From Brownsville the pike leads over the hills and comes down to the Ohio river at Wheeling, West Virginia. It then passes on through Ohio, touching Columbus, the capital, on the way to Indiana and the Mississippi. We sometimes admire the cars marked with the sign of the United States post office, which we see drawn by a swift locomotive at a speed of sixty miles an hour; but when the government put its mail coaches on the National Road from Washington to Wheeling, no doubt they seemed quite as wonderful to the people of that time. And it was only twenty-five years since the people of Utica had thought it so remarkable that six letters had come to them in one mail! Soon passenger coaches were rushing along at ten miles an hour, and sometimes even faster. There were canvas-covered freight wagons, each of which carried ten tons, had rear wheels ten feet high, and was drawn by twelve horses. In those days life was full of stirring interest on the National Road. [Illustration: FIG. 36. CUMBERLAND AND THE GAP IN WILLS MOUNTAIN] There were rates of toll for all sorts of animals and wagons. The toll was higher for hogs than for sheep, and more was charged for cattle than for hogs. If the wagons had very wide tires, no toll was demanded. Drivers sometimes lied about the number of people in their stages, so as to pay less toll. The stages were not owned by the drivers but by companies, which bid for travelers and freight, as railways do now. There were penalties for injuring milestones or defacing bridges, showing that some people then were like some people now. The companies had interesting names. There were the “Good Intent,” “Ohio National Stage Lines,” the “Pilot,” “Pioneer,” “June Bug,” and “Defiance.” Not one of them cared for mud or dust, for horses or men, if only it could be the first to reach its destination. There must have been dust enough, for twenty coaches with their many horses sometimes followed one another in a close line. [Illustration: FIG. 37. BRIDGE AND MONUMENT, NATIONAL ROAD, NEAR WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA] Henry Clay was one of the chief advocates of this road, and a monument built in his honor may be seen near the bridge, shown in Fig. 37. It is a few miles east of Wheeling. At Brownsville a small stream called Dunlap’s creek flows into the Monongahela from the east. Over it is an iron bridge on the line of the National Road. According to a story told in Brownsville, Henry Clay was once overturned as he was riding through the creek before the bridge was built. As he gathered himself up he was heard to say, “Clay and mud shall not be mixed here again.” The story goes that he went on immediately to Washington and got an order for the building of the bridge.