Joseph Lawson was, like his fellow teamster, John Galwix, considered a fancy wagoner. He took pride in his calling, and his team consisted of six stallions, well mated and of gigantic size. The gears he used were the very best of the John Morrow pattern, and his “outfit” attracted attention and evoked words of praise from the throngs that lined the road in that day. There was a regulation tread and an air about the old wagoner, especially of the regular line, that rose almost, if not altogether, to the standard of dignity.
Jeff. Manypenny was an old wagoner, and a son of the old tavern keeper of Uniontown, referred to in a subsequent chapter.
Joseph Arnold is said to have hauled the first “eighty hundred load” ever hauled on the road, and it gave him great fame. It was in 1837.
Joseph Sopher tried the experiment of using nine horses in his team, driven three abreast. It did not prove practicable or profitable, and he soon abandoned it and returned to the ordinary six-horse team. There were four Sophers on the road and they were brothers, viz: Joseph, Nimrod, Jack and William, and they were stage drivers as well as wagoners.
Robert Beggs, an old wagoner, prosecuted Jacob Probasco for perjury. The prosecution grew out of an affidavit made by Probasco alleging that Beggs, who was indebted to him, was about to remove his goods from the State with intent to defraud his creditors. This prosecution gave Probasco much trouble and involved him in considerable expense, and is said to have been the cause of his removal from Fayette county, Pennsylvania.
Thomas Gore was one of the first wagoners on the road, and a regular. He lived in Hopwood when that village was known as Woodstock. He drove a “bell team,” and owned it. He was well known all along the road, but it is so long ago that but few of the pike boys of this day remember him. He gave up wagoning long before business ceased on the road, and settled in Franklin township, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, where he died thirty years ago. Robinson Addis, a well known and much esteemed citizen of Dunbar township, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, married a daughter of Thomas Gore; and a grandson of the old wagoner, bearing the name Thomas Gore Addis, is one of the trusted and trustworthy superintendents of the H. Clay Frick Coke Company, with headquarters at Brownfield Station, on the Southwest Railway.
John Whetzel, called “Johnny,” a regular old wagoner, was small in stature, quiet in disposition, and of swarthy complexion. He talked but little, rarely using a word beyond the size of a monosyllable, and was well known and highly esteemed all along the road. When the career of the road as a great National highway ended, “Johnny” Whetzel retired to a farm in Saltlick township, Fayette county, Pennsylvania, where he still lives, bending under the weight of many years, but enjoying the confidence and respect of all his neighbors.
JOHN WALLACE.