TRAVEL, TRANSPORTATION, AND TAVERNS
Wherever the earliest colonists settled in America, they had to adopt
the modes of travel and the ways of getting from place to place of their
predecessors and new neighbors, the Indians. These were first--and
generally--to walk on their own stout legs; second, to go wherever they
could by water, in boats. In Maryland and Virginia, where for a long
time nearly all settlers tried to build their homes on the banks of the
rivers and bays, the travel was almost entirely by boats; as it was
between settlements on all the great rivers, the Hudson, Connecticut,
and Merrimac.
Between the large settlements in Massachusetts--Boston, Salem, and
Plymouth--travel was preferably, when the weather permitted, in boats.
The colonists went in canoes, or pinnaces, shaped and made exactly like
the birch-bark canoes of the Canadian Indians to-day; and in dugouts,
which were formed from hollowed pine-logs, usually about twenty feet
long and two or three feet wide; both of these were made for them by the
Indians. It was said that one Indian, working alone, felling the
pine-tree by the primitive way of burning and scraping off the charred
parts with a stone tool called a celt (for the Indians had no iron or
steel axes), then cutting off the top in the same manner, then burning
out part of the interior, then burning and scraping and shaping it
without and within, could make one of these dugouts in three weeks. The
Indians at Onondaga still make the wooden mortars they use in the same
tedious way.
When the white men came to America in great ships, the Indians marvelled
much at the size, thinking they were hollowed out of tree-trunks as were
the dugouts, and wondered where such vast trees grew.
The Swedish scientific traveller, Kalm, who was in America in 1748, was
delighted with the Indian canoes and dugouts. He found the Swede
settlers using them constantly to go long distances to market. He
said:--
"They usually carry six persons who however by no means must be
unruly, but sit at the bottom of the canoe in the quietest manner
possible lest the boat upset. They are narrow, round below, have no
keel and may be easily overset. So when the wind is brisk the
people make for the land. Larger dugouts were made for war-canoes
which would carry thirty or forty savages."
These boats usually kept close to the shore, both in calm and windy
weather, though the natives were not afraid to go many miles out to sea
in the dugouts.
The lightness of the birch-bark canoe made it specially desirable where
there were such frequent overland transfers. It was and is a beautiful
and perfect expression of natural and wild life; as Longfellow wrote:--
"... the forest's life was in it,
All its mystery and magic,
All the lightness of the birch tree,
All the toughness of the cedar,
All the larch's supple sinews,
And it floated on the river
Like a yellow leaf in autumn."
The French governor and missionaries all saw and admired these
birch-bark canoes. Father Charlevoix wrote a beautiful and vivid
description of them. All the early travellers noted their ticklish
balance. Wood, writing in 1634, said, "In these cockling fly-boats an
Englishman can scarce sit without a fearful tottering," and Madam
Knights a century later said in her vivid English of a trip in one:--
"The Cannoo was very small and shallow, which greatly terrify'd me
and caused me to be very circumspect, sitting with my hands fast on
each side, my eyes steady, not daring so much as to lodge my tongue
a hair's bredth more on one side of my mouth than tother, nor so
much as think on Lott's wife, for a very thought would have
oversett our wherry."
When boats and vessels were built by the colonists, they were in forms
or had names but little used to-day. Shallop, ketch, pink, and snow are
rarely heard. Sloops were early built, but schooner is a modern term.
Batteau and periagua still are used; and the gundalow, picturesque with
its lateen sail, still is found on our northern New England shores.
The Indians had narrow foot-paths in many places through the woods. On
them foot-travel was possible, though many estuaries and rivers
intersected the coast; for the narrow streams could be crossed on
natural ford-ways, or on rude bridges of fallen trees, which the English
government ordered to be put in place.
As late as 1631 Governor Endicott would not go from Salem to Boston to
visit Governor Winthrop because he was not strong enough to wade across
the fords. He might have done as Governor Winthrop did the next year
when he went to Plymouth to visit Governor Bradford (and it took him two
days to get there); he might have been carried across the fords
pickaback by an Indian guide.
The Indian paths were good, though only two or three feet wide, and in
many places the savages kept the woods clear from underbrush by burning
over large tracts. When King Philip's War took place, all the land
around the Indian settlements in Narragansett and eastern Massachusetts
was so free of brush that horsemen could ride everywhere freely through
the woods. Some of the old paths are famous in our history. The most so
was the Bay Path, which ran from Cambridge through Marlborough,
Worcester, Oxford, Brookfield, and on to Springfield and the Connecticut
River. Holland's beautiful story called by the name of the path gives
its history, its sentiment, and much that happened on it in olden times.
When new paths were cut through the forests, the settlers "blazed" the
trees, that is, they chopped a piece of the bark off tree after tree
standing on the side of the way. Thus the "blazes" stood out clear and
white in the dark shadows of the forests, like welcome guide-posts,
showing the traveller his way. In Maryland roads turning off to a church
were marked by slips or blazes cut near the ground.
In Maryland and Virginia what were known as, and indeed are still
called, rolling-roads were cut through the forest. They were narrow
roads adown which hogsheads of tobacco, fitted with axles, could be
drawn or rolled from inland plantations to the river or bay side;
sometimes the hogsheads were simply rolled by human propulsion, not
dragged on these roads.
The broader rivers soon had canoe-ferries. The first regular
Massachusetts ferry from Charlestown to Boston was in 1639. It carried
passengers for threepence apiece. From Chelsea to Boston was fourpence.
In 1636 the Cambridge ferryman charged but half a penny, as so many
wished to attend the Thursday lecture in the Boston churches. We learn
from the Massachusetts Laws that often a rider had to let his horse
cross by swimming over, being guided from the ferry-boat; he then paid
no ferriage for the horse. After wheeled vehicles were used, these
ferries were not large enough to carry them properly. Often the carriage
had to be taken apart, or towed over, while the horse had his fore feet
in one canoe-ferry and his hind feet in another, the two canoes being
lashed together. The rope-ferry lingered till our own day, and was ever
a picturesque sight on the river. As soon as roads were built there
were, of course, bridges and cart-ways, but these were only between the
closely neighboring towns. Usually the bridges were merely
"horse-bridges" with a railing on but one side.
After the period of walking and canoe-riding had had its day, nearly all
land travel for a century was on horseback, just as it was in England at
that date. In 1672 there were only six stage-coaches in the whole of
Great Britain; and a man wrote a pamphlet protesting that they
encouraged too much travel. Boston then had one private coach. Women and
children usually rode seated on a pillion behind a man. A pillion was a
padded cushion with straps which sometimes had on one side a sort of
platform-stirrup. One way of progress which would help four persons ride
part of their journey was what was called the ride-and-tie system. Two
of the four persons who were travelling started on their road on foot;
two mounted on the saddle and pillion, rode about a mile, dismounted,
tied the horse, and walked on. When the two who had started on foot
reached the waiting horse, they mounted, rode on past the other couple
for a mile or so, dismounted, tied, and walked on; and so on. It was
also a universal and courteous as it was a pleasant custom for friends
to ride out on the road a few miles with any departing guest or friend,
and then bid them God speed agatewards.
In 1704 a Boston schoolmistress named Madam Knights rode from Boston to
New York on horseback. She was probably the first woman to make the
journey, and it was a great and daring undertaking. She had as a
companion the "post." This was the mail-carrier, who also rode on
horseback. One of his duties was to assist and be kind to all persons
who cared to journey in his company. The first regular mail started from
New York to Boston on January 1, 1673. The postman carried two
"portmantles," which were crammed with letters and parcels. He did not
change horses till he reached Hartford. He was ordered to look out and
report the condition of all ferries, fords, and roads. He had to be
"active, stout, indefatigable, and honest." When he delivered his mail
it was laid on a table at an inn, and any one who wished looked over all
the letters, then took and paid the postage (which was very high) on any
addressed to himself. It was usually about a month from this setting out
of "the post" in winter, till his return. As late certainly as 1730 the
mail was carried from New York to Albany in the winter by a "foot-post."
He went up the Hudson River, and lonely enough it must have been;
probably he skated up when the ice was good. This mail was only sent at
irregular intervals.
In 1760 there were but eight mails a year from Philadelphia to the
Potomac River, and even then the post-rider need not start till he had
received enough letters to pay the expenses of the trip. It was not till
postal affairs were placed in the capable and responsible hands of
Benjamin Franklin that there were any regular or trustworthy mails.
The journal and report of Hugh Finlay, a post-office surveyor in 1773 of
the mail service from Quebec to St. Augustine, Florida, tells of the
vicissitudes of mail-matter even at that later day. In some places the
deputy, as the postmaster was called, had no office, so his family rooms
were constantly invaded. Occasionally a tavern served as post-office;
letters were thrown down on a table and if the weather was bad, or
smallpox raged, or the deputy were careless, they were not forwarded for
many days. Letters that arrived might lie on the table or bar-counter
for days for any one to pull over, until the owner chanced to arrive and
claim them. Good service could scarcely be expected from any deputy, for
his salary was paid according to the number of letters coming to his
office; and as private mail-carriage constantly went on, though
forbidden by British law, the deputy suffered. "If an information were
lodg'd but an informer wou'd get tar'd and feather'd, no jury wou'd find
the fact." The government-riders were in truth the chief offenders. Any
ship's captain, or wagon-driver, or post-rider could carry merchandise;
therefore small sham bundles of paper, straw, or chips would be tied to
a large sealed packet of letter, and both be exempt from postage paid to
the Crown.
The post-rider between Boston and Newport loaded his carriage with
bundles real and sham, which delayed him long in delivery. He bought and
sold on commission along this road; and in violation of law he carried
many letters to his own profit. He took twenty-six hours to go eighty
miles. Had the Newport deputy dared to complain, he would have incurred
much odium and been declared a "friend of slavery and oppression."
"Old Herd," the rider from Saybrook to New York, had been in the service
forty-six years and had made a good estate. He coolly took postage of
all way-letters as his perquisite; was a money carrier and transferrer,
all advantage to his own pocket; carried merchandise; returned horses
for travellers; and when Finlay saw him he was waiting for a yoke of
oxen he was paid for fetching along some miles. A Pennsylvania
post-rider, an aged man, occupied himself as he slowly jogged along by
knitting mittens and stockings. Not always were mail portmanteaux
properly locked; hence many letters were lost and the pulling in and out
of bundles defaced the letters.
Of course so much horseback riding made it necessary to have
horse-blocks in front of nearly all houses. In course of time stones
were set every mile on the principal roads to tell the distance from
town to town. Benjamin Franklin set milestones the entire way on the
post-road from Boston to Philadelphia. He rode in a chaise over the
road; and a machine which he had invented was attached to the chaise;
and it was certainly the first cyclometer that went on that road, over
which so many cyclometers have passed during the last five years. It
measured the miles as he travelled. When he had ridden a mile he
stopped; from a heavy cart loaded with milestones, which kept alongside
the chaise, a stone was dropped which was afterwards set by a gang of
men.
A number of old colonial milestones are still standing. There is one in
Worcester, on what was the "New Connecticut Path"; one in Springfield on
the "Bay Path," and there are several of Benjamin Franklin's setting,
one being at Stratford, Connecticut.
The inland transportation of freight was carried on in the colonies just
as it was in Europe, on the backs of pack-horses. Very interesting
historical evidence in relation to the methods of transportation in the
middle of the eighteenth century may be found in the ingenious
advertisement and address with which Benjamin Franklin raised
transportation facilities for Braddock's army in 1755. This is one of
his most characteristic literary productions. Braddock's appeals to the
Philadelphia Assembly for a rough wagon-road and wagons for the army
succeeded in raising only twenty-five wagons. Franklin visited him in
his desolate plight and agreed to assist him, and appealed to the public
to send to him for the use of the army a hundred and fifty wagons and
fifteen hundred pack-horses; for the latter Franklin offered to pay two
shillings a day each, as long as used, if provided with a pack-saddle.
Twenty horses were sent with their loads to the camp as gifts to the
British officers. As a good and definite list of the load one of these
pack-horses was expected to carry (as well as a record of the kind of
provisions grateful to an officer of that day) let me give an
inventory:--
Six pounds loaf-sugar,
Six pounds muscovado sugar,
One pound green tea,
One pound bohea tea,
Six pounds ground coffee,
Six pounds chocolate,
One-half chest best white biscuit,
One-half pound pepper,
One quart white vinegar,
Two dozen bottles old Madeira wine,
Two gallons Jamaica spirits,
One bottle flour of mustard,
Two well-cured hams,
One-half dozen cured tongues,
Six pounds rice,
Six pounds raisins,
One Gloucester cheese,
One keg containing 20 lbs. best butter.
The wagons and horses were all lost after Braddock's defeat, or were
seized by the French and Indians, and Franklin had many anxious months
of responsibility for damages from the owners; but I am confident the
officers got all the provisions. Franklin gathered the wagons in York
and Lancaster; no two English shires could have done better at that time
than did these Pennsylvania counties.
In Pennsylvania, western Virginia, and Ohio, pack-horses long were used,
and a pretty picture is drawn by Doddridge and many other local
historians of the trains of these horses with their gay collars and
stuffed bells, as, laden with furs, ginseng, and snakeroot, they filed
down the mountain roads to the towns, and came home laden with salt,
nails, tea, pewter plates, etc. At night the horses were hobbled, and
the clappers of their bells were loosened; the ringing prevented the
horses being lost. The animals started on their journey with two hundred
pounds' burden, of which part was provender for horse and man, which was
left at convenient relays to be taken up on the way home. Two men could
manage fifteen pack-horses, which were tethered successively each to the
pack-saddle of the one in front of him. One man led the foremost horse,
and the driver followed the file to watch the packs and urge on the
laggards. Their numbers were vast; five hundred were counted at one time
in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, going westward. It was a costly method of
transportation. Mr. Howland says that in 1784 the expense of carrying a
ton's weight from Philadelphia to Erie by pack-horses was $249. It is
interesting to note that the routes taken by those men, skilled only in
humble woodcraft, were the same ones followed in later years by the
engineers of the turnpikes and railroads.
As the roads were somewhat better in Pennsylvania than in some other
provinces, and more needed, so wagons soon were far greater in number;
indeed, during the Revolution nearly all the wagons and horses used by
the army came from that state. There was developed in Pennsylvania by
the soft soil of these many roads, as well as by various topographical
conditions, a splendid example of a true American vehicle, one which was
for a long time the highest type of a commodious freight-carrier in this
or any other country--the Conestoga wagon, "the finest wagon the world
has ever known." They were first used in any considerable number about
1760. They had broad wheel-tires, and one of the peculiarities was a
decided curve in the bottom, analogous to that of a galley or canoe,
which made it specially fitted for traversing mountain roads; for this
curved bottom prevented freight from slipping too far at either end when
going up or down hill. This body was universally painted a bright blue,
and furnished with sideboards of an equally vivid red. The wagon-bodies
were arched over with six or eight stately bows, of which the middle
ones were the lowest, and the others rose gradually to front and rear
till the end bows were nearly of equal height. Over them all was
stretched a strong, white, hempen cover, well corded down at the sides
and ends. These wagons could be loaded up to the bows, and could carry
four to six tons in weight. The rates between Philadelphia and
Pittsburgh were about two dollars a hundred pounds. The horses, four to
seven in number, were magnificent, often matched throughout; some were
all dapple-gray, or all bay. The harnesses, of best materials and
appearance, were costly; each horse had a large housing of deerskin or
heavy bearskin trimmed with deep scarlet fringe; while the head-stall
was tied with bunches of gay ribbons. Bell-teams were common; each horse
except the saddle-horse then had a full set of bells tied with
high-colored ribbons.
The horses were highly fed; and when the driver, seated on the
saddle-horse, drew rein on the prancing leader and flourished his fine
bull-hide London whip, making the silk snap and tingle round the
leader's ears, every horse started off with the ponderous load with a
grace and ease that was beautiful to see.
The wagons were first used in the Conestoga valley, and most extensively
used there; and the sleek powerful draught-horses known as the Conestoga
breed were attached to them, hence their name. These teams were objects
of pride to their owners, objects of admiration and attention wherever
they appeared, and are objects of historical interest and satisfaction
to-day.
Often a prosperous teamster would own several Conestoga wagons, and
driving the leading and handsomest team himself would start off his
proud procession. From twenty to a hundred would follow in close row.
Large numbers were constantly passing. At one time ten thousand ran from
Philadelphia to other towns. Josiah Quincy told of the road at
Lancaster being lined with them. The scene on the road between the
Cumberland valley and Greensburg, where there are five distinct and
noble mountain ranges,--Tuscarora, Rays Hill, Alleghany, Laurel Hills,
and Chestnut Ridge,--when a long train of white-topped Conestoga wagons
appeared and wound along the mountain sides, was picturesque and
beautiful with a charm unparalleled to-day.
"----Many a fleet of them
In one long upward winding row.
It ever was a noble sight
As from the distant mountain height
Or quiet valley far below,
Their snow-white covers looked like sail."
There were two classes of Conestoga wagons and wagoners. The "Regulars,"
or men who made it their constant and only business; and "Militia." A
local poet thus describes these outfits:--
"Militia-men drove narrow treads,
Four horses and plain red Dutch beds,
And always carried grub and feed."
They were farmers or common teamsters who made occasional trips, usually
in winter time, and did some carriage for others, and drove but four
horses with their wagons. The "Regulars" had broad tires, carried no
feed for horses nor food for themselves, but both classes of teamsters
carried coarse mattresses and blankets, which they spread side by side,
and row after row, on the bar-room floor of the tavern at which they
"put up." Their horses when unharnessed fed from long troughs hitched to
the wagon-pole. The wagons that plied between the Delaware and the small
city of Pittsburgh were called Pitt-teams.
The life of the Conestoga wagon did not end even with the establishment
of railroads in the Eastern states; farther and farther west it
penetrated, ever chosen by emigrants and travellers to the frontiers;
and at last in its old age it had an equal career of usefulness as the
"prairie-schooner," in which vast numbers of families safely crossed the
prairies of our far West. The white tilts of the wagons thus passed and
repassed till our own day.
Four-wheeled wagons were but little used in New England till after the
War of 1812. Two-wheeled carts and sleds carried inland freight, which
was chiefly transported over the snow in the winter.
The Conestoga wagon of the past century was far ahead of anything in
England at that date; indeed Mr. C. W. Ernst, the best authority I know
on the subject, says we had in every way far better traffic facilities
at that time than England. In other ways we excelled. Though Finlay
found many defects in the postal service in 1773, he also found the
Stavers mail-coach plying between Boston and Portsmouth long before
England had such a thing. Mr. Ernst says: "The Stavers mail-coach was
stunning; used six horses when roads were bad, and never was late. They
had no mail-coaches in England till after the Revolution, and I believe
Massachusetts men introduced the idea in England."
We are apt to grow retrospectively sentimental over the delights,
aesthetic and physical, of ancient stage-coach days. Those days are not
so ancient as many fancy. The first stage-coach which ran directly from
Philadelphia to New York in 1766--and primitive enough it was--was
called "the flying-machine, a good stage-wagon set on springs." Its
swift trip occupied two days in good weather. It was but a year later
than the original stage-coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow. At that
time, in favorable weather, the coach between London and Edinburgh made
the trip in thirteen days. The London mail-coach in its palmiest days
could make this trip in forty-three hours and a half. As early as 1718
Jonathan Wardwell advertised that he would run a stage to Rhode Island.
In 1767 a stage-coach was run during the summer months between Boston
and Providence; in 1770 a stage-chaise started between Salem and Boston
and a post-chaise between Boston and Portsmouth the following year. As
early as 1732 some common-carrier lines had wagons which would carry a
few passengers. Let us hear the testimony of some travellers as to the
glorious pleasure of stage-coach travelling. Describing a trip between
Boston and New York towards the end of the last century President Quincy
of Harvard College said:--
"The carriages were old and the shackling and much of the harness
made of ropes. One pair of horses carried us eighteen miles. We
generally reached our resting-place for the night if no accident
intervened, at ten o'clock, and after a frugal supper went to bed,
with a notice that we should be called at three next morning, which
generally proved to be half-past two, and then, whether it snowed
or rained, the traveller must rise and make ready, by the help of a
horn-lantern and a farthing candle, and proceed on his way over bad
roads, sometimes getting out to help the coachman lift the coach
out of a quagmire or rut, and arrived in New York after a week's
hard travelling, wondering at the ease as well as the expedition
with which our journey was effected."
The _Columbia Centinel_ of April 24, 1793, advertised a new line of
"small genteel and easy stage-carriages" from Boston to New York with
four inside passengers, and smart horses. Many of the announcements of
the day have pictures of the coaches. They usually resemble market
wagons with round, canvas-covered tops, and the driver is seated outside
the body of the wagon with his feet on the foot-board. Trunks were
small, covered with deerskin or pigskin, studded with brass nails; and
each traveller took his trunk under his seat and feet.
The poet, Moore, gives in rhyme his testimony of Virginia roads in
1800:--
"Dear George, though every bone is aching
After the shaking
I've had this week over ruts and ridges,
And bridges
Made of a few uneasy planks,
In open ranks,
Over rivers of mud whose names alone
Would make knock the knees of stoutest man."
The traveller Weld, in 1795, gave testimony that the bridges were so
poor that the driver had always to stop and arrange the loose planks ere
he dared cross, and he adds:--
"The driver frequently had to call to the passengers in the stage
to lean out of the carriage first on one side then on the other, to
prevent it from oversetting in the deep roads with which the road
abounds. 'Now, gentlemen, to the right,' upon which the passengers
all stretched their bodies half-way out of the carriage to balance
on that side. 'Now, gentlemen, to the left,' and so on."
The coach in which this pleasure trip was taken is shown in the
illustration entitled "American Stage-wagon." It is copied from a first
edition of _Weld's Travels_.
Ann Warder, in her journey from Philadelphia to New York in 1759, notes
two overturned and abandoned stage-wagons at Perth Amboy; and many other
travellers give similar testimony. In 1796 the trip from Philadelphia to
Baltimore took five days.
The growth in stage-coaches and travel came with the turnpike at the
beginning of this century. In transportation and travel, improvement of
roadways is ever associated with improvement of vehicles. The first
extensive turnpike was the one between Philadelphia and Lancaster, built
in 1792. The growth and the cost of these roads may be briefly mentioned
by quoting a statement from the annual message of the governor of
Pennsylvania in 1838, that that commonwealth then had two thousand five
hundred miles of turnpikes which had cost $37,000,000.
Many of these turnpikes were beautiful and splendid roads; for instance,
the "Mohawk and Hudson Turnpike," which ran in a straight line from
Albany to Schenectady, was ornamented and shaded with two rows of the
quickly growing and fashionable poplar-trees and thickly punctuated with
taverns. On one turnpike there were sixty-five taverns in sixty miles.
The dashing stage-coach accorded well with this fine thoroughfare.
With the splendid turnpikes came the glorious coaching days. In 1827 the
Traveller's Register reported eight hundred stage-coaches arriving, and
as many leaving Boston each week. The forty-mile road from Boston to
Providence sometimes saw twenty coaches going each way. The editor of
the _Providence Gazette_ wrote: "We were rattled from Boston to
Providence in four hours and fifty minutes--if any one wants to go
faster he may go to Kentucky and charter a streak of lightning." There
were four rival lines on the Cumberland road,--the National, Good
Intent, Pioneer, and June Bug. Some spirited races the old stage-road
witnessed between the rival lines. The distance from Wheeling to
Cumberland, one hundred and thirty-two miles, was regularly accomplished
in twenty-four hours. No heavy luggage was carried and but nine
passengers; fourteen coaches rolled off together--one was a mail-coach
with a horn. Relays were every ten miles; teams were changed before the
coach ceased rocking; one driver boasted of changing and harnessing his
four horses in four minutes. Lady travellers were quickly thrust in the
open door and their bandboxes after them. Scant time was there for
refreshment, save by uncorking of bottles. The keen test and acute
rivalry between drivers came in the delivery of the President's Message.
Dan Gordon carried the message thirty-two miles in two hours and thirty
minutes, changing horses three times. Bill Noble carried the message
from Wheeling to Hagerstown, a hundred and eighty-five miles, in fifteen
and a half hours.
In 1818 the Eastern Stage Company was chartered in the state of New
Hampshire. The route was this: a stage started from Portsmouth at 9 A.M.;
passengers dined at Topsfield; thence through Danvers and Salem;
back the following day, dining at Newburyport. The capital stock was
four hundred and twenty-five shares at a hundred dollars par. In 1834
the stock was worth two hundred dollars a share. The company owned
several hundred horses. It was on a coach of this line that Henry Clay
rode from Pleasant Street, Salem, to Tremont House, Boston, in exactly
an hour; and on the route extended to Portland, Daniel Webster was
carried at the rate of sixteen English miles an hour from Boston to
Portland to sign the Ashburton Treaty.
The middle of the century saw the beginning of the end of coaching in
all the states that had been colonies. Further west the old stage-coach
had to trundle in order to exist at all: Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, across
the plains, and then over the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake. The road
from Carson to Plainville gave the crack ride, and the driver wore
yellow kid gloves. The coach known as the Concord wagon, drawn by six
horses, still makes cheerful the out-of-the-way roads of our Western
states, and recalls the life of olden times. The story of spirited and
gay life still exists in the Wells Fargo Express. The usefulness of the
Concord coach is not limited to the western nor the northern portion of
our continent; in South America it flourishes, banishing all rivals.
Canal travel and transportation were proposed at the close of provincial
days, and a few short canals were built. Benjamin Franklin was early
awake to their practicability and value. Among the stock-owners of the
Dismal Swamp Canal was George Washington, and he was equally interested
in the Potomac Canal.
The Erie Canal, first proposed to the New York legislature in 1768, was
completed in 1825. There was considerable passenger travel on this canal
at "a cent and a half a mile, a mile and a half an hour." Horace Greeley
has given an excellent picture of this leisurely travel; it was asserted
by some that stage-coaches were doomed by the canal-boat, but they
continued to exist till they encountered a more formidable rival.
Until turnpike days all small carriages were two-wheeled; chaises,
chairs, and sulkies were those generally used. The chaise and harness
used by Jonathan Trumbull--"Brother Jonathan"--are here shown. With
regard to private conveyances, whether coaches, chaises, or chairs, the
colonies kept close step from earliest days with the mother-countries.
Randolph noted with envy the Boston coaches of the seventeenth century.
Parson Thatcher was accused and reprehended in 1675 for making visits
with a coach and four. Coaches were taxed both in England and America;
so we know exactly how plentiful they were. There were as many in
Massachusetts in 1750 in proportion to the number of inhabitants as
there were in England in 1830. Judge Sewall's diary often refers to
private coaches; and one of the most amusing scenes it depicts is his
continued and ingenious argument when wooing Madam Winthrop for his
third wife, when she stipulated that he should keep a coach, and his
frugal mind disposed him not to do it.
Coach-building prospered in the colonies; Lucas and Paddock in Boston,
Ross in New York, made beautiful and rich coaches. Materials were ample
and varied in the New World for carriage-building; horseflesh--not
over-choice, to be sure--became over-plentiful; it was said that no man
ever walked in America save a vagabond or a fool. A coach made for Madam
Angelica Campbell of Schenectady, New York, by coach-builder Ross, in
1790, is here shown. It is now owned by Mr. John D. Campbell of
Rotterdam, New York.
Sleighs were common in New York a half-century before they were in
Boston. Madam Knights noted the fast racing in sleighs in New York when
she was there in 1704.
One other curious conveyance of colonial days should be spoken of,--a
sedan-chair. This was a strong covered chair fastened on two bars with
handles like a litter, and might be carried by two or four persons. When
sedan-chairs were so much used in England, they were sure to be somewhat
used in cities in America. One was presented to Governor Winthrop as
early as 1646, portion of a capture from a Spanish galleon. Judge Sewall
wrote in 1706, "Five Indians carried Mr. Bromfield in a chair." This was
in the country, down on Cape Cod, and doubtless four Indians carried him
while one rested. As late as 1789 Eliza Quincy saw Dr. Franklin riding
in a sedan-chair in Philadelphia.
The establishment and building of roads, bridges, and opening of inns
show that mutual interest which marks civilization, and separates us
from the lonely, selfish life of a savage. Soon inns were found
everywhere in the Northern colonies. In New England, New York, and
Pennsylvania an inn was called an ordinary, a victualling, a cook-shop,
or a tavern before we had our modern word hotel.
Board was not very high at early inns; the prices were regulated by the
different towns. In 1633 the Salem innkeeper could only have sixpence
for a meal. This was at the famous Anchor Tavern, which was kept as a
hostelry for nearly two centuries. At the Ship Tavern, board, lodging,
wine at dinner, and beer between meals cost three shillings a day. Great
care was taken by the magistrates to choose responsible men and women to
keep taverns, and they would not permit too many taverns in one town. At
first the tavern-keeper could not sell sack (which was sherry), nor
stronger intoxicating liquor to travellers, but he could sell beer,
provided it was good, for a penny a quart. Nor could he sell cakes or
buns except at a wedding or funeral. He could not allow games to be
played, nor singing or dancing to take place.
We know from Shakespeare's plays that the different rooms in English
inns had names. This was also the custom in New England. The Star
Chamber, Rose and Sun Chamber, Blue Chamber, Jerusalem Chamber, were
some of them. Many of the taverns of Revolutionary days and some of
colonial times are still standing. A few have even been taverns since
first built; others have served many other uses. A well-preserved old
house, built in 1690 in Sudbury, Massachusetts, was originally known as
the Red Horse Tavern, but has acquired greater fame as the Wayside Inn
of Longfellow's Tales. Its tap-room with raftered ceiling and cage-like
bar with swinging gate is a picturesque room, and is one of the few old
tap-rooms left unaltered in New England.
Every inn had a name, usually painted on its swinging sign-board, with
some significant emblem. These names were simply repetitions of old
English tavern-signs until Revolutionary days, when patriotic landlords
eagerly invented and adopted names significant of the new nation. The
scarlet coat of King George became the blue and buff of George
Washington; and the eagle of the United States took the place of the
British lion.
The sign-board was an interesting survival of feudal times, and with its
old-time carved and forged companions, such as vanes and weathercocks,
doorknockers and figureheads, formed a picturesque element of decoration
and symbolism. Many chapters might be written on historic,
commemorative, emblematic, heraldic, biblical, humorous, or significant
signs, nearly all of which have vanished from public gaze, as has
disappeared also the general incapacity to read, which made pictorial
devices a necessity. Gilders, painter-stainers, smiths, and joiners all
helped to make the tavern-sign a thing of varied workmanship if not of
art. It is said that Philadelphia excelled in the quantity and quality
of her sign-boards. With fair roads for colonial days, the best and
amplest system of transportation, and the splendid Conestoga wagons,
great inns multiplied throughout Pennsylvania. In Baltimore both taverns
and signs were many and varied, from the Three Loggerheads to the Indian
Queen with its "two hundred guest-rooms with a bell in every room," and
the Fountain Inn built around a shady court, with galleries on every
story, like the Tabard Inn at Southwark.
The swinging sign-board of John Nash's Tavern at Amherst, Massachusetts,
is here reproduced from the _History of Amherst_. It is a good type of
the ordinary sign-board which was found hanging in front of every tavern
a century ago.
In Virginia and the Carolinas taverns were not so plentiful nor so
necessary; for a traveller might ride from Maryland to Georgia, and be
sure of a welcome at every private house on the way. Some planters,
eager for company and news, stationed negroes at the gate to invite
passers-by on the post-road to come into the house and be entertained.
Berkeley, in his _History of Virginia_, wrote:--
"The inhabitants are very courteous to travellers, who need no
other recommendation than being human creatures. A stranger has no
more to do but to inquire upon the road where any gentleman or
good housekeeper lives, and then he may depend upon being received
with hospitality. This good-nature is so general among their
people, that the gentry, when they go abroad, order their principal
servants to entertain all visitors with everything the plantation
affords; and the poor planters who have but one bed, will often sit
up, or lie upon a form or couch all night, to make room for a weary
traveller to repose himself after his journey."
So universal was this custom of free entertainment that it was a law in
Virginia that unless there had been a distinct agreement to pay for
board and shelter, no pay could be claimed from any guest, no matter how
long he remained. In the few taverns that existed prices were low, about
a shilling a dinner; and it was ordered that the meal must be wholesome
and good.
The governor of New Netherlands at first entertained all visitors to New
Amsterdam at his house in the fort. But as commerce increased he found
this hospitality burdensome, and a Harberg or tavern was built; it was
later used as a city hall.
In England throughout the seventeenth century, and indeed much later,
traversing the great cities by night was a matter of some danger. The
streets were ill-lighted, were full of holes and mud and filth, and were
infested with thieves. Worse still, groups of drunken and dissipated
young men of wealth, calling themselves Mohocks, Scourers, and other
names, roamed the dark streets armed with swords and bludgeons,
assaulting, tormenting, and injuring every one whom they met, who had
the ill fortune to be abroad at night.
There was nothing of that sort known in American cities; there was
little noise or roistering, no highway robbery, comparatively little
petty stealing. The streets were ill-paved and dirty, but not foul with
the accumulated dirt of centuries as in London. The streets in nearly
all cities were unlighted. In 1697 New Yorkers were ordered to have a
lantern and candle hung out on a pole from every seventh house. And as
the watchman walked around he called out, "Lanthorn, and a whole
candell-light. Hang out your lights." The watchman was called a
rattle-watch, and carried a long staff and a lantern and a large rattle
or klopper, which he struck to frighten away thieves. And all night long
he called out each hour, and told the weather. For instance, he called
out, "Past midnight, and all's well"; "One o'clock and fair winds," or
"Five o'clock and cloudy skies." Thus one could lie safe in bed and if
he chanced to waken could know that the friendly rattle-watch was near
at hand, and what was the weather and the time of night. In 1658 New
York had in all ten watchmen, who were like our modern police; to-day it
has many thousands.
In New England the constables and watch were all carefully appointed by
law. They carried black staves six feet long, tipped with brass, and
hence were called tipstaves. The night watch was called a bell-man. He
looked out for fire and thieves and other disorders, and called the time
of the night, and the weather. The pay was small, often but a shilling a
night, and occasionally a "coat of kersey." In large towns, as Boston
and Salem, thirteen "sober, honest men and householders" were the night
watch. The highest in the community, even the magistrates, took their
turn at the watch, and were ordered to walk two together, a young man
with "one of the soberer sort."