One coachman who drove from Boston to Hartford was deeply tanned by summer suns and winter winds, and his mates spoke to each other of him as Black Ben. An English traveller, bustling out of the coach office with importance, shouted out: “I and my people want to go with Black Ben; are you the coachman they call Black Ben?” “Blackguards call me Black Ben,” was the answer, “but gentlemen call me Mr. Jarvis.”
The list of the coach-drivers employed by the Eastern Stage Company still exists, and has been printed by Mr. Rantoul. From it we learn that coach-driving went by families—it was an hereditary calling. Many families had two sons in this work, there were four Potter brothers, three Ackermans, and three Annables, all coachmen. Their names were often curious, Moses Caney, John Foss, Perley Annable, Eppes Potter, Ben Savory, Fortune Tozzer.
Mr. Miner writes thus of stage-terms and stage-horses:—
“Every horse had a name. It was ‘Git up, Jo; gwan, boys or gals; you are shirky, Bill; you want touching up, Ben; if you don’t do better, Ben, I’ll swap you for a mule.’ All kinds of expressions. Some drivers would fret a team to death, while others would get over the road and you would never hear hardly a loud word to the team. It was just as drivers themselves were constituted. All kinds of horses were used in a stage team, runaways, kickers, biters, and all kinds of tricksters. If the owners could not manage them they went on stage teams, and did good work, and never died. They were seldom sick, as they were well-fed and groomed, and had quick time and short trips. We had some fine teams of matched horses, especially on the Connecticut River roads, which would have sold for seven hundred to a thousand dollars a pair. The horses were usually what were termed native horses, large, full of muscle and gimp, of English descent.”
Old Carpet Bag.
It was the testimony of John Lambert, an English gentleman who travelled here in the early years of this century, that the horses used on coaches in all settled parts of the United States were as good as English coach-horses.
It serves to show with force the pride and vanity of coach owners and drivers to be told that on the Boston and Salem line the coachmen sometimes attached false sweeping tails to the horses, to dress them up as it were and put on a good appearance—this is ante- if not anti-docking days.
Elaborate rules for coach-driving are given in old-time and modern manuals of coaching. Mr. Fairman Rogers’s descriptions are the plainest. Mr. Miner tells very simply of the old modes of driving in his day:—
“On four-horse teams were four reins. The near wheel-horse rein came under the little finger of left hand, the leader over the next finger. The off wheel-horse rein over third finger, right hand, leader over first finger. Six horses would require two more reins, and one more finger on each hand. Some drivers would wear mittens, and have one rein over and one under the fingers. These among good reinsmen were called Dummies or old Farmers. The whip was carried in the right hand, horizontally pointing to the left, toward the ground, not as pictured at the present day. A good driver who was interested in his team always sat up straight, and kept his reins and whip in a stylish manner. He talked to his horses as he would to a person. Every horse knew him; they knew him by his voice whether they were late for cars or early, and just where to make up time if late. A driver of this kind always had a good team, able to respond under all conditions.”