"President Taylor and his party were, in 1849, conveyed over the road under the marshalship of that most indefatigable Whig, Thomas Shriver, who, with some other Cumberlanders, proceeded to the Ohio river and met the presidential party. Among the party were statesmen, politicians, and office-hunters, notably Col. Bullet, a brilliant editor from New Orleans, who was to occupy a relation to President Taylor something like that of Henry J. Raymond to Lincoln. The road was a perfect glare of ice, and everything above ground was literally plated with sleeted frost. The scenery was beautiful; to native mountaineers too common to be of much interest, but to a Southerner like Gen. Taylor, who had never seen the like, it was a phenomenon. In going down a spur of Meadow Mountain, the presidential coach, with the others, danced and waltzed on the polished road, first on one side and then on the other, with every sign of an immediate capsize, but the coaches were manned with the most expert of the whole corps of drivers. Shriver was in the rear, and in the greatest trepidation for the safety of the President. He seemed to feel himself responsible for the security of the head of the Nation. Down each hill and mountain his bare head could be seen protruding through the window of his coach to discover if the President's coach was still upon wheels. The iron gray head of the General could almost with the same frequency be seen outside of his window, not to see after anybody's safety, but to look upon what seemed to him an arctic panorama. After a ride of many miles the last long slope was passed and everything was safe. At twilight the Narrows were reached, two miles west of Cumberland, one of the boldest and most sublime views on the Atlantic slope. Gen. Taylor assumed authority and ordered a halt, and out he got in the storm and snow and looked at the giddy heights on either side of Wills creek, until he had taken in the grandeur of the scenery. He had beheld nothing like it before, even in his campaigns in Northern Mexico. The President-elect was tendered a reception on his arrival at Cumberland, and the next morning he and his party left on the cars for Washington." At an early day there was a coach factory at or near the Little Crossings, where many of the first passenger coaches used on the road were made. They were without thorough braces, or springs of any kind. Their bodies were long, and the inside seats for passengers placed crosswise. They had but one door, and that was in the front, so that passengers on entering were compelled to climb over the front seats to reach those in the rear.