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6
Mile Survives
Six Mile House on U.S.
Route 40, six miles east of Cumberland, is a mid-19th century structure
that was originally one of a number of taverns and Inns situated
along the National Road in Western Maryland.
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house is called the Habeeb House for Edward Habeeb, who
was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1895. He came to Allegany
County in 1913, first to Westernport, where he went into
the florist business in Piedmont beginning in 1915. |
Story by: MONA RIDDER Times-News Staff
Writer
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Six-Mile-House
part of historic road lore
Amos Hinkle Gross,
son of Major Adam Gross Sr. and Christina Roemer, was born on
May 26, 1801 at Cumberland in Allegany County, Maryland. He
was married in Cumberland in 1830 to Mary Houck. They had a
family of eight children: Drusilla, George, Richard, John, Amos,
Amanda, Mary and Alamanda.
Amos Hinkle Gross was a pioneer farmer whose farm was located
on a hillside six miles east of Cumberland, Maryland on Baltimore
Turnpike. He was also the proprietor of the historic “Six-Mile-House”
located on the turnpike opposite the pioneer farmhouse.
The “Six-Mile-House” was a large combined tavern and
rooming house. It was a will known stopping place for travelers
prior to, during, and after the Civil War.
The Baltimore Turnpike was also known as the “National
Road”. It was the main east-west thoroughfare between Baltimore,
Maryland and Wheeling, West Virginia. This turnpike was later
designated United States Highway 40.
This popular stopping place at the “Six-Mile-House”
was also identified as “Gross, Maryland” in District
21 of the United States Postal Service.
Besides maintaining his farm and the “Six-Mile-House”,
Amos was active in a number of real estate transactions in Allegany
County area near Cumberland, Maryland.
In a real estate deed recorded on February 14, 1898 in book
82 on page 589, it was stated that the entire estate of Amos
H. Gross in Allegany county, Maryland was sold to Williams B.
Smith for $2,635, consisting of the “Six-Mile-House”
and farm on Fox Chase”, and Vexation, comprising a total
of 172.875 acres.
Although many Allegany County records were destroyed in the
Cumberland Courthouse fire on January 5, 1893, fortunately the
real estate books in the office of the county recorder were
saved.
Amos H. Gross was among the delegates chosen on July 11, 1840
to form a political caucus at Cumberland, Maryland for the purpose
of nomination a list of candidates to be supported by voters
for the election of Sen. Wm. Henry Harrison, 1772-1841, as the
ninth president of the United States.
His political activities in behalf of the candidacy of Senator
Harrison evidently had some influence on the family when they
chose the name of their fourth child, John Harrison Gross, who
was born in 1841, the year which President Harrison died.
In 1873 John H. Gross became a member of Pleasant Grove Methodist
Episcopal Church. He died at Cumberland, Maryland in 1880 at
the age of 79 years. Burial took place in the Pleasant Grove
Church Cemetery where a large granite headstone marks his resting
place. According to National Register of Historic Places Inventory
Nomination Form for the Six-Mile-House, also know as the Habeeb
House located on the National Road, its construction was the
result of early efforts to improve transportation west with
the establishment of new and better roads that required way
stations for travelers.
“After the American Revolution, a number of entrepreneurs,
quick to take advantage of the great need for good roads from
the Atlantic states to the West, invested their money to form
turnpike companies. These turnpikes were better then any roads
that had preciously been built, but the cost of their construction
and maintenance, in addition to a profit for the owners, was
amply provided for by the tolls and gift items.
The house is called the Habeeb House for Edward Habit, who was
born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1895. He came to Allegany County
in 1913, first to Westernport, where he went into the florist
business in Piedmont beginning in 1915.
In 1919, he moved to Cumberland and established a florist business
on Mechanic Street. It was in 1960 that he moved the business
to the house on Route 40 east of Cumberland.
Involved in civic affairs, Habit was effective as a leader of
citizen support for the improvement of U.S. Route 40 and for
the development of Rocky Gap State Park created in the 1970’s.
The park officially opened in 1974 and the lake was dedicated
and named for Habit during special ceremonies on September 18,
1976. Edward Mason, then a state senator, presided over the
event.
According to local historian Al Feldstein, the house is the
National Pike Six-Mile-House which was surveyed for inclusion
on the Maryland Historical Trust about 1970.
The survey indicates the house is located abut six miles east
of Cumberland along the National Road or US Route 40 on the
south side of the road.
The Six-Mile-House, a mid-19th century, two and a half story
brick structure with a later one-story porch across the façade
was probably built in the 1830s or 1840s, according to the survey.
The gable roof was probably replaced since construction because
the overhang is wider then is normal for this period of building,
according to the survey. The principal windows have double-hug
wooden sashes with “six-over-six” lights on the first
floor and “nine-over-six” lights on the second floor,
meaning the upper sash in each window on the first floor hdd
six panes while on the second floor the upper sash featured
nine panes.
In 1970, when the survey was conducted, the house was considered
structurally sound and restorable but 30-plus years of neglect
have taken their toll.
According to the Historical Trust, the Six-Mile-House is one
of several early to mid-19th century taverns and inns that lined
the Cumberland, and later, National roads.
The house has features that are characteristic of other inns
of that period in Western Maryland. Closer to Cumberland, the
Colonial Manor, now Folck’s Mill part of a restaurant complex
owned by Ed Mason, has the same widow arrangement-six-over-six
and nine-over-six.
In 2002, the house is windowless and walls have been removed.
Ceilings sag in some places and 30-year-old wallpaper is faded
and peeling but underneath the decay stands an imposing edifice
that is getting a facelift if not a restoration. Interior walls
are nearly two-feet thick in some places, notably along the
main hall. |
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