John Quincy Adams visits Uniontown—He is Welcomed by Dr. Hugh Campbell—The National Road a Monument of a Past Age—A Comparison Between the National Road and the Appian Way.

The foregoing lines were written by one who mourned the departing glories of the old road. When they were written the steam car had taken the place of the four-horse coach, and the writer was giving vent to his grief over the change. Steam has since encountered a formidable competitor in the shape of electricity, and the time is coming when the steam car will follow in the wake of the old stage coach. Progress is the inspiring watchword of the hour, and while there may be nothing new under the sun, old things are certainly presented in a new light, and old agencies applied to new work.

No sound greets the ear of the pike boy now, like the clink of other days. The glory of the old road has departed, but the memory of its better days fades not away. The old tavern has gone with all the rest. The incidents and anecdotes, accidents and episodes of the road have all passed to the domain of history.

In the month of May, 1837, John Quincy Adams visited Uniontown, on his return from Cincinnati, where he had gone to participate in the inauguration of the observatory on Mount Adams, near that city. Dr. Hugh Campbell was appointed to deliver the address of welcome to Mr. Adams on his arrival at Uniontown. The following opening sentences are quoted from Dr. Campbell’s address:

“Venerable Sir: I have the honor of being the organ of this community to express for them and myself our hearty welcome of you among us. You see here, sir, an assembly of people of every political faith, come together spontaneously as one man to express their respect and veneration for one who has filled so large and distinguished, and I may add, beneficial space in the history and councils of this nation. We stand here, sir, upon the Cumberland Road, which has, to some extent, broken down the great wall of the Appallachian mountains, which served to form so natural a barrier between what might have been two great rival nations. This road constitutes we trust, an indissoluble chain of Union, connecting forever as one, the East and the West. As a people directly interested in this great national work, we are glad to have the opportunity of expressing our acknowledgments to you in person. It is a part of that great system which has always received your support, known as the American System, the happy influence of which you have recently had the pleasure of witnessing in the rapid and extraordinary development of the resources of the West.”

Dr. Campbell proceeded at some length in a well conceived and happily expressed address, and concluded as follows:

“Again, sir, I bid you welcome to the hospitalities of our town, and may the God of all grace prolong your existence, and finally receive you to himself.”

It is noteworthy, because out of the ordinary line, that two of the ablest debaters and most popular public speakers of Western Pennsylvania, fifty years ago, were physicians—Dr. F. J. Lemoyne, of Washington, and Dr. Hugh Campbell, of Uniontown, the first named an Abolitionist and the other a Whig. Those who have heard them on the stump aver that they never heard better speakers. They were both highly educated, masters of logic, forceful in delivery, and in the modern phrase, “clean cut” in all their utterances.

In the latest map of Fayette county, Pennsylvania, there is a sketch of the National Road, written by the late Hon. James Veech, in which that able man said:

“It is a monument of a past age; but like all other monuments, it is interesting, as well as venerable. It 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 to save, the Union.”

There was a popular belief, in the olden time, that the National Road was a bond of union between the States, and that it served to harmonize and bring together on friendly terms, people of remote sections, and of different pursuits. This will be seen by the quoted remarks of Dr. Campbell and Mr. Veech. The generation of to-day regards the affection of the old pike boy for the old road, as a mere memory, the recollection of the animated scenes of trade and transportation on the old highway. It is something more. The old pike boy sincerely and truly believes that the old pike was a bond of union, that for years it kept the peace between discordant interests, and prolonged the evil day when the outbreak of disunion came.

The Appian Way was a great road, and is invested with much classic and historic interest, but, unlike the National Road, it did not yield its place to greater lines of progress and improvement. The Appian Way was designed to gratify the pomp and vanity of consuls and pro-consuls, kings and princes, emperors and empires. The National Road was designed to meet the wants of a free and progressive people, and to aid in building up and strengthening a great and growing republic. The Appian Way had more vitality than the government that built it. It outlived its country. The National Road served its purpose grandly, was a complete success, the pride and glory of its day and generation, and when it lost its place as a national thoroughfare, the government that made it was all the stronger because it had been made. The average width of the Appian Way was from eighteen to twenty feet, so as to admit of two carriages passing each other, and the expense of constructing the first section of it was so great that it exhausted the public treasury of Rome. The National Road was sixty feet wide, and eight carriages could pass each other within its borders, while the cost of its construction, although a very large sum of money, made so light a draught upon the resources of the public treasury of the United States, in comparison with subsequent appropriations for other objects, as to be scarcely worthy of observation. The Appian Way derived its name from Appius, who was consul of Rome at the time of the undertaking. Its initial southern terminus was Capua, distant from Rome one hundred and twenty-five miles, very nearly the same as the distance from Cumberland to Wheeling. It was subsequently constructed as far as Beneventum, and ultimately to Brundisium, a seaport town of the Adriatic, distant from Rome three hundred and seventy-eight miles. We are informed by Anthon, an ancient classic author of high renown, that the city of Beneventum derived great importance from its position on the Appian Way, and the same can be truthfully said of the towns and cities which were so fortunate as to be located on the National Road.

Paul the apostle traveled over a portion of the Appian Way on his journey from Jerusalem to Rome to carry up his appeal from Agrippa to CÆsar. He intersected the Appian Way at Puteoli, where he remained seven days, and his brethren having learned that he had reached that point, came to meet him as far as Appii Forum and the Three Taverns. The Appii Forum was a station, and the Three Taverns a house for the entertainment of strangers and travelers on the Appian Way. The latter may have been three distinct houses moulded into one, as is sometimes done, or a cluster of taverns consisting of three. That they were taverns, or a tavern, is unquestionable. There was an old tavern on the Mountain division of the National Road, in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, called the Three Cabins. The cabins were put up for boarding and lodging workmen engaged in the construction of the road, and when the work was finished, united and made one. This grotesque old tavern enjoyed a large patronage, and was a source of no little profit to its old-fashioned proprietor.

Horace, as before intimated, was an occasional traveler on the Appian Way, not infrequently accompanied by Virgil, and apparently with no other object than the mere pleasure afforded by the jaunt. These illustrious authors of classic verse were, it is said, given to convivial habits, and we have the word of Horace himself that the wine on the Appian Way was “thick.” From some other things said by Horace, it is very evident that the taverns of the Appian Way were inferior to those of the National Road. As an instance, he says that “the bustling landlord of the inn at Beneventum almost burned himself in roasting some lean thrushes.” Lean thrushes never entered the well stored larders of the old taverns of the National Road. Fatness was the leading feature of flesh and fowl and bird of every kind that passed inspection of the old-time landlord of our National highway, and fatness distinguished all the surroundings of his overflowing hostelry. Nor was it the habit of our old tavern keepers to do the cooking and roasting of their establishments. All that pertained to the dominion of the landlady, who, as a rule, was tidy and robust, and felt a just pride in her calling. Horace also complained that at an inn at Canusium, on the Appian Way, he was served with “gritty bread.” Shades of John N. Dagg, Joseph Hallam, Daniel Brown, Charles Miller, James Workman, Alfred McClelland, Joshua Marsh and Boss Rush, defend us forever against the thought of gritty bread! Horace, in further deprecation of some things on the Appian Way, mentions a little town where “water is sold, though the worst in the world.” Generosity was a leading trait of the old tavern keepers of the National Road. There was an inexhaustible supply of water along its line, the best and purest in the world, and no man ever heard of a cup of it being sold for a price. One of the most attractive features of the National Road was the big water-trough that stood by the side of every tavern, filled with fresh, sparkling water, and absolutely free to all comers and goers.