Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 10).djvu/171

Rh As has been said, the road bred its own landlords. Youths, whose lives began simultaneously with that of the great road, worked upon its curved bed in their teens, became teamsters and contractors in middle life, and spent the autumn of their lives as landlords of its taverns, purchased with the money earned in working upon it. Several well-known landlords were prominent contractors, many of whom owned their share of the great six- and eight-horse teams which hauled freight to the western rivers.

The old taverns were the hearts of the Cumberland Road, and the tavern life was the best gauge to measure the current of business that ebbed and flowed. As the great road became superseded by the railways, the taverns were the first to succumb to the shock. In a very interesting article, a recent writer on "The Rise of the Tide of Life to New England Hilltops," speaks of the early hill life of New England, and the memorials there left "of the deep and sweeping streams of human history." The