“The winter dress of these old drivers was nearly all alike. Their clothing was of heavy homespun, calfskin boots, thick trousers tucked inside the boots, and fur-lined overshoes over the boots. Over all these were worn Canadian hand-knit stockings, very heavy and thick, colored bright red, which came up nearly to the thighs, and still over that a light leather shoe. Their coats were generally fur or buffalo skin with fur caps with ear protectors, either fur or wool tippets. Also a red silk sash that went round the body and tied on the left side with a double bow with tassels.”
Can you not see one of those hairy old bears peering out of his furs, vain in scarlet sash and tassels, and with his vast feet planted on the dashboard? What were on his fore paws? double-pegged mittens, leather gauntlets, fur gloves, wristlets, and muffettees?
Mr. Twining declared that the skill of American drivers equalled that of English coachmen, though they had little of the smart appearance of the latter, “neither having the hat worn on one side, nor greatcoat, nor boots, but wearing coarse blue jackets, worsted stockings, and thick shoes.”
A traveller calling himself a Citizen of the World, writing in 1829, noted with pleasure that the drivers on American coaches neither asked for nor took a fee, but simply wished the passengers a polite good morning. Other Englishmen greeted this fact with approval. Mr. Miner tells us “tipping” was unknown—which was so customary, indeed so imperative, in England. Sometimes travellers who went frequently over the same route would make a gift to the driver.
The custom of “shouldering,” which was for the coachman to take the fare of a way-passenger—one who did not register or start at the booking-office—and pocket it without making any return to the coach agent or proprietor, was universal in England. Some coach companies suffered much by it, and it was a tidy bit of profit to the unscrupulous coachman. Shouldering was common also in the new world, and called by the same name. There were no “spotters” on coaching lines as on street railways.
As in every trade, profession, or calling, stage-coaching had a vocabulary—call it coaching slang if you will. Among English coachmen “skidding” was checking with a shoe or drag or “skid-pan” the wheels of the coach when going down hill, thus preventing them from revolving, and slackening the progress of the coach. “Fanning” the horses was, in coachman’s tongue, whipping them; “towelling” was flogging them; and “chopping” the cruel practice of hitting the horse on the thigh with the whip. “Pointing” was hitting the wheeler with the point of the whip. A “draw” was a blow at the leader. If the thong of the whip lapped round any part of the harness, it was called “having a bite.” “Throat-lashing” was another term.
View of Middletown, Connecticut.
Another and expressive use of the word bite was to indicate a narrow strip of gravel or broken stone on the near side of a winding road on a steep hill. The additional friction on the wheel on one side made a natural drag or brake, while the wheels of the ascending coach did not touch it.
The drivers on local lines grew to be on terms of most friendly intimacy with dwellers along the route. They bore messages, brought news, carried letters and packages, transacted exchange, and did all kinds of shopping at the citywards end of the route. An old coach-driver in Ayer, Massachusetts, told me with much pride that he always bought bonnets in Boston for all the women along his route who could not go to town; and that often in the spring the bandboxes were piled high on the top of his coach; that he never bought two alike, and that there wasn’t another driver on the road that the women would trust to perform this important duty save himself.