THE STAGE-DRIVER
In a home-library in an old New England town there were for half a century
two sets of books which seemed strangely alien to the other staid
occupants of the bookshelves, which companions were chiefly rows of
encyclopaedias, Scott's novels, the _Spectator_ and _Tatler_, a large
number of books of travel, and scores of biographies, autobiographies and
memoirs of pious "gospellers," English and American, chiefly missionaries.
These two special sets of books were large volumes, but were not placed
primly and orderly with others of their own size; they were laid on their
sides thrust high up among the smaller books on the upper shelves as if to
escape notice under the frames of the glazed doors. They were strictly
tabooed to all the younger members of the family, and were, indeed, well
out of our reach; but Satan can find library steps for idle and very
inquisitive little souls to climb, and we had read them eagerly before we
were in our teens. One set was that inestimable and valuable work _London
Labour and London Poor_, which was held to be highly improper reading for
the young, but which I found very entertaining, as being of folk as
remote from my life as if they were gnomes and elves. The other volumes
were Pierce Egan's _Book of Sports_; and one, a prince of wicked books,
entitled _Life in London: or the Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorne,
Esq., and his elegant friend Corinthian Tom accompanied by Bob Logic, the
Oxonian, in their Rambles and Sprees through the Metropolis_. This also
was by Pierce Egan.
[Illustration: Relay House.]
That this latter most reprehensible book (from the standard of the Puritan
household in which it was found) should have been preserved at all must
have been, I think, from the fact that the illustrations were by
Cruikshank, and delightful pictures they were. Though this book was so
ill-regarded in New England, its career in England was a most brilliant
one. It was the most popular work in British literature in the years 1820
to 1850; in fact, to many Englishmen it was _the_ book, _the_ literature,
of the period. One claim it has to the consideration of the reading public
to-day: it is perhaps the best picture existing of Society, or, as it was
termed in the words of the day, of "Life, Fashion, and Frolic," in the
times of George IV. Thackeray tells, in his article on George Cruikshank,
of the lingering fondness he had for this old book, but even when he wrote
could find no copy either in the British Museum or in London circulating
libraries. It was dramatized by several hands, and had long runs on the
stage both in England and the United States; and I do not doubt wealthy
young men in the large American cities tried to emulate the sports of the
London Tom and Jerry. In the peculiar affectations of the bucks and bloods
of that day, from the king down, shown in the love of all low sports, in
association, even familiarity, with low sportsmen, and in the domination
of the horse in sporting life, we see the reason for the high perfection
and participation of the rich in coaching in England--a perfection which
was aped in some respects in America. Coaching is less talked about than
other sports by Jerry and the elegant Corinthian Tom (whose surname is
never once given), probably because their dissipations and sprees were
those of the city, not of turnpike roads and green lanes. But the life of
the day, perhaps the idlest, most aimless era of fashion in English
history, the life most thoroughly devoid of any spirituality or
intellectuality, yet never exactly unintelligent and never dull, lives
forever in Pierce Egan's pages; and lives for me with the intensity of
reality from the eager imprinting on the fresh memory of a little child of
unfamiliar scenes and incomprehensible words, knowledge even of whose
existence was sternly forbidden.
I obtained from these books a notion of an English coachman, as an
idealized being, a combination of Phoebus Apollo, a Roman charioteer, and
the Prince Regent. I fancied our American coach-drivers as glorious
likewise, though with a lesser refulgence; and I distinctly recall my
disappointment at the reality of the first coachman of my first coach-ride
from Charlestown, New Hampshire. A man, even on a day of Indian Summer,
all in hide and fur: moth-eaten fur gloves, worn fur cap with vast
ear-flaps and visor, and half-bare buffalo-hide coat, and out of all these
ancient skins but one visible feature, a great, shining, bulbous nose. But
even the paling days of stage-coaches were then long past; and the ancient
coachman had long been shorn of his glory. In the days of his prime he was
a power in the land, though he was not like the English coachman.
From Mr. Miner and others who remember the great days of stage-coach
travel, I learn that our American drivers were a dignified and interesting
class of men. Imposing in bearskin caps, in vast greatcoats, and with
their teams covered with ivory rings, with fine horses and clean coaches,
they and their surroundings were pleasant to the eyes. They acquired
characteristic modes of speaking, of thinking. They were terse and
sententious in expression, had what is termed horse sense. They had
prudence and ability and sturdy intelligence. They carried from country to
town, from house to house, news of the health of loved ones, or of
sickness when weary nurses were too tired to write. A kindly driver would
stop his horses or walk them past a lane corner where an anxious mother or
sister waited, dreading; and passengers in the coach would hear him call
out to her, "John's better, fever's all gone."
They were character-readers, of man and horse alike. They had great
influence in the community they called home, and their word was law. They
were autocrats in their own special domain, and respected everywhere. No
wonder they loved the life. Harrison Bryant, the veteran Yankee whip,
inherited a fine farm in Athol. He at once gave up his hard life as a
driver, bade good-by to the cold and exposure, the long hours of work, the
many hardships, and settled down to an existence of sheltered prosperity.
On the third day of his life on the farm he stood at the edge of a field
as a stage passed on the road. The driver gave "the Happy Farmer" a salute
and snapped his whip. The horses started ahead on the gallop, a passenger
on top waved good-by to him; the coach bounded on and disappeared. Farmer
Bryant walked sombrely across the field to his new home, packed his old
carpet-bag, went to the stage-office in the next town, and two days later
he swept down the same road on the same coach, snapping his whip, waving
his hand, leaving the miles behind him. He was thus one week off the
coach-box, and at the end of his long life had a well-established
record of over one hundred and thirty-five thousand miles of stage
driving, more than five times round the world.
[Illustration: The Relay.]
A letter written by an "old-timer" says:--
"I remember many of the old stage-drivers. What a line was the old
'accommodation' put on by Gen. Holman and others! What a prince of
drivers was Driver Day! Handsome, dressy, and a perfect lady's man!
How many ladies were attracted to a seat on the box beside him! Then
such a team, and with what grace they were guided! How many young men
envied his grace as a driver! So, also, what gentlemen were the
tavern-keepers of that day! They studied to please the public by their
manners, though behind the scenes some of them could spice their
conversation with big words."
A very vivid description of the dress of the old stage-drivers of
Haverhill and other New Hampshire towns was given me by Mr. Amos Tarleton,
an old inhabitant of the town. He says:--
"The winter dress of these old drivers was nearly all alike. Their
clothing was of heavy homespun, calfskin boots, thick trousers tucked
inside the boots, and fur-lined overshoes over the boots. Over all
these were worn Canadian hand-knit stockings, very heavy and thick,
colored bright red, which came up nearly to the thighs, and still over
that a light leather shoe. Their coats were generally fur or buffalo
skin with fur caps with ear protectors, either fur or wool tippets.
Also a red silk sash that went round the body and tied on the left
side with a double bow with tassels."
Can you not see one of those hairy old bears peering out of his furs, vain
in scarlet sash and tassels, and with his vast feet planted on the
dashboard? What were on his fore paws? double-pegged mittens, leather
gauntlets, fur gloves, wristlets, and muffettees?
Mr. Twining declared that the skill of American drivers equalled that of
English coachmen, though they had little of the smart appearance of the
latter, "neither having the hat worn on one side, nor greatcoat, nor
boots, but wearing coarse blue jackets, worsted stockings, and thick
shoes."
A traveller calling himself a Citizen of the World, writing in 1829, noted
with pleasure that the drivers on American coaches neither asked for nor
took a fee, but simply wished the passengers a polite good morning. Other
Englishmen greeted this fact with approval. Mr. Miner tells us "tipping"
was unknown--which was so customary, indeed so imperative, in England.
Sometimes travellers who went frequently over the same route would make a
gift to the driver.
The custom of "shouldering," which was for the coachman to take the fare
of a way-passenger--one who did not register or start at the
booking-office--and pocket it without making any return to the coach agent
or proprietor, was universal in England. Some coach companies suffered
much by it, and it was a tidy bit of profit to the unscrupulous coachman.
Shouldering was common also in the new world, and called by the same name.
There were no "spotters" on coaching lines as on street railways.
As in every trade, profession, or calling, stage-coaching had a
vocabulary--call it coaching slang if you will. Among English coachmen
"skidding" was checking with a shoe or drag or "skid-pan" the wheels of
the coach when going down hill, thus preventing them from revolving, and
slackening the progress of the coach. "Fanning" the horses was, in
coachman's tongue, whipping them; "towelling" was flogging them; and
"chopping" the cruel practice of hitting the horse on the thigh with the
whip. "Pointing" was hitting the wheeler with the point of the whip. A
"draw" was a blow at the leader. If the thong of the whip lapped round any
part of the harness, it was called "having a bite." "Throat-lashing" was
another term.
[Illustration: View of Middletown, Connecticut.]
Another and expressive use of the word bite was to indicate a narrow strip
of gravel or broken stone on the near side of a winding road on a steep
hill. The additional friction on the wheel on one side made a natural drag
or brake, while the wheels of the ascending coach did not touch it.
The drivers on local lines grew to be on terms of most friendly intimacy
with dwellers along the route. They bore messages, brought news, carried
letters and packages, transacted exchange, and did all kinds of shopping
at the citywards end of the route. An old coach-driver in Ayer,
Massachusetts, told me with much pride that he always bought bonnets in
Boston for all the women along his route who could not go to town; and
that often in the spring the bandboxes were piled high on the top of his
coach; that he never bought two alike, and that there wasn't another
driver on the road that the women would trust to perform this important
duty save himself.
The great bell-crowned hat which the driver wore in summer on lines
leaving Boston often was crammed with papers and valuables, and one of the
rules of the Eastern Stage Company at one time was, "No driver shall carry
anything except in his pocket." It is said many of the drivers grew bald
from the constant weight on their heads.
The constant imbibing of ale, brandy, and rum-and-milk by English coachmen
at coaching inns was echoed in America by drivers at every tavern at which
the stage-coach stopped. The driver was urged to drink by coach passengers
who had far better have implored him not to drink. Many an old driver
showed by the benignant purple glow of his nose that the importunities of
the travellers had been duly silenced by more than ample hard cider, gin,
and New England rum.
A great day on the coaches was when schoolboys and college boys went home
on their vacations. The tops of the coaches were filled with their square
boxes, which packed like cord-wood. On these boxes and within the coach
swarmed the boys, pea-shooters in hand. A favorite target was the
pike-keeper at the toll-gate, and those who left the coach first fared
worst. Our boys have but a feeble imitation of these good times when they
riot into a railway car together for a few hours of hurried travel to
their city homes.
The stage-drivers were universally kind and careful of all children placed
under their charge; even young children, boys and girls, were intrusted to
their care.
One old gentleman tells me that in the days of his youth he rode by
stage-coach to and from school, and so strong was his longing for a
seafaring life, with such a flavor of salt water and tar did he englamour
every unusual event, that it was inevitable with the imaginativeness of a
child he should compare this trip by stage to a sea voyage; the roads and
fields he mentally termed the ocean, the driver was the captain, the
inside of the coach the cabin, the top the deck, and so on. He was honored
by having a seat with the driver; and as the day waned, and the ship came
to anchor, and all disembarked for supper at a stage tavern, he was
further honored by eating supper with the driver and being treated to a
glass of toddy. After the coach was again under way the driver had some
tardy compunctions that the toddy had been rather strong drink for a
growing boy, and said plainly that he feared the young traveller felt the
liquor and might tumble from his high seat. He was not reassured when the
boy answered dreamily, "Never mind, I can swim." After glancing sharply at
him, the driver stopped his horses, and ignominiously forced the boy to
descend and make the rest of the journey inside the coach.
Nothing is more marked than the changes in travelling-bags and trunks from
those of stage-coach days. When our ancestors crossed the ocean they
transported their belongings in wooden chests--common sea-chests and
chests of carved wood. I have seen no mention of _trunks_ in any old
colonial inventories, though trunks existed and are named by Shakespere.
These old trunks were metal coffers, and usually small. When Judge Sewall
went to England in 1690, he bought trunks for his little daughters--trunks
of leather or hide with their initials studded in metal nails. This shape
of trunk lasted till the days of the railroad. Nearly all old families
have one or more of these old trunks in their garrets. They were stout
enough of frame, and heavy enough of frame to have lasted in larger
numbers, and for centuries, but their heavy deerskin or pigskin covering
often grew sorely offensive through harboring moths; and as they held but
little, and were very heavy, they were of no use for a modern wardrobe.
Their long narrow forms, however, were seen laden on every stage-coach, in
company with carpet bags and leather sacks, and the schoolboy who owned
one was a proud fellow.
An ancient travelling bag is shown on page 333. It is of a heavy woollen
homespun stuff ribbed like corduroy, mounted with green leather bindings,
straps, handles, etc. It is shaped like a mail-bag, and the straps laced
through large eyelet holes. This bag is believed by its owners to have
held the possessions of John Carver on the _Mayflower_.
[Illustration: Deer's Hide and Pigskin Trunks.]
Not only were stage-drivers respected by all persons in every community,
but they had a high idea of their own dignity and of the importance of
their calling. Little Jack Mendum, who drove the Salem mail-coach, did
not deem it an exaggeration of his position when he roared out angrily in
answer to a hungry passenger who kept urging him to drive faster, "When I
drive this coach I am the whole United States of America."
One coachman who drove from Boston to Hartford was deeply tanned by summer
suns and winter winds, and his mates spoke to each other of him as Black
Ben. An English traveller, bustling out of the coach office with
importance, shouted out: "I and my people want to go with Black Ben; are
you the coachman they call Black Ben?" "Blackguards call me Black Ben,"
was the answer, "but gentlemen call me Mr. Jarvis."
The list of the coach-drivers employed by the Eastern Stage Company still
exists, and has been printed by Mr. Rantoul. From it we learn that
coach-driving went by families--it was an hereditary calling. Many
families had two sons in this work, there were four Potter brothers, three
Ackermans, and three Annables, all coachmen. Their names were often
curious, Moses Caney, John Foss, Perley Annable, Eppes Potter, Ben Savory,
Fortune Tozzer.
Mr. Miner writes thus of stage-terms and stage-horses:--
"Every horse had a name. It was 'Git up, Jo; gwan, boys or gals; you
are shirky, Bill; you want touching up, Ben; if you don't do better,
Ben, I'll swap you for a mule.' All kinds of expressions. Some drivers
would fret a team to death, while others would get over the road and
you would never hear hardly a loud word to the team. It was just as
drivers themselves were constituted. All kinds of horses were used in
a stage team, runaways, kickers, biters, and all kinds of tricksters.
If the owners could not manage them they went on stage teams, and did
good work, and never died. They were seldom sick, as they were
well-fed and groomed, and had quick time and short trips. We had some
fine teams of matched horses, especially on the Connecticut River
roads, which would have sold for seven hundred to a thousand dollars a
pair. The horses were usually what were termed native horses, large,
full of muscle and gimp, of English descent."
[Illustration: Old Carpet Bag.]
It was the testimony of John Lambert, an English gentleman who travelled
here in the early years of this century, that the horses used on coaches
in all settled parts of the United States were as good as English
coach-horses.
It serves to show with force the pride and vanity of coach owners and
drivers to be told that on the Boston and Salem line the coachmen
sometimes attached false sweeping tails to the horses, to dress them up as
it were and put on a good appearance--this is ante- if not anti-docking
days.
Elaborate rules for coach-driving are given in old-time and modern manuals
of coaching. Mr. Fairman Rogers's descriptions are the plainest. Mr.
Miner tells very simply of the old modes of driving in his day:--
"On four-horse teams were four reins. The near wheel-horse rein came
under the little finger of left hand, the leader over the next finger.
The off wheel-horse rein over third finger, right hand, leader over
first finger. Six horses would require two more reins, and one more
finger on each hand. Some drivers would wear mittens, and have one
rein over and one under the fingers. These among good reinsmen were
called Dummies or old Farmers. The whip was carried in the right hand,
horizontally pointing to the left, toward the ground, not as pictured
at the present day. A good driver who was interested in his team
always sat up straight, and kept his reins and whip in a stylish
manner. He talked to his horses as he would to a person. Every horse
knew him; they knew him by his voice whether they were late for cars
or early, and just where to make up time if late. A driver of this
kind always had a good team, able to respond under all conditions."
Even the whip of good drivers was of regulation size. The rule of
perfection was that it should be five feet one and one-half inches from
butt to holder and twelve feet five inches long from holder to end of
point of lash--so it was an imposing machine.
On summer routes in the mountains of New Hampshire the stage-driver
lingered long. Over the backbone of Vermont he guides in our own day a few
rusty coaches.
Among the popular stage-drivers of the New Hampshire mountains before the
advent of frequent railroads, were Charles Sanborn, of Pittsfield, who
drove between Centre Harbor and West Ossipee; and H. P. Marden, who drove
between Plymouth and the Profile House, White Mountains, during the summer
months; and James F. Langdon, of Plymouth,--the three being among the last
to give up the reins and the whip, when called to that far-away country
"from whence no traveller returns." In 1861, Mr. Sanborn drove between
Centre Harbor and North Conway, a distance of thirty-five miles. He drove
over that route eleven years, at first requiring but forty horses, while
in 1872 no less than one hundred and twenty were in constant use, besides
a large number of coaches, wagons, and sleighs. On one of his round trips,
Mr. Sanborn took three hundred and fifty dollars in passenger fares alone,
while the express business was proportionately large. Of course all this
seems small to those who know little of the days before railroads ran by
every man's dooryard, but those who have "staged it" in the old times will
understand what a busy time the driver on such a route must have had. Mr.
Sanborn was over six feet in height and of Herculean frame, his broad
shoulders and sturdy gait betokening a strength which gave his passengers
the greatest confidence in his ability to carry them safely through any
accident. He seldom lost his temper, even under the most trying
circumstances, and was a jolly man withal. Major Lewis Downing of Concord
tells me that on his route Sanborn had the good-will of every one, and in
Pittsfield, where was his home, he was highly esteemed for his sterling
character and strict integrity.
In England the coachmen and coaches had an Annual Parade, a coaching-day,
upon the Royal Birthday, when coach-horses, coachmen, and guards all were
in gala attire. In America similar annual meetings were held in many
vicinities. In Concord, New Hampshire, which was a great coaching centre,
an annual coaching parade was given in the afternoon and a "Stagemen's
Ball" in the evening. "Knights of the whip" from New Hampshire and
neighboring states attended this festival. The ball was held in the
celebrated Grecian Hall--celebrated for its spring floor--which was built
over the open carriage-houses and woodsheds attached to the Eagle
Coffee-house, called now the Eagle Hotel. This dancing hall, built in
1827, took its name from the style of its architecture. At one end was a
great painting of the battle of New Orleans, with Jackson on horseback. It
was the rallying-point for all great occasions,--caucuses, conventions,
concerts, even a six weeks' theatrical season.
Political economists solve the problem of a sudden loss of one trade by
saying that others can easily be found. But it is difficult for a man
learned in one handicraft to become proficient in others; and it is most
difficult for the old or even middle-aged to learn a new trade.
No more melancholy example of an entire class of workmen deprived of work
and subsistence through no fault of their own can be found than in these
old coachmen, especially in England. Their work left them with astonishing
rapidity, and they refused to realize the fact that their occupation was
going out of existence, and that railroads would supersede coaches. In
England the employment of the drivers of coaches on the railroads was
almost unknown; they ended their days as humble workers in stables or as
omnibus drivers, or, worse still, upon carts working on the road; sorry
lives compared to the cheery work on a coach. A few took to farming, and
made pretty poor work of it.
[Illustration: Sign of David Reed's Tavern.]
In America, especially in New England if they were young and strong and
quick-witted enough to read coming events and adjust themselves early in
the day to altered conditions, they obtained positions on the railroads,
as brakemen, conductors, ticket-sellers, express-agents, depot-masters,
never as engineers--driving horses does not fit a man to drive an engine.
Often these brakemen and conductors advanced in position as the railroads
grew. It was not unusual a decade ago in the obituary notices of men who
had acquired wealth through the railways, to read that these men had in
early life been stage-drivers; but they were usually men who had amassed
some capital before the era of the railroad, or very young stage-drivers
when steam carriage came.
Benjamin Pierce Cheney, one of the wealthiest men of Boston, an owner of
vast railroad properties, founder of the rich Cheney Express Company,
chief owner of the American Express Company, one of the Wells-Fargo
Company, one of the builders of the Northern Pacific and other great
Western railroads, began his business life a strong boy of seventeen
driving the coach from Exeter, New Hampshire, to Nashua. For six years he
drove fifty miles every day; then he became stage agent, and agent for the
Lowell and Nashua Railroad, then railroad owner. Chester W. Chapin
(afterwards president of the Boston and Albany Railroad) ran a stage line
between Springfield and Hartford. The early members of the firm which
formed Harnden's Express were nearly all connected with stage-coach lines.
Certainly much consideration was shown the old employees of the stage
roads.
It was said by an old coachman of the Eastern Stage Company that all its
men were given positions on the railroads if so desired; "All who wished
had something to do," and facilities were given them also to benefit by
the new railroads. For instance, after the steam cars were running between
Salem and Boston the stage-drivers from Portsmouth and other towns were
given free passes on the railroad. They could thus go to Boston and
transact their old "errand-business," from which they had so much profit.
The fast-growing express companies of Harnden and Adams also employed
many of the old workers on the stage-coach lines. Some resisted the new
mode of travel. Major Shaw of Salem threatened to ruin the railroad with a
new opposition stage line, but Americans in general have been ever quicker
to accept changes and innovations than the English. They were more
"uptaking," as the Scotch say,--that is, quicker to perceive, accept, and
adopt; we breathe in that trait with the air of the new world; so American
coach employees accepted the railroad and profited by it.