Essex County, Massachusetts - Chapter 3: Old Modes of Travel, 1888 (part 1 of 2)

" You may ride in an hour or two, if you will, From Halibut Point to Beacon Hill, With the sea beside you all the way, Through the pleasant places that skirt the Bay ; By Gloucester Harbor and Beverly Beach, Salem Witch-haunted, Nahant's long reach, Blue-bordered Swampscott and Chelsea's wide Marshes, laid bare to the drenching tide, With a glimpse of Saugus spire in the west, And Maiden hills wrapped in hazy rest.

" All this you watch idly, and more by far, From the cushioned seat of a railway-car. But in days of witchcraft it was not so ; City-bound travellers had to go Horseback over a blind, rough road. Or as part of a jolting wagon-load Of garden-produce or household goods. Crossing the fords, half-lost in the woods, By wolves and red-skins frighted all day, And the roar of lions, gome histories say. If a craft for Boston were setting sail. Very few of a passage would fail Who had trading to do in the three-hilled town ; For they might return ere the sun was down."

with the rude means of conveyance and transportation known to their savage neighbors. The favorite way to Boston, Plymouth and Cape Ann was by water. The " dug-out " was much in use, being a pine log twenty feet long and two and onehalf feet wide, in which they sometimes "went fowling two leagues to sea." These "cannowes" seem to have been inspected at stated intervals by a town surveyor, and passed or condemned according to their fitness for further survice. It was in swimming for one of these, from a desire to visit the Indian Village at " Northfield," that Governor Winthrop's son Henry, on the day after his arrival at Salem, was drowned in the North River. In one of these rude boats, no doubt, Roger Conant might often be seen making his way up Bass River, to visit his farm of two hundred acres, near the "great pond side." And Governor Endicott's little sloop-boat, or " shallop," flits across the pages of the ancient records, as, no doubt, she walked the waters of the bay and rivers, like a thing of life.

The condition of the trail, which was the only land transit between Salem and Boston, is indicated by two contemporary writers of the first authority. On the 12th of April, 1631, Governor Endicott wrote to Governor Winthrop the following letter from Salem :

" Bight Worshij^ful : I did expect to have been with you in person at the Court, and to that end I put to sea yesterday, and was driven back again, the wind being stiff against us. And there being no canoe or boat at Saugus, I must have been constrained to go to Mystic, and tlience afoot to Charlestown, which at tliat time dnrst not be so bold, my body being, at this present, in an ill condition to wade or take cold. * * * The eel-pots you sent for are made, which 1 had in my boat, hoping to have brought them with me." * * * *

It will be observed that these worthies were not the plodders of the Colony. Their position insured them the best travelling facilities the times afforded. Governor Winthrop wrote in his journal, October 25, 1631, "The Governor, with Captain Underbill and other of the officers went on foot to Saugus, and next day to Salem, where they were bountifully entertained by Captain Endicott, and on the 28th they returned to Boston by the ford at Saugus River and so over at Mystic."

In 1637 Governor Winthrop passed through Salem on foot, with a large escort, on his way to and from Ipswich, and next year visited Salem by water and returned by land. The first party of Salem people who visited Boston after its settlement are said to have spent four days on the way, and, on the following Sabbath, to have put up a note of thanks in our First Church (now restored and standing in the rear of Plummer Hall) for their safe guidance and return.

In 1650, as we learn from Parkman's " France and England in North America," the first essay was made, at the instance of the Colony of Massachusetts, towards negotiating a reciprocity treaty between these English settlements and the French colonies in Canvii ada. A Jesuit ambassador from Quebec set out in company with a converted Indian chief, to visit Boston, and secure the military aid of this colony against the Iroquois, in consideration of some privileges of trade to be granted by the French. He made his way from " Kepane " (Cape Ann), where he was forced ashore by stress of weather, to Charlestown, " partly on foot - partly in boats along the shore," and from that peninsula the priest crossed by boat to Boston, - probably the first Romanist who ever received a welcome in the Puritan Colony. On returning, he stopped at Salem, and dined with Governor Endicott, who, he says, spoke French. *

Some felling of trees and hoisting of rocks was needed to convert these muddy trails into bridle-paths, and then the colonist moved about through the forest, accompanied by good-wife on a pillion behind and followed perhaps by a pack-horse, sweating under wellstufFed panniers. " Such a way as a man may travel on horseback, or drive cattle," the court ordered laid out by Richard Brackenbury, Mr. Conant and others from the ferry at Salem, to Jeffrie's Creek, now Manchester. Poets sing false, or the saddle was sometimes mounted on the backs of neat cattle, in those early days, as now-a-days in South Africa and San Domingo :

" Then, from a stall near at hand, amid exclamations of wonder, Alden, the thoughtful, tlie careful, so happy, so proud of Priscilla, Brought out his snow-white Bull, obeying the hand of its nuister, - Led by a curd that was tied to an iron ring in its nostrils, - Covered with crimson cloth and a cushion placed for a saddle. She would not walk, he said, through the dust and heat of the noonday ; Nay, she should ride like a Queen, - not plod along like a peasant. Somewhat alarmed at first, but reassured by the others, - Placing her hand on the cushion, her foot in the hand of her husband, - Gaily, with joyous laugh, Friecilla mounted her palfrey."

After the bridle-paths came the roads. The configuration of our surface did not favor the use of canals, and we escaped that dreary stage in the developement of transportation. Roads multiplied apace, but they were constructed not so much on mathematical, as on social principles. Nothing is more entertaining to the idler than to trace out some old abandoned lane, wandering between crooked walls - choked up with underbrush of barberry, alderberry, rose-bush, fern and bramble - arched with grand old elms, and seemingly leading nowhere. Some dilapidated cellar-wall or ruined well soon answers the question " whither wilt thou lead me ? " The pioneers built their homes where the soil was tempting, the slopes attractive, and material at hand. Villages were small and infrequent. Hence roads were made to reach the homesteads of single colonists, and not with prime regard to directness between town and town. And as the distance around a hill was no greater than over it, and the cost of excavating must be avoided, these roads, in uneven places, became still more circuitous, from the hills they encountered. Their original cost has been expended many times over, in widening.

straightening, and leveling them, so that the curious observer will find on either side of the present road, grass-grown bits of the old highway leading oif a little, and soon returning to it.

An old family of the county has been in the habit of making a yearly pilgrimage from Cape Ann to Andover, over the road as it was two or three generations back, faithfully tracing out, wherever it was possible, each oxbow in the way, with its ancient trees and low-roofed farm-house and well-sweep and brook. Hawthorne has thus described one of the most tempting of these lovely by-ways, in his account of "Browne's Folly," written for the "Weal-Reaf" in 1860:

"Along its base ran a green and seldom trodden lane, with whicli I was very familiar iu my boyhood ; and there was a little brook, which I remember to have dammed up till its overflow made a mimic ocean. When I last looked for this tiny streamlet, which was still rippling freshly through my memory, I found it strangely shrunken ; a mere ditch Indeed, and almost a dry one. But the green lane was still there, precisely as I remembered it ; two wheel tracks, and the beaten path of the horses' feet, and grassy strips between ; the whole overshadowed by tall locust trees, and the prevalent barberry bushes, which are rooted so fondly into the the recollections of every Essex man."

These old roads belonged to the period when a journey to Boston was a thing to be thought of for days before - and only to be embarked on in pleasant weather. Dobbin must be brought in from pasture - be rested and fed up a little, and have his shoes looked to ; the "one-hoss shay," with its capacity for stowage like that of the ark, - this lumbering conveyance was to be cleaned up over night and its wheels put in order ; the Sunday suit must be aired and dusted, and when at last the eventful morning dawned fresh and fair, and the leave-taking of several generations was accomplished, the journey of the day was to be performed, by not too burthensome stages, relieved by episodes of breakfast and baiting at the " Creature Comfort," or some other favorite half-way house, and a scrupulous withdrawal of Dobbin from the too active influence of the mid-day sun.

A few figures will show how much distances from point to point have been reduced since these days. We find the following in " Travis's Almanac," Boston, 1713.

" From M^inisimit, to Oiceii-s 4 Miles, to Lewes's 2 & half, to the Sign of the Galley at SaUm 9, to the Ferry at Beverly 1, to FUlces at Wenham 5, to Cromtons at Ipswich 6, to Bennets at Uowley 3 & half (which is called the half-way house), to Sargeants at Xewbury, the upper way by TliurreVs Bridge 8, but from Rowley the right hand way by the Ferry is but 7 to said Sargeantu, to T)-ues, or to Pikes Gate at Salisbui-y 2 & half, to ^forlorn at Hampton 4 & half, to Sherboiis at said Town 2, to Johnsons at Greenland 8 & half, and to Harvies at the three Tons at Portsmouth 5 Miles & half."

In April, 1775, Col. Pickering marched his regiment from Salem on the alarm of the fight at Lexington. To, explain his failure to reach the scene of action, he gives these distances in his journal. Salem to Dan vers, two miles; to Newell's in Lynn, seven miles; to Maiden, six miles; to Medford, three miles; to Boston, four miles ; making the route from Salem to Boston, towards the close of the last century, twenty-two miles.

The character of the public houses of the time is closely allied to our subject. The " Sign of the Galley at Salem," mentioned by Travis, was, no doubt, the " Shij) Tavern," on School Street, at the corner of what are now Church and Washington Streets, the old Governor's house, brought up by water from Cape Ann, and rebuilt there and successively occupied by Conant and Endicott. It was kept, in 1713, by Henry Sharp, who, in 1701, advertised a calash to let, the first recorded instance of such a convenience in Salem. Modern travelers would hardly think these inns well described by the term "ordinary," under which they were licensed. They were conditioned to allow no tippling after nine at night ; the house must be cleared on week-day lecture of all persons able to attend meeting ; no cakes or buns to be sold, this was in 1637, on fine of ten shillings, the prohibition not to extend to cakes " made for any buryall or marriage, or such like special occation." In 1645, the widow of an innholder is licensed " if she procure a fitt man, that is Godly, to manage the business." In 1659, the law forbids dancing at taverns, and as late as 1759, the sale of si)irits, wines, coffee, tea, ale, beer and "syder" on the Sabbath.

At the middle of the last century a New York merchant, supercargo on board the ship "Tartar Galley," from New York for London, was disabled when a few days out, and put in to Boston for repairs. While detained there he seems to have moved among what he terms the " best Fashion in Boston." I make room for a passage from his Journal.

" October l^th, 1750. While at breakfast Mr. Nathaniel Cunningham waited on me at Capt. W'endell's, agreeable to promise & furnished me with a horse to go to Salem, being very desirous to see the country. Sett out about 10 o'clock. « * * Cross'd Charles Towne Ferry. * * * About 2 miles from thence we crosst Penny Ferry which is better than ]4 mile over. Being the neighest way to Salem. From this to Mr. Ward's is about 8 miles, and is about a mile this side of Lyu which is a small Country Towne of ab"t 200 Houses very pleasantly situated, & affords a Beautifull Rural Prospect ; we came to Jlr. Ward's about one o'clock and dynd on fryd Codd. From this place is about 7 miles to Sal»m. After dinner having refreshed ourselves with a glass of wine sett out on our journey through a barren rocky country which afforded us not the least prospect of anything but a desurt country, abound, ing with Loffty Ragged Rocks a fine Pastering Ground only for their Sheep, the Rhoads are exceeding stony and the counti-y but thinly peopled.

" October I'JIh. Arrived at Salem ab't 3 a Clock put up our Horses at the Wid'o Prats from whence went to See Coll. William Browns where drank Tea with his Spouse, after which Mr. Browne was so Good as to Accomodate us with a Walk round the Towne, Shewing us the wharfs warehousas &c. ; went up in the Steeple of the Church, from whence had a Fine View of the Town, Harbour, &c., which is Beautifully Situated From which have a View of Mr. Brownes Country Seat which is Situated on a Heigh Hill ab't 6 Miles Eastward of Salem. Spent the Evening at his House where Joynd in Company by Parson Appleton, Miss Hetty his daughter,from Cambridge, they Being Acquaintence of Mr. and >Irs. Browne, we Supd togeather and after that where Very merry, at Whist, <&c.

" Oct. 20th. Lodg'dat Mr. Brownes; after Breakfast Saunterd round tho Towne niayking Our Observations on the Build's &c. Dynd at his House, after Dinner had a Good Deal Conversation with liim upon Various Subjects, he being a Gent'n of Excellent Parts well Adversed in Leaturate a Good Scholar a Great Vertuosa and Lover of the Liberal Arts and Sciences haveing an Extraordinary Libraiy of Books of the Best Ancient and Modern Authors, about 3 a Clock we Sett out in his Coach for his Country Seat rideing trough a Pleasant Country and fine Khoads. we arived there at 4 a Clock the Situation is very Airy Being upon a Heigh Hill which Over Looks the Country all Round and affords a Pleasant Rural Prospect of a Fine Country witli fine woods and Lawns with Brooks water running trough them, you have also a prospect of the Sea on one Part an Ou another A Mountain SO Miles distant The House is Built in the Form of a Long Square, with Wings at Each End and is about 80 Foot Long, in the middle i.s a Grand Hall Surrounded above by a Fine Gallery with Neat turned Bannester and the Cealing of the Hall Representing a Large doom Designed for an Assembly or Ball Room, the Oallery for the Musitians &c. the Building has Four Doors Fronting the N. E. S. & W. Standing in the middle the Great Hall you have a Full View of the Country from the Four Dores, at the Ends of the Buildings is 2 upper and 2 Lower Rooms with neat Stair Cases Leadeing to them, in One the Lower Rooms is his Library and Studdy well Stockd with a Noble Colection of Books, the others are all unfurnish'd as yet Nor is the Building yet Compleat, wants a Considerable workman Ship to Compleat it, so as the Design is. But Since the Loss of his first wife who was Governour Burnetts Daughter of New Yerk by whome he has yet 2 Little Daughters Liveing, the Loss of her he took much to heart as he was doateingly fond of her Being a Charming Ladie when married. But Le is now determind to Compleat it. we drank a Glass wine haveing Feasted our Eyes with the Prospect of the Country, Returned to his House where Sup'd and Past the Evening Vastly Agreeable being a Very merry Facitious Gentlemen, went to bed Intend'g to Proceed to Marble head Next Morning.

" Oct. 2\st. Haveing Got our Horses ready, after Breakfast took our Leave's of Mr. Browne and Spouse. Before proceed shall Give a Small Discription of Salem. Its a Small Sea Port Towne. Consists of ab't 450 Houses, Several of which are neat Buildings, but all of wood, and Covers a Great Deal of Ground, being at a Conveniant Distance from Each Other, with fine Gardens back their Houses, the Town is Situated on a Neck of Land Navagable on either Side, is ab't 2}^ Sliles in Lenght Including the build'gs Back the Towne, has a main Street runs trough. One Curch, 3 Presbiterian and one Quakers Meeting, the Situation is Very Pretty, &c. The Trade Consists Chiefly in the Cod Fishery, they have ab't 60 or 70 Sail Schooners Employd in that Branch. Saw ab't 40 Sail in the Harb'r liav'g then ab"t 40 at Sea. They Cure all their Own Cod for ftlarkett ; Saw there a Vast Number Flakes Cureing ; in the Harbour Lay also two Topsail Vessells and three Sloops, on E.xam'g into the Fishery find it a very adventag's Branch."

The travellers then ride to Marblehead "trough a pleasant country and good Roades" - spend an hour there at breakfast with Mr. Read - see the town, of which they formed no very flattering impression, and push on to their friend Mr. Ward's, at Lynn. Dyned upon a fine mongrel goose " - proceeded on their journey " through Mystic, and came to Mr. Wendell's in Boston, ab't 8 o'clock."

I find passages illustrative of the times in the diary of John Adams, written when the author was "riding the circuit" in the practice of the law, at the age of thirty, and residing in Braintree.

" 1766, Nov. Zd, Monday. Sett off with my wife for Salem. Stopped half an hour at Boston. Crossed the Ferry ; at three o'clock arrived at Hill's, the tavern in Maiden, the sign of the Rising Eagle * * * where we dined. Here we fell in company with Kent and Sewall. We all oated at Martin's where we found the new Sheriff of Essex, Colonel Saltonstall. We all rode into town together. Arrived at my dear brother Cranch's, about eight, and drank tea and are all very happy. Sat and heard the ladies talk about ribbon, catgut, and Paris net, riding-hoods, -cloth, silk, and lace. Brother Cranch came home and a very happy evening we had. Cranch is now in a good situation for business, near the Court House and Mr. Barnard's meeting-house and on the road to

"4. Tuesday. A fine morning : attended court all day. * * Prayer by Mr. Barnard, Deacon Pickering was foreman of one of the juries * * his appearance is perfectly plain, like a farmer. * * * *

" 5. Wednesday. Attended Court ; heard the trial of an action of trespass, brought by a mulatto woman for damages for restraining her of her liberty. * * * Spent the evening at Mr. Pynchon's witli Farnhani, Sewall, Sargent, Colonel Saltonstall, etc., very agreably. Punch, wine, bread and cheese, apples, pipes and tobacco. Popes and bonfires this evening at Salem, and a swarm of tumultuous people attending them.

"6. Tlinrsday. A fine morning. Oated at Martin's, where we saw five boxes of dollars, containing, as we were told, about eighteen thousand of them, going in a horse-cart from Salem Custom House to Boston, in order to be shipped for England. A guard of armed men, with swords, hangers, pistols and muskets, attended it. We dined at Dr. Tuft's in Medfurd. * * * Drank tea at 3irs. Kneeland's, - got home before eiglit o'clock."

On a previous visit to his brother Cranch in August, he rode after tea to Neck Gate, then back through the common, down to Beverly Ferry and about town. "Scarce an eminence," he says, "can be found anywhere to take a view. The streets are broad and straight and pretty clean. The houses are the most elegant and grand that I have seen in any of the maritime towns."

On Friday, June 29th, 1770, he set out on another "journey to Falmouth in Casco Bay." Dined at Goodhue's in Salem. Fell in with a London merchant, a stranger, who " made a genteel appearance," - was in a chair, himself with a negro servant; talked of American affairs; thought the colonists "could not conquer their luxury," and this would make them dependent on Great Britain. "Oated my horse and drank balm tea at Treadwell's in Ipswich." Treadwell's was a favorite resort with him. On a visit there ten days before, he says, - " Rambled with Kent round Landlord Treadwell's pastures to see how our horses fared. We found them in the grass up to their eyes ; excellent pastures. This hill, on which stand the Meeting-house and Court House, is a fine elevation, and we have here a fine air and the pleasant prospect of the winding river at the foot of the hill."

"Landlord and landlady are some of the grandest people alive : landlady is the great grand-daughter of Governor Endicott. * * As to Landlord he is as happy and proud as any nobleman in England."

Next morning, Saturday, June 30th, he " arose not very early, drank a pint of new milk and set off'; oated my horse at Newbury, rode to Clarke's at Greenland meeting-house, where I gave him hay and oats and then set oft' for Newington." Dined there with his uncle Joseph, minister of that town, then in his eighty-second year, and set off for York over Bloody Point Ferry * * " a very unsentimental journey excepting this day at dinner ; have been unfortunate enough to ride alone all the way and have met with very few characters or adventures. I forgot yesterday to mention that I stopped and inquired the name of a pond in Wenham, which I found, was Wenham Pond, and also the name of a remarkable little hill at the mouth of the pond, which resembles a high loaf of our country brown bread, and found that it is called Peters' Hill to this day from the famous Hugh Peters." * * *

"Julyl. Sunday. Arose early. I took a walk to the pasture, to see how my horse fiired. * * * My little mare had provided for herself, by leaping out of a bare pasture into a lot of mowing ground, and had filled herself with grass and water. * * * *

" 2. Monday morning. In my sulky before five o'clock, Mr. Winthrop, Farnham and D. Sewall with me on horseback : rode throngh the woods, the tide being too high to go over tlie beach and to cross Cape Neddick River: came to Littlefield's in Wells, a quarter before eight: stopped there and breakfasted. * * * Rode to Patten's of Arundel. Mr. Winthrop and I turned our horses into a little close to roll and cool themselves and feed upon white honey-svickle. P. M. Got into my chair : rode witli Elder Bradbury through Sir William Pepperell's woods : stopped and oated at Milliken's and rode into l'"almoutb."

Compare this picture of Mr. Adams riding into Falmouth, in his desobligeant, as he calls his narrowseated chair or sulky, with an incident in the career of two statesmen of our time. During the negotiation of the British American treaty which detained Mr. Webster in the cabinet of John Tyler, after his colleagues had deserted all the departments but that of State, it was proposed to convey him, in company with Lord Ashburton, with the utmost speed, from Boston to Portland. Alexander Brown, a genial, trusty, energetic man, was chosen from among the drivers on the route to arrange the conveyance by stage from the railroad terminus, and the most thorough preparations were made. Relays of picked horses, frequent and fresh, awaited him at every stagehouse, a groom to each horse, ambitious, both man and beast, to act well their parts in the struggle against time. Three minutes were allowed for each change of horses. Mr. Brown, afterwards depotmaster at the railroad station in Boston, recalled the achievement of that day with pride until his death, and used to tell how the British Ambassador got out at a stojiping-place and, watch in hand, observed the process of " unhitching and putting to," remarking that it was done as quickly, within a few seconds, as in England. This was high commendation from an Englishman. And it certainly was a notable thing, to have driven for eight hours over American roads, well enough to keep an English peer in good humor, and to have brought him into Portland, which was the old time Falmouth, in company with the man described by Carlyle as a "Parliamentary Hercules," " a magnificent specimen," whom " that tanned complexion, amorphous, crag-like face and those dull, black eyes under their precipice of brows, and that mastiff mouth, lead one to back against all the extant world," and of whom Emerson wrote " He is a natural emperor of men," and Sidney Smith is reported to have said that he must be a humbug, " for no man could be a tenth part as great as he looked."

"I mounted my horse and rode to Boston in a cloth coat and waistcoat, but was much pinched with a raw, cold, harsh, northeast wind. At Boston I put on a thick flannel shirt, and that made me comfortable and no more ; so cold am I, or so cold is the weather, June 17th * * * Came over Charlestown ferry and Penny ferry and dined at Kettel's in Maiden. * * * Overtook Judge Gushing in his old curricle with two lean horses, and Dick, his negro, at his right hand, driving the curricle. This is the way of travelling in 1771, - a judge of the circuits, a judge of the superior court, a judge of the king's bench, common pleas and exchequer for the Province, travels witli a pair of wretched old jades ef horses in a wretched old curricle, and a negro on the same seat with him driving. * * * Stopped at Martin's in Lynn with Judge Gushing ; oated and drank a glass of wine. * * - Rode with King, a deputy sheriff, who came out to meet the judges, into Salem : put up at Goodhue's. The negro that took my horse soon began to open his lieart. He did not like the people of Salem ; wanted to be sold to Capt. John Dean of Boston. His mistress said he did not earn salt to his porridge and would not find him clothes."

Before great advances could be made towards speed, comfort, safety and cheapness in travel, fords and stepping-stones must give way to ferries, - ferry-ways must yield to bridges, and turnpikes must supersede county roads on the great thoroughfares. Roadmaking was no new art. It had been carried to a high point by the ancients, but the costliness of their works made the lesson of little value to the new countries of the modern world. The Romans, for instance, had magnificent roads leading out into the provinces, - as many of them as the hills upon which the eternal city sat. These roads were crowned with a surface of polished stone, over which wagons, on wooden wheels, were drawn by unshod beasts with ease and speed. But it was only at the beginning of this century that McAdam showed us how to bridge over a quagmire with a crust of concrete so firm as to bear loads that make the marshy substratum on which it rests quake like a jelly.

From 1636 a ferry had been supported between North Point or Salem Neck, so-called, and Cape Ann or Bass River side, now Beverly. From time to time it was leased for the benefit of the grammar schoolmasters of Salem. At first it provided only for the crossing of persons. But, in 1639, these were the regulations : " Lessee to keep an horse-boate - to have for strangers' passadge 2d. apeice, - for towne dwellers Id. apeice, - for mares, horses and other great beasts 6c?. apeice, and for goats, calves and swyne 2d. apiece." For more than a century, an inn known as the "Old Ferry Tavern," stood hard by on the Salem side. The ferry touched at Salem side near the present bridge, but a little to the east.

ment of the ferry in the interest of Salem, moved for a bridge. A charter, now on deposit with the Essex Institute, was granted to the Cabots, and Israel Thorndike of Beverly, and to John Fiske and Joseph White of Salem, and the old ferry-way was laid out as a highway by the Court of Sessions. December 13th, the proprietors of the bridge organized at the Sun Tavern. Nathan Dane was moderator, and William Prescott, clerk. The bridge was opened for use September 24, 1788. It was one of the modern wonders. Gen. Washington, on his northern tour the next year, dismounted to examine it and observe the working of the draw. And a Eussian engineer was specially commissioned to acquaint himself with its structure. But this beneficent work was not carried through without violent opposition, of which Spite Bridge was one of the fruits. Salem voted to oppose the petitioners and invited other towns to do so. Competition was threatened from a parallel bridge. The navigation of North River, it was urged, would be annihilated, and forty vessels of various tonnage, then employed there, would be driven from the river. Orne's Point was insisted on as the proper terminus in Salem. " Prejudices, strong party feeling and much excitement" are spoken of by Felt, and he adds that one Blythe, a wit of the time, was i)rompted to observe that there never was a bridge built without railings on both sides. This timely successor of the old ferry-way, after compensating its projectors for their risk and outlay, reverted, at the expiration of its seventy years' charter, to the State. I may be pardoned a personal reminiscence in this connection. My grandfather walked over the bridge on the day it was opened for travel, being then a Salem school-boy ten years old, and again in his eightieth year on the day of the expiration of its charter in 1858, having been president of the corporation in the interval.

In 1868 the bridge was surrendered by the State to the towns and thrown open to the public, in accordance with that enlightened social economy which teaches that all needless restraint upon the intercourse of neighbors is barbarism.

Another monument of Essex County enterprise is the turnpike connecting us with Boston, now also, in the same liberal spirit, dedicated to free travel. March 6, 1802, Edward Augustus Holyoke, William Gray, Nathan Dane, Jacob Ashton and Israel Thorndike, with their associates, were incorporated to build a turnpike from Buffum's corner, through Great Pastures, over Breed's Island in Lynn Marshes, across Mystic River, and from a point near the Navy-yard to Charles River Bridge. The Statute Books are full of similar acts at this period. The Essex Turnpike from Andover, intended to bring the travel of Vermont and New Hampshire through Salem to Boston, was chartered the next spring, as was also another from State street, Newburyport " by as nearly a straight line as practicable " to Maiden Bridge.

and McAdam had not completed their grand experiments nor demonstrated their rival systems for some years later. But the turnpike corporators used the best science of the day and a wonderful road they made. In the famous records kept at Benjamin Blanchard's Barber Shop, in which his distinguished patrons noted current events, while waiting for an empty chair, it appears that work began near " Pickering's Pen " June 7, 1802. Of course there was vigorous opposition and wild disparagement on one side, - great enthusiasm on the other. Dr. Stearns, one of its most ardent promoters, is said to have declared that, when the turnpike was done, a man might stand on Buffum's corner and look straight into Charlestown Square. The extent of the work of building may be judged of by the fact that a village of huts covered the high ground now occupied by Erastus Ware, which soon became a resort for toddy and tenpins, and that the material and tools employed, sold on the completion of the work, brought at auction, October 27, 1803, thirty-two hundred dollars. Captain Richard Wheatland paid the first toll, July 12, 1803, on his way to Boston to take command of his ship for Calcutta. How much the new route, only twelve miles and a fraction long, did to bring us and the metropolis together, will be recalled with pleasure by some yet living who enjoyed for the first time, in the early years of the century, an evening ride to Boston with a ball, a concert, or a play in prospect to give zest to the excursion.

The largest sum, taken in a year at " Toil-Gate No 1," near our great pastures, was $5300, in 1805 ; - the day of the greatest travel was June 1, 1813. On that summer afternoon the smoke of conflict between the " Chesapeake" and "Shannon'' was rolling over the bay. One hundred and twenty stages, crowded to repletion, passed up that day. Thousands of spectators prayerfully watched the fight from every hilltop and gloomily retired when the issue was but too plainly seen.

On the morning of November 6, 1869, the old gate-keeper at "No. 1," gets orders to take no more tolls. Gravely he sets open, for the last time, the last toll-gate in Essex County and breaks out in rhyme :

The distinctive character of the turnpike among roads is departed. It is as wholly a thing of the past as that negro village which once clustered about the entrance at Buff'um's corner, with its fortune-telling and cake-baking and fiddling and dancing. But the great road will stand. Years will not destroy its traces of heavy blasting and grading, - its viaducts of splendid masonry across deep, picturesque ravines, their granite sides and terraced buttresses backed up with sturdy trunks and roots of ancient elm and willow, fit types of the blended beauty and utility which mark its course. No son of Salem returning from his wanderings, however great a truant, but will pause delighted on that hill top, where bursts upon the eye the eldest born of New England cities, whether the morning sun is touching with an earlyglory the score of spires and towers, clustered about that thing of beauty, the South Church Steeple, or whether at night-fall, broadsides of factory windows are blazing with their perpetual illumination in honor of the triumphs of industry. While lovers ramble and young limbs are strong, - while Bitter-sweet Rocks live in song, and Great Pastures find a place in story, - so long shall there be brisk walking among its rugged scenes in Spring and Autumn, and willing steeds shall be urged to speed over No-bottom Pond Bridge on the moonlight gallop, so long as water plashes up like molten silver through the chinks in the planking, - until, indeed, the poet sings to deaf ears,

The first public conveyance noticed by Felt was a " large stage chair," or two-horse curricle which ran from Portsmouth to Boston and back each week, in 1761. "An epidemical distemper" among horses interfered with the business in 1768, but, two years after, Benjamin Coats, who was then landlord at the Ship Tavern in School (now Washington) Street, gave notice that he had bought a " new Stage chaise" which would run between Salem and Boston " so that he will then, with the one now improved in that business, be able to carry and bring passengers, bundles and the like every day except Sunday." He has also five fall-back chaises, one fall-back curricle, six standing top chairs and three sulkies to let. In December, 1771, Benjamin Hart advertises that " he has left riding the single horse post between Boston and Portsmouth and now drives the post stage lately improved by John Noble. He sets out from Boston every Friday morning and from Portsmouth on Tuesday morning following. The above conveyance has been found very useful and now more so, as there is another curricle improved by J. S. Hart, who sets off from Portsmouth the same day this does from Boston, by which opportunity offers twice a week, for travellers to either place."

Systematic staging probably began here about 1796, and in this business Benjamin Hale, of Newburyport, seems to have been the pioneer on the route between Boston and Portsmouth, as was Seth Paine, of Portland, on the lines further east. Mr. Hale was a resolute, persevering man, and there was nothing worth knowing about staging which he did not know. Many improvements in stage springs are accredited to him, as well as the introduction of the trunk-rack, by which means the passenger's luggage was employed to ballast the coach, whereas formerly it had rested, a dead weight, on the axles, jolting and tossing as though sjirings were yet to be invented. He had made his way up from small beginnings against discouragements and trials, but his single coach, driven by his own hand, in the early years of the century, had given place to a large establishment of horses, carriages and drivers. Mr. Paine's career had not been different. He was a postman in Maine when all the mails were carried on horse-back; a man of few words, prompt, inflexible, and of great energy. He came to be the largest owner and sole manager of coaches east of Portsmouth and government contractor for the eastern mails, while the stages on this side of Portsmouth were under the able and exclusive management of Mr. Hale. The proprietors, at this time, were few, - not more than five or six. Besides those named, were Judge Elkins, of Wenham and Salem, and Samuel Larkin, of Portsmouth. Dr. Cleaveland, of Topsfield, bought an interest about 1806. The profitable character of the business could not long be concealed. Tributary lines spring up. Thus a stage connected with the Boston Line set off from Salem, August 20, 1810, for the Coos County. Three were to be despatched every week. Competition, of course, followed, and, in 1818, opposing lines were absorbed by the original proprietors, and the Eastern State Company was incorporated. It is not too early to write in a historic strain of that once familiar visitant, the Stage Coach. And the books of this corporation, now in possession of the Essex Institute, shed ample light upon one of the largest and most successful staging enterprises of New England.

The Eastern Stage Company was chartered by the State of New Hampshire, for a period of twenty years. Its act of incorporation, approved June, 1818, contains three sections, and, singularly enough, by no word except its title, from beginning to end, indicates the business to be facilitated thereby. By this act, Samuel Larkin, William Simes, Elisha Whidden and their associates are made a body corporate, the " Eastern Stage Company," by name, are to sue and be sued, have a common seal, make rules and by-laws, and generally to do whatever appertains to bodies corporate, with a capital stock not exceeding one hundred thousand dollars, and shares not more than five hundred in number, and that is all. To one familiar with the guarded language of acts establishing the railroad lines which superseded this great stage route, the absence of all limitations of power is striking. In the early railroad charters every function that could be anticipated is provided for, even to the grade of the road-bed, the curves of the track, and the erection of toll houses and toll-gates, after the analogy of the turnpike, where trains were to stop and travellers pay fare.

But these corporators did not abuse their powers, however loosely conferred. Their first meeting, duly notified in the Portsmouth Oracle, the Boston Centinel and the Newburyport Herald, was held at Langmaid's tavern, at Hampton Falls, on Friday, October 9, 1818. They chose Dr. Nehemiah Cleaveland, of Topsfield, Moderator, and Samuel Newman, Clerk, accepted the charter, adopted by-laws and fixed their capital stock at four hundred and twenty-five shares, of one hundred dollars each. The by-laws provide for eight directors and a proprietors' clerk, to be chosen annually by the share-holders, who were to throw a vote for each share owned, not exceeding twenty - the directors to chose a president from their number, appoint "a principal agent and treasurer" and such " agents, drivers and servants as they may find necessary for the due management of the property." They are to close accounts and declare dividends in March and September, and are allowed two dollars per day and expenses for attendance at directors' meetings. The clerk was under oath, and the agent and treasurer under bonds in the sum of ten thousand dollars.

They organized thus, - President, Dr. Cleaveland, - Proprietors' Clerk, Seth Sweetser, - Directors, Josiah Paine, Stephen Howard, Seth Sweetser, Samuel Larkin, Thomas Haven, Henry Elkins, Ephraim Wildes. Col. Jeremiah Coleman was principal agent and treasurer.

If the charter said nothing of the purposes of this corporation, their own by-laws said about as little. Nowhere is there a distinct announcement of the function which they proposed to discharge, nor any description of the extent nor location of their field of operations. This is to be explained, no doubt, by the fact that some of these gentlemen were, before their incorporation, already successful operators and proprietors of stages running over portions of the routes they now proposed to combine, and no words were needed to teach them the duties and liabilities of common carriers of persons.

Thus at the first directors' meeting we seem plunged at once into the dust and whirl of stage-coach travel. The six o'clock stage from Portsmouth (they vote) is to be discontinued. What a chapter might be written on that early coach, leaving "Wildes' Hotel" at six o'clock each frosty October morning or, better still, on the stage which, all winter long, in storm or by starlight, left Boston for the East at five o'clock in the morning. The hurried breakfast, - the smoking corn-cake, - the savory rasher, - the potato raked, glowing hot, out of its bed of ashes, - the steaming, creamy, aromatic coffee, - the chill, crisp morning, - lanterns flitting ghostly through the ample stables, - reluctant horse-boys shivering about the door-yard and wishing themselves in their bunks again, - the resonant crack of the whip, - the clear, sharp click of well-shod hoofs on frozen ground, - the clatter of wheels, - the scramble in the dark for seats, - the long, dull ride with fellow-travellers chilled and grim, half concealed by twilight and half in mufflers, - that crying baby, who seems to have found vent, at that unlucky hour, for all the pent-up sorrows of its little life, - the gradual warmth of conversation and day-break stealing at last over the coach-load, - the side-lights fading out and good nature once more prevailing over cramped legs, sharp elbows and cold feet shuffling among the scanty straw, - all these things must now be given over to the romancer, whose ready pen, ever busy with the past, will not long neglect them.

The late President Quincy gives a well-drawn picture of staging facilities at the close of the last century. He was then paying court to a New York lady, to whom he was privately engaged and afterwards married. Boston had twenty - New York, thirty thousand souls. Two coaches and twelve horses sufficed the travel between the two commercial centres of the continent. The journey was almost as rare an event then as a voyage to Europe is now, and took about as long. To one bent on Mr. Quincy's errand the way no doubt seemed doubly tedious. The impatient suitor writes :

"The caniages were old, and the shackling and much of the harness made of ropes. One pair of horses carried ns eighteen miles. We generally reached our resting-place for the night, if no accident intervened, at ten o'clock, and after a frugal supper, went to bed with a notice that we should be called at three, next morning - which generally proved to lie half-past two. Then, whether it snowed or rained, the traveller must rise and make ready by the help of a horn lantern and a farthing candle, and proceed on his way, over bad roads, - sometimes with a driver showing no doubtful symptoms of drunkenness, which goodhearted passengers never failed to improve at every stopping-place, by urging upon him the comfort of another glass of toddy. Thus we travelled eighteen miles a stage, sometimes obliged to get out and help the coachman lift the coach out of a quagmire or rut, and arrived at New York after a week's hard travelling, wondering at the ease as well as the expedition with which our journey was effected."

Contrast with this picture an " Old Driver's Heminiscence," which I give in his own words. The stage that left Newburyport for Boston at 8 o'clock in the morning usually took the passengers who had stopped for rest over night, many of whom were strangers to our New England customs. One morning, as the passengers were about taking their seats, a gentleman asked the driver it he would accommodate him with a seat on the box. " Certainly," says the driver, "please step right up before another occupies it." Our first stop was at Rowley, a seven mile drive, during which many questions were asked by the stranger and answered according to the driver's knowledge. At this place we took some passengers. While the driver was arranging the baggage, the gentleman on the box asked him to step in and take something to drink. His reply was, " No, I thank you, sir, I have no occasion for anything," and he mounted the box and drove to Ipswich^ where the horses were changed. Here most of the passengers alighted while the shifting was taking place. At the same time the stranger came olf the box and urged the driver again to take something to drink. The answer was the same as be- fore. When the horses were ready, the driver, as was the custom, says - " the stage is ready, gentlemen ! " and they take their seats in tlie coach. Off they start down the crooked hill and over the stone bridge, called by some short-sighted people " Choate's Folly." The next stop was at Wenham, where it was the usual practice to take the fares, it being the Half- Way House to Boston. And here the outside passenger says to the driver again, - "Come, now, you have accomplished one-half of the distance, - you must certainly take a drink with me." " No, I thank you, sir." " What kind of men are you drivers here in this section of the country ? Drivers where I came from will drink at every stopping-place, and it is with much fear that we travel there, but here I see that passengers are perfectly at ease when seated in the coach." "Sir, things have changed here within a few years. You were saying that passengers in your section were uneasy, and often had fears for their safety while riding with your drivers. Here all that is reversed, for in former years the travellers used every precaution to keep the drivers sober, but now the drivers by their example try to keep the passengers sober." " I will never ask you to drink again," says our outside passenger, and he was mum on the drinking question the rest of the way to Boston.

The arrangements for the main route of the Eastern Stage Company, in the winter of 1818, may be sketched thus : A coach left rortsmouth for Boston at 9 A. M., (the same carriage running through), dined at Topsfield, then through Danversport and Salem to Boston, and back the same way next day, dining at Newburyport. A portion of the Newburyport turnpike was used, and this made Topsfield quite metropolitan, so much so that conventions often met there. In 1808 a great caucus was held at Topsfield to denounce the embargo. The County Convention which established Lyceums met there in 1829. The Essex Agricultural Society, formed at Topsfield in 1818, held its annual meetings there in 1820, '22, '23, '24, '25, '37 and '38, but never after.

Of course the records plunge us at once into all sorts of questions of law and policy, - they meet us at the threshold, - they linger to the end ; - questions of tolls on turnpikes and bridges, - conferences arranged with this and that corporation, - new terms made or war declared. Once it is voted that seven hundred dollars be accepted by the Newburyport Turnpike as toll for the year, or the stages go by Old Town Bridge. Complications grow out of the delicate relations of carriers to the public. Too accommodating drivers are induced to act as expressmen on their private account, and attempts are made to hold the company liable for their losses. At the first meeting " Drivers are expressly prohibited from carrying any money or packages, not accounted for to the company's agent ; " and almost at the last a " committee is considering the subject of drivers carrying provisions from sundry places to Boston for sale, contrary to a vote of the directors." In April, 1819, " the company do not consider themselves accountable for the loss of any baggage, bundles, or packages whatever, committed to the care of the drivers, or otherwise put into their stages." This sweeping announcement, so like what is sometimes read on the backs of railroad tickets to-day, was followed up in the same spirit in 1826 and 1829. Now they vote that no driver shall carry anything, except in his pocket, without paying the company's agent, on pain of instant dismissal ; and again, the driver must " agree with the agent to exclude his private or pocket business from his compensation, so the company shall have no participation, direct or indirect, with such business of the drivers, meaning especially Bills of any Bank which may be entrusted to them." " But is this law? " ask the perplexed proprietors of Benjamin Merrill, Esq., in 1832, and that eminent counselor finds himself unable to give the desired assurance, but on the contrary, they record a long opinion advising them that their contract with drivers will not discharge them from liability, unless notice of it is brought home in each case to the sender of the bill or parcel. And accordingly a notice, drawn by him, is formally served in person on every bank president and cashier on the route, posted in the taverns, and widely advertised in the newspapers.

The record is rich in little incidents which give life to the picture of the times. A driver is fined fifty dollars, the value of a horse killed by his carelessness. Afterwards, for good conduct, the forfeiture is reduced to one month's wages. Owing to the appreciated state of the currency, in 1820, wages were reduced, and fares from Boston to Exeter put at three dollars. Once in awhile a coach is overturned. In one case, if payment of damages is refused by the Salem Turnpike, the agent is to enter complaint and present the road to the grand jury ; in another, forty dollars are received in liquidation. Again, a director is to settle for damages done by loose horses breaking out of the Salem stable. And again, fines imposed by the postoffice department for loss of mails, are to be charged oft" to the drivers who lost them. Sub-agents were selected for the principal points on the route, placed on salary, and under bonds, and quartered at the best hotels. Blacksmith's shops were established at many points, and extensive stables in Boston and elsewhere, many of them built of brick. Not more than seven shillings were to be paid for shoeing, out of Boston, and but ten cents for caulking or resetting shoes. Drivers are forbid taking letters, in violation of laws regulating the United States General Post-office; and frequent embassies are dispatched to Washington to contract for carrying the mails, or to change the times or terms for delivering them. " Accommodating Stages " are sometimes to take mails at the desire of government or the postmaster at Boston, but " Mail Stages " are regularly designated, and these make better speed and collect higher fares than the former. Mail-con tracts are exchanged among different companies, and combinations formed with other lines where competition would be ruinous, and sub-agents are withdrawn from inns which harbor the books of hostile companies. In April, 1823, it is significantly voted that several sub-agents be discharged, and hereafter it shall be an " indispensible requisite that their moral characters be good, and that they have no horses and carriages to let." In August, 1823, it is voted to " keep a horse and chaise in Boston to accommodate passengers, and carry and fetch their baggage." This under the stress of a vigorous opposition, when the exigency called for unusual efforts and the running of extras at "about the same time the opposing stage goes, but always a little before that conveyance and at the same fare." In October, a number of horses and chaises are to be kept on hire at Newbury port. In December, the extras run a little before the opposition coaches are to charge but half fare. The Ann Street stage-house at Boston is leased and furnished, and Col. Wildes placed there as landlord, with an interest in the profits not to exceed one-half. Next summer the horses are to be fed with cut hay and meal. April 19, 1825, the directors met at Gilman's hotel, in Newburyport. They found their enterprise thriving, - established a sinking fund to be swelled by semi-annual additions; carried one thousand dollars to that account ; declared a semi-annual dividend of four per cent. ; created seventy-five new shares, making up the full five hundred to which they were limited in their charter, and provided for selling the new shares at not less than six dollars premium on a par of one hundred dollars. To the sinking fund was afterward voted the net income of the Ann Street stage-house, and the agent was directed to sell at auction, from time to time, collections of articles left in their offices and coaches " for which no owners can be found." The second dividend for this year was six per cent., and in 1826 eleven per cent, was divided.

At the end of ten years the prosperity of the company was established. It had now substantial stables, not connected with public houses, at all the chief points of the route, one of them on Church Street, in the rear of the Lafayette Coffee-house, in Salem ; and it owned hotels, or a controlling interest in hotels, at Boston, Newburyport, Exeter and Dover. It was sending deputations to the New England Stage Association, which met at " Holbrook's," in Milk Street, Boston, with a view to bring together, at least once a year, representatives of all the stage companies of this section. In October, 1828, it held its shares at a premium of fifty dollars, and made a semi-annual dividend of eight per cent., on one hundred and fifty dollars per share. At this time the management of the stage-house in Ann Street passed into the hands of Mr. Leavitt, upon the death of Col. Wildes and Col. Henry Whipple of Salem, became a director in place of Judge Elkins, resigned.

In 1830, the company was incorporated in Massachusetts, with a capital of one hundred thousand dollars. In 1832 it sent delegates to a Mail Contract Convention, which sat at " Wyatt's " in Dover, to apportion the mail routes for New England, and its bid shows that it was running coaches from Concord to Portsmouth ; Dover, by two routes, to Newburyport ; Portsmouth, by Exeter, to Newburyport, Salem and Boston; from Salem to Haverhill and Lowell; from Gloucester to Ipswich ; and from Lowell, by two routes, to Newburyport.

January, 1833, found them free from debt and their stock higher than ever. They owned near five hundred horses. A steamboat had been built on Lake Winnepessaukee and they were running stages from Dover to meet it. At times they ran a daily to Portland. In October, 1834, the stock stood at $202.13 per share on their books, par being $100. In January, 1835, they were paying between eight and nine thousand dollars in tolls for the year, had bought turnpike, bridge and bank stocks, and amongst other i"eal estate the Dalton House, between the West estate and Church Street, in Salem, which they sold, retaining a way out from the stables to Church Street. Up to this point their career must be considered as one of unmixed prosperity. The Eastern Railroad was not chartered ; the Boston and Maine was but a spur from the Boston and Lowell, extending as far as Andover. Travel increased apace, - with it the running stock and corps of employes. The directors' record-book is pleasant reading now. They meet at comfortable inns, spend two or three days together, examine lucrative accounts, pass the evening over plethoric way-bills, compute their dividends, make combinations with kindred bodies all over the Eastern States, and New York if need be, and smile at competition.

What a text is here for another volume of pen and ink sketches, - these old stage houses which figure in the record, - "Wildes' Hotel" at Portsmouth, "Langmaid's" and "Wade's" at Hampton Falls, "Gilman's" and the "Wolfe" at Newburyport, the "Sun Tavern," the " Lafayette Coffee House " at Salem, " Ann Street Stage House" and "City Tavern" in Boston 1 What pleasant memories start up at the recital, as of those ancient hostelries of London, once, as Mr. Dickens says, "the headquarters of celebrated coaches in the days when coaches performed their journeys in a graver and more solemn manner than they do in these times, but which have now degenerated into little more than the abiding and booking places of country wagons." Of these he says, " there still remain some half-dozeo in the borough, which have preserved their external features unchanged, and which have escaped alike the rage for public improvement and the encroachments of private speculation. Great, rambling, queer, old places they are, with galleries, and passages, and stair-cases wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost-stories, supposing we should ever be reduced to the lamentable necessity of inventing any." Such was our own poet's Wayside Inn,

" Built in the old colonial day, When men lived in a grander way Witli ampler hospitality - A kind of old Hobgoblin Hall, Now somewhat fallen to decay, W^ith weather-stains upon the wall And stair-ways worn and crazy doors And creaking and uneven floors. And chimneys huge, and tiled and tall. A region of repose it seems. By noon and night the panting teams Stop under the great oaks that throw Tangles of light and shade below. Across the road the barns display Their lines of stalls, their mows of hay. Through the wide door the breezes blow, - The wattled cocks strut to and fro, - And, half effaced by rain and shine, The 'Red Horse ' prances on the sign."

One seems to recall the impatience with which the tired traveller looked forward to alighting at these old inns, - to see again the village steeple peering over the hill, its gilded cockerel glistening in the sunset, - to hear the stage-horn once more bidding the postmaster expect the evening mail, the landlord serve the welcome meal ; to see honest, little, nervous Jack Mendum, or sturdy, robust, reliable Robert Annable, or good-natured Knight, or the voluble but substantial Pike, or some other famous whip, gather up his reins and muster his strength for a final sweep across the tavern yard, the crowning effort of a day of toil to dusty traveller and smoking, jaded team, and then down go the steps and cramped legs are free at last !

Or we seem again to be bowling down that grand old turnpike from Newburyport, with Ackerman or Barnabee or Forbes, rumbling by old Gov. Dummer's Academy at Byfield, telling off the milestones through the Topsfield of fifty years ago, over the gra.ssy hills and by the beautiful lake at Lynnfield, on the coach that left "Pearson's" at six every summer morning; or to be whirling by Flax Pond, where, a century ago, Mr. Goldthwaite asked John Adams to a "genteel dinner" of fish, bacon, peas and incomparable Madeira, under the "shady trees, with half a dozen as clever fellows as ever were born ;" or to be rattling through the old toll-gate and dashing down Great Pasture hills into Saletn town on the topmost seat of the early Boston Mail Stage which, in 18.35, was to "breakfast in Salem and dine at Portsmouth," while all the eastern landscape is aglow with the tints of morning and the dews of spring make everything in nature sparkle. Or perhaps it is winter,

"Now the increasing storm makes all the plain From field to highway a vast foaming sea ! And sculptors of the air, with curious skill, Have graven their images of stainless white. Pagodas, temples, turrets, columns raised From the exhaustless quarries of the snow, Afar and near, - the artwork of the wind !"

hill at Ipswich, with the bar of Southern Essex, to find that another coach-load of jurisprudence is stuck fast on Rowley Marshes, while judge and counsellor alike have committed trespass quare clausimi /regit, in prying their coach out of a snowdrift with the near^ est fence rails.

" In those days of old-fashioned winters, there were many trials and difficulties in getting through the route, but let the storm or the snow blockade be ever so bad, they were always ready to do, to the uttermost, all that men could do to accomplish it. These drivers, too, were the most obliging and kind-hearted men that ever handled reins, cracked whip or sounded stage-horn.

"They were great favorites with all the boys who rode with them. Many of us who were then at Exeter Academy came home at the end ot the term by the Eastern Stage route, and a lively time we used to have of it. Quite a number of stage coachea were always sent on to take us. When they arrived what a scramble ensued to see who should ride with Pike, who with Annable, or Knight, or Forbes, or some other goodnatured driver, experienced in stages and careful of their young charges as if thej' were all destined to be governors, or judges, or presidents. We used to consider it the seat of honor on the outside with the driver, there to listen to his stories and to enjoy his companj'. Many a scrap of practical wisdom did we youngsters thus pick up to turn to good account on the great road of life.

"And then too what a gathering at the old Wolfe Tavern in Newburyport, when the noon stage-coaches arrived from Boston ! The sidewalk was often crowded with anxious boys, and men too, to catch a sight of distinguished passengers and the last fashions, and to hear the latest news. Why, it was as good as a daily paper, or a telegraphic dispatch - better indeed, for the living men, actors sometimes in the scenes described, were there to tell what had happened."

"Once when a mere child it was necessary for me to go from Saco to a town near Boston. This was quite an undertaking in those days, as one was obliged to pass the night in Portsmotith. Being without a protector, my mother confided me to the care of one of those old, faithful drivers. It was evening when we reached Portsmouth and veiy cold. Everything was new and strange to me. How carefully was I taken by the hand and led up that long flight of stairs to the excellent accommodations which awaited me ! How well I remember the kind, smiling face of Robinson, as next morning, wliip in hand, he appeared at the parlor dour and inquired for the 'little girl' who was to go with him! His hearty 'good morning' and 'all ready, miss,' as I presented myself, are still sounding in my ears. While changing horses at Newburyport I was comfortably seated before a warm fire in the sitting-room. Indeed, I do not know that I could have been more comfortably attended to had I been the daughter of the President. I was the daughter of a poor widow instead, and an utter stranger to the man whose memory I have ever cherished as one of the pleasant recollections of my childhood."

What stalwart men this sturdy, out-door life produced ! Moses Head, of Portsmouth, drove into that town, from Boston, the stage that brought news of peace in 1815, with a white flag fastened to the box. News of the battle of New Orleans came at the same time. That evening there was a procession in honor of these events. Head, who was then Ensign of the artillery company, and resembled General Jackson in appearance and stature, arrayed himself in a military suit and chapeau, and personated the hero of New Orleans in the ranks of the procession to great acceptance. He was born among the granite hills of New Hampshire, and died at the age of seventy-two, after a sickness of a day, the only sickness of his life.

"I began to drive on an opposition line in 1823, and after about nine months I had an application from Col. Coleman to come over to the old company. As I thought it a more permanent job, I came over to drive ' Extra.' I had not been long at it before the travel increased very much, so the directors ordered one hundred more horses to be bought, and carriages in proportion, to accommodate the public. The business came on so hard that I had all I bargained for. I followed the mail twelve days in succession, starting from Boston at 2 o'clock in the morning, breakfasting in Newburyport, dinner at Portsmouth and back again to supper in Salem, getting into Boston anywhere from nine to eleven o'clock, so there was not much sleep or rest for me. The twelfth day, when I drove into the yard at Salem, Col. Coleman was there, and said he, 'young man, you had better stop here and get a little rest and take your team in tlie morning at four o'clock.' So Mr. Rand took the team to Boston and back.

"The worst of it was, I had the same horses out and back every day. It was hard keeping up with the mail, as their horses rested one or two days in the week, and they were like wild ones. Only hold on and they would go as fast as any one wished to ride. As a general thing we made good time. I have been through Charlestown Square on time, for three weeks, not varying five minutes by the clock, although we had some trying storms.

"I was compelled to stop at Hamilton one night, after beating with the storm from seven in the morning till ten at night, with a single sleigh and two horses, and so, completely used up, we slept w»ll. It cleared up about tliree o'clock, so that uncle Robert Annable, with the morning coach, came along pretty well, and passed us while we were asleep, and took off his bells so as not to awake us, and then he was very joyous to think he had got ahead. It was something, to be sure, that never happened before nor since.

" On the whole it was a very pleasant life, for every one on the road was very hospitable to us. I never got stuck in the mud nor snow, when all the people on the road were not willing, night or day, to lend a hand. So wo felt that we were among friends, and that was comforting to us. The wealthy Southerners, who used to come east in summer, would almost always want us to keep on and drive them to Providence or New York, for they did not get so good accommodations at the South. And as we refused the refreshments they offered us at every stopping place, we were pretty sure to get a handsome present before they left, which was far more satisfactory. It was .a verj' pleasant business, and we had our choice of company outside, and that wasworth a great deal.

" When it was decided by the Legislature that there should be a Railroad, you may depend tipon it there were heavy hearts. For we had spent so much time in staging we did not know what we should do. But all who wished had something to do. The corporation employed a large number of the drivers as conductors, baggage-masters and brakemen. I withdrew and took up the express business, and followed that until 1860. So I had served the public from '2;j to '60."

These drivers, so freely trusted with life and treasure, with the care of helpless infancy and age, deserved well of the community they served, and are held in kindly remembrance. They knew of old the wants and habits of the travelling public, and railroad corporations were glad to secure agents from among their numbers.

Has anybody forgotten rare James Potter, of the Salem and Boston Line, - active, clear-headed, courteous and prompt, who for forty years drove with such care and skill to Boston and back that, it was said, he was as well known and as much respected by Salem people as Dr. Bentley? Here he comes up the street from the old " Sun Tavern " with the seven o'clock morning coach, his dapple-greys groomed to a hair and well in hand, - the model driver, trusted by the banks, by the old sea-kings, by everybody with uncounted treasure, - the splendid reinsman, chosen in August, 1824, to bring the beloved Lafayette in safety into Salem !

Has anybody forgotten the scene in College yard at Cambridge, when Peter Ray arrived, at the end of the term, with his coach and six sorrels, to take home what might well be styled the "flower of Essex!" How he displayed, before admiring eyes, his mastery of curves and functions, by turning six-in-hand, at a cheerful trot, in the little corner between Holworthy and Stoughton, and how the Essex County boys, cheered by their fellows and eager for the long vacation, whirled out of college gate and down the historic roads by Washington's Elm, and Letchmere's Point, and Bunker Hill, to their welcome home ! Handsome Peter, they called him - a favorite with children and ladies - for with him, on the introduction of the famous steel-spring coaches, they first knew what it was to ride comfortably outside, with an intelligent and entertaining driver, whose tongue kept pace with his team, and whose castles in the air often reached stupendous proportions before half the distance between Lynn and Salem had been accomplished !

And here comes Page! witty, large-hearted, stronghanded Woodbury Page, his two bays on the jump, swinging round the corner from Beverly, sweeping round the Common to the old stable in Union Street, shifting horses, and then round the big elm and oif again in a twinkling, with those very four milk-whites, with which he drove Henry Clay, in October, 1833, from Senator Silsbee's door-step in Washington Square to the Tremont House in sixty minutes !

And what shall be said of the polished and agreeable Jacob Winchester, favorite driver on wedding journeys and pleasure parties, who carried bags of specie to and from New York, when our merchants wanted a messenger who would neither play the rogue with funds nor sutler anybody to take them from him ; what of the popular driver and consummate reinsman Lot Peach, who would get to Boston about as soon with crows' meat as moderate drivers did with choice teams of horses; - what of Albert Knight, always oo good terms with passengers and steeds ; - what of stout, little, talkative Major Shaw, who was off at three with the sorrels and the last coach up, rather than not go with whom ladies would often lose the morning stages and some hours of shopping and visiting in Boston ; - what of stalwart, kind-hearted, deep-voiced Adrian Low, whose cheerful life ended in mystery and an unknown grave; - what, indeed, of the hundred and fifty good, sound, trusty men who, from first to last, drove stages over these routes in the employ of regular or opposition lines, whole families of them, like the four Potters, the three Annables, the three Akermans, the brothers Canney, Conant, Drake, Knight, Marshall, May, Manning, Patch, Robinson, Shaw, Tenney, Tozzer, Winchester, seeming to have been born on wheels, or descended from the hippocentaurs of ancient fable, - men who combined energy and good nature in a ratio not likely to be developed by any vocation now in vogue, - men who cracked their joke as they swung their whip, - men who knew what it is vouchsafed us to know of that fascinating uncertainty, the horse, and supplemented this with a wonderfully shrewd insight into the nature of their fellow- creatures ! ^ the first in the country mounted on steel springs, and provided behind with a '' dicky " and trunk-rack after the English pattern ! And what of those noble teams of blacks and bays and buckskins and roans and chestnuts, clean-limbed and strong, that moved out, with coats like velvet, every afternoon when dinner over, before the City Tavern in Brattle Street, the Ann Street Stage House or the Marlboro Hotel, sweeping the ground with flowing tails, too often, it must be added, tails of fiction, in which the cunning hand of Lancaster had eked out the unsuccessful efforts of nature! What of those scores of coach-builders and blacksmiths, and harness-makers, who plied the awl, and bent the tire, and drove the plane, with such pride and spirit in these old days, when Harding shod, and Daniel Manning ran with orders from the Sun Tavern to the yards in Union Street, and William H. Foster balanced accounts and made up dividends, and Mackie, over his saddlery, fought out the battle of Waterloo, in which he took a part, and that shy boy, since known to fame as Nathaniel Hawthorne, was keeping stage-books in his uncle Manning's office! What of that ancient negro hostler at Breed's Hotel, in Lynn, with his little competency accumulated from the trifles dropped into his hat for many a year by kindly travellers as the stage rolled off", who fell on his knees on the stable floor and wept great tears when the steam whistle sounded at last and he felt indeed that he must say with his Shakesperean prototype, "Farewell! Othello's occupation's gone!" Too many of this company of worthies are now

Twenty-one surviving drivers of the Eastern Stage Company honored themselves and the memory of the agent under whom they served, by attending, in April, 1866, the funeral of Colonel Coleman, the man to

1 It was a happy thought which bi-ought two hundred and fifty "old stagers" of the Connecticut Valley, - Drivers, Proprietors and Agents, - together at Springfield for a merry Christmas in 1859. Hon. Ginery Twitchell and James Parker, Esq., of the Western Railroad, seem to have been promoters of this "gathering of the whips," and two days were given up to their entertainment in Springfield during which the hospitalities of larder and stable were tested to the utmost. At a public dinner on the occasion were produced those spirited lines of Edwin Bynner, now familiar to newspaper readers, beginning,

"Oh ! the days are gone when the merry horn Awakened the echoes of smiling morn As, breaking the slumber of village street, The foaming leaders' galloping feet Told of the rattling, swift approacli Of the well-appointed old stage coach !"

whose vigorous and intelligent oversight that enterprise had almost owed its success for a quarter of a century. During the same years the Salem and Boston Company was under the courteous management of William Manning, another model stage agent, known among the "whips" as "Sir William," and to have been trusted by whom they thought enough for an epitaph.

We come now to the closing scene of the Eastern Stage Company. In July, 1835, the ominous words " Rail Road " appear for the first time in their voluminous records. Let us see what these words meant.

Passengers had been transported in carriages drawn by steam over the Darlington and Stockton Railway in England, for ten years. The engines employed were stationary, and inventive genius had been as busy with the problem of travelling in steam carriages over turnpikes, as with the twin problem, which has since completely overshadowed the other, of locomotive machinery for railways. During the first ten years of the century, indeed, the steam engine, both stationary and locomotive, began to be applied to transportation. And long before this, the simple tramway of wood, stone or iron, operated by horse-power, had been employed for the conveyance of passengers and freight. As early as the settlement of New England, wooden rails were in use between the coal mines of Newcastle and the river, and these were so far perfected that in 1765 they had been introduced extensively in England, and enabled a horse to drag from two to three tons on an easy grade. Plates and wheels of iron had still further and very largely increased the draft-capacity of the horse. On the Darlington and Stockton road, trains had been provided with stablecars, in which the horses employed for motive power on level and up grades, rested and fed in quiet while the momentum of the train carried it down hill.

The use of the Railway was no less familiar on this side the ocean. Our former townsman, Wm. Gray, after leaving Salem, in 1809, owned a wharf in Boston on which trucks were moved by hand over a plankwalk, provided on its edges with round iron bars, on which ran grooved wheels, thus forming a freight Railway from the ship in her dock to the warehouses on Lynn (now Commercial) Street. In grading Beacon Hill for the erection of the State House, late in the last century, an inclined Railway was used, on which the gravity of the loaded cars, in their descent, served to bring up on a parallel track those which had been emptied, and the same expedient, also in use in England, was employed at Quincy when the blue sienite of the quarries began to supplant, as a building material, the familiar gray granite of our hills, ledges and bowlders. The first Railroad charter granted by Massachusetts, authorized, March 4, 1826, the building of a Railway from these quarries to Neponset River, and the first freight transported over it was the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument. It was operated by horse-power.

That unrest which prognosticates some great step in inventive art was stirring the public mind and bringing to light every clumsy expedient of cogs and ropes and wheels for mounting grades, and for moving by steam on common roads, as well as on rails, when, in 1829, the Stephensons, father and son, produced the Locomotive "Rocket," and placed it upon the Liverpool and Manchester road. Its success was at once complete and transportation by horse-power was doomed from that hour. In America we were not behindhand in applying steam to propulsion. It was already in use since 1807 on our rivers, canals and lakes. Indeed, the Hon. Nathan Reed, of Salem and Danvers, formerly a member of Congress from this district, had made a paddle-wheel steamboat in 1789, in which he navigated the river from his iron-works to Essex Bridge, taking Governor Hancock, Dr. Prince, Dr. Holyoke and Nathan Dane as passengers with him. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was begun in 1827 ; other routes from New York and Philadelphia soon after. In 1829-30-31 Massachusetts chartered Railroads from Boston to Lowell, to Providence and to Worcester.

In 1833, the Boston and Lowell road was extended to Audover and Wilmington, and to Haverhill in 1835. This was the first incursion of the iron monster into Essex, but he rapidly made his way over the county, enfolding in his fatal coils the poor struggling Stage Companies, whose nightly dreams were disturbed by the scream of the whistle, and whose waking eyes, turn where they might, were blasted with those words of doom, ''Look out for the engine.^' ^ For a time our directors stood up manfully to their struggle with fate. First they tried to curtail their expenses, - offered to sell real estate, - to buy in their stock at par, then at $60 and then at $50, and pay for it in the personal effects of the company. Fifty horses were to be disposed of at a stroke, and again and again another fifty, - hay and grain were high, - the aj^petites of livestock inexorable. To add to their embarrassment, travel went on increasing as the hour of dissolution drew near. More horses and more were required, and

1 Mr. Tony Weller lias favored the English-reading public with his views on the Railway and its invasion of his native Island, in words which I am forced to recall at this point. Said that eminent driver, as reported in "Master Humphrey's Clock," "1 consider that the rail is unconstitutional, and a inwader o' privileges. As to the comfort - as an old coachman I may say it - veres the comfort o' sitting in a harm-chair, a lookin' at brick walls, and heaps o' mud, never comin' to a public 'ouse, never seein' a glass o' ale, never goin' thru' a pike, never nieetin' a chaoge o' no kind (bosses or otherwise), but always comin' to a place, ven you comes to vun at all, the werry picter o' the last ! As to the honor and dignity o' travellin', vere can that be vithout a coachman, and vats the rail to sich coachmen as is sometimes forced to go by It, but a outrage and a insult ! and as to the ingen, a nasty, wheezin', creakin', gaspin', puffin', bustin' monster, always out o' breath, with a shiny green and gold back like a onpleasant beetle ; as to the ingen as is alvays a pourin' out red-hot coals at night and black smoke in the day, the 8en.siblest thing it does, in my opinion, is ven there's somethin' in the vay, and it sets up that 'ere frightful scream vich seems to say 'now eres two hundred and forty passengers in the werry greatest extremity o' danger, and eres their two hundred and forty screams in vun ! ' " again and again they were forced to replace those sold. To sell so large a stud at once, when the end came, would bring prices down to a ruinous figure, and the theory was generally accepted, that upon the establishment of steam cars, horse flesh would be worth little more than dog's meat. Before the end of 1835 they had joined the other proprietors of Newburyport turnpike in offering five miles of it for the use of a projected Railroad to Salem. In 1836 the Eastern Railroad was chartered.

Still they go on voting to sell their horses, still buying more. Late in '36 they try adding twenty per cent, to their fares. The directors meet once a month without notice, sometimes at half past six in the morning. They combine with thirteen like companies to keep up prices. Opposition coaches take the road and prices come down again. Late in '37, they try a reduction of wages, the peremptory sale of thirty horses, " as the company is fast approaching dissolution," they say, - sell the lease they hold of Henry Codman, of the Ann Street House, and agree with the purchaser to keep their teams from day to day, - sell the Exeter Stables, the Portsmouth and Concord Stages, - apply without success for a short extension of their charter to close the business, and in February, '38, - their charter expired in June, - offer for sale the whole remaining assets of the corporation.

This effort failing, the shareholders were for the last time summoned to Hampton Falls, - detailed reports submitted, - a fruitless effort made to start a new comjiany, and the property turned over to trustees for final administration. And so this respectable body-corporate died without issue, at the stroke of midnight, June 26, 1838. Says the late Col. Whipple, who had been a director for ten years, and became its president on the death of Dr. Cleaveland in 1837, "the holders of stock, during twenty years, received eight and one-third per cent, in dividends annually, and after paying all debts, between $66 and $67 on each share. It does not appear that a passenger was killed or injured."

In August, 1838, the steam cars from Boston reached Salem. The Register speaks of immense crowds on every arrival and departure, covering the depot grounds and the banks of the mill-pond. In the belfry of the wooden station house hung a bell, taken from a ruined Spanish convent, and sold to one of our West Indiamen for old metal, which was vigorously rung to summon passengers on the departure of a train. At first, the cars took eleven hundred persons per day, but this, said the papers, was evidently due to their novelty, and could not be expected to continue. From six to eight hundred, it was thought, could be relied on. In about a month, sixteen hundred passengers were carried in one day, " the best day's work yet," said the press with enthusiasm ! The Boston Courier stated that the cars used were not of the prevailing style, shaped like a coach-body with the door on the side, but were of a new pattern, in which a man may stand erect or pass from one to another, the whole length of the train, while in motion, with perfect safety. The passage from Salem to the Boston side of the ferry occupied from thirty-tive to forty minutes, and it was hoped that about thirty-two minutes would be the average time consumed, when all was completed. The Boston Post announced that the witches came out of their graves to see these new conveyances. They met all expectations, and Mr. George Peabody, the first president of the road, in his opening address delivered before the six hundred stockholders and others, August 27th, called attention to the fact that those doing business in Boston could now live more cheaply in Salem than in Boston. What the railroad has done for us, in common with all the envii'ons of Boston, cannot be briefly stated. If Boston is the Hub, the raih-oads seen from the State House dome are the living spokes, which bind it to an outer circle of social and business relations. If these have carried off our men of enterprise in search of a larger market, they have brought back the wealth they accumulate to beautify our estates and elevate our culture, and make of Massachusetts Bay, from Plymouth to Cape Ann, one great suburb in which the arts of cultivated life are brought to aid the native charms of country living.

Of the two presidents of the Eastern Stage Company, the first, Dr. Cleaveland, was a man of no common stamp. He came of the staunchest Puritan stock, his great-grandfather, Moses Cleaveland, having emigrated in his prime from Ipswich, in England, to Eastern Massachusetts and left a numerous and distinguished progeny. Some of them appear among the founders of Connecticut; many of them adorn the learned professions or fill chairs in the universities. Dr. Cleaveland's father died on his 77th birthday, in 1799, having been for more than half a century the pastor of Chebacco Parish in this county - a chaplain in both the French and Revolutionary wars, present with the army at Ticonderoga in 1758, at Louisburg in 1759, at the siege of Boston in 1775, on the Connecticut shore in 1776, and in 1778 in New York and New Jersey, and having given three sons to the Continental army.

Dr. Nehemiah Cleaveland was a man of large stature, and of erect, dignified and commanding aspect. A tall stripling of sixteen, he attended his father upon his service as chaplain during the siege of Boston, and in 1777 enlisted in the army as a common soldier. The stress of war deprived him of the collegiate training to which he had looked forward fondly, and kept him, during his minority, either in the camp or at the plow. Having subsequently mastered the science of medicine he began i^ractice at Topsfield in 1783, purchasing the stock of a successful predecessor, as well as his library of just two volumes. He was soon after complimented with a commission as Justice of the Peace, and began to interest himself in the public affairs of town and county. As a politician he was earnest, ardent and patriotic. He was chosen, through Federalist support, to the State Senate in 1811, and lost his seat next year, under the operation of that famous districting system known as the "Gerrymander." From 1815 to 1819 he was re-elected, and then withdrew. In 1814 he was a Sessions Justice of the Circuit Court of Common Pleas. From 1820 to 1822 he was an Associate Justice of the Court of Sessions for the county, and in 1823 became its Chief Justice. This station he filled with ability and firmness until 1828, when he retired from public business, receiving at the same time from Harvard College the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine.

With an iron constitution and health, up to his fiftieth year, untouched by disease, Dr. Cleaveland never laid aside the practice of his profession, however interrupted, but had extended it to all the neighboring towns. And until his death, in February, 1837, at the age of 77, he continued to serve, as their trusted physician, the community with which he had for fifty years identified himself by rare activity in every enterprise of moment. As a neighbor he was sought for his willing and judicious counsel, while his public career was marked throughout by good judgment, sound sense and solid worth.

He was twice married and left five children, among whom the eldest son, an honored graduate of Bowdoiu, a distinguished educator, man of letters and Doctor of Laws, perpetuates his name and title.

Dr. Cleaveland's was one of those monumental characters which deserve study both for themselves and because they are typical of their times: Formed in our Revolutionary period, it was consolidated like the arch by the pressure which events imposed upon it. If his principles were austere, he applied them as rigidly to his own conduct as to his judgment of others. Thus he could in youth forego, without a murmur, the college training he had been promised, and, at the last, reject narcotics which would have spared him excruciating torture, because they might deaden his mental and moral sensibilities. Says the late Dr. Peirson, of Salem, in the Medical and Surgical Journal, " He was a much respected member of the Essex South District Medical Society. No man amongst us set a better example of professional integrity and honor. The few who could boast of his friendship will long remember with pleasure the virtuous and kind-hearted old man, whose influence was uniformly and efficiently exerted in support of good order and the true advancement of society."

Colonel Henry Whipple, the second and last president of the Eastern Stage Company, has left us so lately that the mention of his name is enough to recall a venerable presence and an exemplary life. He was born at Douglass, in Worcester County, June 24, 1789, and died in his eighty-first year, December 2, 1869. He served his apprenticeship with his brother

Charles, at Newburyport, and opened a book-store in the Franklin (then Archer's) Building, in Salem, October, 1810. For three-score years from that time, including part of that golden era when the story of Salem Commerce reads like an eastern fiction, Colonel Whipple was constant at his post, supplying our daring navigators with charts and books of travel, - our busy thinkers and bold projectors of enterprises distant and domestic with the best intelligence of the day. Said the Danvers Wizard, in July, 1861 : " It would be difBcult to point to a man now living so identified with the social, literary and denominational interests of Salem as is Colonel Whipple. In almost all the societies of a social and benevolent character he has been prominent and active. With the grace of native dignity and the bearing of a gentleman of the old school, the suavity of his manner attracted to his place of business the elevated and refined of Salem. His store was the resort and lounging place of all the eminent men of the past who have given a name to Salem in its modern history. Here met Bowditch, Story, Prince, Pickering, the elder Worcester, Barnard and Hopkins. Here Cummins discussed politics with Glen King and Saltonstall, while Dr. Flint and Judge White made criticisms on the last new book."