USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Brookline > Proceedings of the Brookline Historical Society at the annual meeting > Part 22
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Before the white man settled on Shawmut, as the old peninsula of Boston was called, the Indians had their paths or trails west- ward through the wilderness between the Bay and their settlements on the inland lakes and streams in the Connecticut Valley and beyond.
When the Wabbaquassets came from what is now Woodstock, Connecticut, with sacks of Indian corn for the nearly starved colonists in the fall after Governor Winthrop arrived (1630), they travelled to and fro by one of their trails which no doubt had been frequently travelled before and was easily followed by what were to them well known landmarks.
The earliest English travellers westward, so far as known, were John Oldham, Samuel Hall and two others who, in 1633, started for Connecticut to look for a good place for a new settlement,- as if anywhere within twenty miles of Boston was not new enough in 1633 1
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Knowing of the trail used by the Indians three years earlier, they followed it from Watertown, because they realized it would be the easiest line of travel; would strike the fording or crossing- places of streams, avoid bad swamps, and, what was of equal if not greater importance, would take them by the Indian villages scattered along the route, where they could obtain food and lodging.
Other pioneers started out by the same route, and little by little the original trail became recognized as an established line of travel. Followed by larger parties and by those who took their families, their horses and cattle, the faintly marked path became deeply worn and clearly defined. It was known as "the way to Connecticut," and the early records of grants of land in what are today Wayland, Sudbury, Marlborough, and other towns specify areas of more or less acres along the "Connecticut Path," as it was designated, which, after it became still more broadly marked, was named the "Connecticut Road."
In what is now Wayland, formerly a part of Sudbury, the old path forked. The northern branch, passing through Marlborough, Worcester, and Brookfield, was known as the "Bay Path," and extended straight to the Connecticut River and the settlement of Agawam, now the City of Springfield.
It would be presumption for the writer to attempt to give any description of these wilderness paths -the only lines of communi- cation for the early colonists between the widely scattered settle- ments,- when the description as given by J. G. Holland in his story of Old Agawam, under the title of "The Bay Path," is avail- able for quotation :
" The principal communication with the eastern settlement was by a path marked by trees a portion of the distance, and by slight clearings of brush and thicket for the remainder. No stream was bridged, no hill graded, and no marsh drained. The path led through woods which bore the marks of centuries, over barren hills that had been licked by the Indians' hounds of fire, and along the banks of streams in which the seine had never been dragged. The path was known as 'the Bay Path' or the path to the Bay, and received its name in the same manner as the mulitudinous 'old Bay-roads' that lead to Boston from every quarter of Mas- sachusetts. It was wonderful what a powerful interest was attached to the Bay Path. It was the channel through which laws were communicated, through which flowed news from distant friends, and through which came loving letters and messages. It was the vaulted passage along which echoed the voices from across the ocean, and through which, like low-toned thunder, rolled the din of the great world. That rough thread of soil, chopped by the blades of a hundred streams, was a bond that radiated at each terminus into a thousand fibres of love and interest, and hope and memory.
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" It was the one way left open through which the sweet tide of sympathy might flow. Every rod had been prayed over by friends on the journey and friends at home.
" The Bay Path was charmed ground-a precious passage,-and during the spring, the summer and the early autumn, hardly a settler at Agawam went out of doors, or changed his position in the fields, or looked up from his labor, or rested on his paddle upon the bosom of the river, without turning his eyes to the point at which the Path opened from the brow of the wooded hill upon the east, where now the bell of the huge arsenal tells hourly of the coming of a stranger along the path of time. And when some worn and weary man came in sight, upon his half-starved horse, or two or three pedestrians, bending beneath their packs, and swinging their sturdy staves, were seen approaching, the village was astir from one end to the other.
"And when one of the settlers started forth upon the journey to the Bay, with his burden of letters and messages, and his number- less commissions for petty purchases, the event was one well known to every individual, and the adventurer received the benefit of public prayer for the prosperity of his passage and the safety of his return."
From the Massachusetts Colony records we learn that in August, 1633, at a Court holden at Boston, "It is agreed that there shall be a sufficient Cart-bridge made in some convenient place over Muddy River," etc.
In March; 1634, at a Court holden at Newe Towne, " It is ordered that Rich. Dumer and John Johnson shall build a sufficient cart- bridge over Muddy River before the next General Court and that Boston, Rocksburry, Dorchester, Newtowne and Watertown shall equally contribute to it."
The charge for this bridge was £15 3s. 6d., and in 1640 it was thus apportioned : Boston £6, Roxbury £5, Dorchester £1 75. 8d., Watertown {1 75. IId., Cambridge £1 17s. 11d.
According to the old Boston records, March 16, 1640, " William Colbron and Jacob Ellyott are appointed to lay out the highways at Muddy River towards Cambridge." This is the first reference to any definite road or highway in the hamlet of Muddy River.
Miss Woods (page 308) says the highway of 1640 " was laid out and trees spotted along the old Indian trail as far as the falls of the Charles River and through Reservoir Lane to Nonantum, where there was an Indian Village." This was probably the local con- nection between the Muddy River " sufficient cart-bridge " and the Connecticut Path where it crossed the river at Watertown. At the best it did nothing but more clearly indicate the path used by the Indians, so that those unskilled in woodcraft could follow it with little or no difficulty.
In the Boston records for 1657 we read :-
"Notice given both to Watertown and Cambridge that they might depute some to joyne with ours deputed to lay out a high-
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way from Muddy River to Watertown Mill, and upon the 21st of the 2nd month it was (by partys deputed by sd towns) performed .- the sd way is four rods in breadth and directed by markt trees."
This was a real highway, and was what is today our Washington street in Brookline, and its continuation through Brighton and Newton to the Watertown bridge at the falls.
Probably there was no agitation for speed regulations along this "four rod highway directed by marked trees"; the problems of sidewalks and street watering bothered nobody; but the associa- tion for good roads must have been an active force, because we read in 1661, " It is ordered yt ye surveyors att Muddy River shall forthwyth repayre ye highway to Watertown Mill which is defective."
From this time on this road was used by all those travelling east or west between Roxbury, Dorchester or Boston and Watertown or beyond to Worcester, and gradually became recognized as the principal highway by the different towns through which it passed and in which it was known as the "Connecticut Road."
In 1643 the Sudbury records designate it as the highway from Watertown to Mr. Dunster's farm and as such it was formally laid out in 1649. In 1674 Framingham laid out the old path or road as the highway to Nobscot and beyond, and a new cart bridge was built across the Sudbury River to take the place of the old horse bridge, which was ever afterwards known as the "New Bridge."
With the growth of the Colony the travel in both directions grew heavier and heavier, and in the progress of time what had been a path through forest and across clearing, faintly traced by the soft moccasins of the Indians, developed into what was termed "The King's Highway." After the Revolution, it lost its royal title, and is commonly referred to in the records as "the great road " or the "post road from New York to Boston."
Perhaps the best reference to the ancient highway can be quoted from Bond's History of Watertown :-
"The road extending westward from the Mill was at first some- times called the country road, but it has been much more commonly known as the Sudbury road since the planting of that town (1639). It was the country road and it is often designated as such in deed, inventories, etc. It is now Main street and retains this name through Waltham to Weston. It is said that for a long time there was more travel on it than any road in the colonies. It was the great thoroughfare from Boston and its vicinity, passing over Boston Neck through Roxbury, Brookline, New Cambridge (New- ton), and over Mill Bridge ;- thence westward through Watertown, Waltham, Weston to the western part of the Colony, to Connecticut, New York and the Southern Colonies. Some of this travel was
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diverted by the building of the Cambridge bridge, and still more by the ' Worcester Turnpike.' "
As a necessity supplied creates another want, so the development of the old road by constant travel in both directions created the demand for stopping places at convenient points, where refresh- ment and lodging for man and beast could be obtained. The "ordinary " of colonial days, as it was then called, and the " tavern" of later periods, supplied the wants of travellers from Boston to all outlying points and distant places.
Many an interesting anecdote or story could be told of the part the old taverns along the great road to Worcester played in local history, in the early Indian Wars, and later in the Revolutionary period, to say nothing of their facilities and furnishings as places of entertainment for the ordinary traveller.
Some of the early laws regulating the old inns, ordinaries or taverns, make interesting reading today. To mention only a few particulars :- the law provided that "all public houses shall be on or near the high streets, roads and places of great resort"; inn- holders were required to be furnished with suitable provisions for the refreshment and entertainment of strangers and travellers, pasturing, stableroom, hay and provender for horses, on pain of being deprived of their license ; and " no licensed person shall sell oats for more than one penny the quart " ; taverners were forbidden to have or keep in or about their houses, out-houses, yards, gardens or places to them belonging, any dice, cards, tables, bowls, shuffle- board, billiards, coyts, cales, logats or any other implements used in gaming.
Apprentices, servants or negroes were not allowed to have any manner of drink except with their master's special order, and no inhabitant of the town where the inn was located, or from any other town, except travellers or persons upon business or extra- ordinary occasions, was to be permitted to sit drinking or tippling for more than the space of one hour. Taverners were strictly for- bidden to entertain Pedlars, particularly if they were selling indigo or feathers, and no drinking or tippling was to be permitted after nine o'clock in the night. Singing, fiddling, piping or any other Musick, dancing or revelling were not by law to be suffered or exercised in any tavern. If the Inn-holder saw fit to give credit, the law passed in 1726 said that all above ten shillings should be forfeited, and action to recover any such debt was barred. All these and many more regulations were intended to carry out the declaration of the law-makers of long ago,-that, “ Forasmuch as the ancient, true and principal use of inns, taverns, ale-houses, victualling houses and other houses for common entertainment, is for the Receipt, relief and lodging of travellers and strangers and
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the refreshment of persons upon lawful business, or for the neces- sary supply of the wants of such poor persons as are not able by greater quantities to make their provision of victuals and are not intended for the entertainment of lewd or idle people to spend or consume their money .or time there,-therefore, "Be it enacted, etc."
Each tavern or inn was also required to have a sign affixed to the house or in some conspicuous place near the same, and if for any reason the license was revoked then the sign should at once be taken down.
The tavern was usually the only public place in town - except the meeting house on the days of worship - where the people were accustomed to congregate. Therefore the publishment board, the pillory, the stocks, and all other features of public interest centered about the tavern. If any amusement came into town or was arranged for by local citizens, it was at or near the tavern if pos- sible. For example, this advertisement appeared in the Boston Evening Post of January 11, 1773 :-
" This is to give notice that there will be a Bear and a number of turkeys set up as a mark next Thursday Beforenoon at the Punch Bowl Tavern in Brookline."
There were two other taverns in Brookline, besides the Punch Bowl. Dana's Tavern stood facing the present Harvard square, approximately where Rhodes Brothers' store now is. It was burned in 1816 (Woods, p. 49-51). Richards Tavern, or Richards Hotel, as it was sometimes called, was built by Elhanan Win- chester, Sr., father of the famous preacher, about 1770, with the assistance of his brethren of the "New Lights," as they were called. It was a large house and had a good-sized hall or room for their meetings. The house passed through the possession of Ebenezer and Joseph White to Ebenezer Richards, who kept it as a public house. It faced Heath street, near where Hammond street now crosses. The Worcester turn-pike passed close by and just to the rear of the house, where was located one of the turnpike gates with the toll house for the gate-keeper.
It continued as a tavern until about 1830. It then passed to Henry Pettes of Boston, and afterwards was owned by Mark W. Sheafe of Portsmouth. As the Sheafe House it is shown on the town map of 1844 and 1855. The old house is still standing, and a photograph taken in 1904 accompanies this paper.
Miss Woods gives quite a full account of the old Punch Bowl Tavern, which was kept as a public house from previous to 1740 to 1839. The Brookline Selectmen held their meetings either at Dana's or the Punch Bowl. The Town Treasurer's cash book shows that from 1787 to 1800 the patronage was given Dana. After
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William Laughton became the landlord at the Punch Bowl in 1800 or 1801, he evidently secured the business. Payments were usually made annually for the previous year's meetings.
To quote several entries in the cash book :-
May 14, 1799-Pd. Jonathan Dana pr order Jan. 1799 for enter- taining the Selectmen from 28 December 1797 to the 4th December 1798 - Fifteen meetings £18.25.
1800-Pd. Jonathan Dana for entertaining the Select- men while transacting the Business of the town at his house from 3d Jan. 1799 to 7th March 1800, £5.3.9.
1803-To cash pd the Selectmens expenses at Mr. Laugh- ton's Tavern for one year endg March 1803- $11.42.
It must have been a busy place in front of the old tavern in Punch Bowl Village with all the through travel from the towns to the west. We can imagine the crowd of the idle, the curious, the news- gatherers and those with some definite purpose gathered about the tavern, in tap room and on the benches outside, watching for what was the event of the day, the coming, stopping and driving away of the New York stages.
But we must leave the old taverns, which were hospitable and comfortable, with their landlords, who were the newsmongers of the community, and, in many cases, the most prominent and influential men in the town, and get back to the road from Boston to Worcester.
By this time more or less regular communication had been estab- lished. Post riders first travelled the road on horseback with the mail stowed in their saddlebags, and the post riders were in turn succeeded by mail and stagecoaches.
Lincoln's History of Worcester, published in 1836, tells the story quite completely, from which the following abstracts are taken : -
Prior to 1755 a letter from Boston to Philadelphia took three weeks. In that year (1755) great reforms accelerated the speed, so that only fifteen days were required. The first stage line was advertised in the Boston Evening Post, July 6, 1772, as from New York to Boston by J. & N. Brown, whose announcement read, "Gentlemen and ladies who choose this new, useful and expensive undertaking may depend upon good usage and that the coach will always put up at houses on the road where the best entertainment is provided." These coaches were scheduled to take thirteen days from New York to Boston.
But the line of the Messrs. Brown did not continue until the Revolution. In 1774 there was a post once a week between
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Hartford and Boston, through Worcester, by post riders who took six days for the trip.
In 1783 was established the first stage line which succeeded and continued until the days of railroads.
Levi Pease and Reuben Sikes, then of Somers, Ct., and Suffield, Ct., respectively, began business October 20, 1783, and announced that they had furnished themselves "with two convenient wagons." One of these wagons left Boston at the "Sign of the Lamb " every Monday morning, stopped for the night at Martin's in North- borough, and the next day passed through Worcester and so beyond to Hartford, taking four days for the trip. The other wagon left Hartford for Boston at the same time and stopped at the same taverns en route. Passengers were carried at 4d. per mile. After a discouraging beginning, the line soon grew popular and profitable, and the proprietors did their best to please the public by increasing the speed and giving more accommodations. In 1786 the running time in summer had been reduced so much that a traveller could leave Boston Monday morning and reach New York the following Thursday evening, so that, as the adver- tisement reads, "by this unparalleled speed, a merchant may go from Boston to New York and return again in less than ten days. which is truly wonderful," and adds further for the information of the travelling public, "it is the most convenient and expeditious way of travelling that can be had in America, and in order to render it the cheapest, the price is lowered from 4d. to 3d. per mile, with liberties to passengers to take 14 pounds of baggage."
With the steady and profitable growth of their business, Pease and Sikes constantly improved their equipment from the " con- venient wagon " with its pair of half-starved horses, to the palatial (Concord) stage coach with its great leather braces and springs, with seats inside and out, its team of four or six powerful and well-fed roadsters, all of which, together with improvements in the way of better roads, left nothing to be desired in the way of travel- ling facilities ; or, to use the exact words of the historian of 1836, "the speed of travelling and its facilities were increased almost beyond measure."
For over one hundred and fifty years the "great road " was the trunk line to Worcester, but the zenith of its glory was reached just one hundred years ago, when, so far as " rapid transit " was concerned, it was rendered quite out of date by the building of the Worcester Turnpike in 1806 and 1807.
It was supposed that this turnpike would give the maximum speed in the minimum time because it was laid out on the simple mathematical principle that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points. The turnpike engineers paid little attention
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to grades, and seemingly forgot that the actual distance travelled may be as long over a hill as around its base, to say nothing of the greater effort to the traveller climbing up one side and holding back when going down on the other.
Turnpikes had been built in other states and in various parts of Massachusetts before the Worcester Turnpike was proposed. The first one in the country, it is believed, was from Alexandria, Virginia, to the lower Shenandoah. In Massachusetts, the Act of June 11, 1796, incorporated a turnpike from Western (now Warren) to Scott's Tavern in Palmer, and in the following decade the General Court passed many acts incorporating turnpikes in different parts of the state. During this period each incorporation was authorized by a special act which detailed the conditions of laying out, the rates of toll and all other particulars.
In 1805, Chapter 125 was passed, which was entitled “An Act defining the general Powers and Duties of Turnpike Corpora- tions," and when the Worcester Turnpike was incorporated the following year (1806), it was under the provisions of this general act.
The principal provisions of this act required the route proposed for any turnpike to be viewed by a committee at the expense of the petitioners - perhaps an old-time junket,-public notice of the proposed route had to be advertised in the county papers ; the corporation was liable for land damages, but was given authority to purchase and hold lands over which to make the road. Every such road had to be not less than four rods wide and the travelled part of same not less than twenty-five feet in any part. No gate could be erected on any county or town road previously established, and no gates on the turnpike itself where full toll was demanded could be erected, except said gate was ten miles distant from any other turnpike gate on the same road, unless otherwise specifically provided.
The proprietors were authorized to demand and receive at gates where full rates were charged, the following tolls :-
For each coach, chariot, phaeton or other four-wheel spring car- riage drawn by two horses - 25c., and 2c. for each additional horse.
For every wagon drawn by two horses - Ioc., and 2c. for each additional horse.
For every cart or wagon drawn by two oxen-Ioc. and if by more than two, 12 1-2C.
For every curricle - 15C.
For every chaise, chair, sulkey, or other carriage for pleasure, drawn by one horse - 12 1-2C.
For every cart, wagon or truck drawn by one horse - 6 1-4C. each.
For every man and horse - 4C.
For every sleigh or sled drawn by two oxen or horses - 8c., and Ic. for each additional ox or horse.
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For all horses, mules or neat cattle led or driven besides those in teams or carriages - Ic. each.
Swine or sheep - 3c. by the dozen.
In case the carts or wagons had wheels with fellies or tires six inches broad or more, the rates were half what otherwise would be charged.
Certain exemptions were made by which no tolls could be demanded from foot travellers; from those driving to or from their usual place of public worship; from those passing on military duty ; or from those living in the town where the gate was located, unless they were going beyond the limits of the town : and one could also go without charge to and from the grist mill, or on the common and ordinary business of family concerns.
The proprietors were not entitled to demand toll at any gate unless there was erected in some conspicuous place, exposed to view, a signboard with the rates of toll fairly and legibly written or printed in capital letters.
The earliest map of Brookline, drawn in 1728 to find the center of the town, so as to locate the schoolhouse, shows only the Cam- bridge road, the Newton road (Watertown) and the Sherburn road. Of the three, the last is generally believed to be the oldest, dating from as early as 1640, when laid out by Eliot and Colbron.
In June, 1658, a highway was laid out "through land of Jno. White att Muddy River and so by Thos. Gardners land to the farm of Isaac Stedman," and later in the same year Ensign Jno. Hull, Jos. Cotton, Mr. Jacob Sheafe, Thos. Lake and Wm. Davis de- clared it to be the town's highway and further that "ye other way in ye law is hereby relinquished." This 1658 laying out was the old Sherburn Road, and took the place of the highway of 1640 which preceeded it, although probably on the same general lines. The Sherburn road is frequently referred to later as the "old road." Jno. White's land was in our present Village Square and westerly. Thomas Gardner's land was where is now the corner of Boylston street and Sumner road, and in 1806 was the property of Benjamin Goddard. Isaac Stedman's farm was at the corner of Heath and Hammond streets, and later was owned by Elhanan Winchester and Ebenezer Richards.
Jackson's History of Newton mentions the existence of this road from Boston (Brookline) bounds through the farms of Wiswall and Haynes and other small plots to the wading place across the Charles River at the Upper Falls, as early as 1671, and on the map showing Newton in 1700, this road is marked as the " Sherborn and Boston Road."
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