[CHAPTER XXXIV.]
Old Taverns and Tavern Keepers continued—Uniontown to Searights—Anecdote of John Slack—Slack at Night and Tight in the Morning—Old Roads—Parting Tribute to the Old Taverns of the Mountains—Henry Clay Extols the Virtue of Buckwheat Cakes—Boss Rush and his Poker—Moxleys—The Old Hunter House—Searights—The Grays and the Gray Meeting—Jackson Men and Adams Men Meet and Count Noses—Old Political Leaders—Barnacles of the Road.
The tavern keepers on the “old road,” as it is called, were as earnestly opposed to the building of the National Road, as those on the latter were to the building of the railroad, and for like reasons. The following anecdote serves as an illustration: John Slack kept a tavern for many years at the summit of Laurel Hill on the old road, in a house near the Washington Springs. Before the National Road was opened said Slack, in a complaining manner, “Wagons coming up Laurel Hill would stick in the mud a mile or so below my house, when the drivers would unhitch, leave their wagons in the mud, and bring their teams to my house and stay with me all night. In the morning they would return to their stranded wagons, dig and haul them out, and get back to my house and stay with me another night. Thus counting the wagons going east and west, I got four night’s bills from the same set of wagoners.” “Now,” concluded Slack (since the completion of the National Road), with indignation, “the wagoners whiff by without stopping.” Old wagoners were accustomed to say of Slack that he was “Slack at night and tight in the morning,” meaning that he was clever and cheerful when they “put up” with him in the evening, and close and exacting in the morning when bills were payable.
The old road referred to was the Braddock road, which from the summit of Laurel Hill, turned northwardly, as before stated, to Gists (Mt. Braddock), Stewart’s Crossing (Connellsville), Braddock’s Field and Fort Pitt (Pittsburg).
THE SEARIGHT HOUSE.
An old road between Uniontown and Brownsville was laid out in 1774 by viewers appointed by the court of Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, before Fayette county was established, upon a petition signed mainly by inhabitants of Brownsville and vicinity, who complained that “they had to carry their corn twenty miles to the mill of Henry Beeson at Uniontown.” The distance of twenty miles complained of was by way of the old road known as “Burd’s,” from the mouth of Redstone creek to Gists, where it intersected Braddock’s road. The road between Uniontown and Brownsville, above mentioned, was carried east of Uniontown, to intersect the Braddock road, which it did, near Slack’s tavern. The line of the National Road closely follows that of the old road between Uniontown and Brownsville. Marks of the old road are plainly visible to this day, and some of the old buildings, which were erected along its line, are still standing, notably the dwelling of Thomas B. Graham, esq., three miles west of Uniontown, which was an old tavern. This old house was the first residence of the Hon. Andrew Stewart after his marriage, and his oldest son, David Shriver, was born in it.