USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume II > Part 11
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He was considered the best whip in the South County. "There was no noise, no cracking of the whip, no horn, but with the greatest ease and con- fidence in their driver the three beautifully groomed creatures flew over the
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road between Uxbridge and Milford. The leader was a most beautiful white horse," Mrs. Sharpe tells us.
She recalls Mr. Hayward's tale of Driver Perry's favorite jest. The horses were walkingly leisurely through the woods, the passengers inside the coach were chatting lazily, exchanging the news of the day, while those on top gazed dreamily over the passing landscape. Perry's quiet tap on the lantern at the side of the coach, and the horses broke into a mad gallop, to the consternation and fright of those who never had been caught before.
In Mendon in those days, the coach was the only communication with the outside world. At stage time the store and post office were always crowded with men, women and children, demanding the news, and inspecting the pas- sengers. In the days of the Civil War these country people were hungry for the latest word of battle, and thankful to the passenger who would read to them the tidings from his newspaper.
When Travel Became Commonplace-The Diary of Christopher Columbus Baldwin, librarian of the American Antiquarian Society contains several incidents of stage coaching in which he participated in about the year 1830. Here is one of them :
"January 29, 1831. Boston. I take the mail stage at 10 in the evening, the play being just through, and go to Worcester. It snows very fast. The stage turns over at Newtown and we are all tipt into the snow-nobody hurt. There were 10 inside. I came top of them all and was no way injured. I must be thankful for such mercies. We reach Worcester at 5. When I went down Sunday we were only four hours in going from Worcester, and I was told that the day previous they went in three hours and thirty minutes. (Bet- ter than 121/2 miles an hour, which indicates that the relays of horses must have traveled practically the entire distance at a full running gallop.)
The rapid progress of transportation in the county is illustrated by the following account of Mr. Baldwin's trip to New York in September, 1833, in company with his friend Henry K. Newcomb; "Sunday, September 23. We left at 6 o'clock in the morning in the mail stage. There are three daily stages from this place (Worcester) to Hartford-three back and forth. We went on the turnpike by way of Sturbridge, Stafford Springs, Tolland and so on. We reached Hartford about 2 o'clock in the afternoon without any mishap.
"September 24. Monday. At seven in the morning we went on board the new steamboat called the 'New England' and passed down the river for the city of New York. The day was very pleasant, and I sat on the top of the upper deck, or awning, most of the time until sundown. How many histori- cal events are awakened by a passage down the Connecticut! Pequots, Mohegans, Dutchmen, and the Blue Laws! What a mixture! Weathersfield
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with its onions! 'If there be any who have tears to shed, prepare to shed them now,' thought I. As we approached this venerable town I looked at it from the boat, but the most imposing object in sight was the State Prison. This is the town where my friend Doctor Samuel B. Woodward, superin- tendent of the Lunatic Asylum at Worcester, formerly resided and practiced. We stopped only at the wharf for a passenger.
"Our steamboat was perfectly new, having been running only two weeks. Many of the passengers, however, said that the engine was out of order, and expressed fears of accidents ; and when we were off Bridgeport some part of the machinery broke, greatly to the consternation of the passengers. This compelled us to put in for repairs. We stopped at a little village called Black Rock, being in the town of Fairfield. We reached there a little before sun- down. About twelve o'clock at night we left this place for New York, where we arrived about sunrise, Tuesday."
Thomas De Quincey struck at the pith of the joys of the fast-flying stage- coach, when, comparing travel by rail with travel as it was in the old days, he wrote: "Seated in the old mail-coach we needed no evidence out of ourselves to indicate the velocity. The vital experience of the glad animal sensibilities made doubts impossible on the question of our speed. We heard our speed, we saw it, we felt it a-thrilling; and this speed was not the product of blind, insensate energies that had no sympathy to give, but was incarnated in the fiery eyeballs of the noblest among brutes, his dilated nostril, his spasmodic muscles and thunder-beating hoofs."
The valedictory of that best beloved of all coachmen, Dickens' Tony Weller, is best of them all, when he said: "I consider that the rail is unconstitutional, and a inwader o' privileges. As to the comfort-as an old coachman I may say it-veres the comfort o' sitting in a harm-chair, a lookin' at brick walls, and heaps o' mud, never comin' to a public 'ouse, never seein' a glass o' ale, never goin' thro a pike, never meetin' a change o' no kind (hosses or otherwise) but always comin' to a place ven you comes to vun at all, the werry picter o' the last !
"As to the honor and dignity o' travellin', vere can that be vithout a coachman, and vats the rail to sich coachman as is sometimes forced to go by it, but a outrage and a insult! And as to the ingen, a nasty, wheezin', creakin', gaspin', puffin', bustin' monster always out of breath, with a shiny green and gold back like a onpleasant beetle; as to the ingen as is always a pourin' out red-hot coals at night and black smoke in the day, the sensiblest thing it does, in my opinion, is ven there's somethin' in the vay, and it sets up that 'ere frightful scream vich seems to say, 'now 'eres two hundred and forty passengers in the werry greatest extremity o' danger, and 'eres their two hundred and forty screams in vun !'"
CHAPTER XXXIX.
The Story of Worcester County Transport (Continued )
The stage driver, as he emerged as a class out of the hard experience of his predecessors of the early days of coaching, was a man of consequence. Usually he was a fine specimen of physical manhood, proverbially good natured and courteous, and highly respected. He was trusted by his neigh- bors and his patrons, for whom he was often called upon to act as agent in matters of much moment, financial and otherwise. Rough and ready he might be, but he was self-respecting and unaccustomed to accept indignities. Eng- lish travelers did not immediately understand him. He had none of the servility and greediness of the English coachman. To offer an American driver a money tip was to risk curt rebuke. Not to offer a gratuity to an English driver or guard was to invite insult and insolence.
An incident of the Post Road line between Boston and Hartford is worth telling to illustrate the stage driver's status. One of them had been so tanned by summer sun and winter wind that his mates, behind his back and among themselves, spoke of him as Black Ben. One day an English traveler, bust- ling importantly out of the stage office, shouted, "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, "Gentlemen call me Mr. Jarvis."
Most of the drivers were on terms of intimacy with every important per- sonage who traveled on their lines. Many of them graduated from the box to become men of affairs and themselves important personages. They were the idols of the boys, whose common ambition was to follow in their foot- steps.
The driver as he served our Worcester County country had a multitude of duties to perform on his route, in addition to those of handling his team. There were messages to deliver, bills and notes to collect or pay, and goods
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to purchase, besides the responsibility of delivering to banks and brokers packages of money for redemption, deposit or exchange. A stage driver's hat, when the monster bell crown was the fashion, was usually filled with letters and parcels. The profits of the errand business were his perquisites, and some of them found it so profitable that they became well-to-do as wealth was then measured.
Many of the old drivers became extraordinarily skillful with the lash. The story is told of one of them, a famous marksman, who bet the drinks with a gentleman on an outside seat that on passing the next flock of fowls within reach of his whip, he would behead any bird the passenger might select, the driver not to relinquish his reins or seat, nor to check the speed of the horses. But the passenger must pay the damages. Presently, on passing a farmhouse, a flock of hens, led by a lordly rooster, was discerned. The passenger picked the rooster, and quick as thought the lash flashed through the air, encircled the neck of the hapless chanticleer, and the head flew across the road.
Of our early drivers, Cuming, an Englishman, who traveled extensively in America, related that "though European drivers far exceeded the American in dexterity and speed over their fine roads, in America they would be good for nothing, and would pronounce it impossible to get a carriage through roads that the driver here dashes through without a thought."
Cuming would not have given the American stage driver second place, even in dexterity and speed, had he lived to visit the United States a genera- tion later. He should have seen a coach on a Christmas eve entering a village with fanfare of bugle, as was the custom on that holy night. "Horses swing in with manes tossing, tires crunch in the crisp snow, girls and boys hurry out. The driver hands off the mail, twenty-four iron shoes waltz on the ice / which clicks like castenets. Passengers alight and seek warmth at tavern bar and great fireplace. Unwinding reins from his legs, the driver steps down- great coat to his heels, rippling capes on his shoulders, visored seal cap pulled down to his eyebrows, red muffler and shawl around his neck, high buffalo shoes, gloves of tough buckskin-no signs of the man but his eyes and his hands. He unloads the Christmas express, and the villages know there is a Santa Claus."
The arrival or departure of the coach was always an incident of impor- tance about the country inn and usually called out an admiring group of villagers and tavern employees. The skill shown in handling a lively team of four or six horses was an inspiring sight. The smoking, high-strung steeds dashed up to the tavern door at full speed, a touch of the reins and the wheels just grazed the door stone, and the coach stopped dead at exactly the right spot. The driver, standing at the bar, with his long coach-whip under his
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arm, and his long drab overcoat falling to his heels, was a living image of a coachman of the old days stepped out of an English sporting print.
An old letter reads: "What a prince of drivers was Driver Gay! Hand- some, dressy, and a perfect lady's man! How many ladies were attracted to a seat on the box beside him! How many young men envied his grace as a driver! So, also, 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."
Another old timer wrote: "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."
One Worcester County veteran who for many years drove his four or six horses, making his seventy-two miles daily in sunshine, rain or snow, and who could give some account of the occupants of every house on the route, put it: "In those days the stage drivers were smart and ambitious like, and pretty jealous of each other, for to see who could hitch up the best team, make the best time, and catch the most passengers. It made no difference to our pocketbooks, as we were on wages; but somehow, when you were on top of a shiny stage with four or oftener six good horses and all full inside and out, you felt as if you owned the whole concern, passengers and all. We were bound to make our trips in just so many hours, go fast or go slow. When we lost time on any part of the road we tried to make it up, every driver looking out sharp that none of the others got ahead of him. What a sight o' bags, bundles and bandboxes they did lug! How folks would crowd around and ask questions. They appeared to think a stage driver knew all that was going on in the world, and they were about right. He did in those days. The long pulls up the hills, and the rush of the coach and four or six horses down the other side, made the journey exciting and interesting."
The stage drivers, with some exceptions, were not teetotallers. On a journey there were many visits to tavern bars, and passengers invariably asked the driver to join them, and usually he accepted. But most of them were abstemious. Seldom, we believe, did they permit their senses to become befuddled. Their teams were not sufferers from the indiscretions of the men who held whip and reins.
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But on occasion, no doubt, clashes of coaches of competing lines were the more reckless and exciting, and, withal more dangerous, because of the stimu- lating effects of good cheer at the bar. The following contemporaneous newspaper account printed in January, 1823, illustrates the point :
"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 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 pas- sengers in a dreadful dilemma, especially as the driver could not assist them, as it required all his efforts to restrain the frightened 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 extri- cated 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."
"The old stage drivers belonged to a race which has passed away," wrote Mr. Currier, "And what a race they were, with bear-skin hats and over- coats, with their teams covered with ivory rings, coaches kept always neat and clean, with their magnificent horses. They acquired a way of thinking, all characteristic, and were sententious in their speech, expressing words with a terseness that many a stump speaker might envy. They possessed to a marked degree that faculty called 'horse sense.' They were character read- ers, knowing well not only every horse of their team, but also generally, every man who rode on the stage for the couple of hours. They did not mind exposure, heat and cold being received by them as part of their work, and although, generally, men whose word could be fully relied on, they did enjoy guying a passenger. What stories they could tell, and what jokes they could pass !
"Holmes has graphically delineated the 'Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.' How felicitously could he have described the autocrat of the tavern stable. The old Sudbury tavern has been immortalized by Longfellow, but no reference is made to its most important appendage, the bustling and impor- tant stage driver. The autocrat of all the Russias never assumed his imperial throne with half the airs of the stage autocrat in mounting his throne, the stagebox. Every look, every gesture, every order, impressed the crowd of rustics with a profound idea of his importance. These attentions were always
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vastly pleasing to the 'knight of the whip,' as, with a flourish, he gathered up his ribbons and cracked the whip over the impatient team. The driver's bugle-having not a key, and on which the driver could not play a tune, only skips-to a boy awakened by its distant sound at early dawn, made the sweetest of music. To be an actual stage driver was the extreme ambition of many a country boy."
Typical of the old stage drivers was Harrison Bryant of Leominster, of whom Mr. Currier wrote most entertainingly. In his later driving days Bryant went to Vermont, where he drove from Rutland over the Green Mountains for five years, covering during that time over seventy thousand miles. The winters were severe, and the snow-drifts eight to ten feet deep. The farmers along the line kept the road well shovelled out, which he repaid by taking the children back and forth to the district schoolhouse. "Mr. Bryant never used tobacco or liquor, he never had a smash-up, or injured a passenger. It used to be the custom for the passengers to jump off at a tavern and run in to get their toddy. It was always, 'Come, driver, come in and have something.' At first he used to decline, but the landlords com- plained, saying he was a shingle off the house. He compromised by appar- ently joining them, keeping his glass covered with his hand, so that they could not see that he had no toddy in it.
"He left staging for a short time and went to farming in Athol. The third day of farmer's life, standing in a field, he saw the stage go by; the driver gave him a salute and cracked his whip; the horses sprang ahead on a gallop, and the passengers on top waved to him. The old coach bounded over the road and disappeared behind the turn. He began to feel lonesome and home- sick, and wanted to get back on the box, guiding the leaders. The old time love for the business was too much for him, and he packed his carpet bag, and in two days was back on the seat, leaving the miles behind him."
It is written of the prevailing modes of driving: "On four-horse teams with four reins. The near wheel-horse rein came under the little finger of the 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 under and one over 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. 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 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."
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Evolution of Our Stagecoaches-The stagecoach went through a gradual evolution. Long before the beginning of the century enterprising owners were striving to make their wagons comfortable for the passengers, but as a rule it was considerably later before a journey was easy and agree- able. Jansen in his book, "A Stranger in America," gives us a word picture of a coach of 1800, and other writers agree closely with him, when he says: "The vehicle, the American stagecoach, which is of like construction throughout the country, is calculated to hold twelve persons, who sit on benches placed across with their faces to the driver. 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 to the front."
Finally the Concord coach appeared on the roads, the Pullman of its era, with its oval body, lofty driver's seat, and leather lined interior and com- fortable seats. The iron railing which ran around the top enclosed the big box, little box, bandbox, and bundle. Hair-covered trunks and sole-leather portmanteaus were strapped on a rack behind, or deposited in the big boot beneath the driver's seat. Nothing ever replaced the Concord coach. It was used almost exclusively in the opening of the far west until the railroads came, and long afterward in reaching points that the rails did not touch. Even today it holds its place in isolated regions, against the competition of the motor bus and automobile. In Worcester County, stored away in old barns, or coach houses, several may yet be seen. Theirs was the hey-day of coaching, after the roads had been made good and travel had become more general, and the taverns had attained the acme of good cheer.
Pleasures and Pains of Coaching-Even after the county was criss- crossed with stage lines, the people as a whole did very little traveling, either for business or for pleasure. Transportation was not cheap, nor would the rates be considered cheap today. The fare ranged from six cents to ten cents a mile, according to speed, and also according to the accommodations offered the passenger. When there were seats on the roof, usually for nine or twelve persons, those who occupied them paid perhaps six cents a mile, while a seat inside cost the traveler ten cents. In winter, outside passengers suffered severely from the cold, while those within were, by comparison, warm. But in summer conditions were reversed, for the interior was often hot and stuffy, while the roof offered clean fresh air and perhaps a pleasant breeze.
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The cost of a long journey was augmented by tavern charges, though these were not high. A passenger paid eighteen and three-quarters cents for breakfast or supper, and twenty-five cents for dinner. If he desired a drink, a glass of French brandy cost him six cents, a glass of gin or Jamaica rum three cents, and a glass of whisky two cents. A domestic cigar, a huge affair, sold for a cent, and a good Havana cigar for three cents.
Travel was tedious, especially when the roads were in bad condition, but it was not without its attractions in good weather. Fellow-passengers gradu- ally entered into conversation, and usually some one or other was aboard who was familiar with the route and the country through which they were travel- ing, and was glad to impart entertaining information.
"There was a sense of freedom, and abundant enjoyment of the surround- ings, and a disposition to be obliging and considerate by giving up the best seats to the ladies, by consenting to the admission or exclusion of fresh air and by the convenient arrangment of the feet. Of course, the least amiable qualities of human nature would sometimes assert themselves, and selfish people would improve the opportunity for making all the other passengers uncomfortable; but the air of the stagecoach was generally surcharged with good humor."
Ralph Waldo Emerson used to tell the story of a woman deeply veiled and dressed in mourning who was riding in a stagecoach, sitting opposite a small, sharp-featured, black-eyed woman, who began catechising her thus: "Have you lost friends?" "Yes, I have." "Was they near friends ?" "Yes, they was." "How near?" "A husband and a brother." "Where did they die?" "Down in Mobile." "What did they die of ?" "Yellow fever." "How long was they sick?" "Not very long." "Was they sea-faring men?" "Yes," "Did you save their chists ?" "Yes, I did." "Was they hopefully pious?" "I hope and trust so." "Well, you got their chists, and they were hopefully pious, you have much to be thankful for."
Another stagecoach story is told of a very fat man who intrusted a friend to purchase two seats for him in a coach, that he might have plenty of room, and when he embarked for his journey discovered that one seat was inside, the other on the top.
Even as late as the 1830's, there was great hardship in travel unless the regular coach lines were patronized. Charles Sumner traveled from Boston to Washington in February, 1834, making the initial stage of the journey over the Boston-Hartford Post Road which crossed a corner of Worcester County through Mendon, Uxbridge and Douglas. Writing of his experience he said : "We started from Boston at half-past three o'clock 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,
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