Existing comment:
The Historic National Road The Road That Built The Nation:
Hagan's Tavern: If walls could talk...
The National Road has borne witness to many notorious comings and goings the quiet atmosphere you'll find at Hagan's Tavern today is quite different from the raucous bawdiness of yesteryear. This Tavern was a "place where is the old bloats of the neighborhood would gather on Saturday and public days to run horses, fight chickens, drink bad whiskey, and black each other's high."
He was also a political stomping ground, where "cooping" commonly occurred, a practice "we're politicians would lure all of the poor white voters they could muster to the inn. They are the election hopefuls would feed the voters the best food that they could, see the new poker playing cards were always at hand, and make sure the whiskey glasses never went dry." The voters were then taken quickly to cast their ballots.
Braddock's Road:
Long before the National Road, General Braddock marched through here, observing that Western Maryland was "almost uninhabited, but by a parcel of banditti who called themselves Indian traders." The rough-hewn law ancestors of taverns like Hagan's were both Indian trading posts and primitive lodgings. One traveler complained that "I spent the night in a bed with four other godforsaken souls; never knowing whether I would get my pocket picked or be carried off by vermin." |