A STAGING CENTRE
The story of the tavern and stage life of the town of Haverhill, New
Hampshire, may be told as an example of that aspect and era of social
history, as developed in a country town. It shows the power the
stage-coach was in bringing civilization and prosperity to remote parts of
the states, what an illumination, what an education.
Haverhill is on the Connecticut River somewhat more than halfway up the
western boundary line of the state of New Hampshire, at the head of the
Cohos valley. It is a beautiful fertile tract of land which had been
cleared and cultivated by the Indians before the coming of the white man.
It is lovely and picturesque with its broad intervales, splendid
mountains, and peaceful river winding in the sweeps and reaches of the
Oxbow; so lovely that Longfellow declared Haverhill the most beautiful
spot he ever had seen. The town has but little colonial history. It had no
white settlers till 1761; but the first who did take up land and build
there were, as was the case with nearly all New Hampshire towns, men of
unusual force of character and energy of purpose; by Revolutionary times
the town was well established, and its situation and resources made it
the authorized place of rendezvous for the troops destined for Canada. At
the end of the war, when the danger of Indian invasion lessened, the town
grew rapidly, but there were still only bridle-paths blazed through the
woods by which to connect with the world, and until this century its only
roads were the river road, the Coventry Road over Morse Hill, and the old
Road from Plymouth, New Hampshire.
But the day of the turnpike and vast changes was dawning. In 1805, in this
town, still poor and struggling, were men who contributed their share to
the building of the old Cohos Turnpike from Plymouth through Warren to
Haverhill. The old post-rider, faithful John Balch, who had carried on
foot and on horseback the scant letters throughout the dangerous days of
the Revolution, was succeeded by Colonel Silas May in a Dutch wagon,
carrying packages and the mail. As he drove into town blowing his horn he
inaugurated a change for Haverhill that was indeed a new life. By 1814 a
permanent stage line was established between Concord and Haverhill through
Plymouth; and the first coach came down the long hill on its first trip,
with loud and constant blasts of the horn, with a linchpin gone, but wheel
safely in place clean up to the tavern door, thanks to Silas May's skilful
driving. A leading spirit in obtaining the turnpike charter and one of the
proprietors of the first stage line was Colonel William Tarleton (or
Tarlton), then a dashing young fellow of great elegance of manners; he
kept the Tarleton Tavern on Tarleton Lake on the Pike till his death.
Every stage and team that went down or up the Pike stopped there to water
the horses, with water in which was thrown salt; and every passenger had
at least a hot drink. His hostelry was famous for two generations, and all
the while there swung in the breezes that swept over Tarleton Lake the old
sign-board which is shown here. It is an oaken board on which is painted
on one side an Indian and the name William Tarlton and date, 1774; on the
other a symbol of Plenty. It is owned by his grandson, Amos Tarleton, of
Haverhill, to whose cordial interest and intelligent help I owe much of
this story of Haverhill's coaching days.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Tarleton Inn.]
The turnpike line from Concord to Haverhill was scarcely under way when a
rival line was started which came through Hanover, and connected with the
stage line to New York. Others followed with surprising quickness; the
chief were lines to Boston, New York, and Stanstead, Canada; lesser lines
of coaches ran to the White Mountains, to Montpelier, Vermont, to
Chelsea, Vermont, and elsewhere. The reason for this sudden growth of
Haverhill was found in its position with regard to the neighboring
country; the topography of upper New England made it a proper and natural
travel centre.
As many coaches came into Haverhill every night and started out early the
next morning, as many passengers changed coaches there, it can be readily
seen that the need of taverns was great, and a number at once were opened.
Often a hundred and fifty travellers were set down daily in Haverhill. The
Bliss Tavern was one of the first to be built and is still standing, a
dignified and comfortable mansion, as may be seen from its picture on page
314. Its landlord, Joseph Bliss, was a man of influence in the town, and
held several important offices; his house was the headquarters where the
judges of the court and the lawyers stopped when court was held; for
Haverhill was a shire town, a county seat, from 1773. At some of the
courts of the General Sessions of the Peace as many as twenty-two justices
were present; and court terms were longer then than now, so justices,
lawyers, clients, sheriffs, deputies, jurors, and witnesses came and
remained in town till their law business was settled. Sometimes the
taverns were crowded for weeks. The court and bar had a special dining
room and table at Bliss's Tavern, to which no layman, however high in
social standing, was admitted. On Sundays all went to the old
meeting-house at Piermont, where there was a "Judges' Pew." Sometimes
executions took place in town--a grand day for the taverns. When one
Burnham was hanged there in 1805, ten thousand people witnessed the sight.
Old and young, mothers with babes, lads and lasses, even confirmed
invalids thronged to this great occasion.
[Illustration: Sign-board of Tarlton Inn.]
Besides the court and its following, and the pampered travellers in
stage-coaches, Haverhill taverns had by 1825 other classes of customers.
Backward and forward from upper New Hampshire and Vermont to Boston,
Portsmouth, and Salem, rolled the great covered wagons with teams of six
or eight horses bearing the products of the soil and forest to the towns
and the products of the whole earth in return. These wagons, which were
the Conestoga wagons of Pennsylvania, made little appearance in New
England till this century; they were brought there by the War of 1812; but
they had there their day of glory and usefulness as elsewhere throughout
our whole northern continent.
The two-wheeled cart of the earliest colonists, clumsily built and
wasteful of power, was used long in New England for overland
transportation; though the chief transfer of merchandise was in the winter
by "sledding." There seems to have always been plentiful snow and good
sledding every year in every part of New England in olden times, though it
is far from being so to-day. The farmer, at that season of the year, had
little else to do, and the ancient paths were soon made smooth by many
sleighs and sleds.
Mr. Henry S. Miner gives me a very interesting account of these freight
wagons in New England as he remembers them in ante-railroad days. Though
the traffic was small in amount compared with that of the present day, it
was carried on in a way which gave a sense of great life and action on the
road. As even little towns furnished freight for several teams, the
aggregate was large, and as they neared Boston the number of teams on the
highway seemed enormous. These passed through towns on the turnpike every
day, Sundays included. No vocation called for sturdier or better men. The
drivers were almost invariably large, hearty, healthy Yankees, of good
sense and regular habits, though they were seldom total abstainers. They
could not be drunkards, for their life was too vigorous; long whip in
hand, they walked beside their teams. The whip was a sign of office,
seldom applied to a horse. They had to be keen traders, good merchants, to
sell advantageously the goods they carried to town and to choose wisely
for return trips. Country merchants seldom went to the cities, but
depended wholly on these teamsters for supplies.
[Illustration: Bliss's Tavern.]
The wagons were of monstrous size, broad and high. Each horse had a ton of
freight. No one was a regular teamster who drove less than four horses.
But there were other carriers. A three-horse team called a "spike," a
two-horse team called a "podanger," and a single horse with cart called a
"gimlet," were none of them in favor with tavern-keepers or other
teamsters. Still, if the smaller teams got stuck in the mud or snow, the
regulars would good-humoredly help them out. Whatever accident happened to
a teamster or his wagon or horses, his fellow-craftsmen assisted him,
while stage-drivers, drovers, or any other travelling citizens were never
looked upon for help.
An old man who drove one of these teams in his youth says:--
"When these large teams were hooked to the wagons, the starting word
was 'whoo-up'; and the horses would at once place themselves in
position. Then, 'Order, whope, _git_.' To turn to the left, 'Whoa,
whoa,' softly; to the right, 'Geer there.' For a full stop, 'Whoa
who-oof,' in louder voice, and all would come to a standstill. It was
a fine sight to see six or eight good horses spread out, marching
along in each other's steps, and see how quick they were to mind the
driver's voice. Good drivers always spoke to their teams in a low
voice, never shouted. The teamsters walked beside their teams, twenty
miles a day the average. The reins were done up on each horse's hames,
allowing them to spread apart with ease, a check-rein from the bit
over the hames to keep them where they belonged. You could never teach
a horse anything that wasn't checked up. The wagons weighed from
eighteen hundred to twenty-two hundred pounds. Some wagons had an
adjustable seat called a lazy-board."
With winter snows the wagons were generally housed; hundreds, yes,
thousands of sleighs, pods, and pungs took their place. The farmer no
longer sent to town by wagon and teamster; he carried his farm produce to
town himself, just as his grandfather had in the days of the cart and sled
before the Revolution. Winter brought red-letter days to the New England
farmer; summer and autumn were his time of increase, but winter was his
time of trade and of glorious recreation.
[Illustration: Old Sleigh with Double Dashboard.]
Friendly word was circulated from farm to farm, spread chiefly at the
Sabbath nooning, that at stated date, at break of day the long ride to
market would begin. Often twenty or thirty neighbors would start together
on the road to town. The two-horse pung or single-horse pod, shod with
steel shoes one inch thick, was closely packed with farm wealth--anything
that a New England farm could produce that could be sold in a New England
town. Frozen hogs, poultry, and venison; firkins of butter, casks of
cheeses,--four to a cask,--bags of beans, peas, sheep-pelts, deer hides,
skins of mink, fox, and fisher-cat that the boys had trapped, perhaps a
splendid bearskin, nuts that the boys had gathered, shoe pegs that they
had cut, yarn their sisters had spun, stockings and mittens they had
knitted, homespun cloth and linen, a forest of splint brooms strapped on
behind, birch brooms that the boys had whittled. So closely packed was the
sleigh that the driver could not sit; he stood on a little semicircular
step on the back of the sleigh, protected from the cutting mountain winds
by the high sleigh back. At times he ran alongside to keep his blood
briskly warm.
To Troy and Portland went some winter commerce, but Boston, Portsmouth,
and Salem took far the greatest amount. On the old Cohos Turnpike trains
of these farm sleighs were often a half mile long. The tavern-keepers
might well have grown rich, had all these winter travellers paid for board
and lodging, but nearly all, even the wealthiest farmers, carried their
own provender and food. Part of their oats and hay for their horses
sometimes was deposited with honest tavern-keepers on the way down to be
used on the way home; and there was also plenty of food to last through
the journey: doughnuts, cooked sausages, roast pork, "rye and injun"
bread, cheese, and a bountiful mass of bean porridge. This latter, made in
a tub and frozen in a great mass, was hung by loops of twine by the side
of the sleigh, and great chunks were chopped off from time to time. This
itinerant picnic was called in some vicinities tuck-a-nuck, an Indian
word; also mitchin. It was not carried from home because tavern-fare was
expensive,--a "cold bite" was but twelve and a half cents, and a regular
meal but twenty-five cents; but the tavern-keeper did not expect to serve
meals to this class or to such a great number of travellers. His profits
were made on liquor he sold and sleeping room he gave. The latter was
often simple enough. Great fires were built in barroom and parlor; each
driver spread out a blanket or fur robe, and with feet to the fire, the
semicircle slept the sleep of the healthy and tired and cider-filled. Ten
cents this lodging cost; but the sale of rum and cider, toddy and flip,
brought in dimes and dollars to the tavern-keeper. Many a rough story was
told or old joke laughed at before the circle was quiet; quarrels, too,
took place among so many strong and independent men.
[Illustration: Old Passenger Pung.]
It can readily be seen how important the tavern must have been in such a
town as Haverhill, what a news centre, what an attraction, what an
education. Newspapers were infrequent, but none were needed when newcomers
from all points of the compass brought all there was to tell from
everywhere. Mine host was the medium through which information was spread;
he came into close contact with leaders in law, politics, and business,
and dull he must have been if he did not profit in mental growth. But he
could not be dull, he had to be companionable and intelligent; hence we
find the tavern-keeper the leading man in town, prominent in affairs, and
great in counsel, and it was to the stage-coach he owed much of his
intelligence and influence.