EARLY STAGE-COACHES AND OTHER VEHICLES
The story of the stage-coach begins at a much later date than that of the
tavern; but the two allies reached the height of their glory together. No
more prosperous calling ever existed than that of landlord of an old-time
stage-tavern; no greater symbol of good cheer could be afforded. Though a
popular historical novel by one of our popular writers shows us the
heroine in a year of the seventeenth century conveyed away from her New
England home in a well-equipped stage-coach, there were no stage-coaches
at that date in New England, nor were they overfrequent in Old England.
Stow says, in his _Survey of London_ (1633): "Of old time, Coaches were
not known in this Island but Chariots or Whirlicotes." The whirlicote is
described as a cot or bed on wheels, a sort of wheeled litter, and was
used as early as the time of Richard II. The first coach made in England
by Walter Rippen was for the Earl of Rutland, in 1555. The queen had one
the next year, and Queen Elizabeth a state coach eight years later from
the same maker. That splendid association--"The Company of Coach and
Harness Makers," was founded by Charles II. in May, 1667.
[Illustration: English Coach, 1747.]
Venomous diatribes were set in print against coaches, as is usual with all
innovations, useful and otherwise. Of them the assertions of Taylor the
"Water Poet" are good examples. He said that coaches dammed the streets,
and aided purse-cutting; that butchers could not pass with their cattle;
that market-folk were hindered in bringing victuals to town; that carts
and carriers were stopped; that milkmaids were flung in the dirt; that
people were "crowded and shrowded up against stalls and stoops"--still
coaches continued to be built.
The early English stage-coaches were clumsy machines. One of the year 1747
is shown on the opposite page. With no windows, no seats or railing on
top, and an uncomfortable basket rumble behind, they seem crude and
inconvenient enough when compared with the dashing mail-coaches which were
evolved a century later, and were such a favorite subject with English
painters, engravers, and lithographers for many years. Those pictures
expressed, as Dickens said, "past coachfulness: pictures of colored prints
of coaches starting, arriving, changing horses, coaches in the sunshine,
coaches in the snow, coaches in the wind, coaches in the mist and rain,
coaches in all circumstances compatible with their triumph and victory,
but never in the act of breaking down or overturning."
A copy of one of those prints of an English mail-coach, in the height of
its career, is shown opposite page 256.
Stage-wagons were used throughout England as a means of cheaper
conveyance. They were intolerably slow and equally clumsy. On page 251 a
leaf from an old-time English story-book shows two of these lumbering
vehicles, which ill compare with the English mail-coaches.
Coaching days in England have had ample and entertaining record in
instructive and reminiscent books, such as: _Brighton and its Coaches_, by
William C. A. Blew, 1894; _The Brighton Road_, _etc._, by Charles G.
Harper, 1892; _Old Coaching Days_, by Stanley Harris, 1882; _Annals of the
Road_, by Captain Malet, 1876; _Down the Road_, _etc._, by C. T. S. Birch
Reynardson, 1875; _Coaching Days and Coaching Ways_, by W. Outram Tristam,
1888.
We have no similar anecdotic and personal records of American coaching
life, though we have the two fine books of modern coaching ways entitled
_Driving for Pleasure_, by Francis T. Underhill, and _A Manual of
Coaching_, by Fairman Rogers, both most interesting and valuable.
We began early in our history to have coaches. Even Governor Bradstreet in
his day rode in a hackney coach. John Winthrop, of Connecticut, had a
private coach in 1685; Sir Edmund Andros had one in Boston in 1687. At the
funeral of the lieutenant-governor in 1732 in Boston there were plenty of
coaches, though there were few in New York; the provincial governors
usually had one. Watson, in his _Annals of Philadelphia_, gives a list of
all private citizens who kept carriages in that city in 1761--there were
but thirty-eight. There were three coaches, two landaus, eighteen
chariots, and fifteen chairs. Eleven years later only eighty-four
Philadelphians had private carriages. In 1794, when the city had a
population of about fifty thousand, eight hundred and forty-seven
carriage-owners appear: among them were found thirty-three coaches and one
hundred and fifty-seven coachees.
The testimony of the traveller Bennet, who was in Boston in 1740, is most
explicit on the subject of travel and transportation in that city and
vicinity:--
"There are several families in Boston that keep a coach and a pair of
horses, and some few drive with four horses; but for chaises and
saddle-horses, considering the bulk of the place, they outdo London.
They have some nimble, lively horses for the coach, but not any of
that beautiful black breed so common in London. Their saddle-horses
all pace naturally, and are generally counted sure-footed; but they
are not kept in that fine order as in England. The common
draught-horses used in carts about the town are very small and poor,
and seldom have their fill of anything but labor. The country carts
and wagons are generally drawn by oxen, from two to six according to
the distance, or the burden they are laden with."
[Illustration: Quicksilver Royal Mail, 1835.]
The traveller Weld thus described the peculiarly American carriage called
a "coachee":--
"The body of it is rather longer than a coach, but of the same shape.
In the front it is left quite open down to the bottom, and the driver
sits on a bench under the roof of the carriage. There are two seats in
it for passengers, who sit in it with their faces to the horses. The
roof is supported by small props which are placed at the corners. On
each side of the door, above the panels, it is quite open; and, to
guard against bad weather, there are curtains which let down from the
roof and fasten to buttons on the outside. The light wagons are in the
same construction, and are calculated to hold from four to twelve
people. The wagon has no doors, but the passengers scramble in the
best way they can over the seat of the driver. The wagons are used
universally for stage-coaches."
A vehicle often mentioned by Judge Sewall and contemporary writers is a
calash. It was a clumsy thing, an open seat set on a low and heavy pair of
wheels. A curricle had two horses, a chaise one; both had what were called
whip springs behind and elbow springs in front. A whisky was a light body
fixed in shafts which were connected with long horizontal springs by
scroll irons. A French traveller tells of riding around Boston in a
whisky. The chair so often named in letters, wills, etc., was not a
sedan-chair, but was much like a chaise without a top.
The French chaise was introduced here by the Huguenots before the year
1700. The Yankee "shay" is simply the fancied singular number of the
French chaise. We improved upon the French vehicle, and finally replaced
it by our characteristic carriage, the buggy.
Chariots were a distinctly aristocratic vehicle, used as in England by
persons of wealth, and deemed a great luxury. One was advertised in Boston
in 1743 as "a very handsome chariot, fit for town or country, lined with
red coffy, handsomely carved and painted, with a whole front glass, the
seat-cloth embroided with silver, and a silk fringe round the seat." It
was offered for sale by John Lucas, a Boston coach-builder, and had
doubtless been built by him.
The ancient chariot shown on page 259, formerly belonging to John Brown,
the founder of Brown University, is preserved at the old Occupasnetuxet
homestead in Warwick, Rhode Island, securely stored in one of the carriage
houses on the estate, a highly prized relic of days long ago. In this
ancient vehicle General Washington rode from place to place when he made
his visit to Rhode Island in August, 1790, escorted by John Brown, the
ancestor of its present owners.
[Illustration: "One Hoss Shay."]
The body of this old chariot is suspended on heavy thorough-braces
attached to heavy iron holders as large as a man's wrist, the forward ones
so curved as to allow the forward wheels to pass under them, in order that
the chariot may be turned within a short compass. It has but one seat for
passengers, which will accommodate two persons; and an elevated seat for
the driver, which is separate from the main body. The wheels are heavy,
the hind ones twice the height of the forward ones, the tires of which are
attached to the felloes in several distinct pieces.
[Illustration: Washington Chariot.]
It is easy to picture the importance attached to buying or owning a
wheeled vehicle in a community which rode chiefly on horseback.
Contemporary evidence of this is often found, such as these entries in the
diary of Rev. Joseph Emerson of Malden. In the winter of 1735 he writes:--
"Some talk about my buying a Shay. How much reason have I to watch and
pray and strive against inordinate Affection for the Things of the
World."
A week later, however, he proudly recalls the buying of the "Shay" for L27
10_s._, which must have made a decided hole in his year's salary. His
delight in his purchase and possession is somewhat marred by noting that
his parishioners smile as he is drawn past them in his magnificence; it is
also decidedly taken down by the vehicle being violently overturned,
though his wife and he were uninjured. It cost a pretty penny, moreover,
to get it repaired. He scarce gets the beloved but sighed-over "Shay" home
when he thus notes:--
"Went to the beach with 3 of the Children in my Shay. The beast being
frighted when we all were out of the shay, overturned and broke it. I
desire--I hope I desire it--that the Lord would teach me suitably to
repent this Providence, to make suitable remarks on it, and to be
suitably affected with it. Have I done well to get me a Shay? Have I
not been too fond & too proud of this convenience? Should I not be
more in my study and less fond of driving? Do I not withold more than
is meet from charity? &c."
Shortly afterward, as the "beast" continued to be "frighted," he sold his
horse and shay to a fellow-preacher, Rev. Mr. Smith, who--I doubt
not--went through the same elations, depressions, frightings, and
self-scourgings in which the Puritan spirit and horseman's pride so
strongly clashed.
On May 13, 1718, Jonathan Wardwell's stage-coach left Jonathan Wardwell's
Orange Tree in Boston and ran to Rhode Island--that is, the island proper.
At any rate, it was advertised in Boston newspapers as starting at that
date. In 1721 there was a road-wagon over the same route. In 1737 two
imported stage-coaches were advertised for this road, and doubtless many
travellers used these coaches, which connected with the boats for New
York.
[Illustration]
The early coaching conveyances were named. In 1767 it was a "stage-chaise"
that ran between Salem and Boston, while a "stage-coach" and "stage-wagon"
were on other short routes out of Boston. In 1772 a "stage-chariot" was on
the road between Boston and Marblehead. "Flying Mail-Stages" came later,
and in 1773 Thomas Beals ran "Mail Stage Carriages between Boston and
Providence." In England there were "Flying-Machines" and "Flying-Waggons."
An old English road-bill dated 1774 ends with this sentence, "The Rumsey
Machine, through Winchester, hung on Steel Springs begins flying on the
3rd of April from London to Poole in One Day." On the Paulus Hook route to
Philadelphia in 1772 the proprietor announced a vehicle "in imitation of a
coach"--and perhaps that is all that any of these carriages could be
rightfully called.
One of the clearest pictures which has come down to us of travelling in
the early years of our national existence is found in the pages relating
the travels of a young Englishman named Thomas Twining, in the United
States in the year 1795. He journeyed by "stage-waggon" from Philadelphia,
through Chester and Wilmington, to Baltimore, then to Washington, then
back to Philadelphia.
He fully describes the stage-wagon in which he made these journeys:--
"The vehicle was a long car with four benches. Three of these in the
interior held nine passengers. A tenth passenger was seated by the
side of the driver on the front bench. A light roof was supported by
eight slender pillars, four on each side. Three large leather curtains
suspended to the roof, one at each side and the third behind, were
rolled up or lowered at the pleasure of the passengers. There was no
place nor space for luggage, each person being expected to stow his
things as he could under his seat or legs. The entrance was in front
over the driver's bench. Of course the three passengers on the back
seat were obliged to crawl across all the other benches to get to
their places. There were no _backs_ to the benches to support and
relieve us during a rough and fatiguing journey over a newly and
ill-made road."
Mr. Jansen, who resided in America from 1793 to 1806, wrote a book
entitled _The Stranger in America_. In it he described the coach between
Philadelphia and New York with some distinctness:--
"The vehicle, the American stage-coach, which is of like construction
throughout the country, is calculated to hold twelve persons, who sit
on benches placed across with their faces toward the horses. The front
seat holds three, one of whom is the driver. As there are no doors at
the sides, the passengers get in over the front wheels. The first get
seats behind the rest, the most esteemed seat because you can rest
your shaken frame against the back part of the wagon. Women are
generally indulged with it; and it is laughable to see them crawling
to this seat. If they have to be late they have to straddle over the
men seated further in front."
It will be readily seen that the description of this coach is precisely
like that given by Weld in his _Travels_, and like the picture of it in
the latter book. An excellent representation of this stage-wagon is given
in Mr. Edward Lamson Henry's picture of the Indian Queen Tavern at
Blattensburg, Maryland, a copy of which is shown facing page 33. Cruder
ones may be seen in the various advertisements of eighteenth-century stage
lines.
The coach-body of the year 1818 had an egg-shaped body and was suspended
on thick leather straps, called thorough-braces, which gave the vehicle a
comparatively easy motion. After being worn these frequently broke, and
one side of the coach would settle. The patient travellers then alighted,
took a rail from an adjoining fence, righted up the body of the coach, and
went on slowly to the next village for repairs.
This coach had a foot-board for the driver's feet, and a trunk-rack bolted
to the axletrees. One is here shown, and an old cut on page 273. A few
still exist and are in use.
[Illustration: Stage-coach of 1818.]
Ten years later the fashion of coaches had changed, and of boats, as shown
by the cut on the opposite page. This view is at the first lock on Erie
Canal above Albany.
All the various forms of coaches were superseded and made obsolete by the
incomparable Concord coach, first built in Concord, New Hampshire, in
1827.
The story of the Concord coach is one of profound interest, and should be
given in detail. It has justly been pronounced the only perfect passenger
vehicle for travelling that has ever been built. To every state and
territory in the Union, to every country in the world where there are
roads on which such a coach could run, have these Concord coaches been
sent. In spite of steam and electric cars they still are manufactured in
large numbers, and are still of constant use. There is really very little
difference between the older Concord coaches, such as the one used by
Buffalo Bill, shown on page 266, and one of the stanch, well-equipped
modern ones used in mountain travel, such as is shown facing page 268.
[Illustration: Stage-coach of 1828.]
The word stage-coach was originally applied to a coach which ran from
station to station over a number of stages of the road, usually with fresh
horses for each stage. It was not used to designate a coach which ran only
a short distance. Mr. Fairman Rogers notes as an example of the curious
changes of language the custom in New York of calling a short-route
omnibus a stage. We all recall the tottering Broadway stages; we still
have the Fifth Avenue stages with us. This debased use of the word is not
an Americanism, nor is it modern. Swift speaks of riding in the six-penny
stage; and Cowper has a similar usage. The word drag, originally applied
to a public road-coach, now is used for a coach for private driving. The
incorrect American use of the word tally-ho, as a general name for a coach
and four, dates from 1876, when Colonel Delancey Kane first ran his
road-coach from the Brunswick Hotel in New York to Pelham. It chanced to
be named Tally-ho after English coaches of that name, and the word was
adopted from the individual to a class. Barge, as applied to a long
omnibus, is apparently a modern Americanism. I heard it first about ten
years ago. Alighting from the cars, travel-tired and dusty, at a New
England coast town one July afternoon, we asked the distance to a certain
hotel; and we were told it was four miles, and we could go either by sloop
or barge, and that "the barge got there first." We gladly welcomed the
possibility of closing our journey with a short, refreshing water trip,
but decided that the sloop might be delayed by adverse winds, and we would
trust to the barge, which we inferred was propelled by steam. On stating
our preference for the barge we were waved into a long, heavy omnibus
harnessed with a "spike" team of three jaded horses that soon stumbled
along the dry road, choking us with the dust of their slow progress. After
riding nearly half an hour we called out despondingly to the driver, "When
do we reach the wharf?" "We ain't goin' to the wharf," he drawled. "Where
do we take the barge then, and when?" "You're a-ridin' in the barge now,"
he answered, and thus we added another example to our philological
studies.
[Illustration: Old Concord Coach.]
Our first conveyance of goods and persons was by water, and the word
transportation was one of our sea terms applied to inland traffic. Mr.
Ernst has pointed out that many sea terms besides the word barge have
received a land use. "The conductor shouts his marine 'All aboard,' and
railroad men tell of 'shipping' points that have nothing to do with
navigation. We ship by rail, and out West they used to have 'prairie
schooners.' Of late we go by 'trolley,' and that word is borrowed from the
sailors. Our locomotives have a 'pilot' each, and even 'freight' has a
marine origin."
The first line of stages established between New York and Philadelphia
made the trip in about three days. The stage was simply a Jersey wagon
without springs. The quaint advertisement of the route appeared in the
_Weekly Mercury_ of March 8, 1759:--
"Philadelphia Stage Waggon and New York Stage Boat perform their
stages twice a week. John Butler with his waggon sets out on Monday
from his house at the sign of the 'Death of the Fox' in Strawberry
Alley, and drives the same day to Trenton Ferry, where Francis Holman
meets him, and the passengers and goods being shifted into the waggon
of Isaac Fitzrandolph, he takes them to the New Blazing Star to Jacob
Fitzrandolph's the same day, where Rubin Fitzrandolph, with a boat
well suited will receive them and take them to New York that night:
John Butler, returning to Philadelphia on Tuesday with the passengers
and goods delivered to him by Francis Holman, will set out again for
Trenton Ferry on Thursday, and Francis Holman, &c., will carry his
passengers and goods with the same expedition as above to New York."
The driver of this flying machine, old Butler, was an aged huntsman who
kept a kennel of hounds till foxes were shy of Philadelphia streets, when
his old sporting companions thus made a place for him.
With such a magnificent road as the National Road, it was natural there
should be splendid coaching upon it. At one time there were four lines of
stage-coaches on the Cumberland Road: the National Line, Pioneer, Good
Intent, and June Bug. Curiously enough, no one can find out, no one is
left to tell, why or wherefore the latter absurd and undignified name was
given. An advertisement of the "Pioneer Fast Stage Line" is given on page
270. Relays of horses were made every ten or twelve miles. It was
bragged that horses were changed ere the coach stopped rocking. No heavy
luggage was taken, and at its prime but nine passengers to a coach. These
were on what was called Troy coaches. The Troy coach was preceded by a
heavy coach built at Cumberland, and carrying sixteen persons, and a
lighter egg-shaped vehicle made at Trenton; and it was succeeded by the
famous Concord coach. Often fourteen coaches started off together loaded
with passengers. The mail-coach had a horn; it left Wheeling at six in the
morning, and twenty-four hours later dashed into Cumberland, one hundred
and thirty-two miles away. The mail was very heavy. Sometimes it took
three to four coaches to transport it; there often would be fourteen
lock-bags and seventy-two canvas sacks.
[Illustration: Concord Coach at Toll Gate.]
The drivers had vast rivalry. Here, as elsewhere all over the country, the
test of their mettle was the delivery of the President's message. There
was powerful reason for this rivalry; the letting of mail contracts hinged
on the speed of this special delivery. Dan Gordon claimed he carried the
message thirty-two miles in two hours and twenty minutes, changing teams
three times. Dan Noble professed to have driven from Wheeling to
Hagerstown, one hundred and eighty-five miles, in fifteen hours and a
half.
The rivalry of drivers and coach-owners extended to passengers, who became
violent partisans of the road on which they travelled, and a threatening
exhibition of bowie knives and pistols was often made. When the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad was completed to Wheeling, these stage-coaches had
their deathblow.
[Illustration]
The expense of travelling in 1812 between Philadelphia and Pittsburg, a
distance of two hundred and ninety-seven miles, was twenty dollars by
stage with way-expenses of seven dollars, and it took six days. The
expense by wagon was five dollars a hundred weight for persons and
property, and the way-expenses were twelve dollars, for it took twenty
days.
In England, in the prime days of coaching, rates were fourpence or
fivepence a mile inside, and twopence or threepence outside. The highest
fares were of course on the mail-coaches and fast day-coaches; the lower
rates were on the heavy night-coaches.
At an early date there were good lines of conveyance between Boston and
Providence, and from Providence to other towns. The early editions of old
almanacs tell of these coaching routes. _The New England Almanack_ for
1765 gave two routes to Hartford, the distances being given from tavern to
tavern. _The New England Town & County Almanack_ for 1769 announced a
coach between Providence and Norwich, "a day's journey only," and two
coaches a week between Providence and Boston, also performing this journey
in a day. In 1793, Israel Hatch announced daily stages between the two
towns; he had "six good coaches and experienced drivers," and the fare was
but a dollar. He closed his notice, "He is also determined, at the
expiration of the present contract for carrying the mail from Providence
to Boston, to carry it gratis, which will undoubtedly prevent any further
under-biddings of the Envious."
"The Envious" was probably Thomas Beal, whose rival carriages were
pronounced "genteel and easy." His price was nine shillings "and less if
any other person will carry them for that sum." When passenger steamboats
were put on the route between Providence and New York these lines of
coaches became truly important. Often twenty full coach-loads were carried
each way each day. The editor of the _Providence Gazette_ wrote with
pride, "We were rattled from Providence to Boston in four hours and fifty
minutes--if any one wants to go faster he may send to Kentucky and charter
a streak of lightning." But with speed came increased fares--three dollars
a trip. This exorbitant sum soon produced a rival cheaper line--at two
dollars and a half a ticket. The others then lowered to two dollars, and
the two lines alternated in reduction till the conquered old line
announced it would carry the first booked applicants for nothing. The new
stage line then advertised that they would carry patrons free of expense,
and furnish a dinner at the end of the journey. The old line was rich and
added a bottle of wine to a like offer.
Mr. Shaffer, a fashionable teacher of dancing and deportment in Boston, an
arbiter in social life, and man about town, had a gay ride on Monday to
Providence, a good dinner, and the promised bottle of wine. On Tuesday he
rode more gayly back to Boston, had his dinner and wine, and on Wednesday
started to Providence again. With a crowd of gay young sparks this frolic
continued till Saturday, when the rival coach lines compromised and signed
a contract to charge thereafter two dollars a trip.
[Illustration: New Omnibus "Accommodation."]
In 1818 all the lines in eastern Massachusetts and New Hampshire, and
others in Maine and Rhode Island, were formed into a syndicate, the
Eastern Stage Company; and it had an unusual career. The capital stock
consisted of four hundred and twenty-five shares at a hundred dollars
each. Curiously enough, the contracts and agreements signed at the time of
the union do not ever mention its object; it might be a sewing-machine
company, or an oil or ice trust. It had at once an enormous business, for
it was born great. The profits were likewise enormous; the directors'
meetings were symposiums of satisfaction, and stockholders gloated over
their incomes. In 1829 there were seventy-seven stage-coach lines from
Boston; the fare to Albany (about two hundred miles) was six dollars, and
eight dollars and seventy-five cents by the "Mail Line." The fare to
Worcester was two dollars; to Portland, eight dollars; to Providence, two
dollars and a half. In 1832 there were one hundred and six coach lines
from Boston. The _Boston Traveller_ was started as a stage-coach paper in
1825, whence its name. Time-tables and stage-lists were issued by Badger
and Porter from 1825 to 1836. After twelve years, the Eastern Stage
Company was incorporated in New Hampshire, but even then luck was turning.
There was no one shrewd enough to heed the warning which might have been
heard through the land, "Look out for the engine," and soon the assets of
the stage company were as dust and ashes; everything was sold out at vast
loss, and in 1838--merely a score of years, not even "come of age"--the
Eastern Stage Company ceased to exist. On its prosperous routes, during
the first ten years, myriads of taverns had sprung up; vast brick stables
had been built for the hundreds of horses, scores of blacksmiths' forges
had been set up, and some of these shops were very large. These buildings
were closed as suddenly as they were built, and rotted unused.
This period of the brilliant existence of the Eastern Stage Company was
also the date of the coaching age of England, given by Stanley Harris as
from 1820 to 1840. The year 1836, which saw the publication of _Pickwick_,
wherein is so fine a picture of old coaching days, was the culminating
point of the mail-coach system. Just as it was perfected it was rendered
useless by the railroad.
In the earliest colonial days, before the official appointment of any
regular post-rider, letters were carried along the coast or to the few
inland towns by chance travellers or by butchers who made frequent trips
to buy and sell cattle. John Winthrop, of New London, sent letters by
these butcher carriers.
In 1672 "Indian posts" carried the Albany winter mail. With a
retrospective shiver we read a notice of 1730 that "whoever inclines to
perform the foot-post to Albany this winter may make application to the
Post-Master." Lonely must have been his solitary journey up the solemn
river, skating along under old Cro' Nest.
The first regular mounted post from New York to Boston started January 1,
1673. He had two "port-mantles" which were crammed with letters, "small
portable goods and divers bags." It was enjoined that he must be active,
stout, indefatigable, and honest. He changed horses at Hartford. He was
ordered to keep an eye out for the best roads, best ways through forests,
for ferries, fords, etc., to watch keenly for all fugitive servants and
deserters, and to be kind to all persons travelling in his company. During
the month that he was gone the mail was collected in a box in the office
of the Colonial Secretary. The arrivals and departure of these posts were
very irregular. In 1704 we read, "Our Philadelphia post (to New York) is a
week behind, and not yet com'd in."
In unusual or violent weather the slowness of mail carriage was appalling.
Salem and Portsmouth are about forty miles apart. In March, 1716, the
"post" took nine days for one trip between the two towns and eight days
the other. He was on snowshoes, and he reported drifts from six to
fourteen feet deep; but even so, four to five miles a day was rather
minute progress.
It is pleasant to read in the _Winthrop Letters_ and other correspondence
of colonial days of "journeys with the Post." Madam Knight rode with him,
as did many another fair traveller with his successors at later dates. A
fragment of a journal of a young college graduate, written in 1790, tells
of "over-taking the Post, who rode with six Dames, neither young nor fair,
from Hartford to Boston." He tells that the patient Squire of Dames was
rather surly when joked about his harem. Mrs. Quincy tells of travelling,
when she was a little girl, with the Post, who occupied his monotonous
hours by stocking-knitting.
[Illustration]
The post-riders, whose advertisements (one of which is here shown) can be
found in many old-time newspapers, were private carriers. They "Resolv'd
to ride Post for the good of the Publick," etc. They were burdened by law
with restrictions, which they calmly evaded, for they materially
decreased the government revenue in sealed mail-matter, though they were
supposed to be merchandise carriers only.
In 1773, Hugh Finlay was made postal surveyor by the British government of
the mail service from Quebec, Canada, to St. Augustine, Florida. He made a
very unfavorable report of postal conditions. He declared that postmasters
often had no offices, that tavern taprooms and family rooms in private
houses were used as gathering places for the mail. Letters were thrown
carelessly on an open table or tavern bar, for all comers to pull over
till the owners called; and fresh letters were irregularly forwarded. The
postmaster's salary was paid according to the number of letters he
handled, and of course the private conveyance of letters sadly diminished
his income. Private mail-carriage was forbidden by law, but the very
government post-riders were the chief offenders. Persons were allowed to
carry merchandise at their own rates for their own profit, so post-riders,
wagon-drivers, butchers, ship captains, or any one could carry large
sealed letters, provided they were tied to any bundle or box. Sham bundles
of paper or straw, weighing little, were thus used as kite-tails to the
letters. The government post-rider between Newport and Boston took
twenty-six hours to go eighty miles, carried all way-letters to his own
profit, and bought and sold on commission. If he had been complained of,
the informer was in danger of tarring and feathering. It was deemed all a
part of the revolt of the provinces against "slavery and oppression." The
rider between Saybrook and New York had been in his calling forty-six
years. He carried on a money exchange to his own profit, and pocketed all
way-postage. He superintended the return of horses for travellers; and
Finlay says he was coolly waiting, when he saw him, for a yoke of oxen
that he was going to transfer for a customer. No wonder the mails were
slow and uncertain.
In 1788 it took four days for mail to go from New York to Boston--in
winter much longer. George Washington died on the 14th of December, 1799.
As an event of universal interest throughout the nation, the news was
doubtless conveyed with all speed possible by fleetest messenger. The
knowledge of this national loss was not known in Boston till December 24.
Two years later there was a state election in Massachusetts of most
profound interest, when party feeling ran high. It took a month, however,
to get in all the election returns, even in a single state.
The first advertisement or bill of the first coaching line between Boston
and Portsmouth reads thus:--
"_For the Encouragement of Trade from Portsmouth to Boston._
"A LARGE STAGE CHAIR,
"With two horses well equipped, will be ready by Monday the 20th inst.
to start out from _Mr. Stavers_, Inn-holder at the sign of the _Earl
of Halifax_, in this town for Boston, to perform once a week; to lodge
at Ipswich the same night; from thence through Medford to Charlestown
Ferry; to tarry at Charlestown till Thursday morning, so as to return
to this town next day: to set out again the Monday following: It will
be contrived to carry four persons besides the driver. In case only
two persons go, they may be accommodated to carry things of bulk and
value to make a third or fourth person. The Price will be _Thirteen
Shillings_ and _Six Pence_ sterling for each person from hence to
Boston, and at the same rate of conveyance back again; though under no
obligation to return in the same week in the same manner.
"Those who would not be disappointed must enter their names at _Mr.
Stavers'_ on Saturdays, any time before nine in the evening, and pay
one half at entrance, the remainder at the end of the journey. Any
gentleman may have business transacted at Newbury or Boston with
fidelity and despatch on reasonable terms.
"As gentlemen and ladies are often at a loss for good accommodations
for travelling from hence, and can't return in less than three weeks
or a month, it is hoped that this undertaking will meet with suitable
encouragement, as they will be wholly freed from the care and charge
of keeping chairs and horses, or returning them before they had
Finished their business.
"Portsmouth, April, 1761."
A picture and account of the Stavers Inn are given on page 176.
These stages ran throughout the winter, except in bad weather, and the
fare was then three dollars a trip. This winter trip was often a hard one.
We read at one time of the ferries being so frozen over that travellers
had to make a hundred-mile circuit round by Cambridge. This line of stages
prospered; and two years later "The Portsmouth Flying Stage-coach," which
held six "insides," ran with four or six horses. The fare was the same.
[Illustration: Old Coach and Sign-board, Barre, Massachusetts.]
On this Stavers line were placed the first mail-coaches under the English
crown. When Finlay (the post-office surveyor just referred to) examined
the mail-service in the year 1773, he found these mail-coaches running
between Boston and Portsmouth. Mr. Ernst says, "The Stavers mail-coach was
stunning, used six horses in bad weather, and never was late." These
coaches were built by Paddock, the Boston coach-builder and Tory. Stavers
also was a Tory, and during the Revolution both fled to England, and may
have carried the notion of the mail-coach across the sea. At any rate the
first English mail-coach was not put on the road till 1784; it ran between
Bristol and London. It was started by a theatrical manager named Palmer,
office work or coaching. The service was very imperfect and far from
speedy.
Herbert Joyce, historian of the British post-office, says, "In 1813 there
was not a single town in the British kingdom at the post-office of which
absolutely certain information could have been obtained as to the charge
to which a letter addressed to any other town would be subject." The
charge was regulated by the distance; but distances seemed movable, and
the letter-sender was wholly at the mercy of the postmaster. The
government of the United States early saw the injustice of doubt in these
matters, and Congress ordered a careful topographical survey, in 1811-12,
of the post-road from Passamaquoddy to St. Mary's, and also established
our peerless corps of topographical engineers. Foreigners were much
impressed with the value of this survey, and an old handkerchief, printed
in 1815 by R. Gillespie, at "Anderston Printfield near Glasgow," proves
that the practical effects of the survey were known in England before the
English people had a similar service.
This handkerchief gives an interesting statement of postal rates and
routes at the beginning of this century. Around the edge is a floral
border, with the arms of the United States, the front and reverse of the
dollar of 1815, a quartette of ships of war, and portraits of Washington,
Adams, Jefferson, and "Maddison" intertwined.
Its title is "A Geographical View of All the Post Towns in the United
States of America and Their Distance from Each Other According to the
Establishment of the Postmaster General in the Year 1815." By an
ingenious arrangement of the towns on the main coast line and those on the
cross post-roads, the distance from one of these points to any other could
easily be ascertained. The "main line of post towns" extended "from
Passamaquoddy in the District of Maine to Sunbury in the State of
Georgia."
The object in publishing such a table as this was to make a durable record
by which it was possible for the people to compute easily and with a handy
helper what the cost of postage on letters would be. The following "rates
of postage" are given on the old handkerchief:--
"Single Letter conveyed by land for any distance not exceeding 10
miles, 6 cents.
Over 10, not exceeding 60 miles, 8 cents.
" 60 " " 100 " 10 "
" 100 " " 150 " 12 "
" 150 " " 200 " 15 "
" 200 " " 250 " 17 "
" 250 " " 350 " 20 "
" 350 " " 450 " 22 "
For 450 " 25 ""
Double letters are charged double; and triple letters, three times these
rates, and a packet weighing one ounce avoirdupois at the rate of four
single letters.
Let us compare conditions in these matters in America with those in
Scotland. While England had, in the first half of the eighteenth century,
coaches in enough number that country folk knew what they looked like,
Scotland was barren not only of coaches but of carriages. In 1720 there
were no chariots or chaises north of the Tay. Not till 1749 was there a
coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow; this journey of forty-six miles
could, by the end of the century, be done in twelve hours. In 1754 there
was once a month a coach from Edinburgh to London; it took twelve to
sixteen days to accomplish this journey, and was so perilous that
travellers made their wills before setting out. There were few carts and
no such splendid wagons as our Conestogas. Cadgers carried creels of goods
on horseback; and sledges, or creels borne on the backs of women, were the
means of transportation in northern Scotland until the end of the
eighteenth century. These sledges had tumbling wheels of solid wood a foot
and a half in diameter, revolving with the wooden axletree, and held
little more than a wheelbarrow.
Scotch inns were as bad as the roads; "mean hovels with dirty rooms, dirty
food, dirty attendants." Servants without shoes or stockings, greasy
tables with no cloths, butter thick with cows' hairs, no knives and forks,
a single drinking-cup for all at the table, filthy smells and sights, were
universal; and this when English inns were the pleasantest places on
earth.
Mail-carriage was even worse than personal transportation; hence
letter-writing was not popular. In 1746 the London mail-bag once carried
but a single letter from Edinburgh. So little attention was paid to the
post that as late as 1728 the letters were sometimes not taken from the
mail bag, and were brought back to their original starting place. Scotland
was in a miserable state of isolation and gloom until the Turnpike Road
Act was passed; the building of good roads made a complete revolution of
all economic conditions there, as it has everywhere.
[Illustration: Quincy Railway Pitcher.]
The first railway in America was the Quincy Railroad, or the "Experiment"
Railroad, built to carry stones to Bunker Hill Monument. A tavern-pitcher,
commemorative of this Quincy road, is shown here. Two views of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, printed on plates and platters in rich dark
blue, are familiar to china collectors. One shows a stationary engine at
the top of a hill with a number of little freight cars at a very singular
angle going down a steep grade. The other displays a primitive locomotive
with coachlike passenger cars.
All the first rail-cars were run by horse-power.
Peter Parley's _First Book on History_ says, in the chapter on Maryland:--
"The people are building what is called a railroad. This consists of
iron bars laid down along the ground and made fast, so that carriages
with small wheels may run upon them with facility. In this way one
horse will be able to draw as much as ten horses on a common road. A
part of the railroad is already done, and if you choose to take a ride
upon it you can do so. You enter a car something like a stage, and
then you will be drawn along by two horses at a speed of twelve miles
per hour."
The horse-car system, in its perfection, did not prevail until many years
after the establishment of steam cars. It is curious to note how suddenly,
in our own day, the horse cars were banished by cars run by electricity;
as speedily as were stage-coaches cast aside by steam. A short time ago a
little child of eight years came running to me in much excitement over an
unusual sight she had seen in a visit to a small town--"a trolley car
dragged by horses."
Many strange plans were advanced for the new railways. I have seen a
wood-cut of a railway-coach rigged with masts and sails gayly running on a
track. I don't know whether the inventor of this wind-car ever rigged his
car-boat and tried to run it. Another much-derided suggestion was that the
motive power should be a long rope or chain, and the notion was scorned,
but we have lived to see many successful lines of cars run by cable.
Kites and balloons also were seriously suggested as motive powers. It was
believed that in a short time any person would be permitted to run his own
private car or carriage over the tracks, by paying toll, as a coach did on
a turnpike.
The body of the stage-coach furnished the model for the first passenger
cars on the railway. A copy is here given of an old print of a train on
the Veazie Railroad, which began to run from Bangor, Maine, in 1836. The
road had two locomotives of Stevenson's make from England. They had no
cabs when they arrived here, but rude ones were attached. They burned
wood. The cars were also English; a box resembling a stage-coach was
placed on a rude platform. Each coach carried eight people. The passengers
entered the side. The train ran about twelve miles in forty minutes. The
rails, like those of other railroads at the time, were of strap-iron
spiked down. These spikes soon rattled loose, so each engine carried a man
with a sledge hammer, who watched the track, and when he spied a spike
sticking up he would reach down and drive it home. These "snake heads," as
the rolled-up ends of the strap-iron were called, sometimes were forced up
through the cars and did great damage. "Snake heads" were as common in
railway travel as snags in the river in early steamboating.
[Illustration: Veazie Railway.]
The Boston and Lowell, Boston and Providence, and Boston and Worcester
railroads were all opened in 1835. The locomotive used on the Boston and
Worcester road was called the Meteor. The cars were coach-shaped and ran
on single trucks. The freight cars were short vans or wagon-bodies covered
with canvas like a Conestoga wagon. A picturesque view of an old railway
train is given opposite page 288 in the picture painted by Mr. Edward
Lamson Henry, called "The Arrival of the Train." It shows a train at a way
station between Harrisburg and Lancaster, in the year 1839, and a
comparison between the coaches on the track and the coach and horses
waiting near by will show that the same model served for both.
Accidents were many on these early roads; some were fatal, some were
ridiculous. The clumsy locomotive often broke down, and horses and oxen
had to be impressed to drag the cars to the nearest station and repair
shop. An old print showing "Uncle Ame Morris's" oxen serving as a
locomotive on a railroad near Danbury, Connecticut, is given on page 289.
Coaching accidents had seldom been fatal, and ancient citizens were
appalled at the deaths on the rail. Never was the cry of "the good old
times" so loudly heard as in the early days of the railroad. Especially
were the injuries by escaping steam and by communicated fire deemed
horrible and unbearable. An old-school blood thus summarized all these
sentiments: "You got upset in a coach--and there you were! You get upset
in a rail-car--and, damme, where are you?"
The roadbed of the track was laid thus, as shown in the words of a State
Report made to the Massachusetts Legislature on January 16, 1829:--
"A continuous stone wall, laid so deep in the ground as not to be
moved by the effects of the frost; and surmounted by a rail of split
granite about a foot in thickness and depth, with a bar of iron on top
of it of sufficient thickness for the carriage wheels to run."
My father, who rode on one of these rock-bedded railways, told me that the
jarring was inexpressibly tiring and even distressing. They were in use
but a short time. But the cars had no springs, and the jarring continued
to some degree. It produced headaches and an incessant itching of the
skin. The primitive brake-power was a hand or foot brake, and a car
stopped with a jolting which was almost as severe as the shock felt to-day
in a collision. A more primitive brake-power was in vogue on the Newcastle
and Frenchtown Railroad, where the engineer would open his safety valve at
each station and several strong negroes would seize the end of the train
and hold it back while the station agent thrust sticks of wood through the
wheel-spokes. Crooked roads were favored, so the engineer and conductor
could "look back and see if the train was all right." These were easily
managed with the short coach-like railway carriages.
[Illustration: The Arrival of the Train.]
It would be impossible to repeat all the objections against the
establishment of the railroads, besides the loss of life. These objections
far outnumbered those made against coaches centuries previous. The
farmers would be ruined. Horses would have to be killed because wholly
useless. There would therefore be no market for oats or hay. Hens would
not lay eggs on account of the noise. It would cause insanity. There would
be constant fires from the sparks from the engine. It was declared that no
car could ever advance against the wind. The _Boston Courier_ of June 27,
1827, said in an editorial:--
"The project of a railroad from Boston to Albany is impracticable, as
every one knows who knows the simplest rule of arithmetic, and the
expense would be little less than the market value of the whole
territory of Massachusetts; and which, if practicable, every person of
common sense knows would be as useless as a railroad from Boston to
the moon."
[Illustration: Uncle Ame Morris' Oxen serving as a Locomotive.]
Captain Basil Hall rode by stage-coach in 1829 over the present route of
the Boston and Albany Railroad. He described the hills, ravines, and
rivers, and said, "Those Yankees talk of constructing a railroad over this
route; as a practical engineer, I pronounce it simply impossible."
All the sentimental objections of all the sentimental objectors may be
summed up in the words of the best beloved of all coachmen, Tony Weller:--
"I consider that the rail is unconstitutional, and a inwader o'
privileges. As to the comfort--as an old coachman I may say it--veres
the comfort o' sitting in a harm-chair, a lookin' at brick walls, and
heaps o' mud, never comin' to a public 'ouse, never seein' a glass o'
ale, never goin' thro' a pike, never meetin' a change o' no kind
(hosses or otherwise) but always comin' to a place ven you comes to
vun at all, the werry picter o' the last! As to the honor and dignity
o' travellin', vere can that be vithout a coachman, and vats the rail
to sich coachmen as is sometimes forced to go by it, but a outrage and
a insult! And as to the ingen, a nasty, wheezin', creakin', gaspin',
puffin', bustin' monster always out o' breath, with a shiny green and
gold back like a onpleasant beetle; as to the ingen as is alvays a
pourin' out red-hot coals at night and black smoke in the day, the
sensiblest thing it does, in my opinion, is ven there's somethin' in
the vay, and it sets up that 'ere frightful scream vich seems to say,
'now 'eres two hundred and forty passengers in the werry greatest
extremity o' danger, and 'eres their two hundred and forty screams in
vun!'"