One pair of horses usually dragged the coach eighteen miles, when a fresh pair would be attached, and if all went well, you would be put down about ten at night at some wayside inn or tavern after a journey of forty miles. Cramped and weary, you would eat a frugal supper and hurry off to bed with a notice from the landlord to be ready to start at three the next morning. Then, no matter if it rained or snowed, you would be forced to make ready by the dim light of a horn lantern, unknown now, for another ride of eighteen hours.
If no mishaps occurred, if the coach was not upset by the ruts, if storm or flood did not delay you at Springfield, where the road met the Connecticut, or at Stratford, where it met the Housatonic, each of which had to be crossed on clumsy flatboats, the stage would roll into New York at the end of the sixth day.
%197. Two Days from New York to Philadelphia.%—And here a serious delay was almost certain to occur, for even in the best of weather it was no easy matter to cross the Hudson to New Jersey. When the wind was high and the water rough, or the river full of ice, the boldest did not dare to risk a crossing. Once over the river, you would again go on by coach, and at the end of two more days would reach Philadelphia. In our time one can travel in eight hours the entire distance between Boston and Philadelphia, a distance which Washington could not have traversed in less than eight days.
[Illustration: Stagecoach and inn[1]
[Footnote 1: From a print of 1798.]
%198. The Roads and the Inns.%—The newspapers and the travelers of those days complained bitterly of the roads and the inns. On the best roads the ruts were deep, the descents precipitous, and the passengers were often forced to get out and help the driver pull the wheels out of the mud. Breakdowns and upsets were of everyday occurrence. Yet bad as the roads were, the travel was so considerable that very often the inns and taverns even in the large cities could not lodge all who applied unless they slept five or six in a room.
%199. A Steamboat on the Delaware.%—Rude as this means of travel seems to us, the men of 1790 were quite satisfied with it, and absolutely refused to make use of a better one. Had you been in Philadelphia during the summer of 1790 and taken up a copy of The Pennsylvania Packet, you could not have failed to notice this advertisement of the first successful steamboat in the world:
%The Steam-Boat
Is now ready to take Passengers, and is intended to set off from Arch Street Ferry in Philadelphia every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, for Burlington, Bristol, Bordentown and Trenton, to return on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays—Price for Passengers, 2/6 to Burlington and Bristol, 3/9 to Bordentown, 5/. to Trenton. June 14. tu.th ftf.%
This boat was the invention of John Fitch, and from June to September ran up and down the Delaware; but so few people went on it that he could not pay expenses, and the boat was withdrawn.