Essex County, Massachusetts - Chapter 3: Old Modes of Travel, 1888 (part 2 of 2)

It was well said of Colonel Whipple that in his Salem had lost one whom slander never touched, and who had probably never made an enemy, - his religious persuasion a consistent supporter, - the militia a veteran whose commissions bore date and expired before those of any officer now living, - and the Masonic body its oldest member. First from seniority on the roll of the Active Fire Club, and lately President of the Salem Dispensary, - a promoter in 1821 of the Salem and Danvers Association for Mutual Protection against Thieves and Robbers, as well as an active militiaman from his enlistment in the ranks of the Salem Light Infantry in 1811, until he resigned the command of the Artillery Regiment of Southern Essex, he was, in earlier as in later life, ready at all times for whatever service devolves upon the good citizen and Christian neighbor. At the close of the year 1869 he fell peacefully asleep at his home in Salem, alter enjoying for a while a tranquil retrospect of the memories he was to leave behind.

The good old days of stage coach travel are over. Gone, too, are most of those to whom they owed their chai'm. The stage-driver, - that next best man, it was quaintly said, to the minister, out of jail, - we have no longer. The old stage houses are for the most part, as in London, closed and deserted, or stand, like the old Bell Tavern, " with a kind of gloomy sturdiness, amidst the modern innovations which surround them." Never again shall

Even the Ann Street Stage-House, - the very focus of New England travel, - has vanished, and the name of the street it stood on is fading out of mind ! Never again, about its hospitable hearth, that well known company of " whips " shall gather for a parting pipe, when guests are dreaming, and night coaches in, and horses well-bestowed, and smouldering embers, in its ample fire-place, give a fitful, flickering light. I see them now, in their quaint old chairs, whiffs of smoke curling lazily about their cheerful, ruddy, weatherbeaten faces, - heavy, wet jack-boots steaming on the hearth, - ample cajjes and top-coats fiung dripping on the benches, - while they chat by turns and stir the fire and laugh at the storm. There sits burly Sam Robinson, telling how he served the sneak who stole a ride on the trunk-rack every day as the noon coach passed through Wenham, by driving into the pond at Peter's Pulpit, under pretence of watering his liorses, and then making such vigorous application of the laah that whoso rode behind was glad to escape his parthian blows by dropping off into the water ! Or little Jack Mendum mounts a chair to tell how he drove the "mail," and "something broke," and the hungry passengers were all out hurrying him on, and the neighbors bustled about, and he lost his patience, and making up in oaths what he lacked in stature, bid them all stand aside and let him manage, " for while I drive that mail, I am the L^nited States of America!" Or Peter Ray recounts the driving of the first steel spring coach to Boston on its trial trip, freighted with the mechanics who were its builders, and what a stir it made on 'change ! Or Major Shaw, blinded by his great popularity, utters his famous threat of running the railroad off the route, by opposition coaches ! Or Woodbury Page enjoys the discomfiture of the Charlestovvn driver, who roughly asked him to " get his bean pot out of the way," when he was taking up a passenger from that city for Beverly, and he replied, " wait till I get the pork in !" Or they all debate, with the warmth of conviction, the relative merits of the northern and southern routes to the eastward, until Alex. Brown declares that stage routes to the east are like different creeds in religion, for all creeds lead to heaven, if faithfully followed, - upon which reticent little Conant taps his pipe on the great iron fire-dog, and as the ashes drop upon the hearth, puts it tenderly away in his waistcoat pocket, remarking that he would rather not go to heaven at all, if he must go by the Dover route, and retires to bed.

Lynn Reporter, " raised such a dust on the turnpike, night and day, that Breed's End knew no rest, and the road seemed made for their accommodation, so much at home were they on it in their day of glory," are all gone now. Over Essex Bridge, over the turnpike, through Salem streets, horse-cars now rumble and rattle with their growing freight. And at last the single coach, which brought us daily the dust and mail bags of Cape Ann, has disappeared forever. Never again shall we gather at the cottage gate, as the clatter of wheels and the cloud of dust approach, to welcome the aged parent, - the coming guest, - the daughter home from school. Never again shall we linger in the open doorway of a New England homestead, in tender parting with the young son setting out for sea, or on some distant westward venture, - to speed the lovers starting together on the life-long journej', - never again cast longing glances after that receding freight of dear ones, until at last the winding road and over-hanging elm trees part us, and we sit sadly down to listen,

Never again will the midnight watcher by the silent bedside hear the mail-stage arrive and go, leaving its messages of love and sorrow for the sleeping townsfolk, and sing, with Hannah Gould,

" The rattling of that reckless wheel That brings the bright or boding seal To crown thy hopes or end thy fears, To light thy smiles or draw thy tears, As line on line is read."

Famous levelers were these old stage coaches and masters in etiquette also ! What chance-medley of social elements they brought about! What infinite attrition of human particles, - what jostling of ribs and elbows, - what ' contact inconvenient, nose to nose ' ! What consequent rounding and smoothing of angles and corners, - what a test of good-nature, - what a tax on forbearance, - what a school of mutual consideration ! For how else could a dozen strangers consent to be boxed up and shaken together for a day, but upon condition that each was to exhibit the best side of his nature and that only !

To the next generation the old stage coach will be as shadowy and unreal a thing as were those which appeared, musty and shattered, to the uncle of the one-eyed Bagman in Pickwick, while he dozed at midnight in the Ediuboro' courtyard. " My uncle," says the Bagman, in telling the story, " rested his head upon his hands and thought of the busy, bustling people who had rattled about years before in the old coaches and were now as silent and as changed. He thought of the numbers of people to whom one of those crazy, mouldering vehicles had borne, night after night, through all weathers, the anxiously expected intelligence, the eagerly looked for remittance, the promised assurance of health and safety, the sudden announcement of sickness and death. The merchant, the lover, the wife, the widow, the mother, the school-boy, the very child who tottered to the door at the postman's knock, - how had they all looked forward to the arrival of the old coach ! And where were they all now ! "