Stage-coach and Tavern Days

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 (#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.

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.

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 £27 10s., 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.

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 (#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.

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 (#Page_266), and one of the stanch, well-equipped modern ones used in mountain travel, such as is shown facing page 268 (#Page_269).

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.

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 (#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.

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.

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.

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.

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.