Across the Continent by the Lincoln HighwayGladding, Effie Price
General
Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway
Gladding, Effie Price
Automobile travel; Lincoln Highway; United States -- Description and travel
From Wheeling we drive on into Pennsylvania, through Washington, a hill
city, to Uniontown. The whole country is hilly and we are constantly
enjoying fine views. Around Uniontown many noble trees are dying. They
tell us that this is the locust year, and that these trees are victims
of the voracious insects. Beyond Uniontown we sweep up a long hill,
over a splendid road, to the Summit House. The hotel is closed, so we go
on over the hills to a simpler hotel which is open all the year. This is
the Chalk Hill House, and here we have true country comfort. For supper
we have fried chicken, fried ham, fried hasty pudding, huckleberries,
strawberry preserves, real maple syrup, water melon rind pickles,
cookies, cake, apple sauce, flannel cakes, and coffee. This is
Pennsylvania hospitality. Chalk Hill is 2100 feet above sea level, and
we have fine mountain air. We learn that Braddock's troops in their
famous march to the West passed only 500 yards back of where the Chalk
Hill House now stands. We ask our fellow travelers at the inn about a
very tall monument which we passed, between Washington and Uniontown, on
a hilltop. It is eighty-five feet high, and bears the name of
McCutcheon. We are told that Mr. McCutcheon's will directed that all his
money should be spent in the erection of this monument to his memory. So
there it stands.
Our route lies through Cumberland to Hagerstown, and from Hagerstown
through Martinsburg to Winchester, Virginia. We are crossing the
southwest corner of Pennsylvania, and coming into Maryland on the
northwest corner; passing through a small triangle of West Virginia, and
entering Virginia by the northwest.
Not long after leaving Chalk Hill House we pass on the left the
comparatively new monument which marks Braddock's grave. A beautiful
bronze tablet on one side of the granite shaft reads: "This bronze
tablet was erected and dedicated to the memory of Major-General Edward
Braddock by the officers of his old regiment, the Coldstream Guards of
England, October 15th, 1913." Another bronze tablet has been placed by
the Braddock Memorial Park Association of Fayette County, Pennsylvania.
There is also in bas relief a bust of Braddock in military dress. The
great seals of the United States and of Great Britain adorn the shaft.
The main inscription on the shaft reads:
Here lieth the remains of Major-General Edward Braddock who,
in command of the 44th and 48th regiments of English
regulars was mortally wounded in an engagement with the
French and Indians under the command of Captain M. de
Beaujeu at the battle of the Monongahela, within ten miles
of Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg, July 9, 1755.
He was borne back with the retreating army to the old
orchard camp, about one-fourth of a mile west of this park,
where he died July 13, 1755. Lieutenant Colonel George
Washington read the burial service at the grave.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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