FROM THE WHITE HORSE TO LITTLE RHODY.
BY CHARLES M. BARROWS.
Were other means lacking, the progress of the human race might be pretty accurately gauged by its modes of locomotion. On such a basis of classification there might be a pedestrian period, a pilgrim period, a saddle period, a road-wain period, a stage-coach period, and a railway period.
Relatively considered, each mode of travel thus indicated would be an index of the necessities and activity of the times. The nomadic peoples dwelt in a leisurely world, and were content to go a-foot; their wants were simple, their aspirations temperate; subsistence for themselves and their flocks was their great care, and only when the grass withered and the stream dried up did they set forth in quest of fresh pasturage. At length, however, the dull-thoughted tribular chieftain became curious to know what lay beyond the narrow horizon of his wilderness, and men bound on the sandal, girded up their loins, grasped staff, and beat paths up and down the valleys, trudging behind an ass or a pack-horse that carried their impedimenta. Another advance, and the man who drove his beast before him found that the creature was able to carry both his pack and himself; and training soon enabled the animal to mend his pace and transport his master rapidly across long stretches of waste country. Another period elapsed, and ambitious man discovered that, by clearing a passage for wheels, the load could be shifted from the back of the beast to a wagon drawn behind him; thus carriages came into use, and the race went bowling along the great highway of progress at a wonderful rate. Then vehicles began to be improved, and the restless brain of the inventor contrived a stage-coach for the convenience of those who had no private carriages or did not care to use them; though rude at first, it soon came to be luxurious, with thorough braces, upholstery, and glass windows. But even this noisy vehicle, that abridged distance and brought far cities near together, outgrew its usefulness and gave way to its rival, the steam-car, which could hurry men through the land as on the wings of a tornado. And now the same race, which in the morning of the world was content to wander four or five miles between sun and sun, and had no wish to go faster, can scarcely abide the slowness of a palace-car sliding over a mile of steel rail each minute, and General Meigs is importuning the Legislature for leave to construct a railway on which trains shall run at three times that speed.
[pg 230]
It would be too much to ask this hurrying, restless, nineteenth- century world to retrace its way by rail and turnpike, saddle and sandal, back to the slow patriarch, who kept his youth a hundred years, and in all that time might not have traveled as far as a suburban gentleman of to-day does in going once from his home to his place of business in Boston. It might halt long enough, however, to enjoy a view of the stage-coach in which its grandfathers got on so rapidly, rumbling before a cloud of dust over the straight pike that used to connect the metropolis with some lesser city.
Such a highway was the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike, the grand avenue of public travel between Boston and Providence, and one link of the continuous thoroughfare connecting New England with New York and Washington. It was opened during the years of intense activity that marked the infancy of the nation, and it had a distinct corporate existence and history, like the railroad that ruined it, and was owned and operated by a stock company. Though the entire road was not fifty miles in length, the original enterprise contemplated only a section thereof, which, in accordance with an act of incorporation passed by the State Legislature in 1802, was built from the court-house in Dedham, the shire town of Norfolk County, to the north precinct meeting-house in Attleborough, then a small border town of Bristol County.
The members of the original corporation that held the franchise of the road were Fisher Ames, James Richardson, and Timothy Gay, Jr., of Dedham; Timothy Whitney and John Whiting, of Roxbury; Eliphalet Slack, Samuel S. Blackinton, William Blackinton, Israel Hatch, Elijah Daggett, and Joseph Holmes, of Attleborough; Ephraim Starkweather, Oliver Wilkinson, and Ozias Wilkinson, of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. They were all enterprising business men in their day, well known throughout Eastern Massachusetts, and the undertaking for which they combined seemed as vast to the rural denizens of the towns through which it passed as did the Pacific Railroad enterprise to capitalists twenty years ago. To the surprise of the honest farmers, who considered the crooked county roads good enough for them, it made almost a straight line from one terminus to the other, and was laid out four rods in width--a reckless waste of land--as a preventive against snow blockades in winter Instead of following the windings of valley and stream as other roads did, this pike mounted directly over all interposing hills, in accordance with the most approved theories of civil engineers of that day; and where sections of those old thoroughfares still remain intact, it is amusing to observe at what steep, straight grades they were made to climb the most abrupt ascent, curving neither to the right nor to the left in merciful consideration for the horses.
[pg 231]
But it must not be supposed that public stage-coach travel on the route here indicated began with the opening of the Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike. The first conveyance of the kind started on its devious way over the poor county roads from Boston to Providence in 1767; and the quaint Jedediah Morse records that twelve years later the "intercourse of the country barely required two stages and twelve horses on this line"; but the same authority states that in 1797 twenty stages and one hundred horses were employed, and that the number of different stages leaving Boston during the week was twenty.
The first stage-coach that passed over this new turnpike was driven by William Hodges, familiarly called "Bill," a famous Jehu, whose exploits with rein and whip, being really of a high order of merit, were graphically set forth to any passenger who shared the box with him, after Bill's spirits had been raised and his tongue limbered with the requisite number of "nippers"; and the increased comfort and rapidity of the journey were so clearly apparent, that the line was soon after extended to connect the capitals of the Bay State and Little Rhody.
In those days there was but one way to drive out of Boston, and that a narrow one known as the "Neck," beyond which was Roxbury. Across this isthmus all northward, westward, and southward-bound vehicles must pass, in leaving or entering the city. The narrowest place was at the present intersection of Dover Street with Washington, or, as it was then called, Orange, Street. In ante-bellum times this was the southern limit of the city, and here a gate stood, which opened on to a causeway that crossed the "salt marish," which at high tide was covered by the water. To this gateway, then, the turnpike was extended from Dedham court-house; and when the work was finished a coach, starting from the White Horse Tavern in Boston, which stood near the site of the Adams House, just opened by Messrs. Hall and Whipple, bowled along "a smooth and easy highway" to the bank of the Providence River, making the long journey within the incredibly short space of six consecutive hours, when the wheeling was good.
This great work, which was talked about years before it was undertaken, and then required years to finish, was a triumph of road-building, in which both owners and contractors took a pardonable pride; and to those familiar with the region through which it passed, the course will be sufficiently indicated by noting here and there a way-mark. On leaving Boston Neck it followed the already well-graded road through the Highlands, to a point near the present station of the Boston and Providence Railroad corporation in Roxbury, thence through West Roxbury to Dedham, and on through Norwood to East Walpole; it left the central village of Walpole a mile or so to the west, keeping near the Sharon line, struck into the westerly edge of Foxborough to a point called the Four Corners, then through Shepardville in Wrentham to North Attleborough, Attleborough "City," Pawtucket, and Providence. A large portion of the road is still kept in repair, so that one might take a carriage and trace the route through its entire length.
To support such an expensive turnpike it was necessary to levy a tax on those who made use of it, and to that end several toll-gates were established, at which passengers were compelled to halt and pay their lawful reckoning. These gates were located at Roxbury, Dedham, East Walpole, Foxborough Four Corners, North Attleborough, and Pawtucket; and so great was the patronage of the road, that the annual income derived from these sources afforded the stockholders a handsome net dividend.
[pg 232]
With the disuse of stage-coaches has perished that public convenience, the country tavern, an institution with which the modern hotel has little in common. It was suited to the needs and tastes of a former generation, and to a time, it may be,
"When men lived in a grander way,
With ampler hospitality."
But no hotel of the present day, with its showy furnishings and glitter, its gongs and bell-calls, its multitude of obsequious waiters, gauging their attention by your clothes, will bear comparison with the old- time tavern for homelike comfort and hearty good service. The guest, on his arrival, tired and hungry, was not put off with the cold recognition of a clerk who simply wrote after his name the number of his room, and then with averted face said: "Waiter, show this gentleman to number ninety-seven." On climbing out of the stage-coach, he was sure to see mine host, a fat, jolly man, who greeted him, whether friend or stranger, with a bow of genuine welcome, relieved him of his hand-luggage, ushered him in before the open fire of the bar-room, and actually asked what he would have for supper. Nor did this personal interest cease as soon as the guest had been comfortably bestowed; for the landlord was sure to have some pleasant words with him in the course of the evening, and to make him feel, ere he went to rest, that, by coming at that particular time, he had conferred on the host or some other guest a special favor, so that he retired in the best of humor with himself.
Such inns of entertainment were to be found in every considerable New England town a hundred years ago, and each bore some special reputation for general hospitality, the cordiality of its landlord, or the excellence of its table or liquors. Each one of these ancient hostelries might also be aptly described as
"A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall,
Now somewhat fallen to decay,
With weather-stains upon the wall,
And creaking and uneven floors,
And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall."
Wherever a stage line was established, a good country tavern, every few miles along the route, became a necessity. It nourished on the patronage that the coach brought to its door; its kitchen and barns afforded a ready market for the produce of the farmers, and it was a grand centre for news and the idlers of the village.
The Norfolk and Bristol Turnpike was fortunate in its taverns, which were accounted among the best in the State, from the White Horse, whence every stage-coach took its departure, to the last one met with on the very borders of the land of Roger Williams. There was the Billings Tavern in Roxbury, where it was considered quite the proper thing for outward-bound passengers to alight and get something to fortify them against the fatigues of the journey, especially if the weather were extremely cold or extremely warm.
[pg 233]
The next tavern on the line was widely known as Bride's, and later as Gay's, in Dedham, a place where all who took the early coach out of the city delighted to stop and breakfast. Here was to be found one of the best tables on the line, and tradition has it that Bill Hodges, who, by the way, must have been a competent judge, pronounced Bride's old Medford rum the finest he had ever tasted. In the palmy days of stage-coach travel, it was no uncommon thing for a hundred persons to breakfast at this inn before resuming their journey to Providence. It was here that President John Adams usually took the coach when he set out for Washington, being first driven to that point from Quincy in his own private carriage.
There was a small public house at South Dedham, now Norwood, which was but little patronized, and the next tavern of note was Polley's, at East Walpole, which had the name of furnishing the best board to be found between Boston and New York, and there all the travel on the road stopped to dinner. It was also a convenient point for taking up passengers from many adjacent towns, whence mail-carriages converged toward the common centre, and scores of private teams were driven with small parcels or other commissions for the stage; for it must be borne in mind that the driver exercised the functions of an expressman, or common carrier, and was entrusted with a variety of messages and valuables to deliver along the route, the fees for such service being usually regarded as his rightful perquisites.
Shepard's Tavern in Foxborough was a customary stopping-place; but the next grand halt, after leaving Polley's, was made at Hatch's, in North Attleborough. Here the approach of each stage was announced by the winding of a horn, and the driver was wont to swing his long lash with a flourish around the sweaty flanks of his leaders in a way to assure them that he meant business, then give his wheel horses an encouraging cut, and dash up before the famous hostelry at a breakneck speed that said to the small boys, Get out of the way! and caused the stock loafers, who always assembled on the piazza at the first blast of the horn, to envy the skill that could thus handle a whip, and guide, with apparent ease, the most mettlesome four-in-hand.
Historically considered, no other tavern on the line possessed so much of antiquarian interest as Hatch's. It occupied the site of an old garrison built and occupied by John Woodcock, the famous Indian fighter, as a stronghold against the attacks of his red foes. He went thither from the Providence Plantation about the middle of the seventeenth century, when the town was an unbroken wilderness in the northern part of the Rehoboth North Purchase, so called, took up his abode and reared his family in lonely solitude within the close stockades he planted around his home. The first house that went by the name of Hatch's Tavern was built upon this old garrison, which, indeed, formed a part of its very walls, and not until the proprietor found it necessary to erect a new and larger house, when the turnpike was opened, did the last vestiges of the Woodcock stronghold disappear.
[pg 234]
The landlord of this inn, Colonel Israel Hatch, was also a man of importance in his time, who enjoyed an enviable reputation for military achievements, and was very prominent in public affairs. At no point on the line was the traveler surer of a larger hospitality or a heartier welcome than was extended by Colonel Hatch, though its best room, which was reserved for visitors of note, might not have contained the veritable inscription ascribed to Major Molineaux:--
"What do you think?
Here is good drink.
Perhaps you may not know it;
If not in haste, do stop and taste;
You merry folks will show it."
On leaving North Attlebourogh, the remaining twelve miles to Providence were conveniently relieved by short halts at Bishop's and at Barrow's Taverns in Attleborough "City" and West Attleborough, and at one or two places in Pawtucket, so that no passenger was compelled to go hungry or dry for many miles.
By far the most noted passenger ever conveyed over the Norfolk and Bristol road, and there were many worthy of mention, is reputed to have been President James Monroe, who shortly after his inauguration in March, 1817, made a tour through the New England States, similar to that made by President Hayes in 1877. The occasion was a great one, for Monroe and his party left Providence in the morning, halted at Hatch's for lunch, dined at Polley's, and were met on their arrival at Dedham by a delegation from Boston who escorted them to the "Hub of the Universe." Great was the curiosity of the country-folk to behold a president, and the streets through which his barouche was to pass were thronged with an eager, expectant multitude, who greeted him with cheers, and were rewarded with a gracious bow. And one little boy, now a venerable and honored member of the Bristol County bar, was standing with his father in an open farm wagon, when the President alighted at North Attleborough, and exclaimed with evident disappointment: "Why, father, he's no bigger than any other man!"