But the day of the turnpike and vast changes was dawning. In 1805, in this town, still poor and struggling, were men who contributed their share to the building of the old Cohos Turnpike from Plymouth through Warren to Haverhill. The old post-rider, faithful John Balch, who had carried on foot and on horseback the scant letters throughout the dangerous days of the Revolution, was succeeded by Colonel Silas May in a Dutch wagon, carrying packages and the mail. As he drove into town blowing his horn he inaugurated a change for Haverhill that was indeed a new life. By 1814 a permanent stage line was established between Concord and Haverhill through Plymouth; and the first coach came down the long hill on its first trip, with loud and constant blasts of the horn, with a linchpin gone, but wheel safely in place clean up to the tavern door, thanks to Silas May’s skilful driving. A leading spirit in obtaining the turnpike charter and one of the proprietors of the first stage line was Colonel William Tarleton (or Tarlton), then a dashing young fellow of great elegance of manners; he kept the Tarleton Tavern on Tarleton Lake on the Pike till his death. Every stage and team that went down or up the Pike stopped there to water the horses, with water in which was thrown salt; and every passenger had at least a hot drink. His hostelry was famous for two generations, and all the while there swung in the breezes that swept over Tarleton Lake the old sign-board which is shown here. It is an oaken board on which is painted on one side an Indian and the name William Tarlton and date, 1774; on the other a symbol of Plenty. It is owned by his grandson, Amos Tarleton, of Haverhill, to whose cordial interest and intelligent help I owe much of this story of Haverhill’s coaching days.
Sign-board of
Tarleton Inn.
The turnpike line from Concord to Haverhill was scarcely under way when a rival line was started which came through Hanover, and connected with the stage line to New York. Others followed with surprising quickness; the chief were lines to Boston, New York, and Stanstead, Canada; lesser lines of coaches ran to the White Mountains, to Montpelier, Vermont, to Chelsea, Vermont, and elsewhere. The reason for this sudden growth of Haverhill was found in its position with regard to the neighboring country; the topography of upper New England made it a proper and natural travel centre.
As many coaches came into Haverhill every night and started out early the next morning, as many passengers changed coaches there, it can be readily seen that the need of taverns was great, and a number at once were opened. Often a hundred and fifty travellers were set down daily in Haverhill. The Bliss Tavern was one of the first to be built and is still standing, a dignified and comfortable mansion, as may be seen from its picture on [page 314]. Its landlord, Joseph Bliss, was a man of influence in the town, and held several important offices; his house was the headquarters where the judges of the court and the lawyers stopped when court was held; for Haverhill was a shire town, a county seat, from 1773. At some of the courts of the General Sessions of the Peace as many as twenty-two justices were present; and court terms were longer then than now, so justices, lawyers, clients, sheriffs, deputies, jurors, and witnesses came and remained in town till their law business was settled. Sometimes the taverns were crowded for weeks. The court and bar had a special dining room and table at Bliss’s Tavern, to which no layman, however high in social standing, was admitted. On Sundays all went to the old meeting-house at Piermont, where there was a “Judges’ Pew.” Sometimes executions took place in town—a grand day for the taverns. When one Burnham was hanged there in 1805, ten thousand people witnessed the sight. Old and young, mothers with babes, lads and lasses, even confirmed invalids thronged to this great occasion.
Sign-board of
Tarleton Inn.
Besides the court and its following, and the pampered travellers in stage-coaches, Haverhill taverns had by 1825 other classes of customers. Backward and forward from upper New Hampshire and Vermont to Boston, Portsmouth, and Salem, rolled the great covered wagons with teams of six or eight horses bearing the products of the soil and forest to the towns and the products of the whole earth in return. These wagons, which were the Conestoga wagons of Pennsylvania, made little appearance in New England till this century; they were brought there by the War of 1812; but they had there their day of glory and usefulness as elsewhere throughout our whole northern continent.
The two-wheeled cart of the earliest colonists, clumsily built and wasteful of power, was used long in New England for overland transportation; though the chief transfer of merchandise was in the winter by “sledding.” There seems to have always been plentiful snow and good sledding every year in every part of New England in olden times, though it is far from being so to-day. The farmer, at that season of the year, had little else to do, and the ancient paths were soon made smooth by many sleighs and sleds.
Mr. Henry S. Miner gives me a very interesting account of these freight wagons in New England as he remembers them in ante-railroad days. Though the traffic was small in amount compared with that of the present day, it was carried on in a way which gave a sense of great life and action on the road. As even little towns furnished freight for several teams, the aggregate was large, and as they neared Boston the number of teams on the highway seemed enormous. These passed through towns on the turnpike every day, Sundays included. No vocation called for sturdier or better men. The drivers were almost invariably large, hearty, healthy Yankees, of good sense and regular habits, though they were seldom total abstainers. They could not be drunkards, for their life was too vigorous; long whip in hand, they walked beside their teams. The whip was a sign of office, seldom applied to a horse. They had to be keen traders, good merchants, to sell advantageously the goods they carried to town and to choose wisely for return trips. Country merchants seldom went to the cities, but depended wholly on these teamsters for supplies.