Next is the "Monroe House," one of the oldest in the place. It was built by Andrew McMasters, and subsequently and successively kept by E.W. Clement, Thomas Acklin, James Shafer, A. Skiles, John Worthington, M. Fry, and Calvin Springer. This was a popular house in the golden era of the road, and did an extensive business. Monroe was a thriving village when the pike flourished, and the center of fun and frolic. It began to decline when the trade left the road, but is now reviving and wearing an air of prosperity by reason of the coal developments in the vicinity. On the hill above Monroe stands an old two-story brick house, fast sinking into decay, which was once a well known and popular tavern stand. It was owned and kept by William Morris. He put up an imposing sign, inscribed on the west side with the words, "Welcome from the West," and on the east side the words, "Welcome from the East." This was no false lure, and travelers from the east and west crowded into the old house to enjoy its good cheer. Alonzo L. Little, for many years editor and proprietor of the _Genius of Liberty_, was a son-in-law of William Morris, and he had a son (Luther) who settled in Iowa and was elected State Treasurer there. Harry Gilbert once kept a tavern in the house where Charles Livingston now has a grocery, at the east end of Uniontown, and in later years it was kept by M. Fry and J. Allen Messmore. Many years ago the Widow Sands kept tavern in the frame house at the point where the Connellsville and Cool Spring Furnace roads lead off from the pike. CHAPTER XXXIII. _Old Taverns and Tavern Keepers continued--Uniontown--The Town as it Appeared to Gen. Douglass in 1784--Its Subsequent Growth and Improvement--The First Tavern--Other Early Taverns--An Old Chief Justice and an Old Landlady wrangle over a Roasted Pig--Anecdote of George Manypenny and President Jefferson--The Swan, The McClelland, The Seaton, The National, The Clinton, The Moran, The Mahaney._ [Illustration: GEN. EPHRAIM DOUGLASS.] At the east end of Uniontown the road crosses Redstone creek, over a massive and extensive stone bridge, one of the best and most expensive samples of masonry on the whole line, built by Kinkead, Beck and Evans in 1818. Gen. Ephraim Douglass, the first prothonotary of Fayette county, Pennsylvania, in a letter to Gen. James Irvine, in 1784, describes Uniontown in the following vigorous and graphic style: