[CHAPTER XLII.]
Superintendents under National Control—Gen. Gratiot, Captains Delafield, McKee, Bliss, Hartzell, Williams, Colquit and Cass, and Lieuts. Mansfield, Vance and Pickell—The Old Mile Posts—Commissioners and Superintendents under State Control—William Searight, William Hopkins, and Earlier and Later Commissioners and Superintendents—A Pennsylvania Court Wipes Out a Section of the Road.
Down to the year 1834, as has been seen, the road was under the control and supervision of the War Department of the General Government. Brig.-Gen. Gratiot was the chief officer in immediate charge. The town of Gratiot on the line of the road in Muskingum county, Ohio, was named in his honor. Captains Delafield, McKee, Bliss, Bartlett, Hartzell, Williams, Colquit and Cass, and Lieuts. Mansfield, Vance and Pickell, all graduates of West Point, were more or less identified with the construction, management and repairs of the road. These army officers were all well known to the people along the road sixty years ago. Gen. Gratiot was probably dead before the beginning of the civil war, or too old for active service. Mansfield fell at Antietam, a major general of the Union forces. Williams was killed at the storming of Monterey in the Mexican war. McKee fell while gallantly leading a regiment in the hot fight at Buena Vista. Hartzell, promoted to the rank of major, fought through the Mexican war, and died soon after returning to his home in Lexington, Kentucky. Bliss and Delafield both died within the current decade. Colquit, a near relative of the Georgia Senator of that name, died in the Confederate service. Capt. Geo. W. Cass, while on the road as an engineer in charge of repairs, married a daughter of the late George Dawson, of Brownsville, located at that place, and transacted business there for a number of years. He subsequently went to Pittsburg as president of the Adams Express Company, and later became president of the Pittsburg, Ft. Wayne & Chicago Railway Company. He was prominent and influential in the politics of Pennsylvania, and on several occasions stood second in the ballotings for the Democratic nomination for Governor. He died in the city of New York. He was twice married. His widow surviving him, is a sister of his first wife.
The iron mile posts, so familiar to the traveler on the road, were turned out in foundries of Connellsville and Brownsville. Major James Francis had the contract for making and delivering those between Cumberland and Brownsville. His foundry was at Connellsville, Pennsylvania. Col. Alex. J. Hill, a well known and popular coke operator, and Democratic politician of Fayette county, Pennsylvania, is a son-in-law of Major Francis, the old foundryman. Those between Brownsville and Wheeling were made at Snowden’s old foundry, in Brownsville, John Snowden, contractor. They were hauled along the road for distribution in wagons drawn by six horse teams. Within the last two years they were re-set and re-painted, between Brownsville and the Maryland State line, under the direction of Commissioner Ewing Searight, and stand erect in their original sites, silent witnesses of the great procession that passed in front of them for so many years, and if they possessed the attributes of speech and memory, could narrate the story of a great highway, which in incident and interest is without a rival.
William Searight was a commissioner of the road for a number of years in its prosperous era. His jurisdiction extended over the line within the limits of Pennsylvania. He was of Irish lineage, and Presbyterian faith. His parents located in Ligonier Valley, Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, about the year 1780. Upon reaching his majority he came to Fayette county to work out his destiny. He learned the trade of fulling and dyeing, and started in business on his own account at Hammond’s old mill on Dunlap’s creek, long since demolished and forgotten. He subsequently pursued the same business at Cook’s mill, on Redstone creek. His education was such only as could be procured in his boyhood by persons of slender means, but his natural endowments were of the highest and best order. He was honest and industrious. On March 26th, 1826, he married Rachel, a daughter of Thomas Brownfield, proprietor of the old Swan tavern in Uniontown. At Searights, on the National Road, he laid the foundation of a considerable fortune, and died in the sixty-first year of his age. He was a leading Democratic politician of his day in Fayette county, and in 1827 rode on horseback from Searights to Harrisburg, to aid in nominating General Jackson for the presidency. He was a trusted friend of the late Gen. Simon Cameron, when that unrivalled politician was a leader of the Democratic party in Pennsylvania. At the date of his death he was the nominee of his party for the important State office of Canal Commissioner, and would have been elected, had not death interposed and called him from the active duties of this life to the realities of another. William Hopkins, another old commissioner of the road, was nominated to the vacancy thus made, and elected by a large majority. The death of William Searight occurred at his home, near Searights, on August 12, 1852. He was a man of generous impulses and charitable disposition, ever ready to lend his counsel, his sympathies and his purse, to ameliorate the sufferings of his fellow men. Although death plucked him from the very threshold of earthly honors, it caused him no regret. His work was well done, and he was ready to go. The kingdom he was about to enter presented higher honors and purer enjoyments. In looking forward and upward he saw—
“No midnight shade, no clouded sun,