Just horsing around
Alyssa Choiniere, digital news coordinator for the Observer-Reporter, takes the reins while riding along Route 40 in a wagon train near the S Bridge with Dick and Patty Gummere of St. Clairsville, Ohio. The wagon train traveling along the National Road kicks off the National Road Festival this weekend.
Photos: Observer-Reporter
In this file photo, people gather near the S Bridge at Route 40 and Route 221 to watch a wagon train roll across Washington County on the National Road. The National Road Festival begins Saturday, May 20.
A wagon train nears the S Bridge at Route 40 and Route 221 as it rolls across Washington County on the National Road.
After more than 40 years together, Patty Gummere thought she heard all her husband’s stories. But just a few days before their 42nd anniversary, she heard a new one.
Her husband’s great-uncle, Clyde Lodge, frequented the National Road by wagon train. Patty and her husband, Dick Gummere of St. Clairsville, Ohio, travel the road together by wagon nearly every year as part of a kick-off for the National Road Festival, which continues through Sunday.
The wagon train the Gummeres travel in started in Claysville on Friday with seven wagons and spent the night at Washington Park. Today, it will continue on to Scenery Hill on Route 40, the first highway in the United States connecting West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland that served as a gateway to the West for thousands of settlers, adding a few more wagons.
Lodge took advantage of the new highway, transporting furniture by wagon train for people who were relocating.
“You’d think in 42 years, I’d know about that,” Patty said laughing.
The early 20th century moving company was a part of Lodge’s younger years.
“He never really talked about it that much,” Dick said. “Most of the time, I knew him. He was a farmer. He was a farmer until he died.”
Horses were a part of both Dick’s and Patty’s ancestry and upbringing, and it was a shared love of horses that brought them together. The two met in 4-H Club working on horse-related projects.
Their children, now grown, rode horses and passed on the tradition to their own children.
“We’re just a horsey bunch,” Patty said.
The two often spend their anniversary with the wagon train, and Patty said she has no problem trading a nice dinner for Hawaiian Punch on the trail.
“It’s just doing what you love to do,” Dick said.
Patty said the the 3 mph pace allows her to see the region from a new perspective, and it gives her ideas for landscaping projects.
“Yeah, I get ideas,” she said. “Too many.”
Their tradition started with one horse and one wagon, which soon became three horses and two wagons. They purchased a steel-wheel wagon at an auction. But, at more than 100 years old, it provided a bumpy ride.
“He built this one himself,” Patty said. “He wanted something more sporty.”
Dick Gummere made the wagon with hydraulic brakes and had a group of Amish people add a tarp.
The two horses, Hailey and Lizzie, were purchased from Seven Springs Mountain Resort, where they gave sleigh rides. The horses had to learn to work as part of a team because they weren’t accustomed to being hooked together.
“Izzy has a spring in her step,” Patty said, while Hailey prefers a slower pace.
The two are a cross between Belgian and Morgan, part draft horse and part saddle horse.
“It makes a tough horse, but a little lighter-weight horse,” she said. “They’re multipurpose.”
The team had no trouble pulling a wagon up the hills near Claysville. The team had to stop several times to allow smaller horses in the back to catch up.
The Gummeres said it can be difficult to get younger people interested in a 3 mph journey by wagon. But in their family, the tradition of horses is continuing to their children and grandchildren.
“He loves teaching little kids to drive,” Patty said. “It gets passed down through the generations.”