The great work of building and keeping in repair the Cumberland Road, and of operating it, developed a race of men as unknown before its era as afterward. For the real life of the road, however, one will look to the days of its prime—to those who passed over its stately stretches and dusty coils as stage- and mail-coach drivers, express carriers and “wagoners,” and the tens of thousands of passengers and immigrants who composed the public which patronized the great highway. This was the real life of the road—coaches numbering as many as twenty traveling in a single line; wagonhouse yards where a hundred tired horses rested over night beside their great loads; hotels where seventy transient guests have been served breakfast in a single morning; a life made cheery by the echoing horns of hurrying stages; blinded by the dust of droves of cattle numbering into the thousands; a life noisy with the satisfactory creak and crunch of the wheels of great wagons carrying six and eight thousand pounds of freight east or west.
The revolution of society since those days could not have been more surprising. The change has been so great it is a wonder that men deign to count their gain by the same numerical system. As Macaulay has said, we do not travel today, we merely “arrive.” You are hardly a traveler now unless you cross a continent. Travel was once an education. This is growing less and less true with the passing years. Fancy a journey from St. Louis to New York in the old coaching days, over the Cumberland and the old York Roads. How many persons the traveler met! How many interesting and instructive conversations were held with fellow travelers through the long hours; what customs, characters, foibles, amusing incidents would be noticed and remembered, ever afterward furnishing the information necessary to help one talk well and the sympathy necessary to render one capable of listening to others. The traveler often sat at table with statesmen whom the nation honored, as well as with stagecoach-drivers whom a nation knew for their skill and prowess with six galloping horses. Henry Clays and “Red” Buntings dined together, and each made the other wiser, if not better. The greater the gulf grows between the rich and poor, the more ignorant do both become, particularly the rich. There was undoubtedly a monotony in stagecoach journeying, but the continual views of the landscape, the ever-fresh air, the constantly passing throngs of various description, made such traveling an experience unknown to us “arrivers” of today. How fast it has been forgotten that travel means seeing people rather than things. The age of sight-seeing has superseded that of traveling. How few of us can say with the New Hampshire sage: “We have traveled a great deal ‘in Concord.’” Splendidly are the old coaching days described by Thackeray, who caught their spirit:
“The Island rang, as yet, with the tooting horns and rattling teams of mail-coaches; a gay sight was the road in merry England in those days, before steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel in coaches, to drive coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chambermaid under the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long ago. The Road was an institution, the Ring was an institution. Men rallied around them; and, not without a kind conservatism, expatiated upon the benefits with which they endowed the country, and the evils which would occur when they should be no more:—decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth, and so forth. To give and take a black eye was not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman; to drive a stage-coach the enjoyment, the emulation of generous youth. Is there any young fellow of the present time who aspires to take the place of a stoker? You see occasionally in Hyde Park one dismal old drag with a lonely driver. Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling ‘Quicksilver,’ O swift ‘Defiance?’ You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns has died away.”[60]
In the old coaching days the passenger- and mail-coaches were operated very much like the railways of today. A vast network of lines covered the land. Great companies owned hundreds of stages operating on innumerable routes, competing with other companies. These rival stage companies fought each other at times with great bitterness, and competed, as railways do today, in lowering tariff and in outdoing each other in points of speed and accommodation.[61] New inventions and appliances were eagerly sought in the hope of securing a larger share of public patronage. This competition extended into every phase of the business—fast horses, comfortable coaches, well-known and companionable drivers, favorable connections.
However, competition, as is always the case, sifted the competitors down to a small number. Companies which operated upon the Cumberland Road between Indianapolis and Cumberland became distinct in character and catered to a steady patronage which had its distinctive characteristics and social tone. This was in part determined by the taverns which the various lines patronized. Each line ordinarily stopped at separate taverns in every town. There were also found Grand Union taverns on the Cumberland Road. Had this system of communication not been abandoned, coach lines would have gone through the same experience that the railways have, and for very similar reasons.
The largest coach line on the Cumberland Road was the National Road Stage Company, whose most prominent member was Lucius W. Stockton. The headquarters of this line were at the National House on Morgantown Street, Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The principal rival of the National Road Stage Company was the “Good Intent” line, owned by Shriver, Steele, and Company, with headquarters at the McClelland House, Uniontown. The Ohio National Stage Company, with headquarters at Columbus, Ohio, operated on the western division of the road. There were many smaller lines, as the “Landlords,” “Pilot,” “Pioneer,” “Defiance,” “June Bug,” etc.
Some of the first lines of stages were operated in sections, each section having different proprietors who could sell out at any time. The greater lines were constantly absorbing smaller lines and extending their ramifications in all directions. It will be seen there were trusts even in the “good old days” of stagecoaches, when smaller firms were “gobbled up” and “driven out” as happens today, and will ever happen in mundane history, despite the nonsense of political garblers. One of the largest stage companies on the old road was Neil, Moore, and Company of Columbus, which operated hundreds of stages throughout Ohio. It was unable to compete with the Ohio National Stage Company to which it finally sold out, Mr. Neil becoming one of the magnates of the latter company, which was, compared with corporations of its time, a greater trust than anything known in Ohio today.[62]
To know what the old coaches really were, one should see and ride in one. It is doubtful if a single one now remains intact. Here and there inquiry will raise the rumor of an old coach still standing on wheels, but if the rumor is traced to its source, it will be found that the chariot was sold to a circus or wild west show or has been utterly destroyed. The demand for the old stages has been quite lively on the part of the wild west shows. These old coaches were handsome affairs in their day—painted and decorated profusely without, and lined within with soft silk plush.[63] There were ordinarily three seats inside, each capable of holding three passengers. Upon the driver’s high outer seat was room for one more passenger, a fortunate position in good weather. The best coaches, like their counterparts on the railways of today, were named; the names of states, warriors, statesmen, generals, nations, and cities, besides fanciful names, as “Jewess,” “Ivanhoe,” “Sultana,” “Loch Lomond,” were called into requisition.
The first coaches to run on the Cumberland Road were long, awkward affairs, without braces or springs, and with seats placed crosswise. The door was in front, and passengers, on entering, had to climb over the seats. These first coaches were made at Little Crossings, Pennsylvania.
The bodies of succeeding coaches were placed upon thick, wide leathern straps which served as springs and which were called “thorough braces.” At either end of the body was the driver’s boot and the baggage boot. The first “Troy” coach put on the road came in 1829. It was a great novelty, but some hundreds of them were soon throwing the dust of Maryland and Pennsylvania into the air. Their cost then was between four and six hundred dollars. The harness used on the road was of giant proportions. The backbands were often fifteen inches wide, and the hip bands, ten. The traces were chains with short thick links and very heavy.