The testimony of the traveller Bennet, who was in Boston in 1740, is most explicit on the subject of travel and transportation in that city and vicinity:—
“There are several families in Boston that keep a coach and a pair of horses, and some few drive with four horses; but for chaises and saddle-horses, considering the bulk of the place, they outdo London. They have some nimble, lively horses for the coach, but not any of that beautiful black breed so common in London. Their saddle-horses all pace naturally, and are generally counted sure-footed; but they are not kept in that fine order as in England. The common draught-horses used in carts about the town are very small and poor, and seldom have their fill of anything but labor. The country carts and wagons are generally drawn by oxen, from two to six according to the distance, or the burden they are laden with.”
Quicksilver Royal Mail, 1835.
The traveller Weld thus described the peculiarly American carriage called a “coachee”:—
“The body of it is rather longer than a coach, but of the same shape. In the front it is left quite open down to the bottom, and the driver sits on a bench under the roof of the carriage. There are two seats in it for passengers, who sit in it with their faces to the horses. The roof is supported by small props which are placed at the corners. On each side of the door, above the panels, it is quite open; and, to guard against bad weather, there are curtains which let down from the roof and fasten to buttons on the outside. The light wagons are in the same construction, and are calculated to hold from four to twelve people. The wagon has no doors, but the passengers scramble in the best way they can over the seat of the driver. The wagons are used universally for stage-coaches.”
A vehicle often mentioned by Judge Sewall and contemporary writers is a calash. It was a clumsy thing, an open seat set on a low and heavy pair of wheels. A curricle had two horses, a chaise one; both had what were called whip springs behind and elbow springs in front. A whisky was a light body fixed in shafts which were connected with long horizontal springs by scroll irons. A French traveller tells of riding around Boston in a whisky. The chair so often named in letters, wills, etc., was not a sedan-chair, but was much like a chaise without a top.
The French chaise was introduced here by the Huguenots before the year 1700. The Yankee “shay” is simply the fancied singular number of the French chaise. We improved upon the French vehicle, and finally replaced it by our characteristic carriage, the buggy.
Chariots were a distinctly aristocratic vehicle, used as in England by persons of wealth, and deemed a great luxury. One was advertised in Boston in 1743 as “a very handsome chariot, fit for town or country, lined with red coffy, handsomely carved and painted, with a whole front glass, the seat-cloth embroided with silver, and a silk fringe round the seat.” It was offered for sale by John Lucas, a Boston coach-builder, and had doubtless been built by him.
The ancient chariot shown on [page 259], formerly belonging to John Brown, the founder of Brown University, is preserved at the old Occupasnetuxet homestead in Warwick, Rhode Island, securely stored in one of the carriage houses on the estate, a highly prized relic of days long ago. In this ancient vehicle General Washington rode from place to place when he made his visit to Rhode Island in August, 1790, escorted by John Brown, the ancestor of its present owners.