The Old Pike. Thomas B. Searight
href="#ud561d3a0-bea6-4174-a7b1-6cbfa5521c39">Old Toll House
STAGE HOUSE AND STABLES AT MT. WASHINGTON.
THE OLD PIKE.
CHAPTER I.
Inception of the Road—Author’s Motive in Writing its History—No History of the Appian Way—A Popular Error Corrected—Henry Clay, Andrew Stewart, T. M. T. McKennan, Gen. Beeson, Lewis Steenrod and Daniel Sturgeon—Their Services in Behalf of the Road—Braddock’s Road—Business and Grandeur of the Road—Old and Odd Names—Taverns—No Beer on the Road—Definition of Turnpike—An Old Legal Battle.
The road which forms the subject of this volume, is the only highway of its kind ever wholly constructed by the government of the United States. When Congress first met after the achievement of Independence and the adoption of the Federal Constitution, the lack of good roads was much commented upon by our statesmen and citizens generally, and various schemes suggested to meet the manifest want. But, it was not until the year 1806, when Jefferson was President, that the proposition for a National Road took practical shape. The first step, as will hereinafter be seen, was the appointment of commissioners to lay out the road, with an appropriation of money to meet the consequent expense. The author of this work was born and reared on the line of the road, and has spent his whole life amid scenes connected with it. He saw it in the zenith of its glory, and with emotions of sadness witnessed its decline. It was a highway at once so grand and imposing, an artery so largely instrumental in promoting the early growth and development of our country’s wonderful resources, so influential in strengthening the bonds of the American Union, and at the same time so replete with important events and interesting incidents, that the writer of these pages has long cherished a hope that some capable hand would write its history and collect and preserve its legends, and no one having come forward to perform the task, he has ventured upon it himself, with unaffected diffidence and a full knowledge of his inability to do justice to the subject.
It is not a little singular that no connected history of the renowned Appian Way can be found in our libraries. Glimpses of its existence and importance are seen in the New Testament and in some old volumes of classic lore, but an accurate and complete history of its inception, purpose, construction and development, with the incidents, accidents and anecdotes, which of necessity were connected with it, seems never to have been written. This should not be said of the great National Road of the United States of America. The Appian Way has been called the Queen of Roads. We claim for our National highway that it was the King of Roads.
Tradition, cheerfully acquiesced in by popular thought, attributes to Henry Clay the conception of the National Road, but this seems to be error. The Hon. Andrew Stewart, in a speech delivered in Congress, January 27th, 1829, asserted that “Mr. Gallatin was the very first man that ever suggested the plan for making the Cumberland Road.” As this assertion was allowed to go unchallenged, it must be accepted as true, however strongly and strangely it conflicts with the popular belief before stated. The reader will bear in mind that the National Road and the Cumberland Road are one and the same. The road as constructed by authority of Congress, begins at the city of Cumberland, in the State of Maryland, and this is the origin of the name Cumberland Road. All the acts of Congress and of the legislatures of the States through which the road passes, and they are numerous, refer to it as the Cumberland Road. The connecting link between Cumberland and the city of Baltimore is a road much older than the Cumberland Road, constructed and owned by associations of individuals,