Cumberland Road

“ The bicycle and automobile presage an era of good roads, and of an unparalleled countryward movement of society. With this era is coming the revival of inn and tavern life, the rejuvenation of a thousand ancient highways and all the happy life that was ever known along their dusty stretches. By its position with reference to the national capital, and the military and commercial key of the Central West, Pittsburg, and both of the great cities of Ohio, the Cumberland Road will become, perhaps, the foremost of the great roadways of America. ”

“ It helped to create no free empire at its extremity, and they who traversed it in so much pride and power would find it today nothing but a ponderous memorial of their vanity. The Cumberland Road was built by the people and for the people, and served well its high purpose. It became a highway for the products of the factories, the fisheries and the commerce of the eastern states. ”

“ But Braddock's Road was, in its day, a huge, broad track, twelve feet wide; and the Cumberland Road exceeded it in breadth nearly fifty feet. So our study may be pursued from the interesting standpoint of a widening vista; the belt of blue above our heads grows broader as we study the widening of the trail of the Indian.
To one who has not followed the trails of the West or the Northland, the experience is always delightful. It is much the same delight as that felt in traversing a winding woodland road, intensified many fold. ”

“ It is a fair question whether our western civilization is more wonderful for the rapidity with which new things under the sun are discovered, or for the rapidity with which it can forget men and things today which were indispensable yesterday. The era of the Cumberland Road was succeeded in half a century by that of the railway, and a great thoroughfare, which was the pride and mainstay of a civilization, has almost passed from human recollection. ”

“ Cumberland Road, an early highway, constructed by the national government to connect Cumberland, Md., on the Potomac, with the Ohio River, an undertaking of much importance in opening up the west and southwest to the east before the era of railways. ”

“ One of these was a central road; the Cumberland Road may have been built on the bed of this central track only a short distance, but on one of the almost innumerable side-tracks, detours, and cut-offs, for many miles. At Great Meadows, for instance, it would seem that the Cumberland Road was separated from Braddock's by the width of the valley; yet as you move westward you cross the central track of Braddock's Road just before reaching Braddock's Grave. May not an old route have led from Great Meadows thither on the same hillside where we find the Cumberland Road today? ”

“ The road bred and brought up its own landlords to a large extent. The early landlords were fit men to rule in the early taverns, and provided from forest and stream the larger portion of food for the travelers over the first rough roads. It is said that these objected to the building of the Cumberland Road, through fear that more accelerated means of locomotion would eventually cheat them out of the business which then fell to their share.
But, like the New England landlord, the western tavern-keeper was a many-sided man. ”

“ In 1825, after a delay which created great suspense in the West, the Cumberland Road at last leaped the Ohio River at Wheeling. Zane's Trace, now a wide, much-traveled avenue, offered a route westward to Zanesville which could be but little improved upon. The blazed tree gave way to the mile-stone and the pannier and saddle-bag to the rumbling stagecoach and the chaise. It is all a pretty, quiet picture and its story is totally unlike that of Boone's rough path over the Cumberlands. For settlements sprang up rapidly in this land of plenty ”

“ From the Cumberland Road, as one looks southward from Mount Washington across Great Meadows and the site of Fort Necessity, the hillside beyond is well-timbered on the right and on the left; but between the forests lies a large tract of cultivated ground across which runs, in a straight line, the dark outline of a heavy unhealed wound. A hundred and fifty years of rain and snow and frost have been unable to remove, even from a sloping surface, this heavy finger mark. ”

“ The situation of the Cumberland road requires the particular and early attention of Congress. Being formed over very lofty mountains and in many instances over deep and wide streams, across which valuable bridges have been erected, which are sustained by stone walls, as are many other parts of the road, all these works are subject to decay, have decayed, and will decay rapidly unless timely and effectual measures are adopted to prevent it. ”

“ The Cumberland Road was not to Indiana and Illinois what it was to Ohio, for somewhat similar reasons that it was less to Ohio than to Pennsylvania, for the further west it was built the older the century grew, and the newer the means of transportation which were coming rapidly to the front. ”

“ It is a general rule that the suitable improvement of a highway within reasonable limitations will double the value of the land adjacent to it. Seven million dollars, half of the total sum appropriated by acts of Congress for the national road system, was devoted to building the Cumberland Road from Cumberland, Maryland, to St. Louis, Missouri, the most central point in the great Louisiana Purchase, and seven hundred miles west of Cumberland. ”

“ There were penalties for allowing the drains to become obstructed, for premature traveling on unfinished portions of the roadbed; [33] for [Pg 98] permitting a wagon to stand over night on the roadbed, and for locking wheels, except where ice made this necessary. Local authorities were ordered to build suitable culverts wherever the roads connected with the Cumberland Road. “Directors” were ordered to be set up, to warn drivers to turn to the left when passing other teams. ”

“ These were built in the age of sawmills and some of them came well down through the century.
It is remarkable how many buildings are to be seen on the Cumberland Road which tell by their architectural form the story of their fortunes. Many a tavern, outgrowing the day of small things, was found to be wholly inadequate to the greater business of the new era. Additions were made as circumstances demanded, and in some cases the result is very interesting. The Seaton House in Uniontown was built in sections, as was the old Fulton House (now Moran House) also of Uniontown. ”

“ APPENDIX B SPECIMEN ADVERTISEMENT FOR BIDS FOR REPAIRING CUMBERLAND ROAD IN OHIO (1838)
Sealed proposals will be received at Toll-gate No. 4, until the 6th day of March next, for repairing that part of the road lying between the beginning of the 23rd and end of the 42nd mile, and if suitable bids are obtained, and not otherwise, contracts will be made at Bradshaw’s hotel in Fairview, on the 8th. Those who desire contracts are expected to attend in person, in order to sign their bonds. ”

“ The operation of the Cumberland Road included the establishment of the toll system, which provided the revenue for keeping it in repair; and from the tolls the most vital statistics concerning the old road are to be obtained. ”

“ Equally perplexing with the question of just tolls was found to be the question of determining what and who should have free use of the Cumberland Road. This list was increased at various times, and, in most states, included the following at one time or another: persons going to, or returning from public worship, muster, common place of business on farm or woodland, funeral, mill, place of election, common place of trading or marketing within the county in which they resided. ”

“ Throughout the years when the Cumberland Road bills were under discussion it is of particular interest to note how men were influenced by the greater, more fundamental human arguments, rather than by mere technical or legal points. Of course the Western members were without a dissenting voice in favor of the road. And when Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri were [Pg 196] successively admitted to the Union, a similar provision concerning the sale of public lands and road-building was inserted as in the case of Ohio ”

“ Although the ground between these two obstructions to the Narrows on its right bank might have afforded a good roadbed, yet undoubtedly they proved to be obstacles that Braddock’s engineers, with the appliances which they had at hand, could not easily surmount. It is well known to the older residents of Cumberland that as late as 1873 the mass of boulders at the eastern end of the gap, lying along the right bank of the stream, were in their primitive condition when a wagon road was constructed by George Henderson, Jr., to join the Cumberland road on that side of Wills Creek. ”

“ The provision made in a license to a woman in early New England, that "she provide a fit man that is godly to manage the business," was never suggested in the West, where hundreds of brave women carried on the business of their husbands after their decease. And their heroism was appreciated and remembered by the gallant aristocracy of the road.
The old Revolutionary soldiers who, quite generally, became the landlords of New England, did not keep tavern in the West. But one Revolutionary veteran was landlord on the Cumberland Road. ”

“ In the course of arrangement, and in its order, the first point located for the route was determined and fixed at Cumberland, a decision founded on propriety, and in some measure on necessity, from the circumstance of a high and difficult mountain, called Nobley, laying and confining the east margin of the Potomac, so as to render it impossible of access on that side without immense expense, at any point between Cumberland and where the road from Winchester to Gwynn's crosses, and even there the Nobley mountain is crossed with much difficulty and hazard. ”

“ In times of war or political excitement the express mailstage and its precious load of papers from Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York, was hailed as the latest editions of our newspapers are today. Thus it must have been that a greater proportion of the population along the Cumberland Road awaited with eager interest the coming of the stage in the old days, than today await the arrival of the long mail trains from the east. ”

“ In the best days of the road the average amount handled by tollgate-keepers in Pennsylvania was about eighteen hundred dollars per annum. In Ohio, with gates every ten miles, the average (reported) collection was about two thousand dollars in the best years. It is difficult to reconcile the statement made by Mr. Searight concerning the comparative amount of business done on various portions of the Cumberland Road, with the figures he himself quotes. ”

“ Far-reaching as the influence of the little roadway through Cumberland Gap has been, its actual history is of little interest or importance. Perhaps none of our ancient roads has done so much for society in proportion to the attention paid to it. ”

“ In rival pageants, both companies broke ground on July 4, 1828, and the race to the Ohio was on. The canal company clung doggedly to the idle belief that their enterprise was still of continental proportions, since it would connect at Cumberland with the Cumberland Road. This exaggerated estimate of the importance of the undertaking shines out in the pompous words of President Mercer, at the time when construction was begun:
There are moments in the progress of time, which are counters of whole ages. ”

“ The north side of Cumberland Mountain, like the south side of Pine, is a conglomerate, covered with superb oak and chestnut trees. We climbed up to the mountain over a winding road of ledges, bowlders, and deep gullies, rising to an extended pleasing prospect of mountains and valleys. The pass has a historic interest, not only as the ancient highway, but as the path of armies in the Civil War. It is narrow, a deep road between overhanging rocks. It is easily defended. ”

“ The right to exercise as much jurisdiction as is necessary to preserve the works and to raise funds by the collection of tolls to keep them in repair can not be dispensed with. The Cumberland Road should be an instructive admonition of the consequences of acting without this right. Year after year contests are witnessed, growing out of efforts to obtain the necessary appropriations for completing and repairing this useful work. Whilst [Pg 173] one Congress may claim and exercise the power, a succeeding one may deny it ”

“ This was done so completely that even Washington, at a later but happier day, could not identify it.
On the summit of Laurel Hill a county road now follows for a distance the old-time war route. The spot where the former swings away westward may easily be discovered and your route turns again into the silent forests.
Or return once again to historic Cumberland—and before you a great avenue eighty feet in width has supplanted both the road of the Indian and Braddock's ancient highway; "it is a monument of a past age; but like all other monuments, it is interesting as well as venerable. ”

“ Nothing is here said of the Little Youghiogheny, which lies nearer Cumberland; the stream being unusually crooked, its navigation can only become the work of a redundant population.
“The point which this route locates, at the west foot of Laurel Hill, having cleared the whole of the Alleghany mountain, is so situated as to extend the advantages of an easy way through the great barrier, with more equal justice to the best parts of the country between Laurel Hill and the Ohio. ”

“ Local travel on the eastern division may have been light, comparatively speaking. Mr. Searight undoubtedly meant that two-fifths of the through trade stopped at Brownsville and Wheeling and one-fifth only went on into Ohio. The total amount of tolls received by Pennsylvania from all roads, canals, etc., in 1836 was about $50,000, while Ohio received a greater sum than that in 1838 from tolls on the Cumberland Road alone, and the road was not completed further west than Springfield. ”