Across the Continent by the Lincoln Highway Part 8

We came into the broad main street of Granville, the lights shining, the leaves of the maple trees glistening with the rain which had fallen earlier in the day. If ever there was a New England town in a Western State, Granville is that town. It was founded more than a hundred years ago by Connecticut people, and it bears the impress of its founders to-day. Its wide street, its old churches, its white houses with green shutters, its look of comfort and cleanliness, all are typically New England. We had a most comfortable night at the old fashioned Hotel Buxton, and drove up on the hill in the beautiful clear morning to see the buildings of Denison University. The University is very finely situated on a high ridge overlooking the wooded town, and commanding a fine view of the green valley beyond. There is a brick terrace on the hillside, with an ornamental sundial, where one may enjoy the rich champaign below. Back of the college buildings, which look out over the valley, the hill plunges down into a fine forest of beeches. The student at Granville has beautiful surroundings for his years of study. Emerson said that the mountains around an inst.i.tution should be put in the college curriculum. Granville students certainly should include in their curriculum the beauty of beech forests and the richness of the Ohio farming country.

From Granville on to Zanesville the country increases in charm. It is rich and fertile, gently rolling, diversified by fine beeches and elms.

Here and there are plenteous corn fields. But Ohio farmhouses do not seem to cultivate more flowers than do the farmhouses of Iowa and Illinois. Reaching Zanesville we are greeted by a great sign suspended across the road above our heads. It reads, "h.e.l.lo! Glad you came. Just drive carefully. Zanesville Motorcycle Club." In leaving we pa.s.s under a similar sign and find that it reads on its reverse side, "Thank you!

Come again. Zanesville Motorcycle Club." We are on the old National Road now, and find it rather poor. It is uneven, and is rendered b.u.mpy by the constant road bars. The country grows more hilly, and the towns are beginning to change character. Newark is an attractive little city, standing rather high. "Old Washington" has very old red brick houses, and St. Clairsville is an attractive old town. The towns remind one of the old Pennsylvania towns. The houses are built flush with the sidewalk just as one sees them in Pennsylvania. Many of the farmhouses are built of substantial red brick, with white porches.

About nine miles from Wheeling, West Virginia, we come along a fine road to a most beautiful hilltop view. Prosperous farms and farmhouses are all about, the farmhouses standing high on the green, rounded tops of the hills. The National Road being under repair, we take a detour in order to reach Wheeling. A hospitable sign at the entrance to our roundabout road to the right reads, "This road open. Bellaire bids you welcome." We learn later that there are in this region what are called Ridge Roads and Valley Roads. We are entering Bellaire by a Ridge Road, and have fine views of hilltop farmhouses and barns, and of hilltop cornfields, all the way. We drop down a steep hill into Bellaire, turn north to Bridgeport, and from there turn east across the Ohio River into the city of Wheeling.

From Wheeling we drive on into Pennsylvania, through Washington, a hill city, to Uniontown. The whole country is hilly and we are constantly enjoying fine views. Around Uniontown many n.o.ble trees are dying. They tell us that this is the locust year, and that these trees are victims of the voracious insects. Beyond Uniontown we sweep up a long hill, over a splendid road, to the Summit House. The hotel is closed, so we go on over the hills to a simpler hotel which is open all the year. This is the Chalk Hill House, and here we have true country comfort. For supper we have fried chicken, fried ham, fried hasty pudding, huckleberries, strawberry preserves, real maple syrup, water melon rind pickles, cookies, cake, apple sauce, flannel cakes, and coffee. This is Pennsylvania hospitality. Chalk Hill is 2100 feet above sea level, and we have fine mountain air. We learn that Braddock's troops in their famous march to the West pa.s.sed only 500 yards back of where the Chalk Hill House now stands. We ask our fellow travelers at the inn about a very tall monument which we pa.s.sed, between Washington and Uniontown, on a hilltop. It is eighty-five feet high, and bears the name of McCutcheon. We are told that Mr. McCutcheon's will directed that all his money should be spent in the erection of this monument to his memory. So there it stands.

Our route lies through c.u.mberland to Hagerstown, and from Hagerstown through Martinsburg to Winchester, Virginia. We are crossing the southwest corner of Pennsylvania, and coming into Maryland on the northwest corner; pa.s.sing through a small triangle of West Virginia, and entering Virginia by the northwest.

Not long after leaving Chalk Hill House we pa.s.s on the left the comparatively new monument which marks Braddock's grave. A beautiful bronze tablet on one side of the granite shaft reads: "This bronze tablet was erected and dedicated to the memory of Major-General Edward Braddock by the officers of his old regiment, the Coldstream Guards of England, October 15th, 1913." Another bronze tablet has been placed by the Braddock Memorial Park a.s.sociation of Fayette County, Pennsylvania.

There is also in bas relief a bust of Braddock in military dress. The great seals of the United States and of Great Britain adorn the shaft.

The main inscription on the shaft reads:

Here lieth the remains of Major-General Edward Braddock who, in command of the 44th and 48th regiments of English regulars was mortally wounded in an engagement with the French and Indians under the command of Captain M. de Beaujeu at the battle of the Monongahela, within ten miles of Fort Duquesne, now Pittsburg, July 9, 1755.

He was borne back with the retreating army to the old orchard camp, about one-fourth of a mile west of this park, where he died July 13, 1755. Lieutenant Colonel George Washington read the burial service at the grave.

We are on historic ground all along here. A little farther down the road we pa.s.s a tablet on a roadside boulder, erected in 1913 by the Great Crossing Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, to mark the old "Nemacolin's trail," so named from the Delaware Indian guide for the Ohio Company. The tablet records that Washington pa.s.sed this way in 1753, 1754, and 1755.

On the right of the road we pa.s.s a very old farmhouse of red brick, back of which in a swampy meadow is the site of the camp of Braddock's forces. We go down the cow lane to see the old camp, whose outlines are marked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Braddock's Monument near Uniontown, Pa. 2. Old Farmhouse near Braddock's Camp. 3. Historic Inn at Hanc.o.c.k, Md.]

We are in a region of fine old stone bridges, and of beautiful orchard country, alternating with rolling hills covered with heavy forest. At Grantsville we pa.s.s the old Dorsey House, now called the Hotel Castleman. This used to be a hostel much frequented by the farmers. A small boy who is playing in the street and who is sojourning here for the summer gives us this information, and adds that at the Hotel Castleman you have "lots to eat, and plenty of it." We are sorry that it is not luncheon time so that we could put his statement to the test.

Pa.s.sing through Grantsville we cross the old Castleman Bridge, an immense single span of stone. Another fine old bridge with very solid b.u.t.tresses spans Conococheague Creek.

After luncheon in c.u.mberland, we press east to Hagerstown. We are advised that we will find the road far better if we drive east to Hagerstown and then southwest to Winchester, instead of taking the direct southeast route to Winchester from c.u.mberland. We have an excellent road from c.u.mberland to Hagerstown, and find the rich orchard country very beautiful. Ten miles from c.u.mberland, we come upon a point of vantage from which we have a most lovely view. As we near the town of Hanc.o.c.k with its famous old inn the country is still more interesting.

We look down on the gleaming Potomac, winding through green fields and beautifully cultivated orchards. This is famous apple and peach country.

Every year more of the virgin forest on the mountainside is cleared and planted to young apple and peach trees. The soil and the climate are most admirably adapted to the growing of fruit, and there are immense investments in these beautiful orchards. What a fair, fair country!

After we pa.s.s Hanc.o.c.k we look down on the ca.n.a.l near which our road runs. A ca.n.a.l boat pa.s.ses, the mules walking leisurely along the towpath. A boy stands at the helm looking out on the beautiful landscape of forest, orchard, and field. Clothes flap from the clothes-line on the boat. It is a fine life, we think, this gliding along so securely between green fields and orchards and clumps of forest.

Hagerstown is a pleasant town in which to spend the night. We enjoy walking about the streets and seeing some of the old houses. Even the main street of Hagerstown still has one fine old stone house, low and solid, painted yellow. It is the only residence left on the business street, its owner not yet having been tempted by its increased value to sell it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. "Moore House" at Yorktown, Va., where terms were drawn up after the Surrender of Cornwallis. 2. Castleman Bridge, Md. 3. Old Church Tower on Jamestown Island.]

From Hagerstown there are fine shale roads in our drive south to Winchester. After pa.s.sing through old Williamsport we cross the Potomac on a long bridge. All along these roads the motorist is annoyed by many toll gates at which he is halted to pay toll. These are the landmarks of other times and of old customs. These roads were originally built and maintained by private companies. They are fast being bought up by the State, and in a few years the toll gates will disappear. As we approach Winchester the country becomes more prosperous in appearance than it is around Martinsburg, West Virginia. Five miles from Winchester we pa.s.s two fine old red brick farm houses with white porches. We are at last in the Old Dominion, and look forward with high spirits to a tour among the Virginia towns and cities.

Winchester is a very old town, with a fascination that grows upon one.

It is a simple little place, with a certain placidity and quiet that are very soothing. Here is the Winchester Inn with its wide porches and high ceilings. And here is Mrs. Nancy Cobles's private boarding-house, whose very appearance breathes of homelike comfort and Southern hospitality.

The Winchester Inn announces that it is "refurnished, refitted, reland-lorded."

In Winchester is the little old building used as a surveyor's office by young Washington when he was working for Lord Fairfax. Here is fine old Christ Church, endowed by Thomas, Lord Fairfax, whose ashes rest underneath the church.

In Winchester I begin to see very interesting and perfectly clear traces of old Colonial days. There are quaint old names on the grave stones; "Judith," "Mary Ann," "Parthenia." Here is the old English name of Fauntleroy. And here are old houses with fan-lights over the doors.

It is in Winchester, too, that I begin to sense the tragedy and awfulness of the Civil War, as traced by many a sad inscription on many a gravestone. Hundreds of Southern dead are sleeping in the Winchester cemeteries. There are monuments to many unknown dead. "Unknown dead from Winchester battlefield," "Unknown dead from Cedar Creek battlefield,"

and so on. There are monuments to "the brothers Ashby," and to "the Patton brothers." How young are the ages given on many of these stones!

Nineteen, twenty-three, twenty-nine.

Our most interesting call in Winchester is upon a lady who is the owner and manager of a farm of 8000 apple trees, 7000 of which she has set out herself within the past five years, "every tree in a dynamited hole, every tree pruned by a government expert." She tells us that all she knows of apple culture she has learned by a careful study of government pamphlets. Her orchard is about five miles from town, and she drives out daily from her pleasant home. She tells us that her apples are sent to Jersey City and there kept in cold storage. Late in the season she sells them, getting sometimes as high as $7.50 a barrel toward the end of the winter. As we talk with her we wonder why it is that more women do not go in for apple culture. Surely it is a delightful vocation, clean, healthful, invigorating, and profitable.

Our friend tells us laughingly that so far as her experience goes, negro servants are "still proving to their former owners that they are free."

She relates an experience with a young negro maid, who after eight months of happy service with her, during which time she had the best of training, suddenly left her. She took a new position just across the street and for exactly the same wages as her old situation had given her. When her former mistress asked her why it was that she was leaving, she giggled and said demurely, "I mus' do de bes' I kin fo' myse'f."

From Winchester we drive to Staunton over a fine road. From the fine country about Winchester, dotted with beautiful orchards, down through Harrisonburg in the midst of great grain and hay farms, we are pa.s.sing through the famous Shenandoah Valley. We see it at a disadvantage, for the months of dry weather have burned the fields brown and dry and increased the dust of the roads. But it is beautiful still, a fair and prosperous farming country. We pa.s.s through Harrisonburg on court day, and the town is filled with farmers who make of this day a general market day.

As we approach Staunton we come again into orchard country. We have been pa.s.sing through many miles of farms devoted to grain. On the left, as one enters Staunton, is Chilton Hall, standing high above the town.

Chilton Hall, kept by a woman, is a fine new private house, transformed into a tourist hostel. It looks most attractive. We go on into Staunton as we wish to be in the heart of the town. We establish ourselves very comfortably for a few days at "The Shenandoah," also kept by a woman.

Here we have for a very moderate price a room with a private bath. We enjoy fresh milk and cream, home-made b.u.t.ter, jams, and jellies, and all the good things of a hospitable Virginia table. We visit the famous Mary Baldwin Seminary, an exquisitely kept inst.i.tution. We also see the Episcopal Church school in its fine old building, Stuart Hall, and we walk past the Presbyterian manse where President Wilson was born. We visit the fine cemetery and read the sad inscriptions on the head stones. One, erected to a young officer of thirty years, reads, "Here lies a gallant soldier," and adds that he fell fighting "in the great battle of Mana.s.sas." In this cemetery there are 870 Southern dead whose names are given. There are also about 700 soldiers lying here, "not recorded by name." The inscription speaks of them as "unknown yet well known." There are quaint names of women on the old stones here, as in Winchester; "Johanah," and "Edmonia." And there are old English names; as Barclay, Warwick, Peyton, Prettyman, Eskridge, and Darrow.

During our stay in Staunton we take a day for a drive to the Natural Bridge. It is charming country through which we drive, growing more broken and wooded as we go farther south. We find the road b.u.mpy and dusty, but not at all impracticable. We have our luncheon with us, and after paying a somewhat exorbitant fee of one dollar apiece for entrance to the natural park which includes the Bridge scenery, we walk along the ravine beside the little river, to the mighty arch of the Bridge itself.

It is a n.o.ble span of rock, of an enormous thickness, on so grand a scale that it is difficult to realize its height and width. We have our luncheon beside the stream in the forest, and drive back to Staunton.

The wooded Virginia hills and the fields are beautiful in the afternoon sunlight.

In returning to Staunton we stop in Lexington to see the old cemetery where Stonewall Jackson lies buried, and where his statue looks out from a terrace over the open country. We also visit the very beautiful campus of the Washington and Lee University, and the hilltop situation of the famous Virginia Military Inst.i.tute, where another statue of Jackson stands in commanding position. Were there time, one could linger for hours on the University campus and in the old Lexington cemetery. I find a very interesting inscription on a simple stone, which reads thus:

Samuel Hays. In loving remembrance for faithful service; this stone is erected by the desire of his master. He was loved, honoured, and trusted, by three generations.

The buildings of Washington and Lee University are of cla.s.sic type, and the whole campus with its fine trees and its many white porticoes gleaming through them, makes an impression that is best expressed by the old phrase, "cla.s.sic shades." Some of our more modern universities impress one by their very architecture and atmosphere as being magnificently equipped inst.i.tutions of business. Washington and Lee University has the old atmosphere of study and of the quiet, ordered life of the scholar. The Virginia Military Inst.i.tute is particularly interesting to the traveler, because of the vault in its chapel crypt where rest the ashes of the Lee family. Here are buried Lighthorse Harry Lee, and his distinguished son General Robert E. Lee. And here there is a beautiful rec.u.mbent statue of General Lee by Valentine; so realistic that the dead man seems to lie before one wrapped in marble sleep.

CHAPTER XII

We are sorry to leave the hospitable "Shenandoah" when the time comes to go on to Charlottesville. We drive from Staunton out past the National Cemetery which stands on a hill overlooking the valley. We are soon to cross the ridge between the Shenandoah Valley and the other great valley known as Piedmont, the crossing point being at Rock Fish Gap. This is the historic point where the early settlers first saw and laid claim to the Shenandoah Valley in the name of the King of England.

The view from the top of the Gap, which is reached by a very easy climb, is strikingly beautiful. On one side is the Shenandoah Valley from which we have just come up, stretching far into the distance. On the other are the fertile rolling hills, and the miles of green orchards, of the Piedmont section. Here is a view which shows us the smiling, fruitful Virginia of which we have dreamed. We descend from the Gap by a very fine new road, and shortly after we cross a bridge which is in the last stages, so far as traffic is concerned, of tottering decay. At each end of the old wooden structure there is a card posted by the county commissioners to the effect that they will not be responsible for the safety of travelers crossing the bridge. It strikes one as rather incongruous that they should warn people against using the bridge, save on their own responsibility, and yet offer no alternative. Just beyond Yancey Mills we pa.s.s an old, old farmhouse at whose gate there hangs an attractive sign,

"THE SIGN OF THE GREEN TEA-POT."

We decide to go in for a cup of tea. It is a charming little place, kept by a woman of taste and arranged for parties to sup in pa.s.sing by, or for a few people to make a short stay. We admire the simple, dainty furniture, the homelike little parlor, and the attractive dining-room.

Everything is beautifully clean and we sigh that we cannot make a longer stay. They give us one of the best cups of tea that we have had in all our long journey. The views about the place are charmingly pastoral, and we feel that with books and walks we could spend an idyllic fortnight here. Coming into Charlottesville we pa.s.s the fine campus of the University of Virginia.

Now comes a delightful week in old Charlottesville. To begin with, we insure our comfort by staying at a private boarding house on Jefferson street, where we have the delicious cooking that makes the tables of the old State famous. We find the boarding houses in Virginia to be very pleasant places indeed. We enjoy our Virginia table neighbors and we enjoy the homely comfort of these establishments. When we do not know the address of a boarding house we are accustomed, upon entering a town, to make inquiry at the best looking drug store. We have found this plan admirable, and are indebted for some very kindly and practical advice.

While in Charlottesville we drive about the country over the red clay roads which are so beautiful in the midst of the green meadows and orchards. This is the scenery that is so charmingly described by Mary Johnston in "Lewis Rand." Charlottesville is in the midst of a famous apple country, where are grown most delicious wine saps. All along in our Virginia travels we have seen evidences of a b.u.mper crop of apples.

Never have I seen so many apple trees bowed to the ground with their rosy crop. Each tree is a bouquet in itself; and a whole orchard of these trees with their drooping sprays of apple-laden branches, many of them propped from the ground, is a charming sight. I wish for the brush of a painter to transfer all this color and form to an immortal canvas.

On a hill near Charlottesville we have a never-to-be-forgotten view.

Across a little valley on another hilltop is Thomas Jefferson's "Monticello," or Little Mountain. Just in front lies the town of Charlottesville upon its many knolls. And on beyond, rank on rank, stretch 150 miles of the Blue Mountains. The hill on which we stand has a bald top and just below this is a fringe of beautiful young apple and peach orchards. The trees do well on these hills. Lower down is the Pantopps orchard, which once belonged to the Jefferson estate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1. Conococheague Creek Bridge, Md. 2. "Edgehill," near Charlottesville, Va. Old Home of Martha Jefferson Randolph. 3. "At the Sign of the Green Teapot," near Yancey Mills, Va.]

One day we drive, by virtue of an introduction, to "Edgehill," a fine old estate where lived Martha Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's daughter. We are only a short distance here from "Castle Hill," the old home of the Rives family and the present residence of the Princess Troubetskoy. Another day we drive, by a stiff hill road winding through the estate, to "Monticello." The trees on the lawn of "Monticello" are our special delight, as are the views from the hilltop plateau on which the house stands. From here Jefferson could see in the distant trees the tops of the buildings of the beloved University which he had founded. No wonder that it is on record that Thomas Jefferson spent 796 days in all at "Monticello" during his two terms as President! In a family cemetery on the hillside, not so very far from the hilltop lawn, rest the mortal remains of Thomas Jefferson. He sleeps with the members of his family about him, and on the plain shaft of Virginia granite are these words, which were written by Jefferson himself and were found among his papers: