Section A. West Virginia Line to Zanesville, 73.3 miles, US 40

US 40 rises abruptly from the Ohio Valley to the hills along Wheeling Creek and then seesaws in a westerly direction across the waves of hills in eastern Ohio. In places the highway is closely pressed on both sides by timbered ridges which, varying in height, mass, and line, create a saw-tooth effect; and farther west the roiling hills are marked off with narrow, winding side roads and numerous gaps and ravines. Small farms and villages lie along the way. Many of the original stone mile-markers have been preserved, and a few S-bridges stand at one side of the road. Though some evidences of coal mining are seen, they are not indicative of the importance of this industry to the region; the three counties through which this section of US 40 passes together produced more than 9,000,000 tons of coal in 1937.

US 40 crosses the Ohio Line, 0 miles at the low water line on the western shore of the Ohio River, over Belmont Bridge (autos 5¢), 1-1/2 miles northwest of Wheeling, West Virginia (see West Virginia Guide).

In Bridgeport, 0.1 miles. (660 alt., 4,342 pop.) are the junctions with State 7 and US 250.

Brookside, 1.1 miles. (671 alt., 882 pop.), is one of a number of villages in the valley of Wheeling Creek. Formerly gristmills, sawmills, tanneries, and woolen mills lined the creek's bank. Today huge slack piles and tiers of miners' houses, monotonous in their similarity, overlook the rocky stream. In the village, black-faced miners, dinner pails tucked under their arms, are seen going home at the end of a shift.

US 40 makes some horseshoe curves and passes a coal mine or two as it climbs steep grades, briefly descends into rolling farm land, and then rises steadily again.

Saint Clairsville, 9.8 w. (1,260 alt.,2,440 pop.), seat of Belmont County since 1804, was named for Arthur St. Clair, first governor of the Northwest Territory. Although the Belmont County hills yield more coal at present than those of any other county in the State, Saint Clairsville is not a coal town. It has a few small industries but is principally a commercial center for the county. The town is built across a series of ridges. Old houses stand flush with the sidewalks, trees arch the quiet streets, and the glistening water tank and the courthouse tower dominate the skyline.

Like many Ohio towns, Saint Clairsville had academies to edify the young. In 1838 the Saint Clairsville Collegiate Female Seminary gave polish to females of high-school age by instructing them in the mysteries of natural philosophy, astronomy, geography, ancient and modern history, English grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, chemistry, logic, mythology, and composition.

The Lundy House, 164 E. Main St., was occupied for a short time by Benjamin Lundy, Quaker abolitionist, who founded here in 1815 an antislavery organization called the Union Humane Society. Six persons attended the first feting, but hundreds later joined the society.

West of Saint Clairsville, US 40 snakes along the ridge, now dipping into shallow valleys, now rising to orchard-crowned hilltops. Narrow mud roads twist toward isolated farmhouses in the hills. The eroded slips and gullies by the wayside are the result of the wasteful felling of the virgin timber in the nineteenth century.

Morristown, 19.6 miles (1,510 alt., 366 pop.), laid out in 1802, has flat-faced red brick houses that are suggestive of old Pennsylvania dwellings. Many of the houses have stone stoops, pitched roofs, multiple chimneys, and many-paned windows. Still standing is the little shed that sheltered the gatekeeper when Morristown was a toll station on the National Road.

In 1831 Ohio authorized the erection of toll gates at 20-mile intervals along the National Road. Later the average was 10 miles for a gate. As the fees collected were used to keep the road repaired, the toll rates varied with the condition of individual strips between stations. Animals and vehicles were taxed in direct ratio to the damage they did to the roadbed. The fee for cattle was twice as much as that for hogs, and hogs were charged twice the toll for sheep. Vehicles were assessed on the basis of tire width, as narrow wheels did more injury to the road than wide ones. In 1837 the tolls ranged from 3¢ for a horse that was led to 25¢ for a stagecoach. Over a 47-year-period Ohio collected nearly $1,250,000 from the National Road. The peak year was 1839, when $62,496 was gathered at the toll gates. Thereafter, except for a brief upsurge durring the Civil War, collections steadily declined. The road never paid for itself, and in 1876 the State authorized the county commissioners to take over the portions of the road that lay within their respective counties. The act stipulated that no tolls could be charged between Columbus and the Ohio Central Lunatic Asylum.

Hemmed in by high hills north and south of the village, Hendrysburg, 25.1 miles (983 alt.,300 pop.), founded in 1828 by Charles Hendry, draws itself out for some distance along US 40. Two stagecoach taverns did a brisk business here during the heyday of the National Road.

Descendants of the original pennyroyal-growing families hold an annual reunion at Fairview, 28.5 miles (1,220 alt., 217 pop.), in a region that at one period in the last century distilled more pennyroyal than any other section of the United States. An herb, pennyroyal was an important item in every household's pharmacopoeia two and three generations ago.

As US 40 continues nearly due west, small wagon mines show up along tie road. Their entrances are cut into the sides of sloping hills, and miners emerge from them pushing loaded cars which are shunted across stilted loading platforms. Chutes carry the dumped coal to waiting trucks below. Mines of this type are common to many parts of southeastern Ohio and usually require only a few workers—sometimes the owner and his relatives. Southeast and southwest of this area, in the hills of Belmont, Guernsey, and Noble Counties, are the big shaft mines employing 300 to 600 men each.

At the eastern limit of Middlebourne, 34.5 miles (865 alt., 60 pop.), is Locust Lodge, a tourist stop, that as the Hayes Tavern was a popular resting place for travelers. Henry Clay was a guest on several occasions. The simple three-story brick building is painted green and has a front porch with high columns. The door sill to the entrance is worn, but not so well worn as the one leading to the taproom. Locust Lodge was built in the 1820's or 1830's by Greenberry Penn, whose ancestor was William Penn; it is still operated by a lineal descendant. A windowless room known as the Dark Room inspired stories about blood stains being found on the walls and floor, and it was said that certain travelers who had entered this room were never seen again.

The S-Bridge (R), 36.6 miles, spanning a narrow creek bordering the highway, is one of a number of such structures that formerly crossed the creeks along the National Road in eastern Ohio. Only a few survive. No established reason for their curious shape is known. It is said that the early builders of the road found it too much trouble to cut down the large trees they encountered and ran the road around them by constructing S-bridges. Another explanation is that a bridge builder, John McCartney, and a visiting engineer were in a saloon one Saturday night, having a few, when the engineer drew a large 'S' on a sheet of paper and threw it across the table. “McCartney,” he asked, “can you build that bridge?”. “Sure, I can build any bridge you'll draw.” McCartney replied. So he built an S-bridge, and the idea was generally adopted on the Bridgeport-Zanesville section of the National Road. Such S-bridges as still stand have been passed on one side by relocations of US 40.

In Old Washington, 40.7 miles (1,010 alt., 336 pop.), formerly a rival of Cambridge but now content to stage the annual Guernsey County Fair, are several old-time stagecoach taverns harboring memories of better and more exciting days on the National Road. The three-story brick Colonial Inn (L), with stone copings, was built in 1805 as a residence and later converted into a hostelry. The inn has 20 rooms whose floors are of oak and whose woodwork is walnut and rosewood. The Pine Tree Inn (R), which still takes care of a few guests, is a well-preserved building of cut stone with scalloped parapets. The year of its erection is uncertain. In July 1863, General John Morgan, the Confederate raider then being chased across Ohio by Union troops, stopped here for a quick snack. He left in a hurry but might just as well have stayed, since he was forced to surrender a few days later.

Taverns like these were strung every few miles along the National Road in the days when Americans, constantly on the go, had to use the stagecoach, Conestoga wagon, land freighter, or saddle horse to get to their destinations. Until the railroads came, most Americans resorted to the stagecoach in their travels through the West. In the early decades of the nineteenth century traffic over the National Road was always heavy. It was not uncommon for a dozen or more stagecoaches, all loaded with passengers, to leave Wheeling, West Virginia, at the same time and dash madly into Ohio toward the first relay station, a dozen or so miles away. Here with a heralding blast from a horn the flying coach drew up sharp in a cloud of dust, six ready-harnessed horses replaced the lathered ones that were already spent, and the driver, who had remained in his seat, let his whip make a mighty crack and they were off. Speed was the important thing; a driver was more likely to lose his job for failing to meet a schedule than for being intoxicated.

In those days the Atlantic seaboard and middle-western States were thickly veined with hundreds of stagecoach lines that operated much as our railroads do today. Competition was so intense it spelled bankruptcy and failure for many of the smaller lines. Each line ordinarily stopped at a designated tavern in every town, but in places the National Road had union taverns for all the systems. The fastest horses were purchased, the best drivers hired, and the most comfortable coaches built in the frantic struggle to stay in the business and make money. Ten miles an hour was the usual speed made by the ordinary driver. Champion reinsmen got the honor of carrying a President over the National Road or of delivering his annual Congressional message to the West. One of the experts was Homer Westover, who set a record when he delivered copies of Van Buren's message to the towns along a 222-mile stretch of the National Road in 23-1/2 hours.

The National Road Stage Company, with headquarters at Uniontown, Pennsylvania, was the largest line on the road. Columbus was the headquarters for its western division. Neil, Moore and Company of Columbus also had a large system operating on the historic road. It was unable to compete with the larger firm and eventually sold out to it. The period loved fanciful names, and some of the stage systems bore such descriptive names as the Good Intent, the Oyster, the June Bug, and the Shake Gut Lines. Coaches had names, to but they were usually dignified ones, Lafayette, General Wayne, Columbus, Santa Anna, Henry Clay, Queen Victoria, or Pocahontas. There were exceptions to the general rule, like Rough and Ready, and Erin Go Bragh.

Stagecoaches were, one writer said, “ornate and spectacular apparitions.” They were painted in bright colors, portraits of famous men or allegorical designs decorated their panels, and their varnished or lacquered interiors were lined with soft silk plush. Between 1800 and 1820 the typical American coach had oval sides which curved to such an extent that there was no room on top for luggage. After 1820 the oval roof gave way to the flat one. The coach had three transverse seats that would hold three persons each. A tenth passenger sat outside with the driver if weather permitted. Luggage was stowed under the seats, in a compartment to the rear, or on the roof. For decades these lumbering vehicles clattered over the National Road in such numbers and with such regularity that farmers and townsmen alike knew the time almost to the minute when they saw a familiar coach passing by.

Left from Old Washington on State 285 is Lore City, 4.1 miles (820 alt., 580 pop.), a mining village whose only lore consists of the remains of a large warehouse burned by Morgan's Confederate raiders during their flight across Ohio. The foundation still stands.

Left from Lore City on State 265 is Salesville, 11.3 miles (860 alt., 103 pop.). Nearby on the banks of Leatherwood Creek appeared in 1828 one Joseph Dylkes, who stood up in church one morning and announced that he was God. Some of his listeners accepted the announcement with equanimity. Others attached themselves to Dylkes, and in no time at all a new religious sect was under way. For a time it grew. When Dylkes failed to perform a well-advertised miracle, that of making a seamless garment, he and some of his disciples found it convenient to go elsewhere to found a New Jerusalem. A few years later some of the converts returned to Salesville and reported that “God” had disappeared “somewhere in Philadelphia.” William Dean Howells later told the story, with some embellishments, in his novel, The Leatherwood God.

US 40 crosses a strip-mining area whose topsoil has been scooped up by excavators in order that surface seams of coal could be removed by mechanical methods. As the excavators moved across the land they dumped the useless earth to the side, throwing up a series of large rounded hills whose desolation is scarcely relieved by the feeble growth of grass, and scrub trees.

Cambridge, 49.2 miles (799 alt., 14,980 pop.), seat of Guernsey County and a dairy and livestock center, is an old town stretched out along a high ridge overlooking rolling hills to the north and south. East or west, US 40 climbs a hill to enter Cambridge, makes several windings, and then threads its way through the gregarious, drawn-out business section. Its tone is set by the old-fashioned courthouse with its loungers in the park. Few modern store fronts are seen, and many of the business structures are drab, stern creations of the 1870's and 1880s. But automobiles clatter through the town all day, and Cambridge is prosperous if not wealthy.

In 1806 Jacob Gomber and Zacheus Beatty laid out the town and named it for Cambridge, Maryland, from which came many of the first settlers. Decades of commercial activity and social excitement followed the arrival in 1826 of the National Road; and Cambridge grew and took on life with the road. After the road's commercial importance had declined, agricultural, milling, and salt-making pursuits kept the community busy. Manufacturing got started in the 1880's when oil and gas were discovered in the vicinity and coal mining became a large-scale industry in eastern Ohio. The large glass factory was founded in 1901. Near-by deposits of clay led to the establishment of several potteries and fire-clay concerns. A large steel mill helped cement Cambridge's steady industrialization by employing in peak years nearly 900 workers. The mill closed in the early 1930s but other industries, a plastics plant among them, started, and these have absorbed most of the mill hands.

The Cambridge Glass Company Plant (open on application), Morton Ave., established by Arthur J. Bennett, is the city's largest factory. More than 5,000 items of hand-blown glassware are made by the 700 employees. The plant consists of a long, rectangular blowing room and a large four-gabled structure in which are the selecting, finishing, decorating, and stockroom departments.

In Cambridge are the junctions with US 21 and US 22 ; with the latter US 40 is united to Zanesville.

New Concord, 57.7 miles (843 alt., 1,087 pop.), got its start in 1827 when the National Road was routed across the site. The people living along Zane's Trace, two miles south of this point, moved here, and in the following year David Findley, owner of the land, filed the plat for a town called Concord. Later the prefix was added. Almost from its beginning New Concord has concerned itself with education. Local citizens founded an academy in 1836 which was chartered in 1837 as Muskingum College. During its first decades the town drew some sustenance from the highway. Today its economy is somewhat dependent upon its position as a rural trade center. But now as then New Concord looks largely to its college for its livelihood.

Muskingum College (R), facing US 40 just west of the business district, is a coeducational arts institution with an enrollment of 800. Degrees are awarded in the arts, sciences, and education. Eleven buildings stand on the hilly 105-acre campus which has winding drives, landscaped terraces, an evergreen grove, a small lake, and a stadium in the hollow. The newer buildings are harmonious in style and are built of iron-spot brick with white stone trim and red tile roofs.

The restored log cabin (L) opposite the entrance to the college is the Birthplace of William Rainey Harper (1856-1906), a local graduate of Muskingum College, who taught at several colleges before becoming president of the nearly defunct Chicago University in 1891. He labored for 15 years in putting the Chicago school on its feet. A study table and other mementos of his student days are preserved in the cabin.

Another S-Bridge (R), 58.5 miles, crosses a gully next to the highway. It was built in 1828 and is still in excellent condition.

The ravine behind the Presbyterian church (L) in Norwich, 61.3 miles (985 alt., 167 pop.), is called Stumpy Hollow. In the nineteenth century persons walking through the hollow at night encountered a headless creature which, they reported, left them speechless.

West of Norwich the land rolls, timbered hills lie near each side of the highway, and rutted country roads wind vaguely off into the mesh of hills beyond. The road is fast and fairly straight. As Zanesville is approached from the east, US 40 is lined with dwellings, filling stations, tourist camps, seasonal vegetable stands, and small grocery stores. Here and there a pottery display shop brightens the wayside with the reds, pinks, cobalts, and blacks of its novelties, vases, jardinieres, and art objects.

Zanesville, 73.3 miles (720 alt., 37,409 pop.) (see Zanesville).

Zanesville is at the western junction with US 22 and at the junction with State 77.

Section B. Zanesville to Springfield, 97.3 miles. US 40

Between Zanesville, 0 miles, and Springfield, the National Road crosses a sweep of central Ohio that transforms itself at 10 or 20 mile intervals, here flat, there rolling; sometimes treeless, again heavily wooded. These are the fertile lands the National Road opened to cultivation.

Headly Inn (open May 1-Sept. 1), 4.9 miles (R), which served as a tavern from 1802 to 1865, now functions as a tearoom. The first unit, built in 1802, was a plain one-story structure on the hillside sloping to the east. Its sandstone blocks, gray and speckled with red and yellow, are two to three feet long, 18 inches wide, and a foot thick. The inscription on the front wall, 'U. Headly, 1835. Five Mile', refers to the two-story addition of the same materials which Usual Headly built in that year on lower adjoining ground. The second story and roof of the addition are on a level with the original unit. Inside, the tavern has heavy ceiling beams, a stone fireplace, old-fashioned furniture, and a narrow winding stairway with a handpainted grape design of green and lavender.

The Blue Lion (R), 5.6 miles, has been principally a residence since Andrew Smith built the stone part in 1824, but for a few decades after 1891, it served as a tavern and a tearoom. Set upon a hillside, the first story of the house is constructed of large cut stone, the upper story-and-a-half of wood; both are painted gray and trimmed in brown. At the gate of an iron fence enclosing the stone terrace in front is the figure of the lion—cut from two-inch planking and painted blue—that gave the house its name.

Founded in 1829 by Nathaniel Wilson, Mount Sterling, 8 miles (1,057 alt., 250 pop.), draws itself along two hills and a low depression between. In 1836 while Henry Clay and a party of Congressmen were traveling over the National Road, their stagecoach overturned at the bottom of the east hill and piled horses, coach, and Congressmen in an undignified heap. The bottom of the declivity is still known as Congress Hollow.

In Brownsville, 13.8 miles. (960 alt., 200 pop.), is a cluster of houses hugging the highway as it drops into a valley.

Right from Brownsville on State 668 is Flint Ridge State Park (R), 3.2 miles, a 26-acre section of the grounds to which Indians came to secure flint for their weapons and utensils. In the park are some of the pits excavated by the Indians, and spear points and arrowheads arc sometimes uncovered here. The stone is principally jasper and chalcedony. Flint Ridge in its entirety is five miles long and half-a-mile wide. Its rough surface matted with grass, underbrush, and trees exposes here and there flint ledges and loose shards. The common need for the stone compelled the various Indian tribes to keep the area neutral.

Jacksontown, 22.3 miles (1,013 alt., 225 pop.), revives memories of the wagon days of the National Road as the highway passes the yard (L) of the C.W. McIntyre antique shop. Here stands the Manuel Custer Conestoga Wagon, built in 1821 by the father of General George A. Custer and used by the family in their travels across the country. The wagon has sloping sides, a canvas covering the large horseshoe hoops, and curtained ends with small openings. Hand-forged bolts hold the boards together, and the wagon is without nails of any kind. The rear wheels are as tall as an average woman, but the front wheels are much shorter.

In 1838 when Daniel Barcus of Maryland returned to Jacksontown after having delivered an 8,300-pound load of merchandise at Mount Vernon, Ohio, he said that he “felt at home again.” Barcus was a wagoner who made his living by hauling goods over the National Road in the great gaudily colored wagons that were called freighters or mountain ships. It had taken him 30 days to make the 397-mile trip from Baltimore to Jacksontown over the historic highway and then north 32 miles to his destination. He was paid $4.25 for each hundred-weight he delivered, and at Mount Vernon he picked up 7,200 pounds of tobacco for the return trip that would earn for him $2.75 for each 100 pounds.

There were many Barcuses on the National Road during the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s. In that long-enduring procession of people and commodities constantly shifting back and forth across the road during the growing period of the Middle West, hundreds of sweating, swearing wagoners chivvied their six-horse teams with mighty curses and sharp lashes across the rumps as they urged them along on the double-quick. Four to five tons of merchandise was not an unusual load.

Like the flatboat men on the rivers, Barcus and his kind held a niche of their own in the society of the National Road. They were exclusive. They did not stop at the taverns frequented by the stagecoach drivers, but drew up at places of their own called wagon houses. Many of them wore woolen hunting shirts having a large cape trimmed with red. They were better paid than the stage drivers and did their hauling over the entire length of the road, whereas the stage drivers usually followed a specified route for a short distance.

Wagon houses lined the road every few miles. These were taverns with great yards in which the wagoners fed their teams or left them to rest overnight. An arduous day on the road naturally made the evening a time for rude pleasantries. Wagoners ate enormous meals costing only 12¢ and drank many 3¢ glasses of whiskey. They joked and sang, invented elaborate practical jokes and danced the hoe-down and the Virginia reel, fought with their fists and argued vehemently about politics, and then went to bed. Bed consisted of unrolling their own bedding on the floor of the tavern and going to sleep with 20 or 30 other wagoners. In the morning they had a hurried breakfast, harnessed their teams, and, amid a gale of hoots and obscenities, started off on the day's journey.

Right from Jacksontown on State 13 to (L) the Dawes Arboretum (open), 2.4 miles, which, with its 700 varieties of trees, is one of the finest arboretums in America. B.G. Dawes, an oil executive, purchased the 283-acre tract in 1927, established it as a trust, and began planting native and imported trees. A 10-acre plot is used by the State of Ohio for experimental purposes. Visiting celebrities are sometimes brought here to plant a tree.

State 13 continues to Newark, 7 miles. (935 alt., 30,596 pop.)

Once a favored commercial center on the Ohio and Erie Canal and the old National Road, Hebron, 26.3 miles (892 alt., 722 pop.), now rusticates like many another villages along US 40.

1. Right from Hebron on State 70 to the Site of the First Construction on the Ohio and Erie Canal (R), 4.3 miles. Thousands of people assembled here on July 4, 1835, to witness the ceremonies attendant upon starting the canal from this spot. So overwhelmed were some, the historians recount, that “tears fell from manly eyes.” Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, father of the Erie Canal, dug the first spadeful of earth and dumped it into a wheelbarrow. Governor Morrow of Ohio lifted the second shovelful. There was a slight delay while several persons contested for the honor of removing the third portion of earth; Captain Ned King was the victor; and after several of Clinton's guests had had their turn, King proudly wheeled the first barrow to a near-by bank. Many bits of eulogy were uttered by the distinguished statesmen present, and then Thomas Ewing of Lancaster, the speaker of the day, made an eloquent oration. The flies were bad and the company of cavalry horses posted around the sides of the speaker's stand kept up such a constant tramping that many in the audience barely heard what was said. That night, at Lancaster, Caleb Atwater remarked: “I suppose it was all right to have the horses in front of the speaker's stand, for they cannot read and we can.”

2. Left from Hebron on State 79 to Buckeye Lake Park, 2.2 miles, central Ohio's largest and most popular resort, comprising 4,000 acres of land and water. Buckeye Lake, around which the resort has developed, is 7-1/2 miles long and 1-1/2 miles across at its widest point. In the nineteenth century the lake served, rather inadequately, as a reservoir and feeder for the Ohio and Eric Canal. In 1894, after the general assembly set the area aside for park purposes, its present phase started. People began to build summer homes along the lake or on tie islands; reclamation, real-estate developments, and publicity gradually transformed the swampy area into a pleasant residential and recreational spot. Visitors soon discover that Buckeye Lake Park has many kinds of wild fowl, migratory birds, and exotic plants, in addition to its hotels, restaurants, amusement piers, bathing beaches, and its hunting and aquatic facilities. The fishing is good.

At 28.5 miles. on US 40 is the junction with State 37.

Right on State 37 to Granville, 8 miles. (1,110 alt., 1495 pop.), a college community whose green-foliaged hills, numerous elms and maples, and chaste white Colonial and Classic Revival buildings make it one of the prettiest towns in Ohio. Granville was laid out in 1806 and named for the Massachusetts town of the same name from which early settlers came. Its New England tradition stands out sharply in its present-day houses. Granville has character and poise; it conveys the impression of a people living here in pleasant permanency.

Before the National Road was flung across Ohio, Granville was nearly as important a commercial center as Columbus. The routing of that road along the most direct east-west line left towns like Newark, Granville, and others miles from the traveled way; and thereafter Granville experienced little commercial development. It turned to education and founded, in December 1831, the Granville Literary and Theological Institute, whose modest purpose was “to furnish the means of obtaining a thorough Classical and English education, which shall not be inferior to what can be obtained in any institution, of whatever name, in the Western country.” The school became Denison University in 1856, and by this institution and trade with the prosperous livestock farmers of the vicinity, the town has lived comfortably ever since. Denison University is on a horseshoe-shaped hill (R) whose winding drives and thick masses of trees make it one of the most beautiful campuses in the State. The handsome buildings, some of Georgian Colonial style, are artfully situated on different levels half-hidden by the trees. Swasey Chapel is a notable structure, and the dormitories for men on Fraternity Hill are exceptionally well-designed. A Baptist institution, Denison University is coeducational and has approximately 900 students. Besides offering bachelor degrees in the arts and sciences, it also provides for advanced work in theology.

A fraternity house occupies the Avery-Downer House, 221 E. Broadway, a Classic Revival home built about 1842 for Alfred Avery. The white frame structure has two stories with flanking one-story wings. The small side porches have Doric columns, but the entrance portico has four of the Ionic order; its pediment is an extension of the gable roof. The beautiful doorway with two modified Corinthian pillars is said to have been copied from the doorway of the Temple of the Winds in Athens.

Buxton Tavern, 313 E. Broadway, built in 1812, was for many decades a popular hostelry and is still a hotel and restaurant. The two-story frame structure is painted a gleaming white and has a wide, two-story porch across its front. Many of its furnishings are representative early nineteenth-century pieces.

At Licking Creek, near Etna, 36.5 miles. (1,069 alt., 300 pop.), appeared in 1801 a black-eyed young man leading a pack horse loaded with burlap bags. He was 26 years old and dressed in the homely, practical clothes of the frontiersman. Finding a clearing that had been opened by the only white man in the vicinity, he loosened the soil of a small plot, opened his bags, and withdrew some apple seed that he carefully planted at regular intervals. Then he threw a rude fence around the plot and disappeared into the wilderness. He probably planted more apple seeds during the subsequent five years he was lost to history; at any rate, the visitation at Licking Creek was the first appearance of John Chapman (1774-1845) west of the Ohio River.

He was next seen in 1806 floating down the Ohio River in two lashed-together boats that were laden with apple seed he had picked up from the cider presses of Pittsburgh. (He had come to Pittsburgh from Massachusetts in 1794, so the legend states, a 20-year-old of substantial stock and some education, and there established a home and gave himself over to tending an apple orchard.) In the vicinity of Steubenville he stepped ashore, set out another apple nursery, and then continued his journey down the Ohio River. At Marietta he changed his course, entered the Muskingum River, and passed up that stream, doubtless planting a nursery here and there as he progressed. He turned away from the Muskingum River and paddled up White Woman Creek, transferred to the Mohican River, and continued in a northerly direction over the Black Fork of the Mohican until he reached the navigation head and was only 40 miles south of Lake Erie. In little clearings along the way he planted apple nurseries of an acre or two, fenced them, and hoped that incoming settlers would look after such nurseries as he would never again revisit. Years before he had heard that the apple trees in Ohio were dying out, and he had made it his task to plant new trees over the State in order that pioneer families might escape scurvy.

As the years passed, the shy, strange figure was seen in many parts of Ohio. Knox, Richland, and Ashland County people saw him most, because many of his nurseries were concentrated in their counties. But he seems to have planted seeds in the vicinities of Cleveland, Bucyrus, Port Clinton, and Toledo; and his wanderings later took him into southern Michigan, Indiana, and possibly Illinois.

The pioneers called him Johnny Appleseed. Planting apple seeds was not his only service to them. During the War of 1812, when the Ohio settlers were threatened by the Indians, he informed the authorities of their movements and intentions. The Indians revered him and he wandered through regions that other white men had fled. On one occasion he saved the people of Mansfield from being massacred by running through the woods to Mount Vernon, 30 miles away, and returning with troops within 24 hours. Because the early settlers needed herbs for their home remedies, he also scattered the seeds of catnip, rattlesnake weed, hoarhound, pennyroyal, and dog-fennel wherever he went.

Restless and ever roaming, he visited nursery after nursery to tend his growing seedlings, then moved on. Stories about his singularities were common: how he played with three bear cubs while their mother watched, how he walked barefooted in the wintertime without freezing his toes, how he could tell direction by instinct and never carried a compass, how he could stick pins through his flesh without experiencing pain, how he once put out a fire in order to prevent the mosquitoes from dashing into the flame. His utter selflessness, the result of a fervid belief in the doctrines of Swedenborg, showed itself in everything he did. He never carried a gun; he never willfully harmed a living thing; he refused to eat meat; he exchanged seeds or saplings for a meal, a piece of clothing, or a promise he never collected. If he met someone in worse straits, he gave away his food or the clothes on his back. As he grew older his manner of dress became progressively simpler and more outlandish, if the recollection of pioneers can be believed. He is reported to have been seen in a coffee sack with holes cut in it for his arms, and a stew kettle on his head for a hat. The kettle must have been uncomfortable, and a makeshift cardboard affair with a visor later took its place.

For more than three decades Johnny Appleseed wandered about Ohio. He was known to everybody, and many an Ohio family remembered the time they saw him in their doorway, shyly asking their leave to spend the night. They remembered how animated he became after he had withdrawn a Bible or some Swedenborg tracts from his shirt and had begun to expound on “news fresh from Heaven.” They remembered that he slept on the floor and that when they arose next morning he was gone. Ohio was filling up with people, and in the late 1830s Johnny Appleseed moved to Indiana. He looked after his nurseries there, and while returning from a 25-mile trip to one of them he caught a chill, stopped at a wayside house, and died during the night. The Fort Wayne Sentinel reported:

Died in the neighborhood of this city, on Tuesday last, Mr. John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. The deceased was well known through this region by his eccentricity, and the strange garb he usually wore. He followed the occupation of nursery-man...

Such was his story. In its bare outline it suggests that Johnny Appleseed was a primitive Christian of limitless goodness who had a job to do and did it well. But an extraordinary man fires the imagination, and even while he was alive the vestments of legend began to enwrap his spare unkempt figure. After he had been dead a number of years he became almost completely legend; and now and then someone announces that he never really existed. Ohioans know better and have erected three monuments to him, their greatest folk character.

Surrounded entirely by Columbus' east side, Bexley, 50.2 miles (775 alt., 8,652 pop.), is a strictly residential community of new frame, brick, and stone houses embodying various architectural styles. Here are the large and sometimes pretentious estates of many of the capital city's more affluent families. The apartment development known as Sessions Village, entered from E. Broad St., consists of a number of buildings aping French domestic architecture.

Capital University, entrance on E. Main St. opposite Drexel Ave., is a Lutheran coeducational institution with a prominent divinity school. It was founded in 1830 at Canton and was removed to Columbus in the following year. Several of the buildings on the 40-acre campus are of Tudor-Gothic style, among them Schenk Divinity Hall and Mees Hall. Capital has an average enrollment of 675 students, and an exceptionally fine music department.

In Bexley is the junction with US 33, which unites with US 40 to Columbus.

Columbus, 53.7 miles (760 alt., 304,936 pop.) (see Columbus).

Columbus is at the junction with US 62, the western junction of US 33, and US 23.

West Jefferson, 68.7 miles. (910 alt., l388 pop.), lying along Little Darby Creek, is a busy village of old, dignified houses standing cheek-by-jowl with characterless modern frames. The town was established in the early 1830s because the farmers of the region wanted a nearer source of supplies than Columbus; for a time it was called New Hampton.

At 75.3 miles is the eastern junction with US 42, which unites with US 40 for less than a mile.

Like many another community along the National Road, Lafayette, 75.7 miles (1,013 alt., 200 pop.), named for the French marquis who aided Washington in the Revolutionary War, is interesting now only for its old tavern in the center of the village. The Red Brick Tavern (R), erected in 1837, is a dignified structure of pleasing rectangular lines with a walnut doorway, painted white and flanked by Doric pillars, that is especially noteworthy. The rooms on the left side of the center hall, formerly the best parlor and bedroom of the tavern, retain their original fireplaces with carved mantels. The two rooms on the right of the hall served as the taproom and the office. In the long dining room and kitchen to the rear was installed the county's first cook stove. It was viewed suspiciously by some people as an invention of the devil that would “keep people from doing an honest day's work.” During the hectic Harrison - Van Buren presidential campaign, both the candidates were guests at the Red Brick Tavern. Van Buren drank tea with the aristocracy of the neighborhood and was given an exclusive dinner here at which gold-banded china was used. Soon afterwards Harrison arrived, his arm in a sling from too much handshaking. It was the hour when some people drank tea. Harrison, a rough-and-ready type, ordered a round of drinks for everybody in the tavern; and on election day the voters of Madison County indicated that they had more faith in a candidate who drank hard cider than in one who drank tea.

The railroads forced the tavern out of business, and for decades it was used as a residence. A few years ago the place was reopened as a tavern and some of the old furnishings were reinstalled. Meals are served.

In Lafayette is the western junction with US 42.

In stagecoach days Brighton, 84 miles (1,190 alt., 90 pop.), was a relay station where coaches stopped to make a quick change of horses, and passengers had a bite to eat.

A filling station occupies the Buena Vista Tavern (R), 88.1 m., built in 1836, which opened as an inn in 1849. In good condition, the two-story 11-room brick house is L-shaped and has a wide veranda across its front. Inside is a stairway which is a reproduction of one in Washington's Mount Vernon home, a large hand-carved cherry and black-walnut fireplace, and other hand-carved woodwork. P.T. Barnum, Jenny Lind, Horace Greeley, Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, and other prominent persons visited the tavern at one time or another. The old wagon sheds in the rear have been replaced by tourist cabins.

Springfield, 97.3 miles. (980 alt, 70,712 pop.) (see Springfield).

Springfield is at the junction with US 68.

Section C. Springfield to Indiana Line, 57.5 miles, US 40

West of Springfield, 0 miles, US 40 follows a direct course to Indianapolis. Crossing the valleys of the Mad, Great Miami, and Stillwater Rivers, the highway is bordered by mile after mile of rich, rolling farm land curling off to the horizon. The traveler sees farms of from 60 to 200 acres with large, gabled houses and bank barns painted in heavy reds, 'Big Four' yellows, or battleship grays. Most of the barns have silos. Back beyond the checkered fields of grass, wheat, alfalfa, and corn is a continuous ring of second-growth maple, ash, elm, hickory, black walnut, butternut, and beech trees, with a scattering of dogwood, redbud, and pawpaw.

The nine buildings of the Ohio Masonic Home (L), 2.9 miles, a fraternal institution caring for aged members of the order and the orphaned children of Masons, are situated upon a 397-acre tract of Mad River bottom land and hills. About 500 men, women, and children make their home here. The Administration Building, built in 1895, is a limestone structure, Gothic in appearance, which commands a panoramic view of Springfield from its Sugar Grove Hill site. In stagecoach days a well-known tavern stood on the slope of the hill. Its host was 'Devil Dan' Leffel, a brawny Dutchman whose laugh, it is said, could be heard half a mile away.

The 18-foot Madonna of the Trail Monument (L), 3 miles, is one of 12 such memorials placed along the National Road to honor the pioneer mother. The sculptured group consists of a marching frontier woman bearing a baby in her arms and a gun at her side, with another child clinging to her skirts.

At 3.1 miles. is the junction with Lower Valley Pike.

Left on this road to the Jacob Huffman House (small fee), 2 miles, a formidable two-story stone dwelling (R) about 500 feet from the road. It was built in 1829 from large stones gathered near by. The inside walls are of unplastered stone. The two huge stone fireplaces are fitted with andirons, cranes, and Dutch ovens. Spinning wheels, poster beds, patchwork quilts, candle molds, and other furnishings are distributed throughout the house.

Memorial State Park (R), 2.7 miles, a 202-acre plot of plateau and bottom land overlooking the Mad River. The park stands on the site of Piqua, an eighteenth-century Shawnee council town which was destroyed in August 1780 by George Rogers Clark and 1,000 Kentuckians in retaliation for a joint Shawnee-British raid upon the Kentucky settlements. The destruction of Piqua, witnessed by the 13-year-old Tecumseh, who was born in this vicinity, discouraged the Indians from making a planned assault upon the settlements of western Pennsylvania; it also enabled Washington to continue to harass the British force in New York City. The park was enlarged to its present size in 1930 and made a State park to commemorate the Battle of Piqua. Winding drives lead through the grounds but there are no facilities. In the southwestern comer is the George Rogers Clark Statue, an 18-foot marble representation of the West's outstanding soldier of the Revolutionary War.

In Brandt, 15.4 miles (991 alt., 200 pop.), during the Mexican War, the local blacksmith, Daniel Toy, produced the first steel plow that successfully broke the tough, sticky soil of the far Western plains.

From 1894 to 1926, Phoneton, 17.7 miles. (982 alt., 122 pop.), was a vital test station and transmitting center for the Nation's inter-state telephone lines. It was situated at the intersection of the Detroit-Cincinnati and the Pittsburgh-St. Louis trunk lines, and for years many of the country's long-distance telephone calls were plugged through Phoneton. Old-timers recall that the company used to run two-horse and four-horse stages to near-by Tippecanoe City to transport the 40 or 50 operators needed. The station ceased to be a toll station in 1926, and in 1934 it was abandoned entirely.

The Taylorsville Dam, 20.5 miles, on the Great Miami River, is one of the five dams of the Miami Conservancy District. Built after the great flood of 1913 had inundated parts of Dayton, Springfield, and other towns in this region, the structure is 3,000 feet long, 78 feet high, and 415 feet wide at the base. The top is broad enough for US 40 to pass over it. The outlet and spillway are at the east end of the bridge leading to the dam proper. The river in its normal stage flows through the outlet, while the spillway takes care of the overflow in flood season. Although the flow of the Great Miami River is only 250 cubic feet a second in its low-water stage, it is increased a thousandfold in time of flood.

Vandalia, 23 miles. (994 alt., 378 pop.), is a quiet village of broad streets, pleasant shade trees, and well-kept houses of Victorian vintage in which live retired farmers or their widows. When it was settled in 1838, and it appeared that the National Road would end here instead of at Vandalia, Illinois, the community took the name of the Illinois town.

The Grounds of the Amateur Trapshooters' Association (R), with 22 traps accommodating 110 shooters at one time, is the locale of the annual national tournament of the association. This is the largest shotgun tournament in the world, and it is usually held, with the Grand American Handicap, during the third week in August. More than 1,100 contestants have been known to participate in a single day's matches.

A few miles west of Vandalia, US 40 makes a semicircular curve and crosses the Stillwater River over the Englewood Dam, 28.6 miles. Largest of all the dams in the Miami Conservancy District, this structure is 4,700 feet long, 725 feet wide at the base, and 125 feet high. It was completed in 1922.

Flood waters back up behind the dam for a distance of 15 miles in times of heavy rains. From the top of the dam immense vistas of the valley spread away to distant horizons. In the basin north of the dam is a 900-acre park with a pretty little lake, driveways, shelter houses, and outdoor fireplaces for warm-weather outings.

Englewood, 30 miles (922 alt., 531 pop.), is a Mennonite and Dunkard community whose Germanic character is readily apparent in its four churches, its solid dwellings, the features of its residents, and their lingering accent. The town was settled by descendants of a Mennonite group William Penn had invited to Pennsylvania.

Swanktown, 34.9 miles (988 alt., 50 pop.), was named for John and Jacob Swank, dissenting preachers of the United Brethren church who started a Swankite church here in 1840. It no longer exists.

Past nurseries and apple and peach orchards, US 40 continues in a westerly direction to Lewisburg, 42.5 miles. (1,000 alt., 1,126 pop.),a rural trade center which once had five tobacco warehouses, now has one. Large amounts of crushed stone are quarried here.

The Columbus-Indianapolis airplane route is marked by the Airway Beacon (R), 46.5 miles, where beacons of the 24-inch rotating type with 1,000-watt bulbs revolve every 10 seconds. The beacons are automatically controlled by a switch that turns on the illumination for a fixed number of hours each day, and by another switch that turns on the light when the daylight's foot-candle power falls below a certain point.

Footprint Rock (R), 51.9 miles, is a partially imbedded boulder bearing the sculptured outline of a foot and five other less distinct markings. They are thought to be of prehistoric origin.

US 40 crosses the Indiana State Line, 57.5 miles, 4 miles east of Richmond, Indiana (see Indiana Guide). Watches should be set back one hour.