Score of sheep or hogs.06Score of cattle.12Led or driven horse.03Horse and rider.04Sleigh or sled, for each horse or pair of oxen drawing the same.03Dearborn, sulky, chair or chaise with one horse.06Chariot, coach, coachee, stage, wagon, phaeton, chaise, with two horses and four wheels.12Either of the carriages last mentioned with four horses.18Every other carriage of pleasure, under whatever name it may go, the like sum, according to the number of wheels, and horses drawing the same.Cart or wagon whose wheels shall exceed two and one-half inches in breadth, and not exceeding four inches.04Horse or pair of oxen drawing the same, and every other cart or wagon, whose wheels shall exceed four inches, and not exceed five inches in breadth.03Horse or pair of oxen drawing the same, for every other cart or wagon, whose wheels shall exceed six inches, and not more than eight inches.02Horse or pair of oxen drawing the same, all other carts or wagons whose wheels shall exceed eight inches in breadthfree
The tolls established the same year in Ohio (see table, pp. 103-104) were higher than those charged in Pennsylvania.
The philosophy of the toll system is patent. Rates of toll were determined by the wear on the road. Tolls were charged in order to keep the road in repair, and, consequently, each animal or vehicle was taxed in proportion as it damaged the roadbed. Cattle were taxed twice as heavily as sheep or hogs, and, according to the tariff of 1845, hogs were taxed twice as much as sheep. The tariff on vehicles was determined by the width of the tires used, for the narrower the tire the more the roadbed was cut up. Wide tires were encouraged, those over six inches (later eight) went free, serving practically as rollers. The toll-rates in Ohio are exhibited in the following table:
TOLLS ON THE CUMBERLAND ROAD IN OHIO (1831-1900)
18311832183618371845[37]1900Score sheep or hogs.10.05.06¼.06¼.05.10.12Score cattle.20.10.12½.12½.20.25Horse, mule, or ass, led or driven.03.01½.02.03.03.05Horse and rider.06¼.04.06¼.06¼.05.06Sled or sleigh drawn by one horse or ox.12½.06¼.08.06.05.12Horse in addition.06¼.04.04.04.05.06Dearborn, sulky, chair, or chaise, one horse.12½.08.12½.12½.10.12Horse in addition.06¼.04.06¼.04.05.06Chariot, coach, coachee, horses.18¾.12½.18¾.18¾....30Horse in addition.06¼.03.06¼.06¼....12Vehicle, wheels under two and one-half inches in breadth.12½....12½.10......Vehicle, wheels under four inches in breadth.06¼.06¼.08.08......Horse drawing same.03.02.04.05......Vehicle, wheels exceeding four inches and not exceeding five inches.04...............Vehicle, wheels exceeding four inches and not exceeding six inches....02.04.06¼......Horse or ox drawing same.02.02.02.05......Vehicle, wheels exceeding six inches..........04......Person occupying seat in mail stage.04.03............
Estimates differed in various states but averaged up quite evenly. To the rising generation, to whom tollgates are almost unknown, a study of the toll system affords novel entertainment, helping one to realize something of one of the most serious questions of public economics of two generations ago. Tollgates averaged one in eighteen or twenty miles in Pennsylvania, and one in ten miles in Ohio, with tolls a little higher than half the rate in Pennsylvania.
Tollgate-keepers were appointed by the governor in the early days in Ohio,[38]but, later, by the commissioners. These keepers received a salary which was deducted from their collections, the remainder being turned over to the commissioners. The salary established in Ohio in 1832 was one hundred and eighty dollars per annum.[39]In 1836 it was increased to two hundred dollars per annum, and tollgate-keepers were also allowed to retain five per cent of all tolls received above one thousand dollars.[40]In 1845 tollgate-keepers wereordered to make returns on the first Monday in each month, and the allowance of their per cent on receipts over one thousand dollars was cut off, leaving their salary at two hundred dollars per annum.[41]Equally perplexing with the question of just tolls was found to be the question of determining what and who should have free use of the Cumberland Road. This list was increased at various times, and, in most states, included the following at one time or another: persons going to, or returning from public worship, muster, common place of business on farm or woodland, funeral, mill, place of election, common place of trading or marketing within the county in which they resided. This included persons, wagons, carriages, and horses or oxen drawing the same. No toll was charged school children or clergymen, or for passage of stage and horses carrying United States Mail, or any wagon or carriage laden with United States property, or cavalry, troops, arms, or military stores of the United States, or any single state, or for persons on duty in the military serviceof the United States, or for the militia of any single state. In Pennsylvania, a certain stage line made the attempt to carry passengers by the tollgates free, taking advantage of the clauses allowing free passage of the United States mail by putting a mail sack on each passenger coach. The stage was halted and the matter taken into court, where the case was decided against the stage company, and persons traveling with mailcoaches were compelled to pay toll.[42]Ohio took advantage of Pennsylvania’s experience and passed a law that passengers on stagecoaches be obliged to pay toll.[43]Pennsylvania exempted persons hauling coal for home consumption from paying toll.[44]Many varied and curious attempts to evade payment of tolls were made, and laws were passed inflicting heavy fine upon all convicted of such malefaction. In Ohio, tollgate-keepers were empowered to arrest those suspected of such attempts, and, upon conviction, the fine went into theroad fund of the county wherein the offense occurred.[45]
Persons making long trips on the road could pay toll for the entire distance and receive a certificate guaranteeing free passage to their destination.[46]Compounding rates were early put in force, applying, in Ohio, for persons residing within eight miles of the road,[47]the radius being extended later to ten.[48]Passengers in the stages were counted by the tollgate-keepers and the company operating the stage charged with the toll. At the end of each month, stage companies settled with the authorities. Thus it became possible for the stage drivers to deceive the gate-keepers, and save their companies large sums of money. Drivers were compelled to declare the number of passengers in their stage, and in the event of failing to do so, gate-keepers were allowed to charge the company for as many passengers as the stage could contain.[49]
Stage lines were permitted to compound for yearly passage of stages over the road and the large companies took advantage of the provision, though the passengers were counted by the gate-keepers. It may be seen that gate-keepers were in a position to embezzle large sums of money if they were so minded, and it is undoubted that this was done in more than one instance. Indeed, with a score and a half of gates, and a great many traveling on special rates, it would have been remarkable if some employed in all those years during which the toll system was in general operation did not steal. But this is lifting the veil from the good old days!
As will be seen later, the amounts handled by the gate-keepers were no small sums. In the best days of the road the average amount handled by tollgate-keepers in Pennsylvania was about eighteen hundred dollars per annum. In Ohio, with gates every ten miles, the average (reported) collection was about two thousand dollars in the best years. It is difficult to reconcile the statement made by Mr. Searight concerning the comparative amount ofbusiness done on various portions of the Cumberland Road, with the figures he himself quotes. He says: “It is estimated that two-fifths of the trade and travel of the road were diverted at Brownsville, and fell into the channel furnished at that point by the slackwater navigation of the Monongahela River, and a similar proportion descended the Ohio from Wheeling, and the remaining fifth continued on the road to Columbus, Ohio, and points further west. The travel west of Wheeling was chiefly local, and the road presented scarcely a tithe of the thrift, push, whirl and excitement which characterized it east of that point.”[50]On another page Mr. Searight gives the account of the old-time superintendents of the road in Pennsylvania in its most prosperous era, one dating from November 10, 1840 to November 10, 1841,[51]the other from May 1, 1843 to December 31, 1844.[52]In the first of these periods the amount of tolls received from the eastern division of the road (east of the Monongahela) is two thousand dollars less than theamount received from the western division. Even after the amounts paid by the two great stage companies are deducted, a balance of over a thousand dollars is left in favor of the division west of the Monongahela River. In the second report, $4,242.37 more was received on the western division of the road than on the eastern, and even after the amounts received from the stage companies are deducted, the receipts from the eastern division barely exceed those of the western. How can it be that “two-fifths of the trade and travel of the road were diverted at Brownsville?” And the further west Mr. Searight goes, the more does he seem to err, for the road west of the Ohio River, instead of showing “scarcely a tithe of the thrift, push, whirl and excitement which characterized it east of that point,” seems to have done a greater business than the eastern portion. For instance, when the road was completed as many miles in Ohio as were built in Pennsylvania, the return from the portion in Ohio (1833) was $12,259.42-4 (in the very first year that the road was completed), while in Pennsylvania the receipts in 1840were only $18,429.25, after the road had been used for twenty-two years. In the same year (1840) Ohio collected $51,364.67 from her Cumberland Road tollgates—about three times the amount collected in Pennsylvania. Again Mr. Searight gives a Pennsylvania commissioner’s receipts for the twenty months beginning May 1, 1843, as $37,109.11, while the receipts from the road in Ohio in only the twelve months of 1843 were $32,157.02. At the same time the tolls charged in Ohio were a trifle in excess of those imposed in Pennsylvania, therefore, Ohio’s advantage must be curtailed slightly. On the other hand it should be taken into consideration that the Cumberland Road in Pennsylvania was almost the only road across the portion of the state through which it ran, while in Ohio other roads were used, especially clay roads running parallel with the Cumberland Road, by drivers of sheep and pigs, as an aged informant testifies. As Mr. Searight has said, the travel of the road west of the Ohio may have been chiefly of a local nature, yet his seeming error concerning the relative amount of travel on the two divisions in hisown state, makes his statements less trustworthy in the matter. Still it can be readily believed that a great deal of continental trade did pass down the Monongahela after traversing the eastern division of the road and that increased local trade on the western division rendered the toll receipts of the two divisions quite equal. Local travel on the eastern division may have been light, comparatively speaking. Mr. Searight undoubtedly meant that two-fifths of the through trade stopped at Brownsville and Wheeling and one-fifth only went on into Ohio. The total amount of tolls received by Pennsylvania from all roads, canals, etc., in 1836 was about $50,000, while Ohio received a greater sum than that in 1838 from tolls on the Cumberland Road alone, and the road was not completed further west than Springfield.
A study of the amounts of tolls taken in from the Cumberland Road by the various states will show at once the volume of the business done. Ohio received from the Cumberland Road in forty-seven years nearly a million and a quarter dollars. An itemized list of this great revenue showsthe varying fortunes of the great road:
YearTollsYearTolls1831$ 2,777 161856$ 6,105 0018329,067 9918576,105 00183312,259 42-418586,105 00183412,693 6518595,551 36183516,442 26186011,221 74183627,455 13186121,492 41183739,843 35186219,000 00183850,413 17186320,000 00183962,496 10186420,000 00184051,364 67186520,000 00184136,951 33186619,000 00184244,656 18186720,631 34184332,157 02186818,934 49184430,801 13186920,577 04184531,439 38187019,635 75184628,946 21187119,244 00184742,614 59187218,002 09184849,025 66187317,940 37184946,253 38187417,971 21185037,060 11187517,265 12185144,063 6518769,601 68185236,727 261877288 91185335,354 40———————185418,154 59Total$1,139,795 30-418556,105 00
About 1850 Ohio began leasing portions of the Cumberland Road to private companies. In 1854 the entire distance from Springfield to the Ohio River was leased for a term of ten years for $6,105 a year. Commissioners were appointed to view the road continually and make the lessees keep it in as good condition as when it came into their hands.[53]Before the contract had half expired, the Board of Public Works was ordered (April, 1859) to take the road to relieve the lessees.[54]In 1870 the proper limits of the road were designated to be “a space of eighty feet in width, and where the road passed over a street in any city of the second class, the width should conform to the width of that street,” such cities to own it so long as it was kept in repair.[55]
Finally, in 1876, the state of Ohio authorized commissioners of the several counties to take so much of the road as lay in each county under their control. It was stipulated that tollgates should not average more than one in ten miles, and that notoll be collected between Columbus and the Ohio Central Lunatic Asylum. The county commissioners were to complete any unfinished portions of the road.[56]
Later (1877) the rates of toll were left to the discretion of the county commissioners, with this provision:
“That when the consent of the Congress of the United States shall have been obtained thereto, the county commissioners of any county having a population under the last Federal census of more than fifteen thousand six hundred and less than fifteen thousand six hundred and fifty shall have the power when they deem it for the best interest of the road, or when the people whom the road accommodates wish, to submit to the legal voters of the county, at any regular or special election, the question, ‘Shall the National Road be a free turnpike road?’ And when the question is so submitted, and a majority of all those voting on said question shall vote yes, it shall be the duty of said commissioners to sell gates, tollhouses and any other property belonging to the road to the highestbidder, the proceeds of the sale to be applied to the repair of the road, and declare so much of the road as lies within their county a free turnpike road to be kept in repair in the way and manner provided by law for the repair of free turnpikes.”[57]
The receipts from the Franklin County, Ohio, tollgate for the year 1899 were as follows:
January$36 00February32 80March39 90April80 75May67 25June54 85July47 15August35 75September29 27October29 26November35 05December34 05————Total$522 08
It will be noted that April was the heaviest month of the year. The gate-keeper received a salary of thirty dollars per month.
It is hardly necessary to say that this great American highway was never a self-supporting institution. The fact that it was estimated that the yearly expense of repairing the Ohio division of the road was one hundred thousand dollars, while the greatest amount of tolls collected in its most prosperous year (1839) was a little more than half that amount ($62,496.10) proves this conclusively. Investigation into the records of other states shows the same condition. In the most prosperous days of the road, the tolls in Maryland (1837) amounted to $9,953 and the expenditures $9,660.51.[58]In 1839 a “balance” was recorded of $1,509.08, but a like amount was charged up on the debtor side of the account. The receipts reported each year in the auditor’s reports of the state of Ohio show that equal amounts were expended yearly upon the road. As early as 1832 the governor of Ohio was authorized to borrow money to repair the road in that state.[59]
The great work of building and keeping in repair the Cumberland Road, and of operating it, developed a race of men as unknown before its era as afterward. For the real life of the road, however, one will look to the days of its prime—to those who passed over its stately stretches and dusty coils as stage- and mail-coach drivers, express carriers and “wagoners,” and the tens of thousands of passengers and immigrants who composed the public which patronized the great highway. This was the real life of the road—coaches numbering as many as twenty traveling in a single line; wagonhouse yards where a hundred tired horses rested over night beside their great loads; hotels where seventy transient guests have been served breakfast in a single morning; a life made cheery by the echoing horns ofhurrying stages; blinded by the dust of droves of cattle numbering into the thousands; a life noisy with the satisfactory creak and crunch of the wheels of great wagons carrying six and eight thousand pounds of freight east or west.
The revolution of society since those days could not have been more surprising. The change has been so great it is a wonder that men deign to count their gain by the same numerical system. As Macaulay has said, we do not travel today, we merely “arrive.” You are hardly a traveler now unless you cross a continent. Travel was once an education. This is growing less and less true with the passing years. Fancy a journey from St. Louis to New York in the old coaching days, over the Cumberland and the old York Roads. How many persons the traveler met! How many interesting and instructive conversations were held with fellow travelers through the long hours; what customs, characters, foibles, amusing incidents would be noticed and remembered, ever afterward furnishing the information necessary to help one talk well and the sympathynecessary to render one capable of listening to others. The traveler often sat at table with statesmen whom the nation honored, as well as with stagecoach-drivers whom a nation knew for their skill and prowess with six galloping horses. Henry Clays and “Red” Buntings dined together, and each made the other wiser, if not better. The greater the gulf grows between the rich and poor, the more ignorant do both become, particularly the rich. There was undoubtedly a monotony in stagecoach journeying, but the continual views of the landscape, the ever-fresh air, the constantly passing throngs of various description, made such traveling an experience unknown to us “arrivers” of today. How fast it has been forgotten that travel means seeing people rather than things. The age of sight-seeing has superseded that of traveling. How few of us can say with the New Hampshire sage: “We have traveled a great deal ‘in Concord.’” Splendidly are the old coaching days described by Thackeray, who caught their spirit:
“The Island rang, as yet, with the tooting horns and rattling teams of mail-coaches;a gay sight was the road in merry England in those days, before steam-engines arose and flung its hostelry and chivalry over. To travel in coaches, to drive coaches, to know coachmen and guards, to be familiar with inns along the road, to laugh with the jolly hostess in the bar, to chuck the pretty chambermaid under the chin, were the delight of men who were young not very long ago. The Road was an institution, the Ring was an institution. Men rallied around them; and, not without a kind conservatism, expatiated upon the benefits with which they endowed the country, and the evils which would occur when they should be no more:—decay of English spirit, decay of manly pluck, ruin of the breed of horses, and so forth, and so forth. To give and take a black eye was not unusual nor derogatory in a gentleman; to drive a stage-coach the enjoyment, the emulation of generous youth. Is there any young fellow of the present time who aspires to take the place of a stoker? You see occasionally in Hyde Park one dismal old drag with a lonely driver. Where are you, charioteers? Where are you, O rattling ‘Quicksilver,’ O swift ‘Defiance?’ You are passed by racers stronger and swifter than you. Your lamps are out, and the music of your horns has died away.”[60]
In the old coaching days the passenger- and mail-coaches were operated very much like the railways of today. A vast network of lines covered the land. Great companies owned hundreds of stages operating on innumerable routes, competing with other companies. These rival stage companies fought each other at times with great bitterness, and competed, as railways do today, in lowering tariff and in outdoing each other in points of speed and accommodation.[61]New inventions and appliances were eagerly sought in the hope of securing a larger share of public patronage. This competition extended into every phase of the business—fast horses, comfortable coaches, well-known and companionable drivers, favorable connections.
However, competition, as is always the case, sifted the competitors down to a small number. Companies which operated upon the Cumberland Road between Indianapolis and Cumberland became distinct in character and catered to a steady patronage which had its distinctive characteristics and social tone. This was in part determined by the taverns which the various lines patronized. Each line ordinarily stopped at separate taverns in every town. There were also found Grand Union taverns on the Cumberland Road. Had this system of communication not been abandoned, coach lines would have gone through the same experience that the railways have, and for very similar reasons.
The largest coach line on the Cumberland Road was the National Road Stage Company, whose most prominent member was Lucius W. Stockton. The headquarters of this line were at the National House on Morgantown Street, Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The principal rival of the National Road Stage Company was the “Good Intent” line, owned by Shriver, Steele, and Company, with headquarters atthe McClelland House, Uniontown. The Ohio National Stage Company, with headquarters at Columbus, Ohio, operated on the western division of the road. There were many smaller lines, as the “Landlords,” “Pilot,” “Pioneer,” “Defiance,” “June Bug,” etc.
Some of the first lines of stages were operated in sections, each section having different proprietors who could sell out at any time. The greater lines were constantly absorbing smaller lines and extending their ramifications in all directions. It will be seen there were trusts even in the “good old days” of stagecoaches, when smaller firms were “gobbled up” and “driven out” as happens today, and will ever happen in mundane history, despite the nonsense of political garblers. One of the largest stage companies on the old road was Neil, Moore, and Company of Columbus, which operated hundreds of stages throughout Ohio. It was unable to compete with the Ohio National Stage Company to which it finally sold out, Mr. Neil becoming one of the magnates of the latter company, which was, compared with corporations of its time, a greater trust than anything known in Ohio today.[62]
To know what the old coaches really were, one should see and ride in one. It is doubtful if a single one now remains intact. Here and there inquiry will raise the rumor of an old coach still standing on wheels, but if the rumor is traced to its source, it will be found that the chariot was sold to a circus or wild west show or has been utterly destroyed. The demand for the old stages has been quite lively on the part of the wild west shows. These old coaches were handsome affairs in their day—painted and decorated profusely without, and lined within with soft silk plush.[63]There were ordinarily three seatsinside, each capable of holding three passengers. Upon the driver’s high outer seat was room for one more passenger, a fortunate position in good weather. The best coaches, like their counterparts on the railways of today, were named; the names of states, warriors, statesmen, generals, nations, and cities, besides fanciful names, as “Jewess,” “Ivanhoe,” “Sultana,” “Loch Lomond,” were called into requisition.
The first coaches to run on the Cumberland Road were long, awkward affairs, without braces or springs, and with seats placed crosswise. The door was in front, and passengers, on entering, had to climb over the seats. These first coaches were made at Little Crossings, Pennsylvania.
The bodies of succeeding coaches were placed upon thick, wide leathern straps which served as springs and which werecalled “thorough braces.” At either end of the body was the driver’s boot and the baggage boot. The first “Troy” coach put on the road came in 1829. It was a great novelty, but some hundreds of them were soon throwing the dust of Maryland and Pennsylvania into the air. Their cost then was between four and six hundred dollars. The harness used on the road was of giant proportions. The backbands were often fifteen inches wide, and the hip bands, ten. The traces were chains with short thick links and very heavy.
But the passenger traffic of the Cumberland Road bore the same relation to the freight traffic as passenger traffic does to freight on the modern railway—a small item, financially considered. It was for the great wagons and their wagoners to haul over the mountains and distribute throughout the west the products of mill and factory and the rich harvests of the fields. And this great freight traffic created a race of men of its own, strong and daring, as they well had need to be. The fact that teamsters of these “mountain ships” had taverns or “wagon houses” of their own,where they stopped, tended to separate them into a class by themselves. These wagonhouses were far more numerous than the taverns along the road, being found as often as one in every mile or two. Here, in the commodious yards, the weary horses and their swarthy Jehus slept in the open air. In winter weather the men slept on the floors of the wagonhouses. In summer many wagoners carried their own cooking utensils. In the suburbs of the towns along the road they would pull their teams out into the roadside and pitch camp, sending into the village to replenish their stores.
The bed of the old road freighter was long and deep, bending upward at the bottom at either end. The lower broad side was painted blue, with a movable board inserted above, painted red. The top covering was white canvas drawn over broad wooden bows. Many of the wagoners hung bells of a shape much similar to dinner bells on a thin iron arch over the hames of the harness. Often the number of bells indicated the prowess of a teamster’s horses, as the custom prevailed, in certain parts, that when a team becamefast, or was unable to make the grade, the wagoner rendering the necessary assistance appropriated all the bells of the luckless team.
The wheels of the freighters were of a size proportionate to the rest of the wagon. The first wagons used on the old roads had narrow rims, but it was not long before the broad rims, or “broad-tread wagons,” came into general use by those who made a business of freighting. The narrow rims were always used by farmers, who, during the busiest season on the road, deserted their farms for the high wages temporarily to be made, and who in consequence were dubbed “sharpshooters” by the regulars. The width of the broad-tread wheels was four inches. As will be noted, tolls for broad wheels were less than for the narrow ones which tended to cut the roadbed more deeply. One ingenious inventor planned to build a wheel with a rim wide enough to pass the tollgates free. The model was a wagon which had the rear axle four inches shorter than the front, making a track eight inches in width. Nine horses were hitched to this wagon, three abreast. The teamcaused much comment, but was not voted practicable.
The loads carried on the mountain ships were very large. An Ohio man, McBride by name, in the winter of 1848 went over the mountains with seven horses, taking a load of nine hogsheads weighing an average of one thousand pounds each.
The following description is from theSt. Clairsville(Ohio)Gazetteof 1835:
“It was a familiar saying with Sam Patch thatsome things can be done easier than others, and this fact was forcibly brought to our mind by seeing a six-horse team pass our office on Wednesday last, laden witheleven hogsheads of tobacco, destined for Wheeling. Some speculation having gone forth as to its weight, the driver was induced to test it on the hay scales in this place, and it amounted to 13,280 lbs. gross weight—net weight 10,375. This team (owned by General C. Hoover of this county) took the load into Wheeling with ease, having a hill to ascend from the river to the level of the town, of eight degrees. The Buckeyes of Belmont may challenge competition in this line.”
Teamsters received good wages, especially when trade was brisk. From Brownsville to Cumberland they often received $1.25 a hundred; $2.25 per hundred has been paid for a load hauled from Wheeling to Cumberland.[64]The stage-drivers received twelve dollars a month with board and lodging. Usually the stage-drivers had one particular route between two towns about twelve miles apart on which they drove year after year, and learned it as well as trainmen know their “runs” today. The life was hard, but the dash and spirit rendered it as fascinating as railway life is now.
Far better time was made by these old conveyances than many realize. Ten miles an hour was an ordinary rate of speed. A stage-driver was dismissed more quickly for making slow time, than for being guilty of intoxication, though either offense wasconsidered worthy of dismissal. The way-bills handed to the drivers with the reins often bore the words: “Make this time or we’ll find some one who will.” Competition in the matter of speed was as intense as it is now in the days of steam. A thousand legends of these rivalries still linger in story and tradition. Defeated competitors were held accountable by their companies and the loads or condition of their horses were seldom accepted as excuses. Couplets were often conjured up containing some brief story of defeat with a cutting sting for the vanquished driver:
“If you take a seat in Stockton’s lineYou are sure to be passed by Pete Burdine.”
or,
“Said Billy Willis to Peter BurdineYou had better wait for the oyster line.”
According to a contemporary account, in September, 1837, Van Buren’s presidential message was carried from Baltimore (Canton Depot) to Philadelphia, a distance of one hundred and forty miles, in four hours and forty-three minutes. Seventy miles of the journey was done by rail, three by boat, and eighty-seven by horse.The seventy-three by rail and boat occupied one hundred and seventeen minutes and the eighty-seven by horse occupied the remaining two hundred and twenty-six minutes, or each mile in about two minutes and a half. This time must be considered remarkable. The mere fact that these figures are not at all consistent need occasion no alarm; they form the most consistent part of the story.
The news of the death of William the Fourth of England, which occurred June 20, 1837, was printed in Columbus, Ohio papers July 28. It was not until 1847 that the capital of Ohio was connected with the world by telegraph wires.
Time-tables of passenger coaches were published as railway time-tables are today. The following is a Cumberland Road time-table printed at Columbus for the winter of 1835-1836:
COACH LINESWINTER ARRANGEMENT
The Old Stage Lineswith all their different connections throughout the state, continue as heretofore.
The Mail Pilot Line, leaves Columbus for Wheeling daily, at 6 A. M., reaching Zanesville at 1 P. M. and Wheeling at 6 A. M. next day, through in 24 hours, allowing five hours repose at St. Clairsville.
The Good Intent Line, leaves Columbus for Wheeling, daily at 1 P. M., through in 20 hours, reaching Wheeling in time to connect with the stages for Baltimore and Philadelphia.
The Mail Pilot Line, leaves Columbus daily, for Cincinnati at 8 A. M., through in 36 hours, allowing six hours repose at Springfield.
Extras furnished on the above routes at any hour when required.
The Eagle Line, leaves Columbus every other day, for Cleveland, through in 40 hours, via Mt. Vernon and Wooster.
The Telegraph Lineleaves Columbus for Sandusky City, every other day at 5 A. M., through in two days, allowing rest at Marion, and connecting there with the line to Detroit, via Lower Sandusky.
The Phoenix Line, leaves Columbus every other day, for Huron, via Mt. Vernon and Norwalk, through in 48 hours.
The Daily Line of Mail Coaches, leaves Columbus, for Chillicothe at 5 A. M., connecting there with the line to Maysville, Ky., and Portsmouth.
For seats apply at the General Stage Office, next door to Col. Noble’s National Hotel.
T. C. Acheson,for the proprietor.
The following advertisement of an opposition line, running in 1837, is an interesting suggestion of the intense spirit of rivalry which was felt as keenly, if not more so, as in our day of close competition:
OPPOSITION!Defiance Fast Line CoachesDAILY
From Wheeling, Va.to Cincinnati, O. via Zanesville, Columbus, Springfield and intermediate points.
Through in less time than any other line.“By opposition the people are well served.”
The Defiance Fast Line connects at Wheeling, Va. with Reside & Co.’s TwoSuperior daily lines to Baltimore, McNair and Co.’s Mail Coach line, via Bedford, Chambersburg and the Columbia and Harrisburg Rail Roads to Philadelphia, being the only direct line from Wheeling—: also with the only coach line from Wheeling to Pittsburg, via Washington, Pa., and with numerous cross lines in Ohio.
The proprietors having been released on the 1st inst. from burthen of carrying the great mail, (which will retard any line) are now enabled to run through in a shorter time than any other line on the road. They will use every exertion to accommodate the traveling public. With stock infinitely superior to any on the road, they flatter themselves they will be able to give general satisfaction; and believe the public are aware, from past experience, that a liberal patronage to the above line will prevent impositions in high rates of fare by any stage monopoly.
The proprietors of the Defiance Fast Line are making the necessary arrangements to stock the Sandusky and Cleveland Routes also from Springfield to Dayton—which will be done during the month of July.
All baggage and parcels only received at the risk of the owners thereof.
Jno. W. Weaver & Co.,Geo. W. Manypenny,Jno. Yontz,From Wheeling to Columbus, Ohio,
James H. Bacon,William Rianhard,F. M. Wright,William H. Fife,From Columbus to Cincinnati.
There was always danger in riding at night, especially over the mountains, where sometimes a misstep would cost a life. The following item from a letter written in 1837 tells of such an incident:
“One of the Reliance line of stages, from Frederick to the West, passed through here on its way to Cumberland. About ten o’clock the ill-fated coach reached a small spur of the mountain, running to the Potomac, and between this place and Hancock, termed Millstone Point, where the driver mistaking the track, reined his horses too near the edge of the precipice, and in the twinkling of an eye, coach,horses, driver, and passengers were precipitated upward of thirty-five feet onto a bed of rock below—the coach was dashed to pieces, and two of the horses killed—literally smashed.
“A respectable elderly lady of the name of Clarke, of Louisville, Kentucky, and a negro child were crushed to death—and a man so dreadfully mangled that his life is flickering on his lips only. His face was beaten to a mummy. The other passengers and the driver were woefully bruised, but it is supposed they are out of danger. There were seven in number.
“I cannot gather that any blame was attached to the driver. It is said that he was perfectly sober; but he and his horses were new to this road, and the night was foggy and very dark.”
An act of the legislature of Ohio required that every stagecoach used for the conveyance of passengers in the night should have two good lamps affixed in the usual manner, and subjected the owner to a fine of from ten to thirty dollars for every forty-eight hours the coach was not so provided. Drivers of coaches who should drive in thenight when the track could not be distinctly seen without having the lamps lighted were subject to a forfeiture of from five to ten dollars for each offense. The same act provided that drivers guilty of intoxication, so as to endanger the safety of passengers, on written notice of a passenger on oath, to the owner or agent, should be forthwith discharged, and subjected the owner continuing to employ that driver more than three days after such notice to a forfeiture of fifty dollars a day.
Stage proprietors were required to keep a printed copy of the act posted up in their offices, under a penalty of five dollars.
Another act of the Ohio legislature subjected drivers who should leave their horses without being fastened, to a fine of not over twenty dollars.
As has been intimated, passengers purchased their tickets of the stage company in whose stage they embarked, and the tolls were included in the price of the ticket. A paper resembling a waybill was made out by the agent of the line at the starting point. This paper was given to the driver and delivered by him to thelandlord at each station upon the arrival of the coach. This paper contained the names and destinations of the passengers carried, the sums paid as fare and the time of departure, and contained blank squares for registering time of arrival and departure from each station. The fares varied slightly but averaged about four cents a mile.
The most important official function of the Cumberland Road was to furnish means of transporting the United States mails. The strongest constitutional argument of its advocates was the need of facilities for transporting troops and mails. The clause in the constitution authorizing the establishment of post roads was interpreted by them to include any measure providing quick and safe transmission of the mails. As has been seen, it was finally considered by many to include building and operating railways with funds appropriated for the Cumberland Road.
The great mails of seventy-five years ago were operated on very much the same principle on which mails are operated today. The Post Office Department at Washington contracted with the great stage lines for the transmission of the mails by yearlycontracts, a given number of stages with a given number of horses to be run at given intervals, to stop at certain points, at a fixed yearly compensation, usually determined by the custom of advertising for bids and accepting the lowest offered.
When the system of mailcoach lines reached its highest perfection, the mails were handled as they are today. The great mails that passed over the Cumberland Road were the Great Eastern and the Great Western mails out of St. Louis and Washington. A thousand lesser mail lines connected with the Cumberland Road at every step, principally those from Cincinnati in Ohio, and from Pittsburg in Pennsylvania. There were through and way mails, also mails which carried letters only, newspapers going by separate stage. There was also an “Express Mail” corresponding to the present “fast mail.”
It is probably not realized what rapid time was made by the old-time stage and express mails over the Cumberland Road to the Central West. Even compared with the fast trains of today, the express mails of sixty years ago, when conditions werefavorable, made marvelous time. In 1837 the Post Office Department required, in the contract for carrying the Great Western Express Mail from Washington over the Cumberland Road to Columbus and St. Louis, that the following time be made: