Waiting for the Ferry.
Horseflesh was so plentiful that “no one walked save a vagabond or a fool.” Doubtless our national characteristic of never walking a step when we can ride dates from the days “when we lived under the King.” Driving alone, that is, a man or woman driving for pleasure alone, without a driver or post-boy, is an American fashion. It was carried back to Europe by both the French and English officers who were here in Revolutionary times. The custom was noted with approval by the French in their various books and letters on this country. They also, La Rochefoucauld among them, praised our roads.
Mr. Ernst, an authority upon transportation and postal matters, believes that our roads in the northern provinces, on the whole, were excellent. He says that the actual cost of the roads as contained in Massachusetts records proves that the notion that our New England roads were wretched is not founded on fact. He notes our great use of pleasure carriages as a proof of good roads; in 1753 Massachusetts had about seven such carriages to every thousand persons. The English carriages were very heavy. In America we adopted the light-weight continental carriages—because our roads were good.
The corduroy road was one of the common road improvements made to render the roads passable by carts and stage-wagons. Marshy places and chuck-holes were filled up with saplings and logs from the crowded forests, and whole roads were made of logs which were cut in lengths about ten or twelve feet long, and laid close to each other across the road. Many corduroy roads still remain, and some are veritable antiques; in Canada they still are built. A few years ago I rode many miles over one in a miner’s springless cart over the mountains of the Alexandrite range in upper Canada, and I deem it the most trying ordeal I ever experienced.
As soon as there were roads, there were ferries and bridges. Out from Boston to the main were ferries in 1639 to Chelsea and Charlestown. There was a “cart-bridge” built by Boston and Roxbury over Muddy River in 1633. There was a “foot-bridge” also at Scituate, and at Ipswich in 1635. In 1634 a “horse-bridge” was built at Neponset, and others soon followed. These had a railing on one side only. It was a great step when the “Bay” granted fifty pounds to Lynn for a cart-bridge where there had been only a ferry. After King Philip’s War, cart-bridges multiplied; there was one in Scituate, one in Bristol, one in Cambridge.
These early bridges of provincial days were but insecure makeshifts in many cases, miserable floating bridges being common across the wide rivers. In England bridges were poor also. We were to be early in fine bridge-building, and to excel in it as we have to this day. We were also in advance of the mother country in laying macadamized roads, in the use of mail-coaches, in modes of steam travel by water, just as we were in using flintlock firearms, and other advanced means of warfare.
The Charles River between Boston and Charlestown was about as wide at the point where the old ferry crossed as was the Thames at London Bridge, and Americans were emulative of that structure. Much talking and planning was done, but no bridge was built across the Charles till after the Revolution. Then Lemuel Cox, a Medford shipwright, planned and built a successful bridge in 1786. It was the longest bridge in the world, and deemed a triumph of engineering. The following year he built the Malden Bridge, then the fine Essex Bridge at Salem. In 1770 Cox went to Ireland and built a bridge nine hundred feet long over the deep Foyle at Londonderry, Ireland. This was another American victory, for the great English engineer, Milne, had pronounced the deed impossible. This bridge was of American oak and pine, and was built by Maine lumbermen and carpenters.
According to the universal “Gust of the Age”—as Dr. Prince said—the aid of the Muses was called in to celebrate the opening of the Charlestown Bridge. This took place on the anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill, and a vast feast was given. Broadsides were distributed bearing “poems” as long as the bridge. Here are a few specimen verses:—
“I sing the day in which the Bridge
Is finished and done.
Boston and Charlestown lads rejoice
And fire your cannon guns.
“The Bridge is finished now I say
Each other bridge outvies
For London Bridge compared with ours
Appears in dim disguise.
“Now Boston Charlestown nobly join
And roast a fatted Ox
On noted Bunker Hill combine
To toast our Patriot Cox.
“May North and South and Charlestown all
Agree with one consent
To love each one like Indian’s rum
On publick good be bent.”