TWO STAGE VETERANS OF MASSACHUSETTS
There still stands in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, at the junction of the
Westborough road with the old "King's Highway," a weatherbeaten but
dignified house, the Pease Tavern; it is shown on page 292. This house was
for many years a popular resort for the teamsters and travellers who
passed back and forth on what was then an important road. Behind the house
was originally a large shed with roof and open sides for the protection
from rain or snow of the great numbers of loaded wagons. In another
covered shed at the side of the house were chairs and tables for the
teamsters and shelves for any baggage they took from their wagons. This
shed for the accommodation of the teamsters would indicate to me that they
were not so unreservedly welcome at this tavern as at many others on the
route. Miss Ward, in her entertaining book, _Old Times in Shrewsbury_,
says that under this shed, in the side boards of the house, slight holes
were cut one above the other to a window in the second story. These holes
were large enough to hold on by, and to admit the toe of a man's boot; by
dexterous use of hands and feet the teamsters were expected to climb up
the outside wall to the window, and thus reach their sleeping apartments
without passing through the hall and interior of the house. This was, it
was asserted, for the convenience both of the family and the travellers.
In the Wayside Inn at Sudbury a small special staircase winding in the
corner of the taproom led to the four "drivers' bedrooms" above. One of
the upper rooms in the Pease Tavern was a dancing hall. Across this hall
from wall to wall was a swing partition which could be hooked up to the
ceiling when a dance was given, but at other times divided the hall into
two large bedrooms. This was a common appurtenance of the old-time tavern.
[Illustration: Pease Tavern.]
Major John Farrar, an officer in the Revolution, first kept this
Shrewsbury inn, and greatly rejoiced when Washington visited it in his
triumphal journey through the country. His successor as landlord, Levi
Pease, was a man of note in the history of travel and transportation
systems in Massachusetts. He was a Shrewsbury blacksmith who served
through the entire Revolutionary War in a special function--which might be
entitled a confidential transportation agent: he transferred important
papers, carried special news, purchased horses and stores, foraged for the
army, and enjoyed the full confidence of the leaders, especially of
Lafayette. In 1783, when peace was established, he planned to establish a
line of stages between Boston and Hartford, and thus turn his knowledge of
roads and transportation to account. Wholly without funds, he found no one
ready to embark in the daring project and work with him, save one young
stage-driver, Reuben Sykes or Sikes, who braved parental opposition, as
well as universal discouragement, and started with a stage-wagon from
Hartford to Boston at the same hour that Captain Pease set out from Boston
to Hartford. Each made the allotted trip in four days. The fare was ten
dollars a trip. Empty stages were soon succeeded by prosperous trips, and
in two years the penniless stage agent owned the Boston Inn opposite the
Common, in Boston, on the spot where St. Paul's Church now stands. The
line was soon extended to New York.
[Illustration: Old Arcade, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.]
Josiah Quincy gives a far from alluring picture of Pease's coaches in the
earliest days:--
"I set out from Boston in the line of stages lately established by an
enterprising Yankee, Pease by name, which at that day was considered a
method of transportation of wonderful expedition. The journey to New
York took up a week. The carriages were old and shackling, and much of
the harness made of ropes. One pair of horses carried the stage
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 the next
morning, which generally proved to be half-past two. 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 with a driver showing no doubtful symptoms of
drunkenness, which good-hearted passengers never fail to improve at
every stopping place by urging upon him another glass of toddy. Thus
we travelled, eighteen miles a stage, sometimes obliged to get out and
help the coachman lift the coach out of a quagmire or rut, and arrived
at New York after a week's hard travelling, wondering at the ease as
well as expedition of our journey."
It should be added to this tale that young Quincy was in love, and on his
way to see his sweetheart, which may have added to his impatience.
This condition of affairs was not permitted to remain long. Captain Pease
bought better horses and more comfortable wagons, and he persuaded
townships to repair the roads; and he thus advertised in the
_Massachusetts Spy_, or the _Worcester Gazette_, under date of January 5,
1786:--
"Stages from Portsmouth in New Hampshire, to Savannah in Georgia.
"There is now a line of Stages established from New Hampshire to
Georgia, which go and return regularly, and carry the several Mails,
by order and permission of Congress.
"The stages from Boston to Hartford in Connecticut, set out, during
the winter season, from the house of Levi Pease, at the Sign of the
New York Stage, opposite the Mall, in Boston, every _Monday_ and
_Thursday_ morning, precisely at five o'clock, go as far as
_Worcester_ on the evenings of those days, and on the days following
proceed to _Palmer_, and on the third day reach _Hartford_; the first
Stage reaches the city of _New York_ on Saturday evening, and the
other on the Wednesday evening following.
"The stages from _New York_ for _Boston_, set out on the same days,
and reach _Hartford_ at the same time as the Boston Stages.
"The stages from _Boston_ exchange passengers with the stages from
_Hartford_ at _Spencer_, and the Hartford Stages exchange with those
from _New York_ at _Hartford_. Passengers are again exchanged at
_Stratford Ferry_, and not again until their arrival at _New York_.
"By the present regulation of the stages, it is certainly the most
convenient and expeditious way of travelling that can possibly be had
in America, and in order to make it the cheapest, the proprietors of
the stages have lowered their price from four pence to three pence a
mile, with liberty to passengers to carry fourteen pounds baggage.
"In the summer season the stages are to run with the mail three times
in a week instead of twice in the winter, by which means those who
take passage at Boston in the stage which sets off on Monday morning,
may arrive at New York on the Thursday evening following, and all the
mails during that season are to be but four days going from Boston to
New York, and so from New York to Boston.
"Those who intend taking passage in the stages must leave their names
and baggage the evening preceding the morning that the stages set off,
at the several places where the stages put up, and pay one-half of
their passage to the place where the first exchange of passengers is
made, if bound so far, and if not, one-half of their passage so far as
they are bound.
"N. B. Way passengers will be accommodated when the stages are not
full, at the same rate, viz. three pence only per mile.
"Said PEASE keeps good lodging, &c. for gentlemen travellers, and
stabling for horses.
"BOSTON, Jan. 2nd, 1786."
Pease obtained the first Government contract within the new United States
for carrying the mails; and the first mail in this new service passed
through Worcester on the 7th of January, 1786--such changes had three
short years brought.
All was not ease for him even then; he still drove the stage, and endured
heat and cold; and when New England snowstorms could not be overcome by
the mail-coach, like many another of his drivers, he shouldered the
mail-bag and carried the mail on snowshoes to Boston town. He died in
1824, after having received from the Government the first charter granted
in Massachusetts for a turnpike. It was laid out in 1808 from Boston
through South Shrewsbury to Worcester, nearly parallel to the old road. It
transformed travel in that vicinity and, indeed, served to alter all town
relations and conditions. This grant and his many incessant efforts to
establish turnpikes conferred on Levi Pease the title of the "Father of
the Turnpike."
Many other charters were soon granted, and the state was covered with a
network of turnpikes which were in general thronged with vehicles and
livestock, and were therefore vastly profitable. From the prospectus of
the Sixth Massachusetts Turnpike Company, incorporated in 1799 to build a
road from Amherst to a point near Shrewsbury, we learn that the turnpike
from Northampton to Pittsfield paid twelve per cent dividend.
On these great, bustling, living thoroughfares a sad change has fallen. In
Bedford, Raystown, Somerset, Greensbury, in scores of towns, weeds and
grass grow in the ruts of the turnpike. The taverns are silent; some are
turned into comfortless farm-houses, others are closed and unoccupied, sad
and deserted widows of the old "pikes," far gone in melancholy decline.
Many of the methods familiar to us in railroad service to-day were
invented by Pease, and were crudely in practice by him. He introduced the
general ticket office in 1795, and no railroad office to-day sells tickets
to all the points served by Pease. His stage office was in State Street,
Boston. He evolved what we now term the "limited" and "accommodation"
service of railroads; in fact, the term "limited" originated with
mail-coaches limiting passengers to a specific number. Pease's fast mail
line took but four passengers in each coach, and ran to New York three
times a week with the mails. The slower line charging lower prices ran the
other days of the week and took all applicants, putting on extra coaches
if required. This service began in 1793. Tolls were commuted on
Massachusetts turnpikes before 1800, so that condition of railroad travel
is a century old.
Not far from this Pease Tavern is a sulphur spring which has some
medicinal repute, and which attracted visitors. To reach it at one time
you passed close to the house of the Indian, Old Brazil, and his wife
Nancy, and this was always a ticklish experience. Miss Ward tells their
blood-curdling story. His real name was the gentle title Basil, but he had
been a pirate on the high seas, and Brazil was more appropriate. He and
his wife thriftily ran their little farm and industriously wove charming
baskets and peddled them around the neighboring towns. These last leaves
on the tree were, for all the perceptions of Shrewsbury folk, peaceful
creatures as they were honest; but when Brazil had been treated to a good
mug of hard cider at tavern or farm-house (and no one would fail thus to
treat him) he told of his past life with such fierce voice and horrid
gesture as made him equally a delight and a terror to the children and to
many older folk as well.
[Illustration: Harrington Tavern, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.]
He had been a bloodthirsty villain; scores, perhaps hundreds, of helpless
souls on captured craft had perished at his gory hands. He detailed to the
gaping loungers at the tavern with a realism worthy a modern novelist how
he split the heads of his victims open with his broadaxe--exactly in the
middle--"one half would fall on one shoulder, tother half on tother
shoulder! ugh! ugh!" and with another pull of cider, husband and wife
trotted contentedly home. About 1850 they died as they had lived,
close--and loving--companions. As a fitting testimonial to the pirate's
end, the village boys put a charge of gunpowder in the brick oven of the
peaceful little kitchen and blew the pirate's house in fragments.
At a time when he could not afford to pay high Boston rents, Pease made
Shrewsbury his headquarters. This may account for the large number of old
taverns in the town, several of which are portrayed in these pages,--the
Old Arcade on page 294, Harrington's Tavern on page 299, Balch Tavern on
page 301.
The Exchange Hotel, still standing and still in use as a public house, was
the stage office for Pease's stage line in Worcester. This interesting old
landmark, built in 1784, was owned by Colonel Reuben Sykes, the partner of
Pease; and other coach lines than theirs centred at the Exchange, and made
it gay with arrival and departure. As the United States Arms, Sykes's
Coffee-house, Sykes's Stage-house, Thomas Exchange Coffee-house, and
Thomas Temperance Exchange in the days of the Washingtonian movement, this
hotel has had an interesting existence. President Washington in 1789
"stopped at the United States Arms where he took breakfast, and then
proceeded on his journey. To gratify the inhabitants he politely passed
through town on horseback. He was dressed in a brown suit, and pleasure
glowed in every countenance as he came along." Lafayette was also a guest;
and through its situation opposite the Worcester court-houses on Court
Hill the tavern has seen within its walls a vast succession of men noted
in law and in lawsuits.
[Illustration: Balch Tavern, Shrewsbury, Massachusetts.]
From 1830 to 1846 a brilliant comet flashed its way through the
stage-driving world of New England; it was Hon. Ginery Twichell, who was
successively and successfully post-rider, stage-driver, stage proprietor,
most noted express rider of his times, railroad superintendent, president
of the Boston and Worcester Railroad, and member of Congress. Some thirty
years ago or more a small child sat in the "operating room" of a
photographer's gallery in Worcester. Her feet and hands were laboriously
placed in a tentatively graceful attitude and the back of her head firmly
fastened in that iron "branks-without-a-gag" fixture which then prevailed
in photographers' rooms and may still, for all that I know. A sudden
dashing inroad from an adjoining room of the photographer's assistant with
the loud and excited exclamation, "Ginery's coming, Ginery's coming," led
to the immediate and unceremonious unveiling of the artist from the heavy
black cloth that had enveloped his head while he was peeping wisely
through the instrument at his juvenile sitter, and to his violent exit; he
was followed with equal haste and lack of explanation by my own attendant.
Thus basely deserted I sat for some minutes wondering what a Ginery could
be, for there was to me a sort of menagerie-circus-like ring in the word,
and I deemed it some strange wild beast like the Pygarg once exhibited at
the old Salem Tavern. At last, though fully convinced that my moving would
break the camera, I boldly disengaged myself from the claws of the branks,
ran to a front window, and hung peering out at the Ginery over the heads
of the other occupants of the gallery, who regarded with eager delight no
wild or strange beast, but a great stage-coach with six horses which stood
reeking, foaming, pawing, in front of the Baystate House across the
street. A dignified and self-contained old man, ruddy of face, and dressed
in a heavy greatcoat and tall silk hat, sat erect on the coachman's seat,
reins well in hand--and suddenly Ginery and his six horses were off with
rattle of wheels and blowing of horn and cheers of the crowd; but not
before there was imprinted forever in unfading colors on my young brain a
clear picture of the dashing coaching life of olden days. It was an
anniversary of some memorable event, and the member of Congress celebrated
it by once more driving over his old-time coaching route to meet the
cheers and admiration of all beholders.
The predecessor of Baystate House, the old Central Hotel, was the
headquarters of Twichell's stage line during the sixteen years of his
connection with it. It was built in 1722, and rooms in it served various
purposes besides those of good cheer--one being used as a county jail.
I do not doubt that the coach which I saw was the one thus referred to in
the _Boston Traveller_ of June 1, 1867, as Mr. Twichell occasionally drove
it until the year of his death:--
"The venerable coach built by Moses T. Breck of Worcester, and used 30
years ago in the heart of the Commonwealth by Hon. Ginery Twichell for
special occasions before railroads were fairly in vogue, passed
through our Boston streets on Friday. The vehicle was of a most
substantial pattern; no repairs have been needed through all these
years except an occasional coat of varnish and new upholstering. In
1840, by request of the citizens of the town of Barre, seats were
added on the top of the vehicle, so that a party of 32 persons could
be accommodated (12 inside and 20 outside). The largest load ever
carried by the ponderous carriage was a party of (62) sixty-two young
ladies of Worcester who, uniformly dressed, were driven on a
blackberry excursion to the suburbs by Mr. Twichell himself, eight
matched horses being required on the occasion. During the exciting
Presidential Campaign of 1840, the staunch vehicle was used for
conveying the sovereigns to and from political gatherings in the town
surrounding old Quinsigamond."
There is still living in Boston, at an advanced age, but of vigorous
mental powers, Mr. Henry S. Miner, the last stage-driver of Ginery
Twichell's stage-route, perhaps the last person living who was connected
with it. He has scores of tales of stage-coach days which he has capacity
to frame in interesting language. I am indebted to him for many letters
full of information and interest. He says:
"Ginery Twichell was a shrewd, quiet, persevering man of but few
words, and those to the point; his voice was clear and low, never
raised to horses or men. Affable, sociable, he was a man that would
make friends and hold them. He was smooth-shaven and red-faced, but
strictly temperate. He had one habit of rubbing his hands rapidly when
in earnest conversation. He had but a common school education and
might be called a self-made man. Before through railroads were
completed, Mr. Twichell collected the November election votes on
horseback, from Greenfield to Worcester, 54 miles, covering the
distance in four and one-half hours. He had relays of horses and men
every 6 to 10 miles. As the work always came in the night, he was many
times thrown by his horse stumbling, but always came out all right. At
one time he slept in his clothes with buckskin underwear, at the
American House in Worcester, in wait for despatches from English
steamers. He had men and horses on the road to Norwich for one week
waiting also. When the dispatches arrived he mounted his horse and
started for Norwich; he met the boat, and the despatches were in New
York hours ahead of any other line. I am the only one of his
drivers living, and one hostler is living."
[Illustration: Advertisement of Twichell's Stage Line.]
A friend who remembers riding with Twichell eulogizes him in the warmest
terms for his accommodating spirit and happy faculty of making all his
passengers as comfortable as possible. He had an inexhaustible fund of
racy anecdotes which he would tell so well that it was a perfect treat to
ride upon the box with him. He was a general favorite, especially with the
country folks, and the boys and girls on the road, and with these he
always had a joke to crack whenever it came his way to do so, to the
infinite amusement of the travellers whom he had in charge. He carried
many small and valuable parcels, and executed commissions for the people
like an expressman. After a period of self-denial in early life,
throughout which he had saved his liberal earnings carefully, he was
enabled to purchase from Mr. Stockwell the stage and two horses which he
drove between Athol and Barre. About 1837 he started with Mr. Burt and Mr.
Billings a stage line from Brattleboro to Worcester.
[Illustration: Ginery Twichell's Ride.]
In 1843 he was engaged in driving a stage of his own between Barre and
Worcester. Not long afterwards he was sole owner of a line from
Greenfield, Massachusetts, to Brattleboro, Vermont. The Postmaster-general
about this time advertised for mail contracts, and Ginery Twichell went to
Washington. It was supposed by the owners of the other lines, who knew he
had gone thither, that he would not undertake to execute more than one
contract, but his own private views, it appears, were somewhat broader,
for he contracted with the Government to carry the mails upon a number of
routes, greatly to the astonishment of others in the business; and what
was better still, he accomplished what he had undertaken very
satisfactorily to the Postmaster-general, and came to be regarded as a
sort of Napoleon among mail contractors. He became the owner of a large
number of fine stages and horses. He ran a line from Worcester to
Northfield, sixty miles, three times a week; from Worcester to Winchester,
fifty-five miles, daily; from Worcester to Keene, fifty-four miles, three
times a week; to Templeton twenty-five miles, daily; from Templeton to
Greenfield, forty-eight miles, daily; from Barre to Worcester, forty-four
miles, daily. In all this was two hundred and eighty-six miles of
stage-route, and it took a hundred and fifty-six horses to do the work.
The picture shown on page 306 is from a lithograph published in 1850,
entitled,--
"The Unrivaled Express Rider, Ginery Twichell, who rode from Worcester to
Hartford, a distance of Sixty miles in Three hours and Twenty minutes
through a deep snow, January 23, 1846."
It commemorates an exploit of his which was much talked of at the time it
took place.