And the old pike’s left to die.”
The foregoing lines were written by one who mourned the departing glories of the old road. When they were written the steam car had taken the place of the four-horse coach, and the writer was giving vent to his grief over the change. Steam has since encountered a formidable competitor in the shape of electricity, and the time is coming when the steam car will follow in the wake of the old stage coach. Progress is the inspiring watchword of the hour, and while there may be nothing new under the sun, old things are certainly presented in a new light, and old agencies applied to new work.
No sound greets the ear of the pike boy now, like the clink of other days. The glory of the old road has departed, but the memory of its better days fades not away. The old tavern has gone with all the rest. The incidents and anecdotes, accidents and episodes of the road have all passed to the domain of history.
In the month of May, 1837, John Quincy Adams visited Uniontown, on his return from Cincinnati, where he had gone to participate in the inauguration of the observatory on Mount Adams, near that city. Dr. Hugh Campbell was appointed to deliver the address of welcome to Mr. Adams on his arrival at Uniontown. The following opening sentences are quoted from Dr. Campbell’s address:
“Venerable Sir: I have the honor of being the organ of this community to express for them and myself our hearty welcome of you among us. You see here, sir, an assembly of people of every political faith, come together spontaneously as one man to express their respect and veneration for one who has filled so large and distinguished, and I may add, beneficial space in the history and councils of this nation. We stand here, sir, upon the Cumberland Road, which has, to some extent, broken down the great wall of the Appallachian mountains, which served to form so natural a barrier between what might have been two great rival nations. This road constitutes we trust, an indissoluble chain of Union, connecting forever as one, the East and the West. As a people directly interested in this great national work, we are glad to have the opportunity of expressing our acknowledgments to you in person. It is a part of that great system which has always received your support, known as the American System, the happy influence of which you have recently had the pleasure of witnessing in the rapid and extraordinary development of the resources of the West.”
Dr. Campbell proceeded at some length in a well conceived and happily expressed address, and concluded as follows:
“Again, sir, I bid you welcome to the hospitalities of our town, and may the God of all grace prolong your existence, and finally receive you to himself.”
It is noteworthy, because out of the ordinary line, that two of the ablest debaters and most popular public speakers of Western Pennsylvania, fifty years ago, were physicians—Dr. F. J. Lemoyne, of Washington, and Dr. Hugh Campbell, of Uniontown, the first named an Abolitionist and the other a Whig. Those who have heard them on the stump aver that they never heard better speakers. They were both highly educated, masters of logic, forceful in delivery, and in the modern phrase, “clean cut” in all their utterances.
In the latest map of Fayette county, Pennsylvania, there is a sketch of the National Road, written by the late Hon. James Veech, in which that able man said:
“It is a monument of a past age; but like all other monuments, it is interesting, as well as venerable. It carried thousands of population and millions of wealth into the West; and more than any other material structure in the land, served to harmonize and strengthen, if not to save, the Union.”