content themselves with the rude means of transportation which were
employed by the aborigines. The favorite way back and forth from
Plymouth to Boston and Cape Ann was by water, by skirting the shore in
birchen pinnaces or dugouts--hollowed pine logs about twenty feet long
and two and a half feet wide--in which Johnson said the savages ventured
two leagues out at sea. There were few horses, and the few were too
valuable for domestic work to be spared for travel, hence the journeyer
must go by water, or on foot. When Bradstreet was sent to Dover as Royal
Commissioner, he walked the entire distance there, and back to Boston,
by narrow Indian paths.
The many estuaries and river-mouths that intersected the coast also made
travel on horseback difficult. Foot-passengers, however, could cross the
narrow streams by natural ford-ways, or on fallen trees, which were
ordered to be put in proper place by the colonial government; and the
broader rivers by canoe ferries. We see, through the record of one
journey, the dignified Governor of Massachusetts carried across the
ford-ways pick-a-pack on the shoulders of his stalwart Indian guide.
But soon the settlers, true to their English instincts and habits,
turned their attention to the breeding of horses. They imported many
fine animals, and the magistrates framed laws intended to improve the
imported stock. The history of horse-raising in New England is akin to
that of any other country, save in one respect. In Rhode Island the
breeding of horses resulted in that famous and first distinctively
American breed--the Narragansett Pacers.
The first suggestion of horse-raising in Narragansett was, without
doubt, given by Sewall's father-in-law, Captain John Hull, of Pine Tree
Shilling fame, who was one of the original purchasers of the
Petaquamscut Tract, or Narragansett, from the Indians. He wrote, in
April, 1677:
"I have often thought if we, the partners of Point Judith Neck did
fence with a good stone wall at the north end thereof, that no kind
of horses or cattle might get thereon, and also what other parts
thereof westerly were needful, and procure a very good breed of
large and fair mares and horses, and that no mongrel breed might
come among them, we might have a very choice breed for coach
horses, some for the saddle and some for draught; and in a few
years might draw off considerable numbers and ship them for
Barbadoes Nevis or such parts of the Indies where they would vend."
This scheme was doubtless carried into effect, for in 1686 Dudley and
his associates ordered thirty horses to be seized in Narragansett and
sold to pay for building a jail.
In a later letter Hull accuses William Heiffernan of horse-stealing, and
shows that a different and more gentle method than Western lynch-law was
pursued by the Eastern settlers. He writes:
"I am informed that you were so shameless that you offered to sell
some of my horses. I would have you know that they are by Gods good
Providence, mine. Do you bring me some good security for my money
that is justly owing and I shall be willing to give you some horses
that you shall not need to offer to steal any."
Whatever the means may have been that tended to the establishment of a
distinct breed of horses, the result was soon evident; by the early
years of the eighteenth century the Narragansett Pacers were known
throughout the colonies as a desirable breed of saddle-horses.
The local conditions for raising this breed were favorable. The soil of
Narragansett was rich, the crops large, the natural formation of the
land made it possible to fence it easily and with little expense--a
thing of much importance in a new land. The bay, the ocean, and the
chain of half salt lakes surrounding the three sides, left but a short
northern length for stone wall, as Hull suggested.
It is said that the progenitor or most important sire of this race was
imported from Andalusia by Governor Robinson. Another tradition is that
this horse, while swimming off the coast of Spain, was picked up by a
Narragansett sloop and brought to America. Thomas Hazard contributed to
the quality of endurance in the breed by introducing into it the blood
of "Old Snip." So celebrated did the qualities of this horse become that
the "Snip breed" was not only spoken of with regard to the horses, but
of the owners as well, and Hazards who did not possess the
distinguishing race-characteristic of self-will were said not to be
"true Snips." Old Snip was said to have been imported from Tripoli;
others assert (and it is generally believed) that he was a wild horse
running at large in the tract near Point Judith.
In the year 1711 Rip Van Dam, a prominent citizen of New York, and at a
later date Governor of the State, wrote to Jonathan Dickinson, an early
mayor of Philadelphia, a very amusing account of his ownership of a
Narragansett Pacer. The horse was shipped from Rhode Island in a sloop,
from which he managed to jump overboard, swim ashore, and return home.
He was, however, again placed on board ship, and arrived in New York
after a fourteen-days' passage, naturally much reduced in flesh and
spirits. From New York he was sent to Philadelphia by post--that is,
ridden by the post-rider. The horse cost £32, and his freight cost fifty
shillings. He was said to be "no beauty though so high priced, save in
his legs." "He always plays and acts and never will stand still, he will
take a glass of wine, beer or cyder, and probably would drink a dram on
a cold morning." The last extraordinary accomplishment doubtless showed
contamination from the bad human company around him, while the swimming
feat evinced his direct descent from the Andalusian swimmer.
Dr. McSparran, rector of the Narragansett church from 1721 to 1759,
wrote a little book called "America Dissected," in which he speaks thus
of the Narragansett Pacers:
"The produce of this country is principally butter, cheese, fat
cattle, wool and fine horses that are exported to all parts of
English America. They are remarkable for fleetness and swift pacing
and I have seen some of them pace a mile in a little more than two
minutes and a good deal less than three minutes. I have often upon
the larger pacing horses rode fifty, nay sixty miles a day even in
New England where the roads are rough, stony and uneven."
In the realm of fiction we find testimony to the qualities of the
Narragansett Pacers. Cooper, in the "Last of the Mohicans," represents
his heroines as mounted on these horses, and explains their
characteristics in a footnote, and also in the dialogue of the story. He
says that they were commonly sorrel-colored, and that horses of other
breeds were trained to their gait. It is true that horses were trained
to pace. Rev. Mr. Thatcher wrote in 1690 of teaching a mare to amble by
cross-spanning, and again by trammelling. Logs of wood were placed
across a road at certain intervals to induce a pacing gait. As late as
the year 1770 men in Ipswich followed the profession of pace-trainer;
but I doubt whether any other breed could ever acquire the peculiar gait
of the Narragansetts, of which Isaac Hazard thus wrote: "My father
described the motion of this horse as differing from others in that its
backbone moved through the air in a straight line without inclining the
rider from side to side, as does a rocker or pacer of the present day."
That motion could scarcely be taught.
Many traits joined to make the Narragansett Pacers so eagerly sought
for. Not only was their ease of motion an absolute necessity, but
sureness of foot was also indispensable; this quality they also
possessed. They were also tough and enduring, and could travel long
distances. The stories told of them seem incredible. It was said that
they could travel one hundred miles in a day, over rough roads, without
tiring the rider or injury to themselves, provided they were properly
cared for at the end of the journey.
There was not only in America a steady demand for these horses, but in
the West Indies, as Hull predicted, they found a ready market. One
farmer sent annually a hundred pacers to Cuba, and agents were sent to
Narragansett from Cuba with orders to buy pacers, especially
full-blooded mares, at any prices. Agents from Virginia also purchased
pacers for Virginian horse-raisers. The newspapers of the latter part of
the eighteenth century--especially of the Connecticut press--abound in
advertisements of horses of the "true Narragansett breed," yet it is
said that in the year 1800 but one full-blooded Narragansett Pacer was
known to be living. In the War of 1812 the British man-of-war Orpheus
cruised the waters of Narragansett Bay, and her captain endeavored
through agents to obtain a Narragansett Pacer as a gift for his wife,
but in vain--not a horse of the true breed could be found.
It has been said that the reckless exportation to the West Indies caused
this extermination, but it is difficult to believe that so shrewd a race
as were the Narragansett planters ever would have committed such a
killing of a goose of golden eggs. The decay of the race was the action
of a simple law--cause and effect. The conditions which rendered the
pacer so desirable did not exist after the Revolution. Roads were
improved, carriages became common, the saddle less used, and the
American trotter was evolved, who was a better carriage horse, and a
more useful one, as he could be employed for both light and heavy work,
while heavy draughting stiffened the joints of the pacer, and destroyed
the very qualities for which he was most valued. Thus, being no longer
needed, the Narragansett Pacer ceased to exist.
There died in Wickford, R. I., a few years ago, a Narragansett Pacer that
was nearly full blooded. She was a villainously ugly animal of faded,
sunburnt sorrel color. She was so abnormally broad-backed and
broad-bodied that a male rider who sat astride her was forced to stick
his legs out at a most awkward and ridiculous angle. That broad back
carried, however, most comfortably a side-saddle or a pillion. Being
extremely short-legged this treasured relic was unprecedentedly slow,
and altogether I found the Narragansett Pacer, though an object of great
pride and even veneration to her owner, not all my fancy had painted
her.
From the earliest days when horses were imported, women rode on pillions
behind the men. Lechford in his note-book refers to a "womans pillion"
lost on the Hopewell. A pillion was a cushion strapped on behind a man's
saddle, and from it sometimes hung a small platform or double stirrup on
which a woman rider could rest her feet. One horse was sometimes made
also to carry two men riding astride. Horseflesh was also economized by
the ride-and-tie system: two persons would start on horseback, ride a
mile or two, dismount, tie the animal by the road-side, leaving him for
another couple (who had started afoot) to mount, ride on past the first
couple, and dismount and tie in their turn.
Coaches were not a wholly popular means of conveyance in the first half
of the seventeenth century, even among Englishmen on English roads, and
they would have been wholly useless in New England. John Winthrop had
one in 1685. Sir Edmund and Lady Andros rode in a coach in Boston in
1687, and there were then a few other carriages in town. Their purchase
and use were deplored and discouraged by Puritan authorities, as were
other luxurious fashions. Outside of the town wheeled vehicles were of
little use as they had to be lashed clumsily in two canoes and
laboriously ferried across the rivers, while the horses were similarly
transferred to the opposite shore, or allowed to swim over. The early
carriages were calashes and chariots. Henry Sharp of Salem had a calash
in 1701. William Cutler's "collash with ye furniture" was worth £10 in
1723. Chairs--two-wheeled gigs without a top--and chaises, a vehicle
with similar body and a top, were early forms of carriages. The sulky
had in early days, as now, seating room but for one person. All these
were hung on thorough braces instead of springs.
In an account of the funeral of Lieutenant Governor Tailor, in 1732, it
is mentioned that a "great number of the gentry attended in their
coaches and chaises;" but even by that date coaches were of little avail
for long journeys. The anxious letters of Waitstill Winthrop to his son
in 1717, at the latter's proposal of bringing a coach overland from
Boston to New London, show the obstacles of travel. He warns that there
are no bridges in Narragansett; he urges him to bring a mounted servant
with an axe to "cut bows in the way," "to bring a good pilate that knows
the cart ways," to be sure to keep the coachman sober, to have axle and
hubs prepared for rough usage--and in every way discourages so rash an
endeavor.
Though I have seen a New England inventory of the year 1690 in which a
"sley" appears, I do not find that they were frequently used until the
second or third decade of the succeeding century, though a few
Bostonians had them in the year 1700. They were largely used by the
Dutch in New York, and Connecticut folk occasionally followed Dutch
fashions.
When sedan-chairs were so fashionable and plentiful in England, they
were sure to be used to some extent in New England towns. Governor
Winthrop had a very elegant Spanish sedan-chair, which was given him in
1646 by Captain Cromwell, who captured it from a Spanish galleon. This
fine chair was worth £50 and was an intended gift of the Viceroy of
Mexico to his sister. When Parson Oxenbridge was striken with apoplexy
in the pulpit of the First Church in Boston, he was "carried home in a
Cedan." On August 3, 1687, Judge Sewall wrote in his diary: "Capt.
Gerrish is carried in a Sedan to the Wharf and so takes boat for Salem."
Again he writes on May 31, 1715: "The Gov'r comes first to Town, was
carried from Mr. Dudleys to the Town-House in Cous. Dumers Sedan; but
'twas too tall for the Stairs, so was fain to be taken out near the top
of them." The Governor had had a bad attack of gout.
On September 11, 1706, Sewall writes: "Five Indians carried Mr.
Bromfield in a chair." And though I have never seen the sale of a sedan
mentioned, several times I have fancied that the reference to the sale
of a chair meant a sedan-chair. In the memoirs of Eliza Quincey she
speaks of riding in a sedan, and of seeing Dr. Franklin in one in 1789.
At a surprisingly early date, when we consider the limited opportunities
for travel, the colonial authorities licensed taverns or ordinaries, and
also made strict laws governing them. The landlords could not sell sack
or strong water; nor permit games to be played in their precincts; nor
allow dancing or singing; nor could tobacco be used within their walls;
nor could they sell cakes or buns indiscriminately. Samuel Cole, the
Boston comfit-maker, received his license in 1634, though one can hardly
understand, with such manifold rules of narrow limit, how he could wish
it. Previously other freemen had obtained permission "to draw wine and
beer" to sell at retail to their neighbors and to travellers. In New
Haven the tavern-keeper had been given twenty acres of land in 1645, in
which travellers' horses could be pastured. In Hartford and other river
towns the establishment of taverns was compulsory. The ordinaries
quickly multiplied in number and increased in pretension. In Boston, in
1651, the King's Arms and its furniture were held to be worth £600.
Board was cheap enough. In 1634 the Court set the price of a single meal
at sixpence, and an ale quart of beer at a penny. At the Ship Tavern a
man had "fire and bed, dyet, wyne and beere betweene meals" for three
shillings a day. The wine was limited to "a cupp each man at dynner &
supp & no more." Following the English fashion of Shakespeare's time,
the inn chambers were each named: The Exchange Chamber, Rose and Sun
Chamber, Star Chamber, Court Chamber, Jerusalem Chamber, etc. The names
of the inns also followed English nomenclature: The Bunch of Grapes, Dog
& Pot, Turk's Head, Green Dragon, Blue Anchor, King's Head, etc. The
Good Woman bore on its painted sign the figure of a headless woman. The
Ship in Distress had these lines:
"With sorrows I am compassed round,
Pray lend a hand--my ship's aground."
Another Boston tavern had this rhyme:
"This is the bird that never flew,
This is the tree that never grew,
This is the ship that never sails,
This is the can that never fails."
The Sun Tavern bore these words:
"The Best Ale and Beer under the Sun."
This tavern was removed to Moon Street, and was kept by Mrs. Milk. Her
neighbors' names were Waters, Beer, and Legg. The Salutation Inn, with
its sign-board bearing the picture of two men shaking hands, was
commonly known as the Two Palaverers.
I know no more attractive picture of olden-time hospitality, nothing
better "under the notion of a tavern," than the old Palaverer tavern at
Medford. On either side of its front door grew a great tree, and in the
spreading branches of each tree was built a platform or balcony. The two
were connected by a hanging bridge or scaffolding, and also connected by
a similar foot-bridge with the tavern itself. In these leafy
tree-arbors, through the sunny summer months, from dawn till twilight,
whilom travellers rested and drank their drams, or, perchance, their
cups of tea, and watched the arrival and departure of coaches and
horsemen at "mine inn."
John Adams wrote frequently of the inns of the time. He said of the
Ipswich innkeeper in 1771: "Landlord and Landlady are some of the
grandest people alive. Landlady is the great granddaughter of Governor
Endicott, and has all the notions of greatest family. As to Landlord, he
is as happy, and as big, as proud, as conceited as any nobleman in
England, always calm and good-natured and lazy."
Of the Enfield landlord he wrote: "Oated and drank tea at Peases--a
smart house and landlord truly; well dressed with his ruffles &c. and
upon inquiry I found he was the great man of the town, their
representative as well as tavern-keeper." In a paper which he wrote upon
licensed houses, Adams stated that "retailers and taverners are
generally, in the country, assessors, selectmen, representatives, or
esquires."
Members of our best and most respected families throughout New England
were innkeepers. The landlord was frequently a local magistrate, a
justice of the peace, or a sheriff. Notices of town-meetings, of
elections, of new laws and ordinances of administration were posted at
the tavern, just as legal notices are printed in the newspapers
nowadays. Bills of sales, of auctions, records of transfers were
naturally posted therein; the taverns were the original business
exchanges. No wonder all the men in the township flocked to the
tavern--they had to to know anything of town affairs, to say nothing of
local scandals. Distances were given in almanacs of the day, not from
town to town, but from tavern to tavern.
Of the good quality of New England inns many travellers testify.
Lafayette wrote to his wife in 1777: "Host and hostess sit at the table
with you and do the honors of a comfortable meal, and on going away you
pay your fare without higgling." Dr. Dwight said the best old-fashioned
New England inns were superior to any of the modern ones. Brissot said:
"You meet with neatness, dignity and decency, the chambers neat, the
beds good, the sheets clean, supper passable, cyder tea punch and all
for fourteen pence a head." Alackaday! the good old times.
Next in importance to the landlord came the stage-driver. He was so
popular and such a kindly fellow that he had to be prohibited by law
from carrying any parcels or letters for persons along the route, else
he were overburdened with troublesome and hindering business,
detrimental to the postal and carriage income of the government. He was
so importuned to drink at each stopping-place that he might have lain
drunk the whole year round. He was of so much consequence and so looked
up to, that little Jack Mendum, who drove the Salem mail-coach, hardly
exaggerated his position when he roared out angrily to a hungry
passenger who urged him to drive faster: "While I drive this coach I am
the whole United States of America." Stage-driving was an hereditary
gift; it went in families. Four Potters, three Ackermans, three Annables
drove in Salem. Patch and Peach. Tozzer and Blumpy, Canney and Camp,
were well-known stage-driving names.
The stage-agent also, that obsolete functionary, was a man of much local
consequence and of many affairs; he was established in many a tavern as
a necessary and almost immovable piece of bar-room furniture.
To show the importance of tavern, tavern-keeper, stage-agent, and
stage-driver in early Federal days, let me give a single instance.
Haverhill was the great staging centre of New Hampshire; six or eight
lines of coaches left there each day. There were lines direct to Boston,
New York, and Stanstead, Canada. Of course there was a vast bustle and
commotion on the arrival and departure of each coach, and a goodly
number of passengers were deposited at the tavern that formed the coach
office--sometimes one hundred and fifty a day. It can readily be seen
what a news centre such a tavern must have been, how much knowledge of
the world must have been gathered by its occupants. It must be
remembered that our universal modern source of information, the
newspaper, did not then exist; there were a few journals, of course, of
scant circulation, but of what we now deem news they contained nothing.
Information of current events came through hearing and talking, not
through reading. Hence it came to be that an innkeeper was not only
influential in local affairs, but was universally known as the
best-informed man in the place; reporters, so to speak, rendered their
accounts to him; items of foreign and local news were sent to him; he
was in himself an entire Associated Press.
The earliest roads for travel throughout New England followed the Indian
trails or paths, and were but two or three feet wide. The Old Plymouth
or Coast Road, of much importance because connecting Boston and
Plymouth, the capitals of separate colonies, was provided for by action
of the General Court in 1639. It ran through old Braintree. The Old
Connecticut Road or Path started from Cambridge, ran to Marlborough,
thence to Grafton, Oxford, and Woodstock, and on to Springfield and
Albany. It was intersected at Woodstock by the Providence Path, which
ran through Narragansett and Providence plantations, and also by the
Nipmuck Path which came from Norwich.
The New Connecticut Road ran as did the old road, from Boston to Albany.
It was known at a later date as the Post Road. From Boston it ran to
Marlborough, thence to Worcester, thence to Brookfield, and so on to
Springfield and Albany.
The famous Bay Path, laid out in 1673, left the Old Connecticut Path at
Happy Hollow, now Wayland, and ran through Marlborough to Worcester,
Oxford, Charlton, and Brookfield, when it separated in two paths,
one--the Hadley Path--running to Ware, Belchertown, and Hadley, and the
other returning to the Old Connecticut Path and on to Springfield.
An inexplicable charm still attaches itself to these old Indian paths, a
delight in attempting to trace their unused and overgrown roadways, as
they leave the main road in devious twists and turns till they again
join its beaten way. And the halo of early romance and adventure
surrounds them. Holland felt the charm when he wrote thus of the Bay
Path:
"It was marked by trees a portion of the distance and by slight
clearings of brush and thicket for the remainder. No stream was
bridged, no hill graded, and no marsh drained. The path led through
woods which bore the mark of centuries, over barren hills that had
been licked by the Indian hounds of fire, and along the banks of
streams that the seine had never dragged. A powerful interest was
attached to the Bay Path. It was the channel through which laws
were communicated, through which flowed news from distant friends,
and through which came long, loving letters and messages. That
rough thread of soil chopped by the blades of a hundred streams was
a bond that radiated at each terminus into a thousand fibres of
love and interest and hope and memory. Every rod had been prayed
over by friends on the journey and friends at home."