Claysville, Pennsylvania

Claysville, Pennsylvania owes its existence, and its name, to a road. The National Road, the young nation's first federally funded highway, passed through this corner of Washington County on its way to Wheeling, Virginia, and a town grew up along the route. He named it Claysville in honor of Senator Henry Clay, the Kentucky statesman who was the National Road's most powerful champion in Congress.

The road reached Wheeling in eighteen eighteen, and Claysville became an important waystation between Washington, Pennsylvania to the east and the Virginia border to the west. Stagecoaches stopped here, drovers rested their herds, and merchants set up shop.