Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway

by Effie Price Gladding

We came into the broad main street of Granville, the lights shining, the leaves of the maple trees glistening with the rain which had fallen earlier in the day. If ever there was a New England town in a Western State, Granville is that town. It was founded more than a hundred years ago by Connecticut people, and it bears the impress of its founders to-day. Its wide street, its old churches, its white houses with green shutters, its look of comfort and cleanliness, all are typically New England. We had a most comfortable night at the old fashioned Hotel Buxton, and drove up on the hill in the beautiful clear morning to see the buildings of Denison University. The University is very finely situated on a high ridge overlooking the wooded town, and commanding a fine view of the green valley beyond. There is a brick terrace on the hillside, with an ornamental sundial, where one may enjoy the rich champaign below. Back of the college buildings, which look out over the valley, the hill plunges down into a fine forest of beeches. The student at Granville has beautiful surroundings for his years of study. Emerson said that the mountains around an institution should be put in the college curriculum. Granville students certainly should include in their curriculum the beauty of beech forests and the richness of the Ohio farming country.

From Granville on to Zanesville the country increases in charm. It is rich and fertile, gently rolling, diversified by fine beeches and elms. Here and there are plenteous corn fields. But Ohio farmhouses do not seem to cultivate more flowers than do the farmhouses of Iowa and Illinois. Reaching Zanesville we are greeted by a great sign suspended across the road above our heads. It reads, "Hello! Glad you came. Just drive carefully. Zanesville Motorcycle Club." In leaving we pass under a similar sign and find that it reads on its reverse side, "Thank you! Come again. Zanesville Motorcycle Club." We are on the old National Road now, and find it rather poor. It is uneven, and is rendered bumpy by the constant road bars. The country grows more hilly, and the towns are beginning to change character. Newark is an attractive little city, standing rather high. "Old Washington" has very old red brick houses, and St. Clairsville is an attractive old town. The towns remind one of the old Pennsylvania towns. The houses are built flush with the sidewalk just as one sees them in Pennsylvania. Many of the farmhouses are built of substantial red brick, with white porches.

About nine miles from Wheeling, West Virginia, we come along a fine road to a most beautiful hilltop view. Prosperous farms and farmhouses are all about, the farmhouses standing high on the green, rounded tops of the hills. The National Road being under repair, we take a detour in order to reach Wheeling. A hospitable sign at the entrance to our roundabout road to the right reads, "This road open. Bellaire bids you welcome." We learn later that there are in this region what are called Ridge Roads and Valley Roads. We are entering Bellaire by a Ridge Road, and have fine views of hilltop farmhouses and barns, and of hilltop cornfields, all the way. We drop down a steep hill into Bellaire, turn north to Bridgeport, and from there turn east across the Ohio River into the city of Wheeling.

From Wheeling we drive on into Pennsylvania, through Washington, a hill city, to Uniontown. The whole country is hilly and we are constantly enjoying fine views. Around Uniontown many noble trees are dying. They tell us that this is the locust year, and that these trees are victims of the voracious insects. Beyond Uniontown we sweep up a long hill, over a splendid road, to the Summit House. The hotel is closed, so we go on over the hills to a simpler hotel which is open all the year. This is the Chalk Hill House, and here we have true country comfort. For supper we have fried chicken, fried ham, fried hasty pudding, huckleberries, strawberry preserves, real maple syrup, water melon rind pickles, cookies, cake, apple sauce, flannel cakes, and coffee. This is Pennsylvania hospitality. Chalk Hill is 2100 feet above sea level, and we have fine mountain air. We learn that Braddock's troops in their famous march to the West passed only 500 yards back of where the Chalk Hill House now stands. We ask our fellow travelers at the inn about a very tall monument which we passed, between Washington and Uniontown, on a hilltop. It is eighty-five feet high, and bears the name of McCutcheon. We are told that Mr. McCutcheon's will directed that all his money should be spent in the erection of this monument to his memory. So there it stands.

Our route lies through Cumberland to Hagerstown, and from Hagerstown through Martinsburg to Winchester, Virginia. We are crossing the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, and coming into Maryland on the northwest corner; passing through a small triangle of West Virginia, and entering Virginia by the northwest.

Not long after leaving Chalk Hill House we pass on the left the comparatively new monument which marks Braddock's grave. A beautiful bronze tablet on one side of the granite shaft reads: "This bronze tablet was erected and dedicated to the memory of Major-General Edward Braddock by the officers of his old regiment, the Coldstream Guards of England, October 15th, 1913." Another bronze tablet has been placed by the Braddock Memorial Park Association of Fayette County, Pennsylvania. There is also in bas relief a bust of Braddock in military dress. The great seals of the United States and of Great Britain adorn the shaft. The main inscription on the shaft reads:

Here lieth the remains of Major-General Edward Braddock who, in command of the 44th and 48th regiments of English regulars was mortally wounded in an engagement with the French and Indians under the command of Captain M. de Beaujeu at the battle of the Monongahela, within ten miles of Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg, July 9, 1755.

He was borne back with the retreating army to the old orchard camp, about one-fourth of a mile west of this park, where he died July 13, 1755. Lieutenant Colonel George Washington read the burial service at the grave.

We are on historic ground all along here. A little farther down the road we pass a tablet on a roadside boulder, erected in 1913 by the Great Crossing Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, to mark the old "Nemacolin's trail," so named from the Delaware Indian guide for the Ohio Company. The tablet records that Washington passed this way in 1753, 1754, and 1755.

On the right of the road we pass a very old farmhouse of red brick, back of which in a swampy meadow is the site of the camp of Braddock's forces. We go down the cow lane to see the old camp, whose outlines are marked.