The Old Pike: A History of the National Road, with Incidents, Accidents, and Anecdotes ThereonSearight, Thomas B. (Thomas Brownfield)
History
The Old Pike: A History of the National Road, with Incidents, Accidents, and Anecdotes Thereon
Searight, Thomas B. (Thomas Brownfield)
Cumberland Road; Pennsylvania -- Biography
Alfred Bailes, of Dunbar, Pennsylvania, is probably the oldest man
living who drove a team on the National Road. He was first a wagoner,
and subsequently and for many years a stage driver. He was born in
Loudon county, Virginia, and came upon the road about the year 1830, at
the solicitation of John Bradfield, who was also a native of Virginia,
and agent of the first line of wagons on the road. Alfred Bailes was
born in 1804, and although closely approaching his ninetieth year, his
eye is undimmed and his natural vigor unabated. Samuel Luman, of
Cumberland, is two years younger than Bailes, but two years his senior
as a stage driver. Bailes was one of the most commanding figures on the
road, upwards of six feet in height, with broad chest and shoulders, and
long arms. Noted for great strength, he was never quarrelsome. As a
driver he performed his functions faithfully and carefully. He is a most
interesting relic of the road, and his memory is well stored with
interesting reminiscences of its faded glory.
Samuel and William Scarborough were old wagoners. They lived on the old
William Elliott farm, in Jefferson township, Fayette county, Pa., and
were brothers. William Hogg, the pioneer merchant of Brownsville, was
the owner of the William Elliott farm at the time referred to, and the
Scarboroughs paid their rent by hauling a load of merchandise for Mr.
Hogg once a year, from Baltimore to his store in Brownsville.
George McLaughlin, still living near Uniontown, but now, and for a long
time, a sufferer from rheumatism, is an old wagoner. It may be that
exposure, when a wagoner, to the snow storms of the mountains, is the
source of the rheumatism which now afflicts him. His brother, Abraham,
who lives at Mt. Braddock, is also an old wagoner, and, when a boy,
broke stone on the pike at a "levy" a perch.
There was an old wagoner whose name was Hill, and he lived at
Triadelphia, now West Virginia, then "Old Virginia never tire," who
never drove his team on Sunday. He seems not to have lost anything by
resting his team and himself on Sunday, for he made as good time on his
trips as any other wagoner, and in the end became rich.
Michael Teeters, a spluttering old wagoner, was noted for his profanity.
He was possessed with the fatal delusion that hard swearing was evidence
of superior intelligence. He, of course, had some good traits, as the
worst of men have; but when age and infirmity came upon him, he
exchanged the tramp over the hills of the old pike for a "walk over the
hills to the poor house," and died in the county home of Washington
county, Pennsylvania. Had he followed the example of Hill, who rested on
Sunday, it may not be said that he would have grown rich, but it is
pretty certain that the surroundings of his dying hours would have been
different from what they were.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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