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
"The Eagle," and remained in charge a number of years. Hook was an
eccentric man, given to redundancy of speech, a merchant, auctioneer,
and for two years a member of the lower branch of the State legislature.
He died in Uniontown, a number of years ago, but will not soon be
forgotten. Aaron Wyatt succeeded Hook, and kept the house until his
death. His widow and son James succeeded to the management, and James
dying in the house, it passed to the hands of his widow, Mrs. Kate
Wyatt, and from her to Russell W. Beall, the present occupant.
The before-mentioned old taverns were of the town, rather than of the
road. Most of them were in existence and doing business before the road
was made. The remaining old taverns of Uniontown, hereafter mentioned,
were essentially taverns of the National Road, and derived their
principal patronage from it.
The Swan, Nathaniel Brownfield proprietor, is an old, long frame
building, at the west end of town, supplemented some years after it
commenced business, by a brick addition to the eastern end. Thomas
Brownfield, father of Nathaniel, the present proprietor, and grandfather
on the maternal side, of the author of this volume, kept this old tavern
as early as 1805, and down to the year 1829. When the National Road was
opened for business, this house became a wagon stand, and continued such
until the last crack of a Battelly White whip was heard on the road. It
was provided with two commodious wagon yards, one at the front, on the
roadside opposite the house, and the other between the house and the
large stable in the rear. With the exception of one year that this old
tavern was kept by William Cox, Nathaniel Brownfield, who was born under
its roof, has kept it, uninterruptedly, from the date of his father's
death, and "holds the fort" to this day, "with none to molest or make
him afraid." Upwards of eighty, and in vigorous health, he has witnessed
and participated in the exciting scenes of the road from the beginning
to the end thereof. At an early period he became the owner of a farm
consisting of one hundred acres adjacent to town, which he managed
advantageously in connection with his tavern, and within the past year
sold for the sum of one thousand and five dollars per acre, retaining
his old tavern stand, to which he is attached by so many memories. His
wife and good helpmate survives with him, and together they occupy the
old tavern and recount with varied emotions the stirring scenes of the
eventful past.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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