The American aspiration has always been to go westward. In the early
history of the Republic the Government gave great attention to the
means of reaching the Western frontier, then cut off by what was
regarded as the almost insurmountable barrier of the Alleghenies.
General Washington was the first to project a chain of internal
improvements across the mountains, by the route of the Potomac to
Cumberland, then a Maryland frontier fort, and thence by roads to the
headwaters of the Ohio. The initial enactment was procured by him from
the Virginia Legislature in 1774, for improving the navigation of the
Potomac; but the Revolutionary War interfered, and he renewed the
movement afterwards in 1784, resulting in the charter of the
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, of which Washington was the first
President. Little was done at that early period, however, in building
the canal, but the Government constructed the famous "National Road,"
the first highway over the Allegheny Mountains, from Cumberland in
Maryland, mainly through Southwestern Pennsylvania, to Wheeling on
the Ohio. This noted highway was finished and used throughout in 1818,
and, until the railways crossed the mountains, it was the great route
of travel to the West. It was familiarly known as the "Old Pike," and
Thomas B. Searight has entertainingly recorded its pleasant memories,
for it has now become mainly a relic of the past:
"We hear no more of the clanging hoof,
And the stage-coach, rattling by;
For the steam king rules the travelled world,
And the Old Pike's left to die."
He tells of the long lines of Conestoga wagons, each drawn by six
heavy horses, their broad wheels, canvas-covered tops and huge cargoes
of goods; of the swaying, rushing mail passenger coach, the
fleet-footed pony express; the flocks of sheep and herds of cattle,
the droves of horses and mules sent East from the "blue-grass" farms
of Kentucky; and occasionally of a long line of men and women, tied
two and two to a rope, driven by a slave-master from the South, to be
sold in the newer region of the Southwest. He describes how the famous
driver, Sam Sibley, brings up his grand coach at the hotel in
Uniontown with the great Henry Clay as chief passenger, and then after
dinner whirls away with a rush, but unfortunately, dashing over a pile
of stone in the road, the coach upsets. Out crawls the driver with a
broken nose, and a crowd hastens to rescue Mr. Clay from the upturned
coach. He is unhurt, and brushing the dust from his clothes says:
"This is mixing the Clay of Kentucky with the limestone of
Pennsylvania." Many are the tales of the famous road. One veteran
teamster relates his experience of a night at the tavern on the
mountain side--thirty six-horse teams were in the wagon-yard, one
hundred mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand hogs in another, as many
fat cattle from the West in a field, and the tavern crowded with
teamsters and drovers--the grunts of the hogs, the braying of the
mules, the bellowing of the cattle and the crunching and stamping of
the horses, "made music beyond a dream." In 1846 the message arrived
at Cumberland at two o'clock in the morning that war was declared
against Mexico, and a noted driver took the news over the mountains,
past a hundred taverns and a score of villages, one hundred and
thirty-one miles to Wheeling, in twelve hours. Over this famous road
the Indian chief Black Hawk was brought, but the harness broke, the
team ran away and the coach was smashed. Black Hawk crept out of the
wreck, stood up surprised, and, wiping a drop of blood from his brow,
earnestly muttered, "Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" Barnum brought Jenny Lind over
this road from Wheeling, paying $17.25 fare apiece to Baltimore.
Lafayette came along it in 1825, the population all turning out to
cheer him. Andrew Jackson came over it four years later to be
inaugurated the first Western President, and subsequently also came
Presidents Harrison, Polk and Taylor. What was thought of the "Old
Pike" in its day of active service was well expressed at a reception
to John Quincy Adams. Returning from the West, he arrived at Uniontown
in May, 1837, and was warmly welcomed. Hon. Hugh Campbell, who made
the reception address, said to the ex-President: "We stand here, sir,
upon the Cumberland Road, which has broken down the great wall of the
Appalachian Mountains. This road, we trust, constitutes an
indissoluble chain of Union, connecting forever, as one, the East and
the West."
In the early part of the nineteenth century, Lancaster in Pennsylvania
was the largest inland city of the United States. It is sixty-nine
miles from Philadelphia, and the "old Lancaster Road," the finest
highway of that period, was constructed to connect them. This began
the Pennsylvania route across the Alleghenies to the West, which
afterwards became the most travelled. In 1834 the Pennsylvania
Government opened its State work, the Columbia Railroad between the
Delaware and the Susquehanna. In 1836 there were four daily lines of
stages running in connection with this State railroad between
Philadelphia and Pittsburg, making the journey in sixty hours.
Gradually afterwards the Pennsylvania Railroad was extended across the
mountains, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was completed to
Wheeling, and they then took away the business from the "Old Pike"
and all the other wagon or canal routes to the Ohio River.