Four-wheeled wagons were but little used in New England till after the War of 1812. Two-wheeled carts and sleds carried inland freight, which was chiefly transported over the snow in the winter.
The Conestoga wagon of the past century was far ahead of anything in England at that date; indeed Mr. C. W. Ernst, the best authority I know on the subject, says we had in every way far better traffic facilities at that time than England. In other ways we excelled. Though Finlay found many defects in the postal service in 1773, he also found the Stavers mail-coach plying between Boston and Portsmouth long before England had such a thing. Mr. Ernst says: "The Stavers mail-coach was stunning; used six horses when roads were bad, and never was late. They had no mail-coaches in England till after the Revolution, and I believe Massachusetts men introduced the idea in England."
We are apt to grow retrospectively sentimental over the delights, æsthetic and physical, of ancient stage-coach days. Those days are not so ancient as many fancy. The first stage-coach which ran directly from Philadelphia to New York in 1766—and primitive enough it was—was called "the flying-machine, a good stage-wagon set on springs." Its swift trip occupied two days in good weather. It was but a year later than the original stage-coach between Edinburgh and Glasgow. At that time, in favorable weather, the coach between London and Edinburgh made the trip in thirteen days. The London mail-coach in its palmiest days could make this trip in forty-three hours and a half. As early as 1718 Jonathan Wardwell advertised that he would run a stage to Rhode Island. In 1767 a stage-coach was run during the summer months between Boston and Providence; in 1770 a stage-chaise started between Salem and Boston and a post-chaise between Boston and Portsmouth the following year. As early as 1732 some common-carrier lines had wagons which would carry a few passengers. Let us hear the testimony of some travellers as to the glorious pleasure of stage-coach travelling. Describing a trip between Boston and New York towards the end of the last century President Quincy of Harvard College said:—
"The carriages were old and the shackling and much of the harness made of ropes. One pair of horses carried us eighteen miles. We generally reached our resting-place for the night if no accident intervened, at ten o'clock, and after a frugal supper went to bed, with a notice that we should be called at three next morning, which generally proved to be half-past two, and then, whether it snowed or rained, the traveller must rise and make ready, by the help of a horn-lantern and a farthing candle, and proceed on his way over bad roads, sometimes getting out to help the coachman lift the coach out of a quagmire or rut, and arrived in New York after a week's hard travelling, wondering at the ease as well as the expedition with which our journey was effected."
The Columbia Centinel of April 24, 1793, advertised a new line of "small genteel and easy stage-carriages" from Boston to New York with four inside passengers, and smart horses. Many of the announcements of the day have pictures of the coaches. They usually resemble market wagons with round, canvas-covered tops, and the driver is seated outside the body of the wagon with his feet on the foot-board. Trunks were small, covered with deerskin or pigskin, studded with brass nails; and each traveller took his trunk under his seat and feet.
The poet, Moore, gives in rhyme his testimony of Virginia roads in 1800:—
"Dear George, though every bone is aching
After the shaking
I've had this week over ruts and ridges,
And bridges
Made of a few uneasy planks,
In open ranks,
Over rivers of mud whose names alone
Would make knock the knees of stoutest man."
The traveller Weld, in 1795, gave testimony that the bridges were so poor that the driver had always to stop and arrange the loose planks ere he dared cross, and he adds:—
"The driver frequently had to call to the passengers in the stage to lean out of the carriage first on one side then on the other, to prevent it from oversetting in the deep roads with which the road abounds. 'Now, gentlemen, to the right,' upon which the passengers all stretched their bodies half-way out of the carriage to balance on that side. 'Now, gentlemen, to the left,' and so on."