One mile west of Proboscis’s one McNutt, of Irish extraction, and good fame as a landlord, kept a tavern, and next beyond, on the westward trend, John Livengood, whose name imports old Pennsylvania Dutch stock, ministered to the wants of strangers and travelers.
Zanesville is next reached. Zanesville is the county seat of Muskingum county. It is situate on the Muskingum river, fifty-nine miles east from Columbus. Mr. Leslie kept a tavern in Zanesville in the olden time, and entertained the public in a highly satisfactory manner. His house was a brick building on the north side of the street and road, and at the west end of the town. When Leslie kept tavern in Zanesville, the town contained a population of about 7,000. Its population at this date exceeds 25,000. It survived the decline of the road, and grew rapidly in population and wealth, but it may be doubted whether its present money making inhabitants experience as much of the real pleasures and enjoyments of life as their predecessors of fifty years ago, when the dashing stage coach woke up the echoes of the dull town, and the heavy tread of the ponderous broad wheeled wagon told the whole story of commerce and trade. The illustrious Samuel S. Cox was born and reared in Zanesville, and therefore, under a definition given in a previous chapter, a pike boy. He was called “Sunset,” by reason of a gushing description he wrote of the Setting Sun, when a young man, and there is no doubt that the views which so deeply impressed his youthful mind were had from points on the National Road, in the vicinity of his native town. He was one of the brightest stars in the galaxy of American statesmen.
A writer in a Guernsey county paper gives the following lively description of scenes on the road in that locality:
“Isaac Cleaves was one of the old tavern keepers in Fairview. His house was the stage office, where a halt was made for exchange of horses, and to discharge and take on passengers. The stage offices were places of public resort, and around the bar-rooms gathered the toper’s and loafers, by day and by night. The old stage drivers were full of fun and frolic, and could entertain the curious with
‘Tales fearful and awful,
E’en to name would be unlawful.
Fast by an Angle blinking Bonni,
W’ie recanning swats that drank divinely,
These sorters told their queerest stories,
And the landlord’s laugh was ready chorus.’