The Tavern on the National Road

The two-story brick building you are passing west of Saint Clairsville is one of the surviving taverns along the National Road. It dates to the early years of the road, and for decades it was exactly what westbound travelers needed most: a place to stop, eat, sleep, and argue about politics before pushing on toward the Ohio frontier.

The National Road ran from Wheeling through Belmont County and on into the Ohio interior. The road transformed everything it touched. Before it came, this was remote farming country. After, it was the main street of America. Stagecoach lines ran scheduled service. Freight wagons hauled goods by the ton. Drovers moved herds of cattle and hogs from Ohio farms to eastern markets, sometimes thousands of animals at a time, the noise and smell of them filling the road from shoulder to shoulder.

Taverns like this one anchored the system. They were licensed by the county, required to keep horses fed and rested, and expected to house travelers at a set rate. The competition between them was fierce. Tavern owners positioned themselves within sight of each other along the road, each trying to catch the eye of the next coach. Drovers were prized customers, because a herd of hogs or cattle needed fodder and water, and that was a day's business for a small establishment.

Accounts of the Brick Tavern's exact construction date vary, a reminder that the documentary record of the National Road's working life was kept more in ledgers and wayfarers' journals than in formal records. What is not disputed is that the building is real, it is old, and it survives.