USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume II > Part 12
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it was some time before I discovered we had six horses. Light overtook us at Newton Falls, about ten miles from the city; breakfasted at Natick, six- teen miles, part of us; then for thirty miles drove in a crazy wagon. After that I rode sixteen miles in a gig, driving a horse that Rosinante would not have owned as a kinsman, over roads almost impassable to the best of ani- mals. Every step that my horse took was caused by a blow from my whip. It was thus that I rode, literally working my passage, as much as he who drove the horse on the canal. My shoulder is lame from whipping the poor brute.
"I arrived in Thompson, the first town we enter in Connecticut, about three o'clock P. M., about sixty miles from Boston. Here we dined and again started, weary on our way, with forty miles of heavy traveling before us. Changed horses every sixteen miles. The moon was up, making the road less gloomy than it otherwise would have been ; but even this deserted us before we arrived in Hartford, which was not until three o'clock Tuesday morning, having been on the road twenty-three hours. I sat with the driver all the time. The cold was benumbing during that night, so much so that the experienced driver complained. At II o'clock A. M., started from Hartford for New Haven, route of forty miles, where we arrived at eight o'clock in the evening." The rest of the Washington journey was typical of the travel of the day-from New Haven to New York by steamboat, thence to Balti- more by boat and rail, and finally the thirty-eight miles to Washington by stage over a road so poor that the journey which started at half-past eight in the morning did not end till night. No wonder Sumner wrote: "Calhoun will speak tomorrow. I shall probably hear him, and he will be the last man I shall ever hear speak in Washington. I shall probably never come here again." But Sumner was wrong. He was destined to play an important part in affairs at the National Capitol.
Mr. Sumner surely had a tough journey. But he traveled under the worst possible conditions. There was another and fascinating side to stagecoach- ing. In that delightfully and faithfully written book Romantic Rebel, The Story of Nathaniel Hawthorne, by his granddaughter, Hildegarde Haw- thorne (1932), she tells of the long coach journey of the Hawthorne family, the mother and children, one of whom was the great Hawthorne, then a little boy, from Salem to Raymond, in Maine. That was in 1816. "So in June," says the book, "she and the excited children set out in one of the Manning coaches, carrying their hand-luggage and a favorite cat and kitten in a basket, their trunks and a box of books being sent ahead by carrier. The trip was a wonderful experience for them all. They spent the nights at inns, where they changed horses, traveling easily on through country as lovely as there is on earth, blessed with perfect weather. Delightedly the children jumped out to
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walk and save the horses on the long sandy hills. At noon they picnicked by the roadside while the horses munched their corn, and their driver, a stout, middle-aged man well known to Nathaniel-who liked to hang about the Manning stables-pointed out items in the landscape. On the route Nathaniel was permitted to sit beside him and be entertained with stirring tales of the hazards of the road, of breakdowns, storms, floods, bridges swept away, fords made impassable. A wild life, evidently, that of a stage driver."
Let us hark to the idealist. Mrs. Earle wrote of a stagecoach journey on a day of sunshine: "From the fields came the scent of flowering buckwheat and mellifluous clover, and later of newmown hay, sometimes varied by the tonic breath of the salt hay on the sea marshes. The orchards wafted the perfumes from apple blossoms, and from the pure blooms of cherry and plum and pear; in the woods the beautiful wild cherries equalled their domestic sisters.
"How sweet, how healthful the cool depths of the pine woods, how clean the hemlock, spruce, fir, pine and juniper, and how sweet and balsamic their united perfume. And from the woods and roadside such varied sweetness ! The faint hint of perfume from the hidden arbutus in early spring, and the violet ; the azalea truly ambrosial with its pure honey smell ; the intense cloy- ing clethra, with the strange odor of its bruised foliage; the meadow-sweet ; the strong perfume of the barberry ; and freshest, purest, best of all, the bay- berry throwing off balm from every leaf and berry. Even in the late autumn, the scent of the dying brakes and ferns were as beloved by the country-lover as the fresh smell of the upturned earth in the spring after the farmer's plough, or the scent of burning brush."
A charming picture, that, though we may not agree that many of the old- time travelers noted it. Perhaps within the coach, the odor of hot leather was too dominantly strong. But for all that, all must have felt the charm of our Worcester County country, beautiful everywhere today, and just as beautiful a century ago.
The Day of the Turnpike-Soon after the opening of the nineteenth century, the improvement of roads, then proceeding rapidly, took the form of building turnpikes. They were constructed as private enterprises, returns on the investment coming from collected tolls. One such was the Boston and Worcester turnpike, which in the last few years has been converted into one of the finest stretches of highway in the country-a four-lane road, almost as straight as an arrow.
The favorite principle of the turnpike builders was that a straight line is the shortest distance between two points, and this they put into effect. It made no difference to them that long, steep hills could be avoided by a trifling
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bend in the route. They preferred to go straight ahead, regardless of con- tour. Today, with its countless thousands of motor cars, the principle is a good one, for the avoidance of curves is a dominating rule in the cause of safety. But in the day of the horse, the long, hard hills told on the coach teams and probably slowed the running time.
The Worcester turnpike had its beginning at Lincoln Square. Its first mile or more is the present Belmont Street from which it enters Shrewsbury Street. The lake was crossed on a floating bridge of wooden caissons, later replaced by a causeway and where now is the massive and beautiful concrete structure. Within the limits of Worcester it was necessary to cut through a formidable ledge and to fill in for a lofty embankment, which cost much money. But the roadbuilders were satisfied. They kept the line straight. As a financial venture this highway was a dead loss to its stockholders.
At about the same time charters were granted for the Worcester and Fitzwilliam, New Hampshire, Turnpike, and the Worcester and Leicester and Worcester and Sutton turnpikes. Some work was done on the first, but the proposed roads to Sutton and Leicester were never begun.
The old Hardwick Turnpike still exists. Its beginning is at Main Street and its eastern end is Pleasant Street which it follows to about the Paxton line, where it branches in a sharp angle to the southward as Fowler Street. Its course to New Braintree and Hardwick is nearly, if not quite as straight as a fastidious disciple of the turnpike theory would wish.
The Story of Ginery Twitchell-No story of transportation in Worces- ter County would not be complete without something about Ginery Twitchell who earned the title of the "Unrivalled Express Rider." He first came to public notice as driver of the stage between Barre and Worcester, and eventually gained such popularity that he was presented with a stagecoach of his own, from which beginning he came to be the owner of a number of stage lines and more than two hundred horses. Later in life, as a railroad man, he was president of the Boston & Worcester Railroad, Boston, Barre & Gardner Railroad, Hoosac Tunnel & Western Railroad and the Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fé, and represented the Worcester County district in Con- gress. But his great fame was as an express rider.
One of his memorable rides, in an easterly storm, was from Worcester to Greenfield, a distance of fifty-five miles, and thence back to Worcester and on to Boston, a total distance of one hundred and fifty-five miles, in order to carry dispatches for the newspaper The Atlas. His ride which won for him the name of "The Unrivalled Express-Rider" was made in 1846, during the excitement over the Oregon question. His biographer tells the story as fol- lows :
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"The leading newspapers of New York were eager to secure dispatches expected to arrive at Boston by the foreign steamers in January, 1846. The New York Herald made arrangement to carry its own dispatches from Bos- ton to Norwich by railroad, thence by boat to Long Island, and across the island by express rider to New York City. The Tribune and other papers of New York and Philadelphia being excluded by the Herald from participating in its arrangements with the railroad and steamboat companies on the route, Mr. Twitchell was obliged to use horses instead of steam power for most of the distance. He could obtain an engine to run from Boston to Worcester only on condition of its being fifteen minutes behind the Herald train. From Worcester to Hartford, a distance of sixty-six miles, he rode on horseback through deep snow in the extraordinarily short time of three hours and twenty minutes ; thence from Hartford to New Haven by railroad, thirty-six miles; from New Haven to New York, seventy-six miles, by horses, and reached New York City in season for the printing of the dispatches before the arrival of those of the Herald."
But Ginery Twitchell did not always have the best of it. Chedorlaomer Marshall, a famous Fitchburg stage owner, could boast one victory over the great postrider. The repeal of the corn laws in England in 1846 aroused great interest, especially in Canada, and it being before the days of the tele- graph, in order to convey the news as quickly as possible, Ginery Twitchell and Marshall, who were warm personal friends, entered into a wager as to which would get the news to Montreal first, Marshall going over the regular coach route through Ashburnham from Fitchburg, while Twitchell took the other route from Worcester. On the arrival of the steamer in Boston, a special locomotive left over the Fitchburg Railroad and made the run to Fitchburg in fifty-one minutes, a record which, it is claimed, has never since been equalled.
Marshall had been waiting three days for the news, with a horse harnessed night and day, and a man sleeping in the kitchen ready for the hitch into a sleigh. In a few minutes Marshall was on his way, with "Old Buck" between the shafts. He made the trip to Ashburnham in twenty-seven minutes and reached Windsor, Vermont, that night. He was in Montreal far ahead of Ginery Twitchell, which was something to boast of wherever horsemen gathered.
Apparently Mr. Twitchell occasionally drove his old coach for pleasure, even after he had attained riches and national prominence as a citizen. We find in the Boston Post of June 1, 1867, the following news item: "The venerable coach built by Moses T. Breck of Worcester, and used thirty years ago by Hon. Ginery Twitchell for special occasions before railroads were fairly in vogue, passed through our Boston streets on Friday. The vehicle
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was of a most substantial pattern; no repairs have been needed through all these years except an occasional coat of varnish and new upholstering.
"In 1840, by request of the citizens of the town of Barre, seats were added on the top of the vehicle, so that a party of thirty-two persons could be accommodated (twelve inside and twenty outside). The largest load ever carried was a party of sixty-two young ladies of Worcester who, uniformly dressed, were driven on a blackberry excursion to the suburbs by Mr. Twitchell himself, eight matched horses being required on the occasion. Dur- ing the exciting Presidential campaign of 1840, the staunch vehicle was used for conveying the sovereigns to and from political gatherings in the towns surrounding old Quinsigamond."
A Stage Journey a Century Ago-Mr. Currier painted a graphic word picture of a stage journey of a century ago, as follows: "Traveling was then a matter requiring preparations and forethought. One did not then leave the house for the place of business, and on the decision of a few min- utes, start on a journey of fifty or one hundred miles. A careful packing of the trunk was attended to, the coach office was visited the evening previous, that a seat might be booked, and notice given to call at the house for the passenger 'through.'
"The coach office had an atmosphere of travel, its furniture and belong- ings savoring of dust and distance. The whips and box-coats with big but- tons, like wide-awake eyes, hanging from the pegs on the walls, had a look of resting from travel, but ready to jump down and be off at a moment's notice. The walls were covered with handbills and advertisements, headed with the names of distant cities, woodcuts of well-filled stagecoaches, drawn at an incredible rate over dusty roads by prancing teams of long-tailed horses, with drivers on the boxes flourishing their whips with most unnecessary length, considering the apparent activity of the horses.
"With the would-be traveler there was a preparation and anticipation, pleasant or dismal as the case might be, but always exciting, with ever-recur- ring speculation as to tomorrow's weather. The table is laid for breakfast over night. Repeated inquiries are made as to whether sundry articles have been packed, and discussion as to keeping a light burning all night, but exami- nation of the box at the oven-mouth showing the tinder quite dry, it is deemed safe to trust to flint and steel for light in the morning. With a last admonition to the servant girl not to oversleep, the family at a late hour, betakes itself to slumber.
"Then the morning; the half awakening; the striving to collect one's thoughts ; the sudden bounding out of bed when the remembrance of the day's journey flashes on the mind ; striking a light by the means of the tinderbox ;
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hastily drawing aside the curtains and peering out into the cool air to look at the gray morning, to see what the weather is like; the running to call the cook and leaving the light at her door ; the hurried toilet by lamplight; the last strapping of the trunk ; the opening it to put in some forgotten but neces- sary articles ; forcing one's self to eat the hastily prepared breakfast, with oft-repeated injunctions from the members of the family to be careful of this or that parcel, and not to forget that message or errand. The care for one's health is enjoined, and if the traveler is young, and the absence from home is to be for any extended time, a due regard for sound morals is inculcated.
"The young people, exhilarated by the unusual bustle, are running in and out with false alarms that the stage is coming. First, an early milk cart causes the traveler to leave talking, drop his knife and fork, jump from the table, wiping his mouth in a hurry to kiss the female part of the group; the mistake is laughed at, and then, perhaps, a market wagon causes another hurried leave-taking. Finally, a low, heavy rumble, gradually growing louder and, mingling with the unmistakable rattle, the sharp cracking of a whip, and a loud 'Whoa!' announces the arrival of the stage. The burly driver and stage office runner seize the trunk between them, and the last words of parting are said. The driver opens the door with a twist and a jerk, and the traveler enters the dim interior of the coach; the iron steps are put up with a sharp clang, the door shut with violence ; the driver mounts the box, gathers up the reins, calls cheerily to his team, and the stage moves off with a roll and clatter of the iron-shod horses' feet mingling with the last good-byes of the group of friends who stand at the doorstep, the father holding aloft a flaming lamp which casts a flickering glare over the scene, and the passengers settling themselves back in their seats for the day's journey.
"At this early hour the street is silent, except for the rattle of the coach ; and deserted, except by an occasional laborer bound for his daily toil. The signs over the shop doors look very queer in the dim light; the stage dashes onward through the streets, in which the houses grow more and more scat- tered; then the coach runs smoothly along the wide turnpike road, the gray light increases and grows ruddy, and the features of the passengers can be distinguished by one another. As they slowly climb up the hill they meet market wagons whose drivers give a hearty greeting. Dashing along, they soon meet the farmers, who have already commenced their long day's toil; the mowers stop half-way in their swath, and turn to gaze at the coach; the men in the cornfield lean on their hoes and stare after it; the women in the yard turn back their sun-bonnets and peep over the clothes-line, and the girls in the farmhouse run briskly to the window.
"After leaving the nine-mile house, where breakfast is again partaken, they soon overtake groups of ruddy, barefooted children, carrying little tin
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pails or small Indian baskets, bound for the little brown schoolhouse yonder, at the fork of the roads; they all bow and courtesy with more energy and good-will than grace, and so do the urchins at the schoolhouse as they pass it, who are all bareheaded as well as barefooted, and shade their eyes with their arms, and stare at the passengers after making their manners.
"The cows look up as the stage passes their pastures, whisk their tails and resume their feeding, but every colt whinnies and follows to the limit of his paddock until, frightened and indignant at the crack of the driver's whip, he starts away from the roadside fence on a furious gallop, then wheels about and stands with head and tail erect, snorting in wonder and defiance. The cool, balmy air of the country, the sight of the pleasant, shady woods, of the rich meadows, the fields of grain waving in a gentle breeze and glittering with dewdrops, the singing of the birds, and the rapid motion of the coach, are delightful and exhilarating. The passengers have become acquainted, and conversation has become general and animated; the weather, the crops, politics and religion, are all duly discussed.
"Way-passengers are taken up from time to time and set down again. Frequently arriving at neat little villages, the driver gives warning blasts on his horn that the right of way must be given to the United States mail, and drives up at a round trot in front of the store where the post office is kept. During the changing of the mail, they sit at the coach window and watch the postmaster and his clerk rapidly assorting the packages, while the customers, who are postponed to the imperious haste of Uncle Sam, lean over the coun- ters and beguile the wait of from seven to fifteen minutes staring at the showy advertisements of cordials and pills. Several small boys linger around the store door, walking gingerly with bare feet on the coarse gravel, glancing furtively at the coach, hoping some of the passengers may want a drink of water, and thus give them an opportunity to earn a few pennies by bringing it. The driver meanwhile waters his horses from a bucket, chiding them when they try to put their noses into it out of turn, and dashes the frothy leavings upon the feet of the leaders. The travelers gaze at the quiet, shady streets of the village, wondering whether they would like to live there, and soliloquize on the inhabitants.
"The driver again mounts the box, clicks to his horses, and away they go ; descending a gentle slope they enter a long, level plain, and with crack of the whip, away they speed at a swift gallop, the horses tossing their heads and rattling their harnesses as if in exhilaration at the rapidity of the motion ; while the driver, holding whip and reins in one hand, takes off his hat with the other, and, resting it on his knees, pulls out his handkerchief and wipes his forehead, partly because he has a habit of doing it, and partly because it is well to show the passengers how cool he is and how easy it is to drive a
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four-in-hand when you have had as much experience as he has. Having done this leisurely-otherwise the effect would be materially impaired-he replaces his handkerchief, puts on his hat, squares his elbows, cracks his whip again, and on they speed as merrily as before.
"Approaching the town where an exchange of horses is to be made, the driver commences to undo the buckle which keeps his ribbons together, and prepares to throw them off the moment he stops at the tavern yard where the fresh horses are waiting with blankets on. The change is quickly made. In the meantime the driver and most of the passengers alight to stretch their cramped limbs and lubricate their dry throats. A very slight excuse avails for even the clergyman and ladies to take a sip of the excellent punch which the landlord has prepared. Again mounting the coach, the driver gathers up his reins, the helpers haul off the blankets, and with a cheery 'All right,' off they go.
"The arrival at the stopping place for dinner is an important event, and the landlord on the sound of the approaching stage repairs to the tavern door, where, with smiling, cheerful face and hearty greeting, he welcomes the traveler who, with sharpened appetite, is ready to do full justice to the abundant and substantial fare provided. There is no hurry, as ample time is allowed, and the dinner hour passes with many a laugh and story. Resuming their seats, refreshed, they enter the last stage of their day's travel; and despite the fatigue-as they begin to feel with Geoffrey Crayon, that 'it is a comfort to shift one's position and be bruised in a new place'-they remember with regret that they are nearing their journey's end.
"At last, from the top of a high hill, they see far away in the distance the outline of the town for which they are bound. Rolling, pitching, rattling, the flying coach descends the hill at a headlong rate, in pursuit of the galloping team whose sixteen white feet seem sixteen times that number from the win- dow as they go; swiftly revolving wheels grinding through the gravel and hissing through the sand, leaving behind them for many rods a long, trailing cloud of dust, which glistens in the slanting, ruddy sunbeams, like the golden sand of an African river. The passengers look forward to the dispersion of their little company with regret, and tell each other how much they have enjoyed the trip and the acquaintances formed, and express the hope that they may meet again.
"Now, in the twilight, they are driving over a long bridge, and through the streets ; the clocks of the town are striking eight ; strange buildings tower on either hand, and over the doors of brilliantly lighted shops are unfamiliar names. Suddenly the coach stops, swaying on its springs at the door of a strange tavern. A porter rushes out and opens the door. With good-byes to their companions, they are at their journey's end."
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Freight Traffic on the Highways-In picturing a Worcester County highway in the early 1800's, the passing scene must not be confined to the smart stagecoaches with passengers atop and within and dashing teams of mettlesome horses, and private equipages carrying the owner and his family, and horsemen and horsewomen. Freight traffic more often dominated the moving panorama, particularly as roads converged in approaching a market center. The Boston Post Road often saw lines of heavily laden wagons drawn by well-kept teams, bound for Boston, some of them from as far away as the Connecticut Valley and beyond, or returning home. Fitchburg and Leominster and other north county towns through which passed the main arteries of travel perhaps had even more of this freight traffic, as wagons passed back and forth between the broad farming countries to the west and north, even from far Berkshire and northern New Hampshire and Vermont, and the more thickly populated regions of eastern Massachusetts. Another great stream of traffic flowed back and forth through the south county over the Boston-Hartford turnpike.
Old letters tell of traffic congestion which at times seems to have rivalled that of the crowded highways of today and made progress by private vehicle difficult. One can imagine such a scene when the road was deep with dust, which, thrown up in thick clouds by hoofs and wheels and the feet of walking drivers, must have well-nigh obscured the view.
While the nineteenth century was still young, freight transport had become an important industry. Until the building of the railroads, every- thing had to be hauled by oxen or horses. The day of the ox had passed. Boston and Salem and the other rapidly growing centers of population along the coast demanded great quantities of the products of Worcester County farms and those of the country farther inland, to feed their people. These farmers required great quantities of the goods which could be had only in the large trading centers, and bought them in barter or with the money received for their own products. Conditions required that they employ agents to act for them in the selling and buying. These were the freight carriers who did a business akin to that of the motor truck carriers of the present day. They had a steady and lucrative patronage the year round, though probably greater in summer than in winter, when many farmers made it their business to load their own sledges with whatever they had for market, and make the journey themselves as a profitable and enjoyable excursion.
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