Hagan’s Tavern

Along the National Road, Hagan’s Tavern stood in striking contrast to its quiet modern atmosphere, having once been a rowdy gathering place where local men met on Saturdays and public days to race horses, fight chickens, drink bad whiskey, and black each others eyes. It also served as a center of political cooping, where politicians lured poor white voters to the inn, fed them well, supplied new poker playing cards, kept the whiskey flowing, and then hurried them off to cast their ballots. Long before the National Road, General Braddock passed through this area and judged western Maryland to be almost uninhabited except for people he called banditti who identified themselves as Indian traders. The rough log predecessors of taverns like Hagan’s functioned as both Indian trading posts and crude lodgings, and one traveler recalled spending a night in a bed with four other people while fearing both theft and vermin.

Braddock Heights, Maryland · United States