Tales of the Untold

Nick Hammer sat in Funkstown

Before his tavern door-

The same old blue-stone tavern

The wagoners knew of yore,

When the Conestoga schooners

Came staggering under their load,

And the lines of slow pack-horses

Stamped over the National Road.

Nick Hammer and son together,

Both blowing pipe-smoke there,

Like a pair of stolid limekilns,

In the blue South Mountain air;

And the mills of the Antietam,

Grinding the Dunker's wheat

So oldly and so slowly,

Groaned up the deserted street.