The Old Pike / A History of the National Road, with Incidents, Accidents, and Anecdotes Thereon

by Thomas B. Searight

JOHN DEETS.

John Deets was a wagoner on the road as early as 1826, before the invention of the rubber, or at least before its application to wagons on the National Road. He had a brother, Michael, who preceded him as a wagoner on the road. John Deets located in Guernsey county, Ohio, in 1835, whence he went from Menallen township, Fayette county, Pa. He is still living. The following from his own pen furnishes a graphic account of life on the road in his day:

Mr. Searight: I will try to give you as much information as I can at this time. My brother, Michael Deets, about four years older than myself, was among the first that wagoned on the pike. That was about the year 1822. He first drove his father’s team, and the first load of goods he hauled from Baltimore was to Uniontown for Isaac Beeson or Isaac Skiles, I am not certain which. After that he drove for Abram Beagle, who lived in the west end of Uniontown. After that he bought a team, and a few years after bought two more, so that he owned three teams at one time. He drove one of the teams himself and hired drivers for the other two. The team he drove himself was a bell team. One of his drivers was George Richards, and the other, Jesse Barnet, a colored man, who lived in the east end of Uniontown. When they took up the old bed of the road, and macadamized it, my brother took a contract and put his teams to hauling stones. After finishing his contract, he resumed the hauling of merchandise on the road and continued until about 1837, when he moved to Ohio, thence to Illinois, and thence to Missouri, where he died.

The pike boys had some hard times and they had some good times. They were generally very fond of sport, and mostly tried to put up where the landlord was a fiddler, so that they could take a hoe-down. Every one carried his own bed, and after they had all the sport they wanted they put their beds down on the floor in a circle, with their feet to the fire, and slept like a mouse in a mill. They were generally very sociable and friendly with each other, but I must note one thing just here: Two of the boys met at David Barnett’s, some three miles east of Hancock, and got into a dispute, which was not often the case. Elias Meek and Abner Benley were the two. Meek was for fight, Benley was for peace. But Meek pushed on Benley and Benley run, but Meek caught him. Then Benley knew he had to fight, and turned on Meek and gave him a wonderful thrashing, so that he was not able to drive his team for some time. And now with regard to getting up and down the hills. They had no trouble to get up, but the trouble was in getting down, for they had no rubbers then, and to tight lock would soon wear out their tires. They would cut a small pole about 10 or 11 feet long and tie it to the bed with the lock chain and then bend it against the hind wheel and tie it to the feed trough, or the hind part of the wagon bed, just tight enough to let the wheel turn slow. Sometimes one driver would wear out from 15 to 20 poles between Baltimore and Wheeling. Sometimes others would cut down a big tree and tie it to the hind end of the wagon and drop it at the foot of the hill. When there was ice, and there was much of it in winter, they had to use rough locks and cutters, and the wagon would sometimes be straight across the road, if not the hind end foremost. The snow was sometimes so deep that they had to go through fields, and shovel the drifts from the fences, and often had to get sleds to take their loads across Nigger Mountain, and on as far as Hopwood. Those of us who had to go through the fields were three days going nine miles. This was in the neighborhood of Frostburg, Md. There were no bridges then across the Monongahela or the Ohio rivers. Wagoners had to ferry across in small flat-boats, and sometimes to lay at the rivers for some days, until the ice would run out or the river freeze over. A small bridge across Dunlap’s creek, at Brownsville, broke down with one of the pike boys and did a great deal of damage. Sometimes a barrel of coffee would spring a leak and the coffee would be scattered along the road, and women would gather it up and be glad for such a prize. The writer has scattered some in his time. Some of the old citizens of Uniontown, no doubt, well remember the time, when scores of poor slaves were driven through that place, handcuffed and tied two and two to a rope that was extended some 40 or 50 feet, one on each side. And thousands of droves of hogs were driven through to Baltimore, some from Ohio. Sometimes they would have to lay by two or three days on account of the frozen road, which cut their feet and lamed them. While the writer was wagoning on the old pike, the canal was made from Cumberland to Harper’s Ferry. The pike boys were bitterly opposed to railroads and so were the tavern keepers. The writer heard an old tavern keeper say “he wished the railroad would sink to the lower regions.” That great phenomenon that occurred the 13th of November, 1833, or, as it is often called, the Shooting stars. That circumstance caused a great deal of excitement. Some became very much alarmed, and it was reported that some went crazy, and thought the world was coming to an end. The writer was at Hopwood that night with his team and wagon. The phenomenon was also seen in Ohio. It was reported in Ohio that there was a box of money hid on the old Gaddis farm, near the pike, about two miles west of Uniontown, supposed to have been hid there by Gen. Braddock. It was sought for but never found. The taverns we mostly put up at in Baltimore were the Maypole, on Paca street, south of Gen. Wayne, and at Thomas Elliott’s, near the Hill market; and where we mostly loaded our goods was at J. Taylor & Sons and at Chauncey Brook’s, on Baltimore and Howard streets. Our first day’s drive out of Baltimore was 19 miles, to Enoch Randall’s, or 20, to John Whalon’s. The second day to Frank Wathers—who could almost outswear the world. And one thing more: Before this writer became a pike boy he plowed many a day with a wooden mold-board plow, and after being engaged on the road for about ten years, he left the road and went to Ohio, and then made a public profession of religion and united with the Baptist church. In conclusion, will say to make as good a history as you possibly can, and I hope you shall be well rewarded for your labor, and above all never forget your Creator, as in Him we live, move and have our being.

Yours respectfully,

JOHN DEETS.

David Church was an old wagoner, a native of Wheeling, and when the old pike ceased to ring with the clatter of travel and trade, he purchased a farm in Wharton township, near Farmington, Fayette county, Pa., took up his residence thereon, and died a mountain farmer. He was a large, fat man, of ruddy complexion and reddish hair. The leader in his team was of a dun color, and as it approached the old taverns and the big water-troughs, was recognized as the team of David Church by the color of the leader. Charley Rush often invited Church to take a chair and be seated when he visited the store at Farmington, but he invariably declined, remarking that he could rest as well standing as sitting. He felt like nearly all the old wagoners, that his occupation was gone when transportation ceased on the old road, and could never fully adapt himself to the new order of things.

JOHN SNIDER.

In the year 1842 John Snider hauled a load of butter from Wheeling to Washington, D. C. The owner of this butter was a man by the name of Oyster, a butter dealer of Wheeling. He could have shipped his butter from Cumberland to its destination by rail, as the Baltimore & Ohio road had just then been finished to Cumberland; but his animosity against railroads was so deep-seated that he engaged Snider to haul it all the way through with his big team. On his way to Washington with this load he struck off from the National Road at Frederick City, Maryland. He reached that city on Christmas night and “put up” at Miller’s tavern. The guests of that old tavern danced all of that night, and early in the morning of the day after Christmas, Snider “pulled out” on a strange road for the city of Washington with his load of butter. He was three days on a mud road between Frederick and Washington, but, nevertheless, delivered his butter in “good condition” to the consignee. This butter was bought up in small quantities in the vicinity of Wheeling for ten cents per pound, and Snider got two dollars and fifty cents per hundred pounds for hauling it to Washington.