It is impossible to leave the study of the Cumberland Road without gathering up into a single chapter a number of threads which have not been woven into the preceding record. And first, the very appearance of the old road as seen by travelers who pass over it today. One cannot go a single mile over it without becoming deeply impressed with the evidence of the age and the individuality of the old Cumberland Road. There is nothing like it in the United States. Leaping the Ohio at Wheeling, the Cumberland Road throws itself across Ohio and Indiana, straight as an arrow, like an ancient elevated pathway of the gods, chopping hills in twain at a blow, traversing the lowlands on high grades like a railroad bed, vaulting river and stream on massive bridges of unparalleled size. The farther one travels upon it, the more impressed one must become, for there is, in the long grades and stretches and ponderous bridges, that “masterful suggestion of a serious purpose, speeding you along with a strange uplifting of the heart,” of which Kenneth Grahame speaks; “and even in its shedding off of bank and hedgerow as it marched straight and full for the open downs, it seems to declare its contempt for adventitious trappings to catch the shallow-pated.”[73] For long distances, this road “of the sterner sort” will be, so far as its immediate surface is concerned, what the tender mercies of the counties through which it passes will allow, but at certain points, the traveler comes out unexpectedly upon the ancient roadbed, for in many places the old macadamized bed is still doing noble duty.

Nothing is more striking than the ponderous stone bridges which carry the roadbed over the waterways. It is doubtful if there are on this continent such monumental relics of the old stone bridge builders’ art. Not only such massive bridges as those at Big Crossings (Smithfield, Pennsylvania) and the artistic “S” bridge near Claysville, Pennsylvania, will attract the traveler’s attention, but many of the less pretentious bridges over brooks and rivulets will, upon examination, be found to be ponderous pieces of workmanship. A pregnant suggestion of the change which has come over the land can be read in certain of these smaller bridges and culverts. When the great road was built the land was covered with forests and many drains were necessary. With the passing of the forests many large bridges, formerly of much importance, are now of a size out of all proportion to the demand for them, and hundreds of little bridges have fallen into disuse, some of them being quite above the general level of the surrounding fields. The ponderous bridge at Big Crossings was finished and dedicated with great Éclat July 4, 1818. Near the eastern end of the three fine arches is the following inscription: “Kinkead, Beck & Evans, builders, July 4, 1818.”

The traveler will notice still the mileposts which mark the great road’s successive steps. Those on the eastern portion of the road are of iron and were made at the foundries at Connellsville and Brownsville. Major James Francis had the contract for making and delivering those between Cumberland and Brownsville. John Snowdan had the contract for those between Brownsville and Wheeling. They were hauled in six-horse teams to their sites. Those between Brownsville and Cumberland have recently been reset and repainted. The milestones west of the Ohio River are mostly of sandstone, and are fast disappearing under the action of the weather. Some are quite illegible though the word “Cumberland” at the top can yet be read on almost all. In central Ohio, through the Darby woods, or “Darby Cuttings,” the mileposts have been greatly mutilated by vandal woodchoppers, who knocked off large chips with which to sharpen their axes.

The bed of the Cumberland Road was originally eighty feet in width. In Ohio at least, property owners have encroached upon the road until, in some places, ten feet of ground has been included within the fences. This matter has been brought into notice where franchises for electric railway lines have been granted. In Franklin County, west of Columbus, Ohio, there is hardly room for a standard gauge track outside the roadbed, where once the road occupied forty feet each side of its axis. When the property owners were addressed with respect to the removal of their fences, they demanded to be shown quitclaim deeds for the land, which, it is unnecessary to say, were not forthcoming from the state. Hundreds of contracts, calling for a width of eighty feet, can be given as evidence of the original width of the road.[74] In days when it was considered the most extraordinary good fortune to have the Cumberland Road pass through one’s farm, it was not considered necessary to obtain quitclaim deeds for the land.

It is difficult to sufficiently emphasize the aristocracy which existed among the old “pike boys,” as those most intimately connected with the road were called. This was particularly true of the drivers of the mail and passenger stages, men who were as often noted for their quick wit and large acquaintance with men as for their dexterous handling of two hands full of reins. Their social and business position was the envy of the youth of a nation, whose ambition to emulate them was begotten of the best sort of hero-worship. Stage-drivers’ foibles were their pet themes, such as the use of peculiar kinds of whips and various modes of driving. Of the latter there were three styles common to the Cumberland Road, (1) The flat rein (English style), (2) Top and bottom (Pennsylvania adaptation), (3) Side rein (Eastern style). The last mode was in commonest use. Of drivers there were of course all kinds, slovenly, cruel, careful. Of the best class, John Bunting, Jim Reynolds, and Billy Armor were best known, after “Red” Bunting, in the east, and David Gordon and James Burr, on the western division. No one was more proud of the fine horses which did the work of the great road than the better class of drivers. As Thackeray said was true in England, the passing of the era of good roads and the mailstage has sounded the knell of the rugged race of horses which once did service in the Central West.

As one scans the old files of newspapers, or reads old-time letters and memoirs of the age of the Cumberland Road, he is impressed with the interest taken in the coming and going of the more renowned guests of the old road. The passage of a president-elect over the Cumberland Road was a triumphant procession. The stage companies made special stages, or selected the best of their stock, in which to bear him. The best horses were fed and groomed for the proud task. The most noted drivers were appointed to the honorable station of Charioteer-to-the-President. The thousands of homes along his route were decked in his honor, and welcoming heralds rode out from the larger towns to escort their noted guests to celebrations for which preparations had been making for days in advance. The slow-moving presidential pageant through Ohio and Pennsylvania was an educational and patriotic ceremony, of not infrequent occurrence in the old coaching days—a worthy exhibition which hardly has its counterpart in these days of steam. Jackson, Van Buren, Monroe, Harrison, Polk, and Tyler passed in triumph over portions of the great road. The taverns at which they were fÊted are remembered by the fact. Drivers who were chosen for the task of driving their coach were ever after noted men. But there were other guests than presidents-elect, though none received with more acclaim. Henry Clay, the champion of the road, was a great favorite throughout its towns and hamlets, one of which, Claysville, proudly perpetuates his name. Benton and Cass, General Lafayette, General Santa Anna, Black Hawk, Jenny Lind, P. T. Barnum, and John Quincy Adams are all mentioned in the records of the stirring days of the old road. As has been suggested elsewhere, politics entered largely into the consideration of the building and maintenance of the road. Enemies of internal improvement were not forgotten as they passed along the great road which they voted to neglect, as even Martin Van Buren once realized when the axle of his coach was sawed in two, breaking down where the mud was deepest. Many episodes are remembered, indicating that all the political prejudice and rancor known elsewhere was especially in evidence on this highway, which owed its existence and future to the machinations of politicians.

But the greatest blessing of the Cumberland Road was the splendid era of growth which it did its share toward hastening. Its best friends could see in its decline and decay only evidences of unhappiest fortune, while in reality the great road had done its noble work and was to be superseded by better things which owed to it their coming. Historic roads there had been, before this great highway of America was built, but none in all the past had been the means of supplanting themselves by greater and more efficient means of communication. The far-famed Appian Way witnessed many triumphal processions of consuls and proconsuls, but it never was the means of bringing into existence something to take its place in a new and more progressive era. 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. It made possible that interchange of the courtesies of social life necessary in a republic of united states. It was one of the great strands which bound the nation together in early days when there was much to excite animosity and provoke disunion. It became the pride of New England as well as of the West which it more immediately benefited; “The state of which I am a citizen,” said Edward Everett at Lexington, Kentucky, in 1829, “has already paid between one and two thousand dollars toward the construction and repair of that road; and I doubt not she is prepared to contribute her proportion toward its extension to the place of its destination.”[75]

Hundreds of ancient but unpretentious monuments of the Cumberland Road—the hoary milestones which line it—stand to perpetuate its name in future days. But were they all gathered together—from Indiana and Ohio and Pennsylvania and Virginia and Maryland—and cemented into a monstrous pyramid, the pile would not be inappropriate to preserve the name and fame of a highway which “carried thousands of population and millions of wealth into the West; and more than any other material structure in the land, served to harmonize and strengthen, if not save, the Union.”

What of the future? The dawning of the era of country living is in sight. It is being hastened by the revolution in methods of locomotion. 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. The bed is capable of being made substantial at a comparatively small cost, as the grading is quite perfect. Its course measures the shortest possible route practicable for a roadway from tidewater to the Mississippi River. As a trunk line its location cannot be surpassed. Its historic associations will render the route of increasing interest to the thousands who, in other days, will travel, in the genuine sense of the word, over those portions of its length which long ago became hallowed ground. The “Shades of Death” will again be filled with the echoing horn which heralded the arrival of the old-time coaches, and Winding Ridge again be crowded with the traffic of a nation. A hundred Cumberland Road taverns will be opened, and bustling landlords welcome, as of yore, the travel-stained visitor. Merry parties will again fill those tavern halls, now long silent, with their laughter.

And all this will but mark a new and better era than its predecessor, an era of outdoor living, which must come, and come quickly, if as a nation we are to retain our present hold on the world’s great affairs.