Old Concord Coach.
Our first conveyance of goods and persons was by water, and the word transportation was one of our sea terms applied to inland traffic. Mr. Ernst has pointed out that many sea terms besides the word barge have received a land use. “The conductor shouts his marine ‘All aboard,’ and railroad men tell of ‘shipping’ points that have nothing to do with navigation. We ship by rail, and out West they used to have ‘prairie schooners.’ Of late we go by ‘trolley,’ and that word is borrowed from the sailors. Our locomotives have a ‘pilot’ each, and even ‘freight’ has a marine origin.”
The first line of stages established between New York and Philadelphia made the trip in about three days. The stage was simply a Jersey wagon without springs. The quaint advertisement of the route appeared in the Weekly Mercury of March 8, 1759:—
“Philadelphia Stage Waggon and New York Stage Boat perform their stages twice a week. John Butler with his waggon sets out on Monday from his house at the sign of the ‘Death of the Fox’ in Strawberry Alley, and drives the same day to Trenton Ferry, where Francis Holman meets him, and the passengers and goods being shifted into the waggon of Isaac Fitzrandolph, he takes them to the New Blazing Star to Jacob Fitzrandolph’s the same day, where Rubin Fitzrandolph, with a boat well suited will receive them and take them to New York that night: John Butler, returning to Philadelphia on Tuesday with the passengers and goods delivered to him by Francis Holman, will set out again for Trenton Ferry on Thursday, and Francis Holman, &c., will carry his passengers and goods with the same expedition as above to New York.”
The driver of this flying machine, old Butler, was an aged huntsman who kept a kennel of hounds till foxes were shy of Philadelphia streets, when his old sporting companions thus made a place for him.
With such a magnificent road as the National Road, it was natural there should be splendid coaching upon it. At one time there were four lines of stage-coaches on the Cumberland Road: the National Line, Pioneer, Good Intent, and June Bug. Curiously enough, no one can find out, no one is left to tell, why or wherefore the latter absurd and undignified name was given. An advertisement of the “Pioneer Fast Stage Line” is given on [page 270]. Relays of horses were made every ten or twelve miles. It was bragged that horses were changed ere the coach stopped rocking. No heavy luggage was taken, and at its prime but nine passengers to a coach. These were on what was called Troy coaches. The Troy coach was preceded by a heavy coach built at Cumberland, and carrying sixteen persons, and a lighter egg-shaped vehicle made at Trenton; and it was succeeded by the famous Concord coach. Often fourteen coaches started off together loaded with passengers. The mail-coach had a horn; it left Wheeling at six in the morning, and twenty-four hours later dashed into Cumberland, one hundred and thirty-two miles away. The mail was very heavy. Sometimes it took three to four coaches to transport it; there often would be fourteen lock-bags and seventy-two canvas sacks.
Concord Coach at Toll Gate.
The drivers had vast rivalry. Here, as elsewhere all over the country, the test of their mettle was the delivery of the President’s message. There was powerful reason for this rivalry; the letting of mail contracts hinged on the speed of this special delivery. Dan Gordon claimed he carried the message thirty-two miles in two hours and twenty minutes, changing teams three times. Dan Noble professed to have driven from Wheeling to Hagerstown, one hundred and eighty-five miles, in fifteen hours and a half.