hurried breakfasts, they deftly assembled their caravans amid a hurricane of loud cries and curses, and set off for the day's journey. They usually halted for an hour or two in the middle of the day at some well-known roadside hostelry where they could feed their animals, eat an enormous quantity of food themselves, and meet and argue with such acquaintances as might also have reached the same point while travelling in the opposite direction. Then, after copious drinking and boisterous farewells, they would again take up their appointed way. Many of the countrymen and settlers of the near-by districts could also be found at the taverns at such times, and on the occasion of the arrival of one or more large packtrains and several stage-coaches laden with travellers, the scene before an inn was one of almost indescribable animation, noise and confusion. Stage-coach travellers and freight traffic did not stop at the same taverns along the National Road.1 When a wagoner reached his destination of the day he put his team in the wagon yard, where the horses remained until morning without regard to the state of the weather. During winter nights the animals were protected by blankets. They were fed from two feed troughs carried during the journey at the rear of the vehicle. When in use the feed troughs were attached to the wagon tongue, to which the horses were also tied, three on a side. The wagoners carried their own bedding with them, and when they had finished their duties to the horses they took their blankets into the big assembly room of the tavern and threw them on the flcor, where they themselves passed the night. Both white and negro wagoners slept at the same taverns, but the dark-skinned men ate at sep 1 Those taverns patronized by freight traffie were known as "wagon stands." The others were "stage houses." arate tables. The cost of a meal at a wagon stand was twelve and a half cents; that of a drink of whisky was three cents. Two drinks ordered at the same time cost five cents.1 The assembly room of a wagon stand was at night the scene of many rude festivities. The wagoners drank, joked, sang and danced. They especially liked to dance, and all those establishments whose proprietors boasted a practical working acquaintance with the fiddle were sure of plentiful patronage. The spectacle presented by a hoe-down or a Virginia reel danced by thirty or forty boisterous, rollicking and roaring men, who sometimes diversified their enjoyment by resort to practical jokes and fisticuffs, must have somewhat resembled the similar antics that would have been displayed in like situation by a large den of good-natured grizzly bears. In those days the ethics and rules of practical joking were even more loose than those which now govern that branch of sport, as was attested by the experience that once befell a tavern character known as Gusty Mitchell. It was a habit of Mitchell to steal the wagoners' whisky, and one night in a spirit of playful remonstrance at his failing a group of his victims poured turpentine over him and set him on fire. Then with some effort - they extinguished the flames before fatal injury had been inflicted on Mitchell, who abjured the company of wagoners from that hour. The scenes in and around a wagon stand at the close of day have been thus described by one who beheld them:2 "I have stayed over night with William Cheets, on Nigger Mountain, when there were about thirty six-horse teams in the wagon yard, a hundred Kentucky mules in an adjoining lot, a thousand hogs in their 1 At stage houses the cost of one drink of whisky was five cents. 2 Searight: p. 142. 215.-The New-York American newspaper of March 11, 1830. Its first page was devoted to an account of the steam locomotive tests undertaken by the Liverpool and Manchester railway. The tests, thus treated as news, had taken place five months before, in October of 1829. Braithwaite's "Novelty" engine is shown on the left, and Stevenson's "Rocket" on the right. enclosures, and as many fat cattle in adjoining fields. The music made by this large number of hogs in eating corn on a frosty night I shall never forget. After supper and attention to the teams, the wagoners would gather in the barroom and listen to the music on the violin furnished by one of their fellows, have a Virginia hoe-down, sing songs, tell anecdotes, and hear the experiences of drivers and drovers from all points of the road, and, when it was all over, unroll their beds, lay them down on the floor before the barroom fire side by side and sleep with their feet near the blaze as soundly as under the parental roof." One of the wagoners on the National Road in its earliest days was a strong, swarthy young man named Tom Corwin. This youth afterward became a member of the lower house of Congress, and still later was Governor of Ohio and Federal Senator from that state. On an occasion while he and Henry Clay were travelling to Washington together, the two stopped one day at a stage house where Clay was well known but in which Corwin was a stranger. The landlord heard Clay address his companion as "Tom," and this incident - coupled with Corwin's dark complexion - caused the landlord to believe that Corwin was a servant of color in attendance upon the Kentucky statesman. Clay saw the opportunity for a joke on the tavern keeper, and assumed an attitude that served to confirm him in his error. Corwin, of course, fell in with the spirit of the occasion. When dinner was ready Corwin was given a place at the servants' table, which he took in a matter-of-fact way, and during the meal Clay called over to him, "How are you making out, Tom?" To which Corwin replied, "Very well, sir." After the meal was finished the landlord served his distinguished guest with a cigar, and then in an effort to find favor in the eyes of the famous Kentuckian he presented one to "Tom" also. When the stage was ready to resume its journey Clay formally introduced Corwin to the landlord, who was overwhelmed with mortification until the |