In 1843 he was engaged in driving a stage of his own between Barre and Worcester. Not long afterwards he was sole owner of a line from Greenfield, Massachusetts, to Brattleboro, Vermont. The Postmaster-general about this time advertised for mail contracts, and Ginery Twichell went to Washington. It was supposed by the owners of the other lines, who knew he had gone thither, that he would not undertake to execute more than one contract, but his own private views, it appears, were somewhat broader, for he contracted with the Government to carry the mails upon a number of routes, greatly to the astonishment of others in the business; and what was better still, he accomplished what he had undertaken very satisfactorily to the Postmaster-general, and came to be regarded as a sort of Napoleon among mail contractors. He became the owner of a large number of fine stages and horses. He ran a line from Worcester to Northfield, sixty miles, three times a week; from Worcester to Winchester, fifty-five miles, daily; from Worcester to Keene, fifty-four miles, three times a week; to Templeton twenty-five miles, daily; from Templeton to Greenfield, forty-eight miles, daily; from Barre to Worcester, forty-four miles, daily. In all this was two hundred and eighty-six miles of stage-route, and it took a hundred and fifty-six horses to do the work.
The picture shown on [page 306] is from a lithograph published in 1850, entitled,—
“The Unrivaled Express Rider, Ginery Twichell, who rode from Worcester to Hartford, a distance of Sixty miles in Three hours and Twenty minutes through a deep snow, January 23, 1846.”
It commemorates an exploit of his which was much talked of at the time it took place.
CHAPTER XIV
A STAGING CENTRE
The story of the tavern and stage life of the town of Haverhill, New Hampshire, may be told as an example of that aspect and era of social history, as developed in a country town. It shows the power the stage-coach was in bringing civilization and prosperity to remote parts of the states, what an illumination, what an education.
Haverhill is on the Connecticut River somewhat more than halfway up the western boundary line of the state of New Hampshire, at the head of the Cohos valley. It is a beautiful fertile tract of land which had been cleared and cultivated by the Indians before the coming of the white man. It is lovely and picturesque with its broad intervales, splendid mountains, and peaceful river winding in the sweeps and reaches of the Oxbow; so lovely that Longfellow declared Haverhill the most beautiful spot he ever had seen. The town has but little colonial history. It had no white settlers till 1761; but the first who did take up land and build there were, as was the case with nearly all New Hampshire towns, men of unusual force of character and energy of purpose; by Revolutionary times the town was well established, and its situation and resources made it the authorized place of rendezvous for the troops destined for Canada. At the end of the war, when the danger of Indian invasion lessened, the town grew rapidly, but there were still only bridle-paths blazed through the woods by which to connect with the world, and until this century its only roads were the river road, the Coventry Road over Morse Hill, and the old Road from Plymouth, New Hampshire.