One horse was killed, the patient passengers alighted and pulled the coach free themselves. At the next creek the horses plunged in the water and swam across, while the passengers held up the mail-bags to keep them dry. Weld tells of similar bridges and experiences in 1795 in Virginia.
Many of the bridges were rickety floating bridges. Mr. Twining experienced the sense of insecurity, the dread of sinking, which I have also felt in crossing a floating bridge in a heavy vehicle.
Mr. Twining tells also of the constant necessity of trimming and balancing of the stage-wagon by all the passengers leaning to one side to prevent it from overturning in the deep ruts which abounded. Mr. Weld wrote that the driver “frequently called out, ‘Now, gentlemen, to the right,’ upon which all the passengers stretched their bodies halfway out of the carriage to balance on that side. ‘Now, gentlemen, to the left,’ and so on.”
One traveller tells of a facetious travelling companion,—
“‘A son of Neptune and of Mars also,’ and could adapt the technical language of these professions to the different movements of the stage. When the coach heeled to one side he would call out, ‘To the right and left and cover your flanks—Whiz!’—and when we passed a stream or ford he would sing out, ‘By the deep nine,’ accompanied with all the movements of heaving the lead. The day was clear, pleasant, and healthy; and in this strain of merriment and good humor we prosecuted our journey much to our satisfaction.”
Folk were easily amused in coaching days. One of the old stage-drivers tells the following incident of stage travel. He was driving from Dover, New Hampshire, to Haverhill, Massachusetts. During the spring months the roads were often in a bad condition, and six horses and sometimes ten were needed to draw the coach. In Epping, New Hampshire, was a particularly hard place, locally known as the “Soap mine.” Through this mine of mud the driver hoped to guide his coach and six. But the coach was heavily loaded, and in spite of the efforts of the skilful driver the team was soon fast in the mud, the wheels settling to the hubs. All attempts of the horses to start the coach were in vain. The driver finally climbed down from his seat, opened the coach door and told the passengers the condition of things, and politely asked them to get out and thereby lighten the load. This they all positively refused to do; they had paid their fares and did not think it their duty to get out into the mud. The driver said, “Very well,” quietly closed the door, and seated himself by the roadside. In a few minutes the passengers asked, “What are you doing there?” The driver calmly replied: “The horses cannot draw the load. There is only one thing I can do. I shall wait until the mud dries up.”
Advertisements from Connecticut Journal, July 3, 1815.
It is needless to say that they did not wait for the mud to dry.
The state of the roads and the regard of some persons for stage-coach travelling is shown in a letter written early in this century by a mother to a girl of eighteen, visiting at Cambridge, and impatient to return home. As the roads were bad her father delayed his going for her. Her mother says:—