, at the same angle as the cables, and each end was confined to four buried stones of about half a cubic yard each. The floor was only wide enough for a single line of vehicles. All the transverse girders were ten feet apart, and supported longitudinal joists, to which the floor was spiked. There were no restrictions as to travel, but lines of carts and wagons, in close succession, and heavily loaded with coal, stone, iron, etc., crossed it almost daily, together with droves of cattle on full run. The slight band-railing of iron was hinged so as not to be bent by the undulations of the bridge. Six-horse wagons were frequently driven across on a trot. The iron was of the old-fashioned charcoal, of full thirty tons per square inch ultimate strength. The united cross-section of the two double links was 7.56 square inches, which at thirty tuns per square inch gives 227 tons for their ultimate strength, or say 76 tons with a safety of 3." Associated with the contractor, Valentine Shockey, was Godfrey Richards. In 1831, on the giving away of some of the piers, Jonathan Witt replaced them with new and larger locust posts. The bridge stood until April 25, 1838, when its western abutment gave way and the bridge fell into the creek. When it went down a boy and two men were on it, but escaped unhurt, the former walking over the debris, and the latter swimming ashore. On May 4th t)f that year the commissioners chosen to rebuild it, George Hoblitzell, George Blocher, and Gustavus Beall, advertised for proposals for a new bridge. A wooden bridge of two wooden arches from shore to shore, with a carriage-way in the middle, and a foot-walk on each side, was constructed. It was covered, had heavy lattice-work on the sides, and the floor was filled with tan-bark. Under Mayor Thomas Shriver's administration, in 1843, the Council erected new bridges over the race and paved them with stone. In the summer of 1853 the wooden bridge over Will's Creek became unsafe from its rotten timbers, and it had to be propped up. In 1854 it was replaced by an iron bridge of the Bollman pattern, erected by a Baltimore firm. It was built by the city and county jointly, the former paying one-fifth and the latter four-fifths of its cost. In 1872 the bridge over the Potomac River, connecting Cumberland with West Virginia, was erected, and subsequently two more bridges were built over Will's Creek.

      On the 1st of January, 1795, a post-office was established in Cumberland, and Charles F. Broodhog was appointed postmaster. He was succeeded in that capacity by Beene S. Pigman on July 1, 1802. Since that time the postmasters with dates of appointment have been as follows:

      Samuel Smith, Jan. 17, 1307; Edward Wiatt, Dec. 21, 1819; Samuel Magill, Jan. 18, 1820; James Whitehead, Oct. 19, 1824; James P. Carleton. Dec. 11, 1827; Daniel Wineon, Feb. 16, 1811; William Lynn, March 5, 1842; Jacob Fechtig, Feb. 24, 1846; James C. Magraw, May 9, 1849; William A. Taylor. June 1, 1853; Samuel Taylor, Aug. 31, 1858; George A. Hoffman, March 27, 1861; John H. Young, April 11,1865; Will H. Lowdermilk, May 13,1869; and the present occupant, H. J. Johnson, appointed March 1, 1878.

      In 1813, Samuel Smith kept the office in his store above Blue Spring. In May, 1849, James C. Magraw removed the office to a one-story frame building, about forty feet from the gutter, on Baltimore Street, next to the savings-bank, where now is Reynolds' Block. On July 27, 1853, W. A. Taylor removed it to No. 93 Baltimore Street, where it was kept until November, 1869. Under the direction of Will H. Lowdermilk, then postmaster, it was changed to its present location on Center Street, between Baltimore and Frederick Streets.

      Cumberland City is on the outer edge of the great coal-basin, and is connected with it by the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad, which runs from Cumberland to Piedmont; by the Eckhart Mines Branch, which runs from Cumberland to Eckhart, and other mines on the eastern edge of the coal-fields, and by the George's Creek road, which runs from Cumberland to Lonaconing. It is the principal shipping-point for the celebrated Cumberland coal. It is near the center of the main stem of that great national highway, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, two hundred and four miles from river navigation at Parkersburg and Wheeling, in West Virginia, and one hundred and seventy-eight from tide-water at Baltimore. The Pittsburgh and Connellsville Branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad joins the main stem here, and connects it with Pittsburgh, one hundred and forty-nine, miles, and the oil regions of Pennsylvania. The Bedford and Huntington Branch of the Pennsylvania Railway connects it with all important points in Central and Eastern Pennsylvania. The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal has its western terminus here, and connects it with tidewater at Georgetown, in the District of Columbia, and Alexandria, Va.

      The inhabitants of Cumberland, as far back as 1827, were an active and progressive community. They were keenly alive to the wonderful resources their county possessed, the admirable location of the city, and the inestimable advantages to be derived from properly constructed lines of communication and transportation. The project for the construction of a railroad from Baltimore City to the Ohio River was hailed by them with the utmost enthusiasm, and every facility was extended to the company. An