Stage-coach and Tavern Days

“To the Public: The stage from New York to Albany was overset on the Highlands, on Friday last, with six passengers on board; one of whom, a gentleman from Vermont, had his collar-bone broken, and the others were more or less injured, and all placed in the utmost jeopardy of their lives and limbs by the outrageous conduct of the driver. In descending a hill half a mile in length, an opposition stage being ahead, the driver put his horses in full speed to pass the forward stage, and in this situation the stage overset with a heavy crash which nearly destroyed it, and placed the wounded passengers in a dreadful dilemma, especially as the driver could not assist them, as it required all his efforts to restrain the frighted horses from dashing down the hill which must have destroyed them all. It was, therefore, with the greatest difficulty, and by repeated efforts, the wounded passengers extricated themselves from the wreck of the stage. Such repeated wanton and wilful acts of drivers to gratify their caprice, ambition, or passions, generally under the stimulus of ardent spirits, calls aloud on the community to expose and punish these shameful aggressions.”

It should be added, in truth, that accidents on stage-coaches were seldom with fatal results. Stage-coach travel was more disagreeable than deadly. A stage-coach driver who had driven three hundred days a year for thirty-five years, could boast that there had never been a serious accident while he was driving, and scarcely any injury had been received by any passenger.

Before the days of the turnpike the miserable bridges, especially of the Southern colonies, added to the terrors of travel, though I have not learned of frequent accidents upon them. The poet Moore wrote in the year 1800 of Virginia bridges: —

“Made of a few uneasy planksIn open ranks,Over rivers of mud.”

Near Fayetteville, North Carolina, in 1812, a traveller by coach thus found the bridge: —

“Three large logs were stretched across the creek, called sleepers, and these supported a number of misshapen pieces called rafters, thrown on at random, without being fixed either by nails or pins. They had been disturbed by a freshet, and the driver alighted to adjust them. On entering the bridge, the fore wheels gathered the rafters in a heap which stopped the progress of the coach. This was just as the driver was whipping up the fore horses. They sprang forward, and disengaging themselves with a jerk, by pulling out the staple of the main singletree, they set off at full speed with the singletree rattling at their heels.”

One horse was killed, the patient passengers alighted and pulled the coach free themselves. At the next creek the horses plunged in the water and swam across, while the passengers held up the mail-bags to keep them dry. Weld tells of similar bridges and experiences in 1795 in Virginia.

Many of the bridges were rickety floating bridges. Mr. Twining experienced the sense of insecurity, the dread of sinking, which I have also felt in crossing a floating bridge in a heavy vehicle.

Mr. Twining tells also of the constant necessity of trimming and balancing of the stage-wagon by all the passengers leaning to one side to prevent it from overturning in the deep ruts which abounded. Mr. Weld wrote that the driver “frequently called out, ‘Now, gentlemen, to the right,’ upon which all the passengers stretched their bodies halfway out of the carriage to balance on that side. ‘Now, gentlemen, to the left,’ and so on.”

One traveller tells of a facetious travelling companion, —

“‘A son of Neptune and of Mars also,’ and could adapt the technical language of these professions to the different movements of the stage. When the coach heeled to one side he would call out, ‘To the right and left and cover your flanks – Whiz!’ – and when we passed a stream or ford he would sing out, ‘By the deep nine,’ accompanied with all the movements of heaving the lead. The day was clear, pleasant, and healthy; and in this strain of merriment and good humor we prosecuted our journey much to our satisfaction.”

Folk were easily amused in coaching days. One of the old stage-drivers tells the following incident of stage travel. He was driving from Dover, New Hampshire, to Haverhill, Massachusetts. During the spring months the roads were often in a bad condition, and six horses and sometimes ten were needed to draw the coach. In Epping, New Hampshire, was a particularly hard place, locally known as the “Soap mine.” Through this mine of mud the driver hoped to guide his coach and six. But the coach was heavily loaded, and in spite of the efforts of the skilful driver the team was soon fast in the mud, the wheels settling to the hubs. All attempts of the horses to start the coach were in vain. The driver finally climbed down from his seat, opened the coach door and told the passengers the condition of things, and politely asked them to get out and thereby lighten the load. This they all positively refused to do; they had paid their fares and did not think it their duty to get out into the mud. The driver said, “Very well,” quietly closed the door, and seated himself by the roadside. In a few minutes the passengers asked, “What are you doing there?” The driver calmly replied: “The horses cannot draw the load. There is only one thing I can do. I shall wait until the mud dries up.”

It is needless to say that they did not wait for the mud to dry.

The state of the roads and the regard of some persons for stage-coach travelling is shown in a letter written early in this century by a mother to a girl of eighteen, visiting at Cambridge, and impatient to return home. As the roads were bad her father delayed his going for her. Her mother says: —

“Your papa would not trust your life in the stage. It is a very unsafe and improper conveyance for young ladies. Many have been the accidents, many the cripples made by accidents in those vehicles. As soon as your papa can go, you may be sure he will go or send for you.”

There was one curious and most depressing, even appalling, condition of stage-coach travel. It seemed to matter little how long was your journey, nor where you were going, nor whence you started, your coach always started before daybreak. You had to rise in the dark, dress in the dark most feebly illumined, eat a hurriedly prepared breakfast in the dark, and start out in the blackness of night or the depressing chill of early morning. We read that the greatest number of deaths take place in the early morning, at daybreak, and it is not surprising, since it is the time, of all the hours of the day, when earth offers the least to the human soul to tempt it to remain here. It is no unusual thing to read in travellers’ accounts of journeys by stage-coach, of riding ten miles on the coach, and then – breakfasting. We cannot wonder, therefore, at the records of incessant dram-drinking during coach travel which we always find in any minute accounts.

An English eye-witness, Captain Basil Hall, thus described the beginning of a trip from Providence to Hartford in October, 1829: —

“The nominal hour of starting was five in the morning; but as everything in America comes sooner than one expects, a great tall man walked into the room at ten minutes before four o’clock to say it wanted half an hour of five: and presently we heard the rumbling of the stage coming to the door upwards of thirty minutes before the time specified. Fortunately there were only five passengers, so we had plenty of room; and as the morning was fine we might have enjoyed the journey much, had we not been compelled to start so miserably early. At the village of Windham we dined in a cheerful sunny parlour on a neatly dressed repast excellent in every way, and with very pleasant chatty company.”

So forehanded were American coach-agents and coach-drivers that such premature starts were not infrequent. Many a time an indignant passenger, on time, but left behind, was sent off after the coach in a chaise with a swift horse at full gallop.

Josiah Quincy tells thus of a trip on the Lancaster road during the winter of 1826: —

“At three o’clock this morning the light of a candle under the door and a rousing knock told me that it was time to depart, and shortly after I left Philadelphia by the Lancaster stage, otherwise a vast illimitable wagon, capable of holding some sixteen passengers with decent comfort to themselves, and actually encumbered with some dozen more. After riding till eight o’clock we reached the breakfast house, where we partook of a good meal.”

Longfellow wrote of his first acquaintance, in the year 1840, with the Wayside Inn, otherwise Howe’s Tavern, at Sudbury, Massachusetts: “The stage left Boston about three o’clock in the morning, reaching the Sudbury Tavern for breakfast, a considerable portion of the route being travelled in total darkness, and without your having the least idea who your companion might be.”

Charles Sumner, writing in 1834 of a trip to Washington, says: “We started from Boston at half-past three Monday morning with twelve passengers and their full complement of baggage on board, and with six horses. The way was very dark, so that, though I rode with the driver, it was some time before I discovered we had six horses.”

The unfortunate soul who wished or was forced to travel from Boston to New York in 1802 was permitted a very decent start at ten in the morning. He arrived in Worcester at eight at night. Thereafter at Worcester, Hartford, and Stamford he had to start at three in the morning and ride till eight at night. We can imagine his condition when arriving in New York. The Lancaster and Leominster stages left Boston at sunrise. John Melish, the English traveller, in 1795, was called to start at two in the morning, when he set out from Boston to New York. Badger and Porter’s Stage Register for 1829 gives the time of starting of the stage to Fitchburg as 2 A.M.; the Albany stage was the same hour. The stage for Keene set out at 4 A.M., and the one for Bennington at 2 A.M. The stage for Norwich, Connecticut, in 1833 started at 3 A.M. In 1842, the Albany coach left at 4 A.M. When we remember the meagre “light of other days,” the pale rays of a candle, usually a tallow one, the smoky flicker of a whale-oil lamp, the dingy shadow of an ancient lantern, we can fancy the gloom of that early morning departure; and when it was made in snow, or fog, or rain, there seemed but scant romance in travel by stage-coach. A fine picture by Mr. Edward Lamson Henry, “A Wet Start at Daybreak,” is reproduced opposite page 370. It is interesting and picturesque – to look at; but it was not interesting to experience.

CHAPTER XVIII

KNIGHTS OF THE ROAD

It is impossible to read of the conditions of life on the public highway in England and not wonder at the safety and security with which all travel was carried on in the American colonies. In Great Britain shop-robbing, foot-padding, street assaults, and highway robberies were daily incidents. Stage-coach passengers were specially plundered. From end to end of England was heard the cry of “Stand and deliver.” Day after day, for weeks together, the Hampstead, Islington, Dover, and Hackney coaches were stopped in broad daylight, and the passengers threatened and robbed. The mail from Bristol to London was robbed every week for five weeks. Scores of prisoners were taken, and scores more strung up on the gallows; many were shipped off to the Plantations because on hanging day at Tyburn, there was not room enough on the gallows for the convicted men. All classes turned outlaws. Well-to-do farmers and yeomen organized as highwaymen in the Western counties under the name of “the Blacks.” Justices and landed gentry leagued with “the Owlers” to rob, to smuggle, and defraud the customs. Even Adam Smith confessed to a weakness for smuggling.

Travellers journeyed with a prayer-book in one hand and a pistol in the other. Nothing of this was known in America. Citizens of the colonies travelled unhampered by either religion or fear. Men and women walked through our little city streets by night and day in safety. The footpads and highwaymen who were transported to this country either found new modes of crimes or ceased their evil deeds.

Not only on convict ships came highwaymen to America. As redemptioners many rogues came hither, sure thus of passage across-seas and trusting to luck or craft to escape the succeeding years of bound labor. Among the honest men seized in English ports, kidnapped, and shipped to America were found some thieves and highwaymen, but all – whether “free-willers,” convicts, or “kids” – seemed to drop highway robbery in the new world. We were nigh to having one famous thief. Great Moll Cutpurse, had her resources been of lesser sort, had been landed in Virginia, for she was trapanned and put aboard ship, but escaped ere ship set sail. Perhaps ’twould have been of small avail, for in Virginia, with its dearth of wives, even such a sturdy jade as Moll, “a very tomrig and rumpscuttle,” sure had found a husband and consequent domestic sobriety.

There was one very good reason why there was little highway robbery in America. Early in our history men began to use drafts and bills of exchange, where the old world clung to cash. English travellers persisted in carrying gold and bank-notes, while we carried cheques and letters of credit. To this day the latter form of money-transfer is more common with Americans than with the English. Express messengers in the far West carrying gold did not have to wait long for a Jesse James. But our typical American scamp has ever been the tramp, formerly the vagabond, not the highwayman; though the horse thief kept him close companion.

By this absence of the highwaymen, our story of the road has lost much of its picturesqueness and color. I have envied the English road-annalists their possession of these gay and dashing creatures. Their reckless buoyancy, their elegance, their gallantry, their humor, make me long to adopt them and set them on our staid New England roads or on Pennsylvania turnpikes. Dick Turpin, Claude Duval, Beau Brocade – how I should love to have them hold up Benjamin Franklin or John Adams!

There was no lack of rogues in the colonies, but their roguery did not take the outlet of highway robbery. One Henry Tufts, a famous vagabond, has left an amusing and detailed history of his life and deeds. He stole scores of horses by sneaking methods, but never by open seizure on the road. He began his wrong-doing after the universal custom of all bad boys (but why be invidious? – of all good boys, too), by robbing orchards. He soon raised himself to be a leader in deviltry by the following manœuvre. A group of bad boys were to have a stolen feast of bread and cucumbers; for the latter esteemed viand they raided a cucumber patch. As they seated themselves to gorge upon their ill-gotten fare, Henry Tufts raised a cry that the robbed cucumber farmer was upon them. All fled, but Tufts quickly returned and ate all the feast himself. He survived the cucumbers, but pretended to his confederates that he had been captured and had promised to work out the value of the spoils in a week’s hard labor. This work sentence he persuaded them to share; he then farmed out the lot of young workmen at a profit, while they thought themselves nobly sharing his punishment. He lived to great old age, and, though at the last he “carried his dish pretty uprightly,” it was by taking a hand at forgery and counterfeiting that he lived when burglary became arduous; his nature, though irretrievably bad, was never bold enough to venture his life by robbing on the highway.

A very interesting thread of Tuft’s story is his connection with the War of the Revolution; and it awakens deep compassion for Washington and his fellow-generals when we think how many such scamps and adventurers must have swarmed into the Federal army, to the disorder of the regiments and to their discredit and to the harassment alike of patriot officers and patriot soldiers. There were frequent aggressions at the hands of rogues in the Middle states, and they became known by the name of Skinners. Cooper’s novel, The Spy, gives an account of these sneaking bands of sham patriots. Among those who allied themselves on the side of the King was a family of notorious scoundrels, five brothers named Doane.

The story of the Doanes is both tragic and romantic. They were sons of respectable Quaker parents of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and during the Revolutionary War became celebrated for their evil deeds. They were all men of remarkable physical development, tall, strong, athletic, and all fine horsemen. Before the war they were of good reputation, and it is said proposed to remain neutral; but the Doanes were not permitted to take a middle course, and soon enrolled themselves as Tories, which at once engendered a bitter feeling between them and their Whig neighbors. They began their career of infamy by robbing and plundering in the neighborhood, gradually extending their field of operations into neighboring counties. Sabine’s Loyalists gives the names of three other Doanes – kinsmen who were allied with the five brothers in their evil deeds. Their place in historical books and history comes to them through their services to the British officers during the war. In a dingy chap-book entitled Annals of the Revolution, or a History of the Doanes, full credit is assigned to Moses Doane for giving information to General Howe, and planning with him the stratagem which led to the victories of the British on Long Island. The Edge Hill skirmish, laid out by Doane and agreed to by Howe and Lord Cornwallis, was to be an important move of the British. The move was lost by the prompt and brave action of Mrs. Lydia Darrach, who overheard the plot and carried news of it to Washington. In the terrible massacre at Wyoming the Doanes took prominent part. The close of the war seemed but to increase their career of crime. Each brother had a sled drawn by four horses. There was heavy snow and a long season of sleighing in 1782, and they fairly raided the entire state, robbing again and again on the highway. At last an act was passed by the General Assembly of Pennsylvania “to encourage the speedy apprehending and bringing to justice of divers Robbers, Burglars, and Felons,” naming the Doanes, and offering a large reward for their capture and a gift of £150 to any person injured in helping to arrest them, or £300 to the family of such a helper should he be killed while aiding the cause of justice.

Joseph Doane was finally secured in prison. He broke jail, however, and escaped to New Jersey, where, like many another thief and rogue of his day, he found occupation as a school-teacher. He then fled to Canada, and died peacefully at an advanced age. Two brothers, Abraham and Mahlon, were hanged in Philadelphia. Moses, the leader of the outlaws, had the most tragic end. He was the most cruel and powerful of them all; of famous athletic powers, it was said he could run and jump over a Conestoga wagon. In the latter part of the summer of 1783, the Doanes went to the house of one Halsey who lived on Gallows Run, and asked for something to eat, and Halsey sent his son to a neighboring mill to get flour for them. The boy told that the Doanes were at his father’s house, and the miller sent the word to a vendue in the neighborhood. A party of fourteen armed and mounted men promptly started to capture them. The house was surrounded. On approaching the men saw through the clinks of the logs the Doanes eating at table, with their guns standing near. William Hart opened the door and commanded them to surrender, but they seized their arms and fired. Hart seized Moses Doane, threw him down, and secured him. Then Robert Gibson rushed into the cabin and shot Doane in the breast, killing him instantly. Colonel Hart sent the body of the dead outlaw to his unhappy father, who was also tried for sheltering the robbers, and burnt in the hand and imprisoned.

The most noted scourge of the eighteenth century was Tom Bell. He was for years the torment of the Middle colonies, alike in country and in town. He was the despair of magistrates, the plague of sheriffs, the dread of householders, and the special pest of horse-owners. Meagre advertisements in the contemporary newspapers occasionally show his whereabouts and doings. This is from the New York Weekly Post Boy of November 5, 1744: —

“The noted Tom Bell was last week seen by several who knew him walking about this city with a large Patch on his face and wrapt up in a Great Coat, and is supposed to be still lurking.”

Two years later, in April 14, 1746, we read: —

“Tuesday last the famous and Notorious Villain Tom Bell was apprehended in this city and committed to Jail on Suspicion of selling a Horse he had hired some time ago of an Inhabitant of Long Island. His accuser ’tis said has sworn expressly to his Person, notwithstanding which he asserts his Innocence with a most undaunted Front and matchless Impudence. We hear his trial is to come off this week.”

His most famous piece of deviltry was his impersonation of a pious parson in New Jersey. He preached with as much vigor as he stole, and his accidental resemblance to the minister increased his welcome and his scope for thieving. So convinced was the entire community that it was the real parson who robbed their houses and stole their horses, that on his return to his parish he was thrust into prison, and a clerical friend who protested against this indignity was set in a pillory in Trenton for false swearing. Still, Tom Bell was not a highwayman of the true English stamp; he more closely resembled a sneak thief.

In the year 1741 the little child of Cornelius Cook, the blacksmith of Westborough, Massachusetts, and of his wife Eunice, lay very close to death. As was the custom of the day, the good old parson, Dr. Parkman, and his deacons prayed earnestly over the boy, that the Lord’s will be done; but his mother in her distress pleaded thus: “Only spare his life, and I care not what he becomes.” Tom Cook recovered, and as years passed on it became evident by his mischievous and evil deeds that he had entered into a compact with the devil, perhaps by his mother’s agonized words, perhaps by his own pledge. The last year of this compact was at an end, and the devil appeared to claim his own as Tom was dressing for another day’s mischief. Tom had all his wits about him, for he lived upon them. “Wait, wait, can’t you,” he answered the imperative call of his visitor, “till I get my galluses on?” The devil acquiesced to this last request, when Tom promptly threw the suspenders in the fire, and therefore could never put them on nor be required to answer the devil’s demands.

Tom Cook became well known throughout Massachusetts, and indeed throughout New England, as a most extraordinary thief. His name appears in the records of scores of New England towns; he was called “the honest thief”; and his own name for himself was “the leveller.” He stole from the rich and well-to-do with the greatest boldness and dexterity, equalled by the kindness and delicacy of feeling shown in the bestowal of his booty upon the poor and needy. He stole the dinner from the wealthy farmer’s kitchen and dropped it into the kettle or on the spit in a poor man’s house. He stole meal and grain from passing wagons and gave it away before the drivers’ eyes. A poor neighbor was ill, and her bed was poor. He went to a thrifty farm-house, selected the best feather bed in the house, tied it in a sheet, carried it downstairs and to the front door, and asked if he could leave his bundle there for a few days. The woman recognized him and forbade him to bring it within doors, and he went off with an easy conscience.

In Dr. Parkman’s diary, now in the library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, under the date of August 27, 1779, is this entry: “The notorious Thom. Cook came in (he says) on Purpose to see me. I gave him wt admonition, Instruction, and Caution I could – I beseech God to give it force! He leaves me with fair Words – thankful and promising.” There came a time when his crime of arson or burglary led to his trial, conviction, and sentence to death. He heard the awful words of the judge, “I therefore sentence you to be hanged by the neck till you are dead, dead, dead,” and he called out cheerfully, “I shall not be there on that day, day, day.” And when that day came, surely enough, his cell was empty.

Tom Cook was most attractive in personal appearance; agile, well formed, well featured, with eyes of deepest blue, most piercing yet most kindly in expression. He was adored by children, and his pockets were ever filled with toys which he had stolen for their amusement. By older persons he was feared and disliked. He extorted from many wealthy farmers an annual toll, which exempted them from his depredations. One day a fire was seen rising from the chimney of a disused schoolhouse in Brookline, and Tom was caught within roasting a stolen goose, which he had taken from the wagon of a farmer on his way to market. The squire took him to the tavern, which was filled with farmers and carters, many of whom had been his victims. He was given his choice of trial and jail, or to run a gantlet of the men assembled. He chose the latter, and the long whips of the teamsters paid out many an old score of years’ standing.