George Widdle, an old wagoner of the age of eighty and upwards, still living in Wheeling, drew the single line and handled the Loudon whip over a six-horse team for many years, between Wheeling and Baltimore, and accounts the days of those years the happiest of his existence. He was also a stage driver for a time. Nothing affords him so much pleasure as a recital of the incidents of the road. He says there never were such taverns and tavern keepers as those of the National Road in the days of its glory, and of his vigorous manhood.
James Butler, like Bell, was a trader. Butler drove a “bell team,” as teams with bells were called. He was a Virginian, from the vicinity of Winchester. It was the tradition of the road that he had a slight infusion of negro blood in his veins, and this assigned him to the side table of the dining room. When he quit the road he returned to Winchester, started a store, and got rich.
Neither tradition or kindred evidence was necessary to prove the race status of Westley Strother. He showed up for himself. He was as black as black could be, and a stalwart in size and shape. He was well liked by all the old wagoners, and by every one who knew him. He was mild in manner, and honest in purpose. He had the strongest affection for the road, delighted in its stirring scenes, and when he saw the wagons and the wagoners, one after another, departing from the old highway, he repined and prematurely died at Uniontown.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
Old Wagoners continued—Harrison Wiggins, Morris Mauler, James Mauler, John Marker, John Bradley, Robert Carter, R. D. Kerfoot, Jacob F. Longanecker, Ellis B. Woodward—Broad and Narrow Wheels—A peculiar Wagon—An experiment and a failure—Wagon Beds—Bell Teams.
Harrison Wiggins, widely known as a lover of fox hunting, and highly respected as a citizen, was one of the early wagoners. His career as a wagoner ceased long before the railroad reached Cumberland. He hauled goods from Baltimore to points west. His outfit, team and wagon, were owned by himself and his father, Cuthbert Wiggins. Harrison Wiggins was born in the old Gribble house, two miles east of Brownsville, on the 30th of April, 1812. About the year 1817 his father moved to Uniontown, and kept a tavern in a frame building which stood on the lot adjoining the residence of P. S. Morrow, Esq. He remained here until 1821, when he went to the stone house at the eastern base of Chalk Hill, and was its first occupant. His house at Uniontown numbered among its patrons, Hon. Nathaniel Ewing, Samuel Cleavenger, Mr. Bouvier, John A. Sangston, John Kennedy, John Lyon, and other eminent men of that period. In 1832 or ’33, Harrison Wiggins married a daughter of John Risler, a noted tavern keeper of the road, one of the very best, a talent which descended to his children. At the date of the marriage Mr. Risler was keeping the stone house at Braddock’s run, and the wedding occurred in that house. In 1839 Harrison Wiggins went to Iowa, with a view of locating in that State, but returned the next year and leased the property on which he now lives from Charles Griffith. In ten years thereafter he bought this property, and it has been his home for more than half a century. Under the careful and sagacious management of Mr. Wiggins, it has become one of the prettiest and most valuable properties in the mountains. It has been a long time since he was a wagoner, but he enjoys a recital of the stirring scenes he witnessed on the old road in the days of its glory.
