In the year 1868 the writer spent four days and parts of as many nights in a stage coach journey from Wheeling, West Virginia, to Baltimore, Maryland, over the National Road. In August, 1910, the same distance was covered in an automobile in a little over a day and a night, with many stops and visits to historical spots marked by recollections of the old days and nights of this King's Highway.
Brownsville, in the halcyon days of the National Pike, was of greater commercial importance than Pittsburg, her banks ranking higher and her manufactories more numerous. This supremacy was maintained from 1818 to 1852.
When the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was opened to the West, the glories of the old "pike" began to fade. The mechanical establishments, especially the boat-building and marine engine shops, among the biggest interests of Brownsville, kept in the lead until well into the days of the Civil War.
Now, reader, will you not be a bit abashed to ask: "Where is Brownsville?"
To Henry Clay belongs the credit of first urging Congress to appropriate funds to build the National Road, but to Albert Gallatin, who was from the Brownsville section and achieved great distinction while Treasurer of the United States, belongs the honor of its conception. He was the first to advocate the great benefits that would accrue to the country if such a road were constructed.
Washington, when a mere youth, sent to England a report urging the advisability of a military road from the coast to the Ohio River. He suggested the Indian trail across the Allegheny Mountains. This trail was afterwards named Braddock's Road. It should have been called Washington's Road, as he, at the head of a detachment of Virginia troops, traversed it one year before Braddock's disastrous invasion of the West.
All roads led to Brownsville in those days.
Did you ever hear of Workman's Hotel in Brownsville? It stands today as it did one hundred years ago, at the head of Market Street. It has housed Jackson, Harrison, Clay, Sam Houston, Davy Crockett, James K. Polk, Shelly, Lafayette, Winfield Scott, Pickens, John C. Calhoun, and hundreds of others of less note.
James Workman, the landlord of this old house of entertainment, was noted for his hospitality and punctuality. When "Old Hickory" Jackson, on his way to Washington to be inaugurated President—for be it remembered the old "pike" was the only highway between the East and West—was Workman's guest, the citizens of Brownsville tendered the newly elected President a public reception. The Presbyterian Church was crowded, the exercises long drawn out. During their progress, Jimmy Workman stalked down the middle aisle. Facing about, after passing the pew in which General Jackson sat, he said, in a voice plainly heard all over the church:
"General Jackson, dinner is ready and if you do not come soon it won't be fit to eat."