National Road Festival celebrates 40 years
The National Road Festival, which will take place Thursday through Sunday, reaches a significant anniversary as it observes its 40th year of celebrating the country’s first federal highway.
“It is a noteworthy milestone — 40 years,” said Jan Dunker, a chairwoman for the celebration in Scenery Hill in Washington County since the 1980s.
“For the past 40 years, communities along the National Road Festival have been working together to create a 90-mile-long festival,” said Tom Markwardt, public information officer at Fort Necessity National Battlefield in Farmington, which includes the story of the National Road in its interpretive center. “This is an extension of the history of The National Road that helped bind the nation together in the 19th century by connecting communities. The National Park Service is proud to be a part of the community spirit that strengthens the nation.”
Donna Holdorf, executive director for the National Road Heritage Corridor, said of the anniversary, “The festival is reinvigorated and the National Road is working hard with all the communities to help with their events.”
The festival started in 1974 in Washington County as a prelude to the nation’s bicentennial, but participants decided to keep it going. Fayette and Somerset counties joined in a few years later so that the festival stretches 90 miles along the Historic National Road, now part of modern-day Route 40, in southwestern Pennsylvania. Events are scheduled in communities that range from Addison in Somerset County to Claysville in Washington County. Fayette County has several communities that participate, including Farmington, Hopwood, Uniontown, Menallen Township and Brownsville.
The festival celebrates more than 200 years of travel, commerce and life along the National Road, which began construction in 1811 in Cumberland, Md., and was eventually completed in 1834 in Vandalia, Ill., crossing Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and Indiana. President Thomas Jefferson signed legislation that created the road and U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin, who made his home at Friendship Hill National Historic Site in Springhill Township, became known as the “Father of the National Road.”
The festival remembers the heyday of the 19th century, when the road brought pioneers west to a new life and provided another way for commerce to link the East and the West. The annual commemoration includes the years that followed as the automobile took over the road and American lifestyle changed once again.
The importance of the Historic National Road has been recognized by the federal government, which designated it a National Scenic Byway and an All-American Road. Fort Necessity, a national park, tells the National Road story at its interpretive center and the authentic 19th century Mount Washington Tavern.
During the festival, members of the Friends of Fort Necessity will welcome guests to Mount Washington Tavern from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Stories of life and death of the stagecoach stop on the National Road will be explored through the recreation of tavern keeper James Sampey’s funeral at 11 a.m., 1 and 3 p.m. Saturday and 1 and 3 p.m. Sunday. Light refreshments from period recipes will be served.
Other taverns are also in existence throughout the road, including the Abel Colley Tavern in Menallen Township, which is now headquarters for the Fayette County Historical Society and will welcome visitors on Saturday as it documents handmade quilts for a heritage project.
The historical society also manages the Searight Toll House in Menallen Township, one of two original National Road tollhouses in Pennsylvania. It will be open during the festival, along with the Petersburg Toll House in Addison, a community that has a full schedule of activities that include opening a one-room schoolhouse for children, producing a play called “Addison Apparitions,” and a Sunday blessing of the pets, as well as 1860s baseball game that also will be played in Hopwood and Uniontown.
Hopwood also has its annual parade, while Uniontown is expanding its celebration with music, artisans, tours of historic buildings and its annual 5-K race.
Brownsville will offer music as well as tours of Nemacolin Castle and feature an Artist of the Pike in the Frank L. Melega Museum among its many activities.
And tying it all together are two wagon trains that remind visitors of this historic past: the National Pike Wagon Train Association, which travels from Grantsville, Md., to Mount St. Macrina in Uniontown, and The Wagoniers, which travel across Washington County from Claysville to Malden.
The National Pike Wagon Train, led by wagon master Doc Sherry of Farmington, starts Thursday in Grantsville and travels to Addison, where it makes its encampment overnight. On Friday, the wagon train will continue east, stopping at A.J. McMullen School (part of the Uniontown Area School District) for lunch and then making its encampment at the Farmington Volunteer Fire Department, where members of the Bruderhof communities in Farmington will sing that evening.
On Saturday, the wagon train will travel again, stopping for lunch in Hopwood, and then moving on to Mount St. Macrina, just west of Uniontown, for an encampment where the Westmoreland-Fayette Council of the Boy Scouts of America will hold its annual spring camporee through Sunday. Scoutmaster Edward Bohna reported Brownsville Troop 650 will host the event, which will have the theme “Game On” and feature sports-related activities for the troops. An outdoor interdenominational worship service will be held at Mount St. Macrina for the wagon train at 8 a.m. Sunday and the House of Prayer, the former home of coal baron J.V. Thompson, will be open for tours given by students from Laurel Highlands Senior High School from 1 to 3 p.m. Sunday.
Meanwhile, J.D. Ritenour of Connellsville is wagon master for The Wagoniers, which will assemble in Claysville and travel on Friday to Washington, where they will make camp in the park. On Saturday, they will head to Scenery Hill, setting up an encampment at the community center. They continue on Sunday, stopping at the Waleski Horse Farm in Richeyville for lunch and then making the final stop at the National Pike Steam, Gas & Horse Association in Malden.
The public is encouraged to stop and see both wagon trains at their lunch breaks and encampments.
Ritenour, who said he’s participated in this festival for 25 years, said, “You meet a lot of nice people when you come up the road.”
Holdorf emphasized the dedication of the wagon train participants, pointing out they take time off from work, pay expenses of about $500 each, care for their horses and feed themselves along the way.
She noted their importance to the festival, saying, “The historical re-enactment of the wagons moving west and east is what the road is all about.”
More information on the festival is available online at www.nationalroadpa.com.