He drove over the roads which were to be marked by milestones, seated in a comfortable chaise, of his own planning, and followed by a gang of men, and heavy carts laden with the milestones. Attached to the chaise was a machine of his invention which registered by the revolution of the wheels the number of miles the chaise passed over. At each mile he halted, and a stone was dropped which was afterward set. The King’s Highway, the old Pequot Trail, was thus marked and set. A few of these milestones between Boston and Philadelphia are still standing, one in New London, another at Stratford, and are glanced at carelessly by the hundreds of thousands who glide swiftly past on wheels bearing more accurate cyclometers than that of Franklin.
Guide-boards always stood at the crossings of all travelled roads; indeed, they stood where the roads were scarce more than lines among the grass and low shrubs. Since our day of many railroads, and above all, since the interlacing network of trolley lines has spread over all our Eastern lands where once the stage-coach ran, many guide-boards have disappeared and have not been replaced. You find them often at the angles of the road lying flat in grass and bushes; or standing split, one-sided, askew, pointing the road to the skies, or nowhere. When in trim and good repair in the days of their utility and helpfulness, they were friendly things, and the pointing hand gave them a half-human semblance of cheerful aid. Where the road led through woods or rarely frequented ways, they were friends indeed, for all ways looked alike, and one might readily go far astray. The mile of the guide-board was an elastic one, and sometimes a weary one.
Guide-boards, even poor ones, are still most welcome. No one in the country ever has any correct estimate of distances; a distance “a little better than three miles” before you usually increases by an extraordinary law instead of decreases after you have driven nearly a mile to “about four mile.” The next road-jogger says “nigh on to a mile”; and then you may be sure a few hundred feet farther on to jump back to a slow and wise rejoinder of the original distance, “hard on to four mile.”
The Watering Trough.
Another wayside friend of the traveller in coaching days was the watering trough. It was frequently a log of wood hollowed out, Indian fashion, like a dug-out, filled with the lavish bounty of untrammelled Nature by a cool pure rill from a hillside spring. One of these watering troughs is shown on this page. In the days of the glory of the stage-coach and turnpike, fine stone troughs chiselled like an Egyptian sarcophagus took the place of the log dug-out. They had their supply from a handled pump, which was a more prosaic vehicle than the pipe made of hollowed tree-trunks which brought the spring-water; but it had also a certain interest as the water spouted out in response to the vigorous pumping, and it has been immortalized by Hawthorne. Our artesian wells, and sunken pipes, and vast reservoir systems are infinitely better than the old-time modes of water supply, but we miss the pleasure that came from the sight of the water, whether it was borne to us on the picturesque well-sweep by wheel and bucket, or old chain pump; it was good to look at as well as to taste, and it refreshed man even to see cattle and horses drinking from the primitive trough.
There is always something picturesque and pleasant in an old bridge, and of historic associations as well. The great logs such as form a wooden bridge over a narrow stream are the most natural waterspans, those of the primitive savages. By fallen tree-trunks placed or utilized by the Indians, the colonists first crossed the inland streams, adding parallel trunks as years passed on and helping hands multiplied; and finally placing heavy, flat cross-timbers and boards when hand-saws and sawmills shaped the forests’ wealth for domestic use.
The old arched stone bridges are ever a delight to the eye and the thoughtful mind. Look at the picture of the old Topsfield Bridge shown on the opposite page. It was built in 1760 over the Ipswich River. It shows the semicircle—simplest of all arched forms—which is happily within the compass and ever the selection of rustic builders. The shallow voussoirs speak of security and economy rather than of monumental effect; the irregular shape and size of the stones tell a similar tale, that there was ample and fitting material near by, in every field. The arched stone bridge is a primitive structure; the sort of construction that may be found in the so-called “Cyclopean” walls of earliest Greece; and this very simplicity is a distinct beauty, that, added to its fitness and durability, makes the bridge a thing of satisfaction.
