Pioneer Roads and Experiences of Travelers (Volume 2)

The old Genesee Road passed through as romantic and beautiful a land as heart could wish to see or know; but the road itself was a creation of comparatively modern days, in which Seneca and Mohawk were eliminated factors in the problem. Here, near this road, a great experiment was made a few years after its building, when a canal was proposed and dug, amid fears and doubts on the part of many, from Albany to Buffalo. One of the first persons to advocate a water highway which would eclipse the land route, sent a number of articles on the subject to a local paper, whose editor was compelled to refuse to print more of them, because of the ridicule to which they exposed the paper! Poor as the old road was in bad weather, people could not conceive of any better substitute.

When the Erie Canal was being built, so poor were the roads leading into the region traversed by the canal, that contractors were compelled to do most of their hauling in winter, when the ground was frozen and sleds could be used on the snow. Among the reasons given—as we shall see in a later monograph of this series—for delays in completing portions of the canal, was that of bad roads and the impossibility of sending heavy freight into the interior except in winter; and a lack of snow, during at least one winter, seriously handicapped the contractors. But when the Erie Canal was built, the prophecies of its advocates were fulfilled, as the rate per hundred-weight by canal was only one-tenth the rate charged by teamsters on the Genesee Road. The old “waggoners” who, for a generation, had successfully competed with the Inland Lock Navigation Company, could not compete with the Erie Canal, and it was indeed very significant that, when Governor Clinton and party made that first triumphal journey by canal-boat from Buffalo to Albany and New York—carrying a keg of Lake Erie water to be emptied into the Atlantic Ocean—they were not joyously received at certain points, such as Schenectady, where the old methods of transportation were the principal means of livelihood for a large body of citizens. How delighted were the old tavern-keepers in central New York with the opening of the Erie Canal, on whose boats immigrants ate and slept? About as happy, we may say, as were the canal operators when a railway was built, hurrying travelers on at such a rapid pace that their destinations could be reached, in many cases, between meals!

Yet until the railway came, the fast mail-stages rolled along over the Genesee Road, keeping alive the old traditions and the old breed of horses. Local business was vastly increased by the dawning of the new era; society adapted itself to new and altered conditions, and the old days when the Genesee Road was a highway of national import became the heritage of those who could look backward and take hope for the future, because they recognized better the advances that each new year had made.

CHAPTER V

Among the many records of travelers on the famous Genesee Road, that of Timothy Bigelow, as given in his Journal of a Tour to Niagara Falls in the Year 1805,[40] approaches perhaps most nearly to the character of a description of the old highway which should be presented here:

“July 14th. We proceeded [from Albany] to Schenectady to breakfast, fifteen miles, Beale’s tavern; a good house. A new turnpike is making from Albany to this place; it is constructed in a very durable manner, with a pavement covered with hard gravel. That part which is completed is now an excellent road; the remainder will soon be equally good. It was not disagreeable to us to be informed that this road, and indeed all the other turnpikes, and most other recent works which we met with, which required uncommon ingenuity or labor, were constructed by Yankees.

“Schenectady seems not to be a word fitted to common organs of speech. We heard it pronounced Snacketady, Snackedy, Ksnackidy, Ksnactady, Snackendy, and Snackady, which last is much the most common. To Ballston, Bromeling’s, sixteen miles; a most excellent house. We found here about forty guests, but understood there were upwards of two hundred at Aldrich’s, McMasters’s, and the other boarding-houses near. Bromeling himself has accommodations in the first style for one hundred and thirty persons.

“We met with but few people here from Massachusetts. Mr. Henry Higginson and his wife, Mr. Bingham, the bookseller, and his family, were all we knew. The mineral water was not agreeable to us all upon the first experiment; but with others, and myself in particular, it was otherwise. It is remarkably clear and transparent; the fixed air, which is continually escaping from it, gives it a sparkling appearance, and a lively and full taste, not unlike to that of brisk porter or champagne wine, while one is actually drinking.... We slept at Beals’s. July 17th, we took the western stage in company with a Mr. Row, a gentleman from Virginia, who was about to engage in trade at Geneva, on the Seneca Lake. We crossed over to the north side of the Mohawk soon after setting out, to Schwartz’s (still in Schenectady), a poor house, seven miles; thence to Pride’s in Amsterdam, nine miles. Pride’s is a handsome limestone house, built about fifty years since, as we were informed, by Sir William Johnson, for his son-in-law, Guy Johnson.... To Abel’s in Amsterdam, situated on Trapp’s Hill, opposite to the mouth of Schoharie River and the old Fort Hunter, to dine. The prospect to the south-west is extensive and romantic, exhibits an agreeable mixture of hills and plains, diversified with extensive forests almost in a state of nature, and cultivated fields scarce less extensive, now covered with a rich harvest of ripening wheat. The prospect was the principal thing which we found in this place to recommend it. The tavern is a poor one, and our dinner of course was miserable. Four miles to Shepard’s, in Canajoharie, to sleep.... The Mohawk in many places was shoal, and interrupted with so many islands and sand-banks that we were often at a loss to conceive how loaded boats could pass, and yet we saw several going up-stream with heavy loads.... July 18th. To Carr’s at Little Falls, to breakfast, twenty miles; a very good house. In this stage, we passed the East Canada Creek. Observed for the very first time the cypress-tree. The gloomy, melancholy air of this tree, and the deep shade which it casts, resulting from the downward direction of its branches, as well as the form and color of its leaves, have very properly marked it out as emblematical of mourning.

“On approaching the Little Falls, we observed undoubted marks of the operation of the water on rocks, now far out of their reach, particularly the round holes worn out [by] pebbles kept in a rotatory motion by the current, so common at all falls. It is certain that heretofore the falls must have been some ways further down stream, and have been much greater than they now are, and that the German flats, and other low grounds near the river above, must have been the bed of a lake. The falls occupy about half a mile. In some spots, the river is so crowded between rocks, that one might almost pass across it; in most places, however, it is broken into a number of streams by irregular masses of limestone rock. There is here a commodious canal for the passage of boats cut round these falls. The whole fall is fifty-four feet; and there are five locks, in each of which the fall is ten feet, besides the guard-lock, where it is four. The locks are constructed of hewn stone, and are of excellent workmanship; they are almost exactly upon the construction of those at the head of Middlesex canal. Most of the buildings in the neighborhood, as well as two beautiful bridges over the canal here, are also of limestone. Carr and his wife are from Albany, and are agreeable and genteel people.

“To Trowbridge’s Hotel, in Utica, to dine. The house is of brick, large, commodious, and well attended. We found good fare here; in particular, excellent wine. From Little Falls to this is twenty-two miles. In this stage, we passed the German flats, an extensive and well-cultivated tract of internal land on both sides the Mohawk. The town of German Flats is on the south of the town of Herkimer, opposite thereto, on the north side of the river. Notwithstanding the celebrity of this spot for the excellence of its soil, we thought it not equal to that on Connecticut River. Having passed the West Canada Creek, the hills on both sides the river seem to subside, and open to the view an extensive and almost unbounded tract of level and fertile country, though of a much newer aspect than any we had seen before.

“At Utica, we passed over to the southern side of the Mohawk. The river here is about the size of the Nashua, and from this place bends off to the north-west. We happened to pass the bridge as a batteau was coming up to a store at the end of it, to discharge its cargo. The water was so shoal that the batteau grounded before it could be brought to its proper place. A pair of horses were attached to its bows, and it was not without the assistance of several men, added to the strength of the horses, that it was got up to the landing-place at last.

“Morality and religion do not seem to have much hold of the minds of people in this region. Instances of rudeness and profanity are to be met with in almost every place, but the people engaged in unloading the batteau were much more extravagantly and unnecessarily profane than is common. Several persons also, whom I saw at Little Falls this morning, told me that they knew full well that Adam could not have been the first man, or that he must have lived much longer ago than the Scriptures declare, because they said it must be more than five thousand years for the Mohawk to have broken through the rocks, as it has done at those falls.

“Utica was begun to be settled sixteen years ago, and is now a little city, and contains several elegant dwelling-houses, some of which are of brick, and a few of stone, together with a great number of stores and manufactories of different kinds. The Lombardy poplar-tree is cultivated here in great abundance. The facility of transportation by means of the Mohawk and Hudson Rivers on one side, and Wood Creek, Oneida, and Ontario Lakes on the other, together with the extraordinary fertility of the adjacent country, must at no great distance of time make Utica a place of great business and resort, and of course its population must rapidly increase. Moses Johnson, a broken trader, late of Keene, now of Manlius, a little above this place, whom we saw at Trowbridge’s, spoke of this country as not favorable for traders, and that a very few stores of goods would overstock the market. It is natural, however, for people in his situation to ascribe their misfortunes to anything rather than their own imprudence or misconduct, which others would probably consider as the true cause of them. Mr. Charles Taylor and his father, whom we had overtaken at Shepard’s, we left at Utica.

“July 19th. To Laird’s in Westmoreland, to breakfast, eleven miles; a very good house. Our breakfast here was garnished with a dish of excellent honey. Every thing in and about the house was neat, and we were particularly struck with the genteel and comely appearance of two young ladies, daughters of our landlord, one of whom, we were told, had attended a ball in the neighborhood, I think at Paris, the evening before. This stage was over a tract of very fertile country, nearly level, but a little ascending; the growth was mostly of rock-maple and lime-tree. We passed a creek in New Hartford, called Sawguet, or Sogwet, or Sacada [Sauquoit], and another in a corner of Paris called Kerry, or Riscana, say Oriskany. The whole country from Utica to this place is thickly settled. The houses are mostly well built, and many of them handsome; very few log houses to be seen. Young orchards are numerous and thrifty, and Lombardy poplars line the road a great part of the way; and yet we saw not a single field which had not the stumps of the original forest trees yet remaining in it. Honey is sent from hence to Lake Ontario, in barrels.

“To Shethar’s in Sullivan, eighteen miles, to dine; a good tavern. The face of the country is not so level here as about Utica, though it cannot be called hilly, even here. In addition to the forest trees which we had before seen, we here found the shag-bark nut tree in abundance. In this stage, we passed through the Oneida Indian village.... In this stage, we also passed the Skanandoa Creek, the first water we met with which discharges itself into the ocean by the St. Lawrence, as the Oriskany was the last which pays tribute to the Hudson.

“We next passed the Oneida Creek, which unites with the Skanandoa. The earth in some places here is of the same color with that on Connecticut River, where the red freestone is found. In the Oneida village, the fields are free from stumps, the first to be met that are so from Utica to this place.... To Tyler’s in Onondaga Hollow, to sleep, twenty-one miles. The last sixteen miles are over a very hilly country; the Canaseraga Mountain, in particular, is four or five miles over, and very steep....

“The country, as we approached Onondaga Hollow, we found had been longer settled than nearer the Oneida village, because the last cession of the Oneidas on the west, and immediately contiguous to their present reservation, was made but six or eight years ago, whereas the country to the westward of that had begun to be settled some time before. The town of Manlius, in particular, has the appearance of a flourishing settlement. This town is the first in the Military Tract, which is the lands given by the State of New York as a gratuity to the officers and soldiers of their line in the Revolutionary Army. As we were descending into the Onondaga Hollow, we saw to the north-westward the Salina or Onondaga Lake....

“The Onondaga Creek, which is of a convenient size for a mill-stream, runs along the Hollow from south to north, as do all the other streams in this country. This creek passes near the celebrated Onondaga salt springs, which are situated about five or six miles northward from Tyler’s.... July 20th. Rose at half past two o’clock, and proceeded to Andrew’s, at Skaneateles, to breakfast, sixteen miles; a good tavern. The country is still hilly, but very fertile. The soil is deep,—a mixture of loam and clay. The roads here must be very bad in wet weather. It rained last night for the first time since we commenced our journey; and the horses’ feet, in consequence thereof, slipped as if they were travelling on snow or ice.

“Rising out of Onondaga Hollow is a long and very steep hill. The road is constructed on the southern side of a precipice, in such a manner that, as you approach the top of the hill, you have a tremendous gulf on your left hand, at the bottom of which you hear the murmur of a brook fretting among the rocks, as it is passing on toward the Onondaga Creek, which it joins in the Hollow. There is a kind of railing or fence, composed of logs secured with stakes or trees, which is all that prevents the passenger, and even the road itself, from falling to the bottom of the gulf. On the hill we found the embryo of a village. A court-house is already built, and the frame of a hotel is raised. The hotel, we were told, is to be kept by one Brunson. It is an accommodation much needed by travellers on this road.

“To Harris’s in Cayuga, fifteen miles, to dine. We here had an excellent dinner of beefsteaks. Mr. Harris told us that they could keep beef fresh four or five days, in hot weather, by hanging it upon the trees—wrapping it in flannel—as high as was convenient. Flannel is better to wrap it in than linen.

“The village of Cayuga is small, but pleasant and lively. It is in the township of Marcellus, on the eastern bank of the Cayuga Lake, within one or two miles of its northern extremity. This lake is about two miles wide in general, and almost forty miles long. Nearly north and south from the village, there are about fifteen miles of the lake in sight. The shores are mostly of hard land, except at the northern extremity, where there is a great deal of marsh, which is an unfavorable circumstance for the village, as it is not only disagreeable to the sight, but, I think, also to the smell. There is a wooden bridge across the lake, leading from Cayuga village towards Geneva, one mile long, wanting three roods. It suffered so much by shocks of the ice last winter, that in some places it is hardly safe to pass it. This forenoon we had passed the outlet of the Owasco Lake, but did not see the lake itself, which we were told was about a mile south of the road. The country hitherto is somewhat uneven, though by no means so much so as near the Onondaga Hollow. The soil, however, is excellent in many places, and is of a reddish color.

“To Powell’s Hotel in Geneva, to sleep, sixteen miles; excellent accommodations. At Harris’s we had met with a Mr. Rees, a gentleman in trade at Geneva, who took passage in the stage with us for that place. From this gentleman, whom we found very intelligent and communicative, we learned many particulars concerning the salt springs, discovered about five years since upon the Cayuga outlet. These springs are about twelve miles below the Cayuga bridge, and are on both sides the outlet: that on the western side is in the township of Galen, and belongs to Mr. Rees and his partner in trade. These springs had long been known to the Indians, but they had always been reserved in communicating their knowledge of the state of the country to the white settlers. It was not till most or all of those who lived near this outlet had died or moved away, except one, that he mentioned the existence of these springs; and for a reward he conducted some persons to the place where they are situated. The persons to whom he communicated this information endeavored to purchase the favored spot before the owner should be apprised of its inestimable value; but he accidentally obtained a knowledge of his good fortune, and of course refused to sell....

The road from Cayuga to Geneva is for a few miles along the southern or south-eastern side, and the rest along the northern or north-eastern side of the Seneca outlet. The face of the country near the road is more level; but the soil is more sandy and uninviting than we had lately seen, till we approached near to Geneva. The land there is excellent, as we were told it was, through all the tract which extends between the Cayuga and Seneca Lakes. This tract rises in a kind of regular glacis from each lake, so that from the middle of it one can see both. It wants nothing but inhabitants and cultivation to make it an elysium. The Seneca outlet flows into the lower end of the Cayuga Lake. Towards its mouth there is a considerable fall, or rather rapid, which it is contemplated to lock, whereby a water communication will be opened between the two lakes. The stream is about half the size of the Winnipiseogee, and has a bluish-white appearance.

“We were within half a mile of Geneva before we came in sight of the Seneca Lake. This charming sheet of water extends southerly from this place to Catharine Town, forty miles, being from two to four miles wide. There is not a foot of swamp or marsh on its borders, from one extremity to the other; but it is everywhere lined by a clear, gravelly beach, and the land rises from it with a very gentle and graceful ascent in every direction....

“Not far from Geneva are some of the Indian orchards, which were cut down by General Sullivan in his famous expedition, scarce less barbarous than those of the savages themselves. The trees now growing in these orchards sprouted from the roots of those which were cut down, and therefore grow in clusters, six or seven rising from one root. We saw Indian fields here free from stumps, the only ones which are to the westward of Utica, except those belonging to the Oneidas. We were told that, at this season of the year, the wind at Geneva blows constantly from the south in the forenoon, and from the north in the afternoon. We here quitted the stage, which runs no further than Canandaigua, and hired an open Dutch wagon and driver, and a single horse, to carry us to Niagara.... The turnpike road ends at this place [Canandaigua]. The whole length from Albany is two hundred and six or seven miles: it may properly be called two turnpikes, which join each other at Utica. A project is on foot for still extending the turnpike even to Niagara, a direct course to which would not probably exceed one hundred miles.

“Mr. Rees told us yesterday that he was engaged to proceed to-morrow with certain commissioners to mark out the course of the road, and that the proprietors will begin to work upon it next year. The road may not be very good property at first, but will probably soon become so, judging from the astonishing rapidity with which this country is settled. It is ascertained that one thousand families migrated hither during the last year, two thirds of whom were from New England.

“To Hall’s in Bloomfield, to sleep, twelve miles; very good house. We had an excellent supper and clean beds. The town of Bloomfield has been settled about fifteen years, and is now in a flourishing state. Here is a handsome new meeting-house with a tasty steeple. The vane on the steeple is rather whimsical. It is a flying angel, blowing a trumpet against the wind.... To Hosmer’s in Hartford, to breakfast, twelve and a half miles. Between Bloomfield and this, we passed through Charleston, which has but recently been reclaimed from the wilderness. It is perfectly flat, the soil is pretty good, though better, and more settled at some distance from the road than near it. The reason of cutting the road where it goes was because the country in that direction was open, when it was first explored, between this place and Lake Ontario, which is but twenty-eight miles distant, or to Gerundegut [now Toronto] Bay, but twenty-two miles....

“Hitherto we have found better roads since we left the turnpike than before, except that the bridges and causeways are mostly constructed with poles. Hosmer, our landlord, is an intelligent man and keeps a good tavern. We had for breakfast good coffee, excellent tea, loaf sugar, mutton chop, waffles, berry pie, preserved berries, excellent bread, butter, and a salad of young onions. I mention the particulars, because some of the articles, or such a collection, were hardly to be expected in such a depth of wilderness.

“To Gansen’s in Southampton, twelve and a half miles, to dine. Within about a mile of Hosmer’s, we passed the Genesee River. The outlet of the Conesus Lake joins this river about a mile above, or to the south. Where we crossed, there is a new bridge, apparently strong and well built; and yet the water last spring undermined one end of it, so that it has sunk considerably....

“Gansen’s is a miserable log house. We made out to obtain an ordinary dinner. Our landlord was drunk, the house was crowded with a dozen workmen, reeking with rain and sweat, and we were, withal, constantly annoyed with the plaintive and frightful cries and screams of a crazy woman, in the next room. We hastened our departure, therefore, even before the rain had ceased.

“To Russell’s in Batavia, twelve miles, to sleep. One mile from Gansen’s, we crossed Allen’s Creek, at Buttermilk Falls, where there are mills, and five miles further the Chookawoonga Creek, near the eastern transit line of the Holland purchase. This line extends from the bounds of Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, a distance of near ninety-four miles. So far, the road was the worst of any we had seen; and none can be much worse and be passable for wheels. Within six miles of Batavia, the road is much better, and the land of a good quality, heavily timbered all the way, but especially near the settlement. It is but three years since this spot was first cleared, and it is now a considerable village. Here is a large building, nearly finished, intended for a court-house, jail, and hotel, under the same roof. The street is perfectly level, and is already a good and smooth road. Here is also an excellent mill, on a large and commodious scale, situated on the Tonawanda Creek, which is the first water we saw which passes over Niagara Falls. Russell’s is a poor tavern. We were told that our sheets were clean, for they had been slept in but a few times since they were washed.

“July 23d. To Luke’s in Batavia, to breakfast, five miles. We intended to have stopped at McCracken’s, one mile short of this, but we were told that we could not be accommodated. The exterior appearance of both houses was very much alike; they are log huts, about twelve feet square. Luke’s consisted of a single room, with a small lean-to behind, which served for a kitchen. It contained scarce any furniture, not even utensils enough to serve us comfortably for breakfast....

“It was but eighteen months since Luke began a settlement here, and he was the first who made the attempt between Batavia and Vandevener’s, a distance of eighteen miles, though in that distance now there are several huts. Taverns like Luke’s are not uncommon in this vicinity; almost every hut we saw had a sign hung out on a pole or stump, announcing that it was an inn. Perhaps such complete poverty did not exist in them all as we found at Luke’s, yet, judging from external appearances, the difference could not be great.

“We passed the Tonawanda near Batavia court-house, and then kept along its southern bank to this place. The woods are full of new settlers. Axes were resounding, and the trees literally falling about us as we passed. In one instance, we were obliged to pass in a field through the smoke and flame of the trees which had lately been felled and were just fired.

“To Vandevener’s in Willink, thirteen miles. We had intended only to dine here; but by reason of a thunder shower, and the temptation of comfortable accommodations, we concluded not to proceed till next day. Our last stage was through the Batavia woods, famed for their horrors, which were not abated by our having been informed at Russell’s, that not far from here a white man had lately been killed by the Indians. We found the road much better than we had anticipated; the last four miles were the worst. A little labor would make the road all very good, at least in dry weather. There is another way to come from Batavia here; but it is six miles further, and probably little or no better than this.

“It was but three years since Vandevener began here. He at first built a log house, but he has now a two-story framed house, adjoining that. His whole territory is five hundred acres, one hundred of which he has already got under improvement....

“July 23d. To Ransom’s in Erie, to breakfast, fourteen miles. Ransom came from Great Barrington in Massachusetts, and settled here last September.... The last three miles from Ellicott’s Creek to Ransom’s is a new road cut through a thick wood, and is as bad as any part of the road through the Batavia woods.

“To Crow’s at Buffalo Creek, eight miles. In this stage, we passed the Four Mile Creek. Half the distance from Ransom’s was over open country, ... in which many young chestnut-trees are just sprouting from the ground. The rest of our way was through a thick wood, where the growth is the same kind as in the interior of Massachusetts....

“From Buffalo we passed along the beach of Lake Erie, to the ferry across its outlet on the Niagara River, at Black Rock, so called, three miles....”

CHAPTER VI

So few writers have paid any attention to the influence of roads in the development of our country that it is a great pleasure to find in Francis Whiting Halsey’s The Old New York Frontier,[41] a chapter on the old Catskill Turnpike; through the kindness of the author it is possible to present here this story of that strategic highway of old New York:

“Before the Revolutionary War something of a road had been cut through the woods from Otsego Lake southward along the Susquehanna, and other primitive roads led to and from the lake; but these highways had almost disappeared during the later years of the war, when Nature had done her effective work of reclamation. The one leading from the lake southward was improved in 1786 as far as Hartwick, and others were speedily taken in hand. Further down the river efforts were made to establish convenient communication with the Hudson, and out of this grew a road which eventually became the great highway for a large territory. It was called the Catskill Turnpike, and had its terminus on the Susquehanna at Wattles’s Ferry.[41]

“This road, as a turnpike, properly dates from 1802, but the road itself is much older. Its eastern end had been opened long before the Revolution with a terminus in the Charlotte Valley. It seems then to have been hardly more than a narrow clearing through the forest, what farmers call a ‘wood road,’ or frontiersman a ‘tote road.’ It served as a convenient route to the Susquehanna, because much shorter than the older route by the Mohawk Valley. Over this road on horseback in 1769, came Colonel Staats Long Morris and his wife, the Duchess of Gordon.

“After the war demands rose for a better road, and one was soon undertaken with its terminus at Wattles’s Ferry. This terminus appears to have been chosen because the river here was deep enough to permit the use of ‘battoes’ during the low water that prevailed in summer. By the summer of 1788 the road was in passable condition. Alexander Harper and Edward Paine in February, 1789, declared that they had been to ‘a very great expense in opening the roads from Catskill and the Hudson to the Susquehanna River.’ In the same year a petition was filed for a road ‘from the Ouleout to Kyuga Lake.’ The road to Cayuga Lake (Ithaca) made slow progress, and in 1791 General Jacob Morris addressed to Governor Clinton a letter which shows that it was then still to be undertaken. Early in 1790 the State had taken the road to Catskill in charge. In August, G. Gelston made up from surveys a map from Catskill ‘running westerly to the junction of the Ouleout Creek with the Susquehanna River.’ The country had been previously explored for the purpose by James Barker and David Laurence.[42]

“In 1791 Sluman Wattles charged his cousin, Nathaniel Wattles, £4, 6s. for ‘carting three barrells from your house to Catskill,’ £1 for ‘five days work on the road,’ and 15 shillings for ‘inspecting road.’ Besides Nathaniel Wattles, Menad Hunt was interested in the work, and in 1792 the two men appealed to the state to be reimbursed for money paid out above the contract price.[43] During this year the father of the late Dr. Samuel H. Case, of Oneonta, emigrated to the upper Ouleout from Colchester, Conn., with his seven brothers. They drove cattle and sheep ahead of them, and consumed eight days in making the journey from the Hudson River. Solomon Martin went over the road in the same year, using Sluman Wattles’s oxen, for which he was charged £1, 17s. He went to Catskill, and was gone fifteen days. This road was only twenty-five feet wide. In 1792 a regular weekly mail-route was established over it.

“These are among the many roads which were opened in the neighborhood before the century closed—before the Catskill Turnpike, as a turnpike, came into existence. Nearly every part of the town of Unadilla, then embracing one-third of Otsego County, had been made accessible before the year 1800. The pioneers had taken up lands all through the hill country. But the needs of the settlers had not been fully met. All over the State prevailed similar conditions. The demands that poured in upon State and town authorities for road improvements became far in excess of what could be satisfied. Everywhere fertile lands had been cleared and sown to grain, but the crops were so enormous that they could neither be consumed at home nor transported to market elsewhere. Professor McMaster says that ‘the heaviest taxes that could have been laid would not have sufficed to cut out half the roads or build half the bridges that commerce required.

“Out of this condition grew the policy of granting charters to turnpike companies, formed by well-to-do land-owners, who undertook to build roads and maintain them in proper condition for the privilege of imposing tolls. Men owning land and possessed of ready money, were everywhere eager to invest in these enterprises. They not only saw the promise of dividends, but ready sales for their lands. At one time an amount of capital almost equal to the domestic debt of the nation when the Revolution closed was thus employed throughout the country. By the year 1811, no fewer than 137 roads had been chartered in New York State alone, with a total length of 4,500 miles and a total capital of $7,500,000. About one-third of this mileage was eventually completed.

“Eight turnpikes went out from Albany, and five others joined Catskill, Kingston, and Newburg with the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers. The earliest of these five, and one of the earliest in the State, was the Catskill and Susquehanna turnpike, that supplanted the primitive State road to Wattles’s Ferry. The old course was changed in several localities, the charter permitting the stockholders to choose their route. Among the names in the charter were John Livingston, Caleb Benton (a brother of Stephen Benton), John Kortright, Sluman Wattles, and Solomon Martin. The stock was limited to $12,000 in shares of $20 each.

“The road ran through lands owned by the stockholders. Little regard was had for grades, as travellers well know. The main purpose was to make the land accessible and marketable. The road was completed in 1802, and soon became a famous highway to Central New York, and the navigable Susquehanna, and so remained for more than a quarter of a century. It was in operation four years earlier than the Great Western Turnpike, connecting Albany with Buffalo and running through Cherry Valley. Spafford in 1813 described it as ‘the Appian Way turnpike,’ in which it seems the pride felt in it, likened as it thus was to one of the best roads ever built by man—that Roman highway which still does service after the lapse of more than 2,000 years. In one sense this turnpike was like a Roman road: it followed straight lines from point to point regardless of hills, obstacles being squarely faced and defied by these modern men as by the old Romans.

“Ten toll-gates were set up along the line, with the rates as follows: for twenty sheep and hogs, eight cents; for twenty horses and cattle, twenty cents; for a horse and rider, five cents; for a horse and chaise, twelve and one-half cents; for a coach or chariot, twenty-five cents; for a stage or wagon, twelve and one-half cents. In 1804, Caleb Benton, who lived in Catskill, was president of the corporation, and in 1805 the stage business of the road was granted as a monopoly to David Bostwick, Stephen Benton, Lemuel Hotchkiss, and Terence Donnelly. Two stages were to be kept regularly on the road, the fare to be five cents per mile. A stage that left Catskill Wednesday morning reached Unadilla Friday night, and one that left Unadilla Sunday reached Catskill Tuesday. The most prosperous period for the road was the ten years from 1820 to 1830.

“Two years after the road was built, Dr. Timothy Dwight, President of Yale College, during one of his regular vacation journeys, passed over it and stopped at Unadilla. He has left a full record of the journey. Dr. Dwight, accustomed long to the comforts of life in New England, had no sooner crossed the State line from Massachusetts to New York than he observed a change. The houses became ordinary and ill repaired, and very many of them were taverns of wretched appearance.

“For sixteen or eighteen miles, he saw neither church nor school-house. Catskill contained about 100 houses, and much of the business was done by barter. The turnpike to the Susquehanna he described as a ‘branch of the Greenwood turnpike from Hartford to Albany, commencing from Canaan in Connecticut and passing to Wattles’s Ferry on the Susquehanna. Thence it is proposed to extend it to the county of Trumbull on the southern shore of Lake Erie.’ The road he thought ‘well made.’

“Connecticut families were found settled along the line. Now he came upon ‘a few lonely plantations recently begun upon the road,’ and then ‘occasionally passed a cottage, and heard the distant sound of an axe and of a human voice. All else was grandeur, gloom and solitude.’ At last after many miles of riding he reached a settlement ‘for some miles a thinly built village, composed of neat, tidy houses,’ in which everything ‘indicated prosperity.’ This was Franklin. Coming down the Ouleout, the country, he said, ‘wore a forbidding aspect, the houses being thinly scattered and many of them denoted great poverty.’

“When Dr. Dwight reached Wattles’s Ferry, the more serious trials of his journey began. All the privations of life in a new country which he had met on the road from Catskill at last had overtaxed his patience, and he poured forth his perturbed spirit upon this infant settlement. When he made a second visit a few years later he liked the place much better. His first impressions are chronicled at some length. He says:

“‘When we arrived at the Susquehanna we found the only inn-keeper, at the eastern side of the river, unable to furnish us a dinner. To obtain this indispensable article we were obliged therefore to cross the river. The ferry-boat was gone. The inhabitants had been some time employed in building a bridge, but it was unfinished and impassable. There was nothing left us, therefore, but to cross a deep and rapid ford. Happily the bottom was free from rocks and stones.’

“Dr. Dwight appears to have found no satisfactory stopping-place in Unadilla, and proceeds to say:

“‘About four miles from the ferry we came to an inn kept by a Scotchman named Hanna. Within this distance we called at several others, none of which could furnish us a dinner. I call them inns because this name is given them by the laws of the State, and because each of them hangs out a sign challenging this title. But the law has nicknamed them, and the signs are liars.

“‘It is said, and I suppose truly, that in this State any man who will pay for an inn-keeper’s license obtains one of course. In consequence of this practice the number of houses which bear the appellation is enormous. Too many of them are mere dramshops of no other use than to deceive, disappoint and vex travellers and to spread little circles of drunkenness throughout the State. A traveller after passing from inn to inn in a tedious succession finds that he can get nothing for his horse and nothing for himself.’

“The remedy he prescribed for this was to license ‘only one inn where there are five or six.’ The evil was general. In 1810 the people of Meredith made a formal and vigorous protest against the growth of intemperance and crime as caused by public houses. There were ten hotels in that town alone, besides a number of distilleries. Many citizens banded themselves in behalf of order and decency, and their protest abounded in an energy of language that would have delighted the soul of Dr. Dwight. Of his further experience at Mr. Hanna’s hotel, he says:

“‘We at length procured a dinner and finding no house at a proper distance where we could be lodged concluded to stay where we were. Our fare was indeed bad enough, but we were sheltered from the weather. Our inn-keeper besides furnishing us with such other accommodations as his home afforded, added to it the pleasures of his company and plainly considered himself as doing us no small favor. In that peculiar situation in which the tongue vibrates with its utmost ease and celerity, he repeated to us a series of anecdotes dull and vulgar in the extreme. Yet they all contained a seasoning which was exquisite, for himself was in every case the hero of the tale. To add to our amusement, he called for the poems of Allan Ramsay and read several of them to us in what he declared to be the true Scottish pronunciation, laughing incessantly and with great self-complacency as he proceeded.’

“Dr. Dwight remarks that ‘a new turnpike road is begun from the ferry and intended to join the Great Western road either at Cayuga bridge or Canandaigua. This route will furnish a nearer journey to Niagara than that which is used at present.’ We see from this what were the plans of that day, as to the future central highway of New York State. Of Unadilla Dr. Dwight says:

“‘That township in which we now were is named Unadilla and lies in the county of Otsego. It is composed of rough hills and valleys with a handsome collection of intervales along the Susquehanna. On a remarkably ragged eminence immediately north-west of the river, we saw the first oaks and chestnuts after leaving the neighborhood of Catskill. The intervening forests were beach, maple, etc. The houses in Unadilla were scattered along the road which runs parallel with the river. The settlement is new and appears like most others of a similar date. Rafts containing each from twenty to twenty-five thousand feet of boards are from this township floated down the Susquehanna to Baltimore. Unadilla contained in 1800 eight hundred and twenty-three inhabitants.’[44]

“On September 27, 1804, Dr. Dwight left Mr. Hanna’s inn and rode through to Oxford. The first two miles of the way along the Susquehanna were ‘tolerably good and with a little labor capable of being excellent.’ He continues:

“‘We then crossed the Unadilla, a river somewhat smaller but considerable longer (sic) than the Susquehanna proper, quite as deep and as difficult to be forded. Our course to the river was south-west. We then turned directly north along the banks of the Unadilla, and travelling over a rugged hill, passed through a noble cluster of white pines, some of which though not more than three feet in diameter, were, as I judged, not less than 200 feet in height. No object in the vegetable world can be compared with this.’

“Eleven years later, Dr. Dwight again passed over the turnpike on his way to Utica. ‘The road from Catskill to Oxford,’ he said, ‘I find generally bad, as having been long neglected. The first twenty miles were tolerable, the last twenty absolutely intolerable.’ After noting that in Franklin ‘religion had extensively prevailed,’ he wrote:

“‘Unadilla is becoming a very pretty village. It is built on a delightful ground along the Susquehanna and the number of houses, particularly of good ones, has much increased. A part of the country between this and Oxford is cultivated; a considerable part of it is still a wilderness. The country is rough and of a high elevation.’

“In some reminiscences[45] which my father wrote in 1890, he described the scenes along this road that were familiar to him in boyhood at Kortright—1825 to 1835. The road was then in its most prosperous period. It was not uncommon for one of the hotels, which marked every few miles of the route, to entertain thirty or forty guests at a time. The freight wagons were huge in size, drawn by six and eight horses, and had wheels with wide tires. Stages drawn by four and six horses were continually in use. Not infrequently came families bound for Ohio, where they expected to settle—some of these Connecticut people, who helped to plant the Western Reserve settlements. This vast traffic brought easy prosperity to the people along the turnpike and built up towns and villages. My father records the success of the Rev. Mr. McAuley’s church at Kortright—a place that has now retrograded so that it is only a small hamlet, just capable of retaining a post office. But Mr. McAuley’s church at one time, more than sixty years ago, had five hundred members, and was said to be the largest church society west of the Hudson valley.

“A change occurred with the digging of the Erie Canal and the building of the Erie Railway. Morever, in 1834 was built a turnpike from North Kortright through the Charlotte Valley to Oneonta. The white man having tried a route of his own over the hills, reverted to the route which the red man had marked out for him ages before. Much easier was the grade by this river road, and this fact exercised a marked influence on the fortunes of the settlements along the olden line. Freight wagons were drawn off and sent by the easier way. Stages followed the new turnpike and the country between Wattles’s Ferry and Kortright retrograded as rapidly as it had formerly improved.[46]

“The building of the Catskill Turnpike really led to the founding of Unadilla village on its present site. It had confined to this point a growth which otherwise would probably have been distributed among other points along the valley. Here was a stopping-place, with a river to be crossed, horses to be changed, and new stages taken, and here had been established the important market for country produce of Noble & Hayes. Unadilla became what might be called a small but thriving inland river port. Here lumber was sawed and here it came from mills elsewhere for shipment along with farm products to Baltimore. Here grain was ground, and here were three prosperous distilleries.

“The building of the turnpike along the Charlotte was not the only blow that came to the western portion of the Catskill Road. Another and permanent one came to the whole length of the turnpike when the Erie Canal was built, followed later by the Erie Railroad. Otsego County, in 1832, had reached a population of 52,370, but with the Erie Canal in operation it ceased to grow. At the present time the showing is considerably less than it was in 1832, and yet several villages have made large increases, the increase in Oneonta being probably tenfold.

“Contemporary with the Erie Canal was an attempt to provide the Susquehanna with a canal. It became a subject of vast local interest from Cooperstown to the interior of Pennsylvania. The scheme included a railway, or some other method of reaching the Erie Canal from the head of Otsego Lake. Colonel De Witt Clinton, Jr., son of the governor, made a survey as far as Milford, and found that in nine miles there was a fall of thirty feet, and that at Unadilla the fall from the lake was 150 feet, while in 110 miles from the lake it was 350 feet. In 1830 a new survey showed that 144 miles out of 153 were already navigable, the remaining distance requiring a canal. Some seventy locks would be needed and sixty-five dams. Judge Page, while a member of Congress, introduced a bill to aid slack-water navigation from Cooperstown to tide-water. It was his opinion that the failure of the bill was due to the spread of railroads.

“With the ushering in of the great railroad era, the Susquehanna Valley saw started as early as 1830 many railroad projects which could save it from threatened danger. Their aim was to connect the upper Susquehanna with the Hudson at Catskill, and the Mohawk at Canajoharie. None ever got beyond the charter stage. Strenuous efforts were afterward made to bring the Erie from the ancient Cookoze (Deposit) to the Susquehanna at a point above Oghwaga, but this also failed.

“Indeed it was not until after the Civil War that any railroad reached the headwaters of the Susquehanna; but it was an agreeable sign of the enterprise which attended the men of 1830 and following years that at the period when the earliest railroad in this State, and one of the earliest on this continent, had just been built from Albany to Schenectady, serious projects existed for opening this valley to the outer world. Even the great Erie project languished long in consequence of business depression. It was not until 1845 that it was completed as far as Middletown, and not until 1851 that it reached Dunkirk.

“Not even to the Erie was final supremacy on this frontier assured, but the upper Susquehanna lands, more than those through which the Erie ran, were doomed to a condition of isolation. Nature itself had decreed that the great route of transportation in New York State was to run where the great trail of the Iroquois for centuries had run—through the Mohawk Valley. Along that central trail from Albany, ‘the Eastern Door,’ to Buffalo, ‘the Western door of the Long House,’ the course of empire westward was to take its way.”

CHAPTER VII

“Soon after nine o’clock we come to Potomac Creek, where we are to land; and then comes the oddest part of the journey. Seven stage-coaches are preparing to carry us on. Some of them are ready, some of them are not ready. Some of the drivers are blacks, some whites. There are four horses to each coach, and all the horses, harnessed or unharnessed, are there. The passengers are getting out of the steamboat, and into the coaches, the luggage is being transferred in noisy wheel-barrows; the horses are frightened, and impatient to start; the black drivers are chattering to them like so many monkeys; and the white ones whooping like so many drovers: for the main thing to be done in all kinds of hostlering here, is to make as much noise as possible. The coaches are something like the French coaches, but not nearly so good. In lieu of springs, they are hung on bands of the strongest leather. There is very little choice or difference between them; and they may be likened to the car portion of the swings at an English fair, roofed, put upon axle-trees and wheels, and curtained with painted canvas. They are covered with mud from the roof to the wheel-tire, and have never been cleaned since they were first built.

“The tickets we have received on board the steamboat are marked No. 1, so we belong to coach No. 1. I throw my coat on the box, and hoist my wife and her maid into the inside. It has only one step, and that being about a yard from the ground, is usually approached by a chair: when there is no chair, ladies trust in Providence. The coach holds nine inside, having a seat across from door to door, where we in England put our legs: so that there is only one feat more difficult in the performance than getting in, and that is getting out again. There is only one outside passenger, and he sits upon the box. As I am that one, I climb up; and while they are strapping the luggage on the roof, and heaping it into a kind of tray behind, have a good opportunity of looking at the driver.

“He is a negro—very black indeed. He is dressed in a coarse pepper-and-salt suit excessively patched and darned (particularly at the knees), grey stockings, enormous unblacked high-low shoes, and very short trousers. He has two odd gloves: one of parti-coloured worsted, and one of leather. He has a very short whip, broken in the middle and bandaged up with string. And yet he wears a low-crowned, broad-brimmed, block hat: faintly shadowing forth a kind of insane imitation of an English coachman! But somebody in authority cries ‘Go ahead!’ as I am making these observations. The mail takes the lead in a four-horse wagon, and all the coaches follow in procession: headed by No. 1.

“By the way, whenever an Englishman would cry ‘All right!’ an American cries ‘Go ahead!’ which is somewhat expressive of the national character of the two countries.

“The first half mile of the road is over bridges made of loose planks laid across two parallel poles, which tilt up as the wheels roll over them: and in the river. The river has a clayey bottom and is full of holes, so that half a horse is constantly disappearing unexpectedly, and can’t be found again for some time.

“But we get past even this, and come to the road itself, which is a series of alternate swamps and gravel-pits. A tremendous place is close before us, the black driver rolls his eyes, screws his mouth up very round, and looks straight between the two leaders, as if he were saying to himself, ‘We have done this often before, but now I think we shall have a crash.’ He takes a rein in each hand; jerks and pulls at both; and dances on the splashing board with both feet (keeping his seat, of course) like the late lamented Ducrow on two of his fiery coursers. We come to the spot, sink down in the mire nearly to the coach windows, tilt on one side at an angle of forty-five degrees, and stick there. The insides scream dismally; the coach stops; the horses flounder; all the other six coaches stop; and their four-and-twenty horses flounder likewise: but merely for company, and in sympathy with ours. Then the following circumstances occur.

“Black Driver (to the horses). ‘Hi!’

Nothing happens. Insides scream again.

Black Driver (to the horses). ‘Ho!’

Horses plunge, and splash the black driver.

Gentleman inside (looking out). ‘Why, what on airth—’

Gentleman receives a variety of splashes and draws his head in again, without finishing his question or waiting for an answer.

Black Driver (still to the horses). ‘Jiddy! Jiddy!’

Horses pull violently, drag the coach out of the hole, and draw it up a bank; so steep, that the black driver’s legs fly up into the air, and he goes back among the luggage on the roof. But he immediately recovers himself, and cries (still to the horses),

‘Pill!’

No effect. On the contrary, the coach begins to roll back upon No. 2, which rolls back upon No. 3, which rolls back upon No. 4, and so on, until No. 7 is heard to curse and swear, nearly a quarter of a mile behind.

Black Driver (louder than before). ‘Pill!’

Horses make another struggle to get up the bank, and again the coach rolls backward.

Black Driver (louder than before). ‘Pe-e-e-ill!’

Horses make a desperate struggle.

Black Driver (recovering spirits). ‘Hi! Jiddy, Jiddy, Pill!’

Horses make another effort.

Black Driver (with great vigour). ‘Ally Loo! Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo!’

Horses almost do it.

Black Driver (with his eyes starting out of his head). ‘Lee, dere. Lee, dere. Hi. Jiddy, Jiddy. Pill. Ally Loo. Lee-e-e-e-e!’

“They run up the bank, and go down again on the other side at a fearful pace. It is impossible to stop them, and at the bottom there is a deep hollow, full of water. The coach rolls frightfully. The insides scream. The mud and water fly about us. The black driver dances like a madman. Suddenly we are all right by some extraordinary means, and stop to breathe.

“A black friend of the black driver is sitting on a fence. The black driver recognizes him by twirling his head round and round like a harlequin, rolling his eyes, shrugging his shoulders, and grinning from ear to ear. He stops short, turns to me, and says:

“‘We shall get you through sa, like a fiddle, and hope a please you when we get you through sa. Old ’ooman at home sir:’ chuckling very much. ‘Outside gentleman sa, he often remember old ’ooman at home sa,’ grinning again.

“‘Aye aye, we’ll take care of the old woman. Don’t be afraid.’

“The black driver grins again, but there is another hole, and beyond that, another bank, close before us. So he stops short: cries (to the horses again) ‘Easy. Easy den. Ease. Steady. Hi. Jiddy. Pill. Ally. Loo!’ but never ‘Lee!’ until we are reduced to the very last extremity, and are in the midst of difficulties, extrication from which appears to be all but impossible.

“And so we do the ten miles or thereabouts in two hours and a half; breaking no bones though bruising a great many; and in short getting through the distance, ‘like a fiddle.’

“This singular kind of coaching terminates at Fredericksburgh, whence there is a railway to Richmond....”

Dickens, the student of human nature, surely found vast material for inspection and observation in our American coaches. The drivers particularly attracted his attention as we have seen; their philosophical indifference to those under their charge as well as their anxieties on certain occasions caused him to marvel. The stage-drivers of Dickens’s day were marvels and offer character studies as unique as they were interesting. For the general air of conscienceless indifference on the part of drivers, and exasperated verbosity of passengers, perhaps no sketch of Dickens is more to the point than the following which describes, with lasting flavor, a ride from York, Pennsylvania, to Harrisburg:

“We left Baltimore by another railway at half-past eight in the morning, and reached the town of York, some sixty miles off, by the early dinner-time of the Hotel which was the starting-place of the four-horse coach, wherein we were to proceed to Harrisburg.

“This conveyance, the box of which I was fortunate enough to secure, had come down to meet us at the railroad station, and was as muddy and cumbersome as usual. As more passengers were waiting for us at the inn-door, the coachman observed under his breath, in the usual self-communicative voice, looking the while at his mouldy harness, as if it were to that he was addressing himself:

“‘I expect we shall want the big coach.’

“I could not help wondering within myself what the size of this big coach might be, and how many persons it might be designed to hold; for the vehicle which was too small for our purpose was something larger than two English heavy night coaches, and might have been the twin-brother of a French diligence. My speculations were speedily set at rest, however, for as soon as we had dined, there came rumbling up the street, shaking its sides like a corpulent giant, a kind of barge on wheels. After much blundering and backing, it stopped at the door: rolling heavily from side to side when its other motion had ceased, as if it had taken cold in its damp stable, and between that, and the having been required in its dropsical old age to move at any faster pace than a walk, were distressed by shortness of wind.

“‘If here ain’t the Harrisburg mail at last, and dreadful bright and smart to look at too,’ cried an elderly gentleman in some excitement, ‘darn my mother!’

“I don’t know what the sensation of being darned may be, or whether a man’s mother has a keener relish or disrelish of the process than anybody else; but if the endurance of this mysterious ceremony by the old lady in question had depended on the accuracy of her son’s vision in respect to the abstract brightness and smartness of the Harrisburg mail, she would certainly have undergone its infliction. However, they booked twelve people inside; and the luggage (including such trifles as a large rocking-chair, and a good-sized dining-table), being at length made fast upon the roof, we started off in great state.

“At the door of another hotel, there was another passenger to be taken up.

“‘Any room, sir?‘ cries the new passenger to the coachman.

“‘Well there’s room enough,’ replies the coachman, without getting down, or even looking at him.

“‘There an’t no room at all, sir,’ bawls a gentleman inside. Which another gentleman (also inside) confirms, by predicting that the attempt to introduce any more passengers ‘won’t fit nohow.’

“The new passenger, without any expression of anxiety, looks into the coach, and then looks up at the coachman: ‘Now, how do you mean to fix it?’ says he, after a pause: ‘for I must go.’

“The coachman employs himself in twisting the lash of his whip into a knot, and takes no more notice of the question: clearly signifying that it is anybody’s business but his, and that the passengers would do well to fix it, among themselves. In this state of things, matters seem to be approximating to a fix of another kind, when another inside passenger in a corner, who is nearly suffocated, cries faintly,

“‘I’ll get out.’

“This is no matter of relief or self-congratulation to the driver, for his immoveable philosophy is perfectly undisturbed by anything that happens in the coach. Of all things in the world, the coach would seem to be the very last upon his mind. The exchange is made, however, and then the passenger who has given up his seat makes a third upon the box, seating himself in what he calls the middle: that is, with half his person on my legs, and the other half on the driver’s.

“‘Go a-head cap’en,’ cries the colonel, who directs.

“‘Go-lang!’ cries the cap’en to his company, the horses, and away we go.

“We took up at a rural bar-room, after we had gone a few miles, an intoxicated gentleman who climbed upon the roof among the luggage, and subsequently slipping off without hurting himself, was seen in the distant perspective reeling back to the grog-shop where we had found him. We also parted with more of our freight at different times, so that when we came to change horses, I was again alone outside.

“The coachmen always change with the horses, and are usually as dirty as the coach. The first was dressed like a very shabby English baker; the second like a Russian peasant; for he wore a loose purple camlet robe with a fur collar, tied round his waist with a parti-coloured worsted sash; grey trousers; light blue gloves; and a cap of bearskin. It had by this time come on to rain very heavily, and there was a cold damp mist besides, which penetrated to the skin. I was very glad to take advantage of a stoppage and get down to stretch my legs, shake the water off my great-coat, and swallow the usual anti-temperance recipe for keeping out the cold....

“We crossed this river [Susquehanna] by a wooden bridge, roofed and covered in on all sides, and nearly a mile in length. It was profoundly dark; perplexed, with great beams, crossing and recrossing it at every possible angle; and through the broad chinks and crevices in the floor, the rapid river gleamed, far down below, like a legion of eyes. We had no lamps; and as the horses stumbled and floundered through this place, towards the distant speck of dying light, it seemed interminable. I really could not at first persuade myself as we rumbled heavily on, filling the bridge with hollow noises, and I held down my head to save it from the rafters above, but that I was in a painful dream; for I have often dreamed of toiling through such places, and as often argued, even at the time, ‘this cannot be reality.’

“At length, however, we emerged upon the streets of Harrisburg....”

Coachmen are further described by Dickens during his stagecoach trip from Cincinnati to Columbus in Ohio:

“We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and silent. The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it to the horses’ heads. There is scarcely any one to help him; there are seldom any loungers standing round; and never any stable-company with jokes to crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our team, there is a difficulty in starting again, arising out of the prevalent mode of breaking a young horse; which is to catch him, harness him against his will, and put him in a stage-coach without further notice: but we get on somehow or other, after a great many kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before again.

“Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half-drunken loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or lounging on the window sill, or sitting on a rail within the colonnade: they have not often anything to say though, either to us or to each other, but sit there idly staring at the coach and horses. The landlord of the inn is usually among them, and seems, of all the party, to be the least connected with the business of the house. Indeed he is with reference to the tavern, what the driver is in relation to the coach and passengers: whatever happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and perfectly easy in his mind.