The stage viâ Perth Amboy and Trenton made its trip to New York in three days. John Butler was the proprietor, he having been set up in the business by the “Old Hunting Club,” to whom Butler had been huntsman and kennel-keeper. The same year “British packet-boats” were first announced between New York and Falmouth. In 1765 a second line of stages was set up for New York, to start twice a week, using three days in going through, at twopence a mile. It was a covered Jersey wagon, without springs, and had four owners or proprietors concerned in its management. The same year the first line of stages, vessels, and wagons is set up from Philadelphia to Baltimore viâ Christiana and Frenchtown on Elk River, to go once a week from Philadelphia. In 1766 a third line of new stages for New York, modestly called the “Flying Machine,” and intended, of course, to beat the two former ones, was set up to go through in two days,—to start from Elm Street, near Vine Street, under the ownership of John Barnhill. They were to be “good stage wagons, and the seats set on springs.” Fare, threepence per mile, or twenty shillings for the whole route. In the winter season, however, the “Flying Machine” was to cleave to the rough roads for three days, as in former times.
In the “Weekly Mercury” of March 8, 1759, we find the following quaint advertisement:—
“PHILADELPHIA STAGE WAGGON AND NEW YORK STAGE BOAT
“performs their stages twice a week.
“John Butler with his waggon, sets out on Mondays from his house at the sign of the Death of the Fox, in Strawberry Ally, and drives the same day to Trenton Ferry, when Francis Holman meets him, and proceeds on Tuesday to Brunswick, 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 suted, 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 again set out for Trenton Ferry on Thursday and Francis Holman &c. will carry his passengers and goods, with the same expedition as above to New York.
“March 8, 1759.”
“In 1773, as perfection advanced, Messrs. C. Bessonett & Co., of Bristol,” start stage-coaches—being the first of that character—to run from Philadelphia to New York in two days, for the fare of $4. At the same time “outside passengers” were to pay 20 shillings each.[28]
In 1785 the legislature of New York passed an act of exclusive privilege for ten years to Isaac Vanwick and others to run a four-horse stage from New York to Albany at fourpence a mile. This to encourage the experiment.
It would be a curious history to follow up that of stage-coaches until the introduction of railroads and steamboats. It would be a history fraught not only with interest, but showing the enterprise of men under a new mode of government, and the developing of minds which under monarchical rule were chained as it were to ignorance and fanaticism. Liberty and that freedom a republican system gives both to mind and body create a desire
“To learn and know the truth of every thing
Which is co-natural and born with it,