“The bed-chamber to which my wife and I were shown was a large, low, ghostly room, with a quantity of withered branches on the hearth, and two doors without any fastening, opposite to each other, both opening upon the black night and wild country, and so contrived that one of them always blew the other open, a novelty in domestic architecture which I do not remember to have seen before, and which I was somewhat disconcerted to have forced on my attention after getting into bed, as I had a considerable sum in gold for our traveling expenses in my dressing case. Some of the luggage, however, piled against the panels, soon settled this difficulty, and my sleep would not have been very much affected that night, I believe, though it had failed to do so.
“My Boston friend climbed up to bed somewhere in the roof, where another guest was already snoring hugely. But being bitten beyond his power of endurance, he turned out again, and fled for shelter to the coach, which was airing itself in front of the house. This was not a very politic step as it turned out, for the pigs scenting him, and looking upon the coach as a kind of pie with some manner of meat inside, grunted around it so hideously that he was afraid to come out again, and lay there shivering till morning. Nor was it possible to warm him, when he did come out, by means of a glass of brandy, for in Indian villages the legislature, with a very good and wise intention, forbids the sale of spirits by tavern-keepers.”
For want of roads, traveling by coach was slow and laborious, in all the north-western states. In 1840, the writer was treated to a five cents per mile ride across the State of Michigan, from Detroit to New Buffalo, now Benton Harbor, on Lake Michigan, a distance of two hundred miles. It was mid-winter, but not frozen hard, and required nearly three days and two nights of joltings and fatiguing monotony. The joys felt on arriving in sight of steamboat navigation are still fresh in the recollections of the past.
Stage coaches had their centers for distribution in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati, and were used in the principal mail lines over the state. Here too, the African skin became a perplexing question. The dictum of slavery had to be respected. If a colored person desired to be carried to a given point, he could prepay to such—his money was never refused on any account but for his color there was no time-table of departure or arrival. If no objections were raised by a passenger, he would at once be started on his way as an outside incumbrance. But if at any time while on the route, at a station or “change,” a passenger should be added who objected to riding in the same coach with a “free nigger,” as was no unusual thing, the colored passenger would be obliged to stop off and wait for a coach containing more liberal sentiments, or take the road on foot. This treatment on all the coach lines was witnessed so frequently that it ceased to call forth marks of disapproval. The principle in a milder form appears to have been transferred from the old stage-coach to the great railroad Cincinnati built South, by ignoring the constitution of the state, and as some thought at the time, subsidizing the Supreme Court. On this road the American born citizen with African blood, however remote the descent, or great the admixture, is refused admittance to coaches accorded to all other nationalities. Why? it is not necessary to state.
The wagons for freight were large and strong, and, having a cover of white canvas, gave them the name of “Prairie Schooners.” They were usually drawn by six horses, and on long routes traveled in companies; and trains could be seen moving slowly along in line, all laden with merchandise of the East, or on their way East, carrying the products of Ohio industry to an eastern market. The style of the “schooner” and the wagons themselves have “been out of print” so long, not one appeared on exhibition at the Centennial World’s Fair. They were all of the same pattern, and as “near alike as peas;” differing in every respect from the emigrant wagon of later date.
Prairie Schooner.
The bed or body of the “schooner” was formed by a stout frame-work of the best seasoned bent-wood, and put together as immovable and durable as any railroad coach body of the present day. The shape, covering, etc., is shown by [annexed illustration]. The teams were composed of large draft-horses. The “near” wheel-horse carried a saddle, in addition to his harness, for the accommodation of the driver. This saddle-horse, with the near front animal, or “leader,” constituted the managing horses of the whole team. All orders were given, as required, to these; they were always wakeful, watchful, and obedient. A good leader and a reliable near wheel-horse were boastful prizes of their owners; and most teamsters in those days owned their entire outfits, and were exceedingly kind to their animals.
What may seem peculiar, whether having four or six animals in the team, the driver used only a single line—one string attached to the “leader,” and to him, with the aid of the “saddle-horse,” safety and correct actions of all the members of the team were assured.
Many were the thousands of tons these lines carried over the mountains. But the tread of the caravan and the crack of the “black-snake”[26] were no longer heard on the Alleghanies after the completion of the Erie Canal (in 1825); and ceased entirely as a system of transportation on the operation of the Ohio Canal (in 1832). The “schooners” and “Branches of the United States Bank” wound up and quit business in Ohio about the same time. It was an off year for political speculators. President Jackson vetoed the bill to renew the charter of that monster monopoly entitled “The United States Bank,” an institution owned and controlled by a few wealthy foreign and American citizens, who were receiving exclusive privileges, favors, and support from the government.