A gentleman of Wheeling interested in the transportation business at one time, conceived the idea of constructing a wagon that would make so wide a track as to be allowed to pass over the road for a very low rate of toll, if not entirely exempt. His model was a wagon with the rear axle four inches shorter than the front one, so that a track was made of eight inches in width. To this wagon nine horses were attached—three abreast. It passed over the road several times, with Joseph Sopher as driver, attracting much attention, but turning out a failure as well in the matter of saving toll as in being an impracticable vehicle of transportation.
The bed of the regular road wagon was long and deep, bending upward at the bottom in front and rear. The lower broad side was painted blue, with a movable board inserted above, painted red. The covering was of white canvas stretched over broad wooden bows, so that the old road wagon, probably more as a matter of taste than design, disclosed the tri-colors of the American escutcheon, red, white and blue.
An average load was 6,000 pounds, but loads weighing 10,000 pounds, “a hundred hundred,” as all old wagoners boastfully put it, were frequently hauled over the road.
The reader who never saw the endless procession on the old pike, in the days of its glory, may have the impression that the bells used by some of the old wagoners on their teams were like sleigh bells, or those of the milk wagon of the present day, and in like manner strapped around the horses. But that was not the way of it. The bells of the old wagoners were cone shaped, with an open end, not unlike a small dinner bell, and were attached to a thin iron arch, sprung over the tops of the hames. The motion of the horses caused a quiver in the arch, and the bell teams moved majestically along the road attracting attention and eliciting admiration. The great majority of wagoners did not use bells.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
Old Wagoners continued—John Deets—His story told by himself—David Church—John Snider loads up with Butter—Billy Ashton, John Bradfield, Frank Bradfield—An Escapade—William Hall, Henry Puffenberger and Jacob Breakiron—Collision between a “regular” and a “sharpshooter”—Joseph Lawson, Jeff. Manypenny, Joseph Arnold, The Sophers, Robert Beggs, Thomas Gore, and John Whetsel.
