THE PAINS OF STAGE-COACH TRAVEL
In describing the pleasures and pains, the delights and dangers, the
virtues and vicissitudes of the travel of early days by stage-coach in
America, I have chosen to employ largely the words and descriptions of
contemporary travellers rather than any wording of my own, not only
because any such description of mine would be simply a transcription of
their facts, but because there is a sense of closeness of touch, a
pleasant intimacy, and indeed a profound sympathy thereby established with
those old travellers and modes of travel which cannot be obtained by
modern wording; nor indeed can their descriptions and travellers' tales be
improved. Careless or ignorant writers often portray early stage-coach
travel in America in the same terms as would be used of similar travel in
England, and as having the same accessories; it was in truth very
different in nearly all of its conditions, as different as were the
vehicles used in America.
I do not believe that travellers in coaching days found much pleasure in
long journeys by stage-coach. They doubtless enjoyed short trips, or
possibly a day on a coach, as we do now, but serious travel was serious
indeed. In winter it must have appeared a slow form of lingering death.
Grant Thorburn, the New York seedsman, tells of the first journey he ever
made by land. It was in the winter of 1831; he was then fifty-eight years
old.
"We left Hoboken with about fifteen passengers closely packed in a
stage with wheels, and a very neat coach, and so foolish was I and
ignorant (never having travelled on land) I thought this same fine
close carriage would go through thick and thin with me all the way to
Albany: in two short hours my eyes were opened. We stopped in
Hackensack at a tavern grocery grogshop and post-office all under one
roof, for we carried Uncle Sam's letter bags, which was another
grievance, as we had to stop every few miles to change the mails. The
keeper of the office began to bluster and swear he had neither
carriages covered or uncovered to forward so many passengers. He said
the Jockey Club in New York took all the money and gave him all the
trouble. In short, says he, unless you remain here till four o'clock
P.M. you must go on with such conveyance as I can furnish. We applied
to our Hoboken driver. He said his orders were to drop us at
Hackensack and bring back the coaches; and sure enough he turned about
and back he went. I stepped into the barroom--a large place. In the
centre stood a large old-fashioned tin-plate stove, surrounded by
fifteen or twenty large lazy fellows. After waiting an hour we were
sent forward, viz. two in an open chair, four in an open wagon, and
the remainder, eight I think, in a common Jersey farming wagon, all
the machines being without covers. It now commenced raining, and by
the time we got to the next stage, we looked like moving pillars of
salt, our hats and coats being covered to the thickness of an eighth
of an inch with ice transparents. At the town of Goshen we changed
the mail, thawed our garments, and ate our dinner. As we got north the
sleighing got better, so we were accommodated with a covered box and
runners, but alas! it was like the man's lantern without a candle. The
cover was of white wood boards placed a quarter of an inch apart
without paint, leather, or canvas to protect them from the weather.
"We travelled all night. The rain and snow descending through the
roof, our hats were frozen to our capes, and our cloaks to one
another. In the morning we looked like some mountain of ice moving
down the Gulf Stream. I thought the machine used at the Dry Dock would
have been an excellent appendage to have lifted us bodily into the
breakfast room: and this is what the horse-flesh fraternity in New
York advertise as their _safe_, _cheap_, _comfortable_, and
expeditious winter establishment for Albany."
[Illustration: Dalton Winter Stage.]
This latter account is certainly a hard blow to the lover of the "good old
times." Of tough fibre and of vast powers of endurance, both mental and
physical, must have been our grandfathers who dared to travel overland in
winter time. Coaches were often "snowed up" and had to be deserted by the
passengers, who were rescued in old pods and pungs, such as are shown on
pages 316 and 318, and the journey had to be continued in some of the
awkward coach-bodies or "boobies" set on runners like those on pages 362
and 364. Coaches were also overturned or blown off bridges by heavy winds.
Somewhat varied was Captain Hall's experience on the trip from
Fredericksburg to Richmond during the following January. The stage-coach
was appointed to start at 2 A.M., but at the blank looks of the captain,
the stage agent said, "Well, if it is so disagreeable to the ladies,
suppose we make it five?" The fare was five dollars. It took seventeen
hours to travel the sixty-six miles, and the coach stopped at ten taverns
on the way. At each his fellow-passengers all got out and took a mint
julep; perhaps he did likewise, which might account for the fact that he
pronounced the trip a pleasant one, though it rained; "your feet get wet;
your clothes become plastered with mud from the wheel; the trunks drink in
half a gallon of water apiece; the gentlemen's boots and coats steamed in
the confined air; the horses are draggled and chafed by the traces; the
driver got his neckcloth saturated"--and yet, he adds, "the journey was
performed pleasantly."
[Illustration: Chepachet Winter Stage.]
There were days in July, in midsummer, when in spite of the beauties of
Nature, the journey by stage-coach on the unwatered roads was not a thing
of pleasure. Whether on "inside" or "outside," the traveller could not
escape the dust, nor could he escape the fervor of the July sun. And when
the eye turned for relief to green pastures and roadsides, there was
reflected back to him the heated gold of the sunlight, for the fields
flamed with yellow and orange color. Sometimes accidents occurred. One may
be described, using the contemporary account of it to show what danger was
incurred and through what motive powers. In January, 1823, there was a
sharp competition between the two stage lines running between Albany and
New York, and apparently the stage-drivers on the rival lines could no
more be kept from racing than the old-time steamboat captain. The accident
was thus told in a newspaper of the day:--
"_To the Public_: The stage from New York to Albany was overset on the
Highlands, on Friday last, with six passengers on board; one of whom,
a gentleman from Vermont, had his collar-bone broken, and the others
were more or less injured, and all placed in the utmost jeopardy of
their lives and limbs by the outrageous conduct of the driver. In
descending a hill half a mile in length, an opposition stage being
ahead, the driver put his horses in full speed to pass the forward
stage, and in this situation the stage overset with a heavy crash
which nearly destroyed it, and placed the wounded passengers in a
dreadful dilemma, especially as the driver could not assist them, as
it required all his efforts to restrain the frighted horses from
dashing down the hill which must have destroyed them all. It was,
therefore, with the greatest difficulty, and by repeated efforts, the
wounded passengers extricated themselves from the wreck of the stage.
Such repeated wanton and wilful acts of drivers to gratify their
caprice, ambition, or passions, generally under the stimulus of ardent
spirits, calls aloud on the community to expose and punish these
shameful aggressions."
It should be added, in truth, that accidents on stage-coaches were seldom
with fatal results. Stage-coach travel was more disagreeable than deadly.
A stage-coach driver who had driven three hundred days a year for
thirty-five years, could boast that there had never been a serious
accident while he was driving, and scarcely any injury had been received
by any passenger.
Before the days of the turnpike the miserable bridges, especially of the
Southern colonies, added to the terrors of travel, though I have not
learned of frequent accidents upon them. The poet Moore wrote in the year
1800 of Virginia bridges:--
"Made of a few uneasy planks
In open ranks,
Over rivers of mud."
Near Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1812, a traveller by coach thus
found the bridge:--
"Three large logs were stretched across the creek, called sleepers,
and these supported a number of misshapen pieces called rafters,
thrown on at random, without being fixed either by nails or pins.
They had been disturbed by a freshet, and the driver alighted to
adjust them. On entering the bridge, the fore wheels gathered the
rafters in a heap which stopped the progress of the coach. This was
just as the driver was whipping up the fore horses. They sprang
forward, and disengaging themselves with a jerk, by pulling out the
staple of the main singletree, they set off at full speed with the
singletree rattling at their heels."
One horse was killed, the patient passengers alighted and pulled the coach
free themselves. At the next creek the horses plunged in the water and
swam across, while the passengers held up the mail-bags to keep them dry.
Weld tells of similar bridges and experiences in 1795 in Virginia.
Many of the bridges were rickety floating bridges. Mr. Twining experienced
the sense of insecurity, the dread of sinking, which I have also felt in
crossing a floating bridge in a heavy vehicle.
Mr. Twining tells also of the constant necessity of trimming and balancing
of the stage-wagon by all the passengers leaning to one side to prevent it
from overturning in the deep ruts which abounded. Mr. Weld wrote that the
driver "frequently called out, 'Now, gentlemen, to the right,' upon which
all the passengers stretched their bodies halfway out of the carriage to
balance on that side. 'Now, gentlemen, to the left,' and so on."
One traveller tells of a facetious travelling companion,--
"'A son of Neptune and of Mars also,' and could adapt the technical
language of these professions to the different movements of the
stage. When the coach heeled to one side he would call out, 'To the
right and left and cover your flanks--Whiz!'--and when we passed a
stream or ford he would sing out, 'By the deep nine,' accompanied with
all the movements of heaving the lead. The day was clear, pleasant,
and healthy; and in this strain of merriment and good humor we
prosecuted our journey much to our satisfaction."
Folk were easily amused in coaching days. One of the old stage-drivers
tells the following incident of stage travel. He was driving from Dover,
New Hampshire, to Haverhill, Massachusetts. During the spring months the
roads were often in a bad condition, and six horses and sometimes ten were
needed to draw the coach. In Epping, New Hampshire, was a particularly
hard place, locally known as the "Soap mine." Through this mine of mud the
driver hoped to guide his coach and six. But the coach was heavily loaded,
and in spite of the efforts of the skilful driver the team was soon fast
in the mud, the wheels settling to the hubs. All attempts of the horses to
start the coach were in vain. The driver finally climbed down from his
seat, opened the coach door and told the passengers the condition of
things, and politely asked them to get out and thereby lighten the load.
This they all positively refused to do; they had paid their fares and did
not think it their duty to get out into the mud. The driver said, "Very
well," quietly closed the door, and seated himself by the roadside. In a
few minutes the passengers asked, "What are you doing there?" The
driver calmly replied: "The horses cannot draw the load. There is only one
thing I can do. I shall wait until the mud dries up."
[Illustration: Advertisements from Connecticut Journal, July 3, 1815.]
It is needless to say that they did not wait for the mud to dry.
The state of the roads and the regard of some persons for stage-coach
travelling is shown in a letter written early in this century by a mother
to a girl of eighteen, visiting at Cambridge, and impatient to return
home. As the roads were bad her father delayed his going for her. Her
mother says:--
"Your papa would not trust your life in the stage. It is a very unsafe
and improper conveyance for young ladies. Many have been the
accidents, many the cripples made by accidents in those vehicles. As
soon as your papa can go, you may be sure he will go or send for you."
There was one curious and most depressing, even appalling, condition of
stage-coach travel. It seemed to matter little how long was your journey,
nor where you were going, nor whence you started, your coach always
started before daybreak. You had to rise in the dark, dress in the dark
most feebly illumined, eat a hurriedly prepared breakfast in the dark, and
start out in the blackness of night or the depressing chill of early
morning. We read that the greatest number of deaths take place in the
early morning, at daybreak, and it is not surprising, since it is the
time, of all the hours of the day, when earth offers the least to the
human soul to tempt it to remain here. It is no unusual thing to read in
travellers' accounts of journeys by stage-coach, of riding ten miles on
the coach, and then--breakfasting. We cannot wonder, therefore, at the
records of incessant dram-drinking during coach travel which we always
find in any minute accounts.
An English eye-witness, Captain Basil Hall, thus described the beginning
of a trip from Providence to Hartford in October, 1829:--
"The nominal hour of starting was five in the morning; but as
everything in America comes sooner than one expects, a great tall man
walked into the room at ten minutes before four o'clock to say it
wanted half an hour of five: and presently we heard the rumbling of
the stage coming to the door upwards of thirty minutes before the time
specified. Fortunately there were only five passengers, so we had
plenty of room; and as the morning was fine we might have enjoyed the
journey much, had we not been compelled to start so miserably early.
At the village of Windham we dined in a cheerful sunny parlour on a
neatly dressed repast excellent in every way, and with very pleasant
chatty company."
So forehanded were American coach-agents and coach-drivers that such
premature starts were not infrequent. Many a time an indignant passenger,
on time, but left behind, was sent off after the coach in a chaise with a
swift horse at full gallop.
Josiah Quincy tells thus of a trip on the Lancaster road during the winter
of 1826:--
"At three o'clock this morning the light of a candle under the door
and a rousing knock told me that it was time to depart, and shortly
after I left Philadelphia by the Lancaster stage, otherwise a vast
illimitable wagon, capable of holding some sixteen passengers with
decent comfort to themselves, and actually encumbered with some dozen
more. After riding till eight o'clock we reached the breakfast house,
where we partook of a good meal."
[Illustration: "A Wet Start at Daybreak."]
Longfellow wrote of his first acquaintance, in the year 1840, with the
Wayside Inn, otherwise Howe's Tavern, at Sudbury, Massachusetts: "The
stage left Boston about three o'clock in the morning, reaching the Sudbury
Tavern for breakfast, a considerable portion of the route being travelled
in total darkness, and without your having the least idea who your
companion might be."
Charles Sumner, writing in 1834 of a trip to Washington, says: "We started
from Boston at half-past three Monday morning with twelve passengers and
their full complement of baggage on board, and with six horses. The way
was very dark, so that, though I rode with the driver, it was some time
before I discovered we had six horses."
The unfortunate soul who wished or was forced to travel from Boston to New
York in 1802 was permitted a very decent start at ten in the morning. He
arrived in Worcester at eight at night. Thereafter at Worcester, Hartford,
and Stamford he had to start at three in the morning and ride till eight
at night. We can imagine his condition when arriving in New York. The
Lancaster and Leominster stages left Boston at sunrise. John Melish, the
English traveller, in 1795, was called to start at two in the morning,
when he set out from Boston to New York. Badger and Porter's Stage
Register for 1829 gives the time of starting of the stage to Fitchburg as
2 A.M.; the Albany stage was the same hour. The stage for Keene set out at
4 A.M., and the one for Bennington at 2 A.M. The stage for Norwich,
Connecticut, in 1833 started at 3 A.M. In 1842, the Albany coach left at 4
A.M. When we remember the meagre "light of other days," the pale rays of a
candle, usually a tallow one, the smoky flicker of a whale-oil lamp, the
dingy shadow of an ancient lantern, we can fancy the gloom of that early
morning departure; and when it was made in snow, or fog, or rain, there
seemed but scant romance in travel by stage-coach. A fine picture by Mr.
Edward Lamson Henry, "A Wet Start at Daybreak," is reproduced opposite
page 370. It is interesting and picturesque--to look at; but it was not
interesting to experience.
[Illustration: The Wayside Inn.]