Page:Historic highways of America (Volume 10).djvu/138

138 All baggage and parcels only received at the risk of the owners thereof.

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,