Page:Historical and Biographical Annals of Columbia and Montour Counties, Pennsylvania, Containing a Concise History of the Two Counties and a Genealogical and Biographical Record of Representative Families.djvu/66

COLUMBIA AND MONTOUR COUNTIES 37 tap-room floor, paying a small Ice for the privilege. Beford retiring many potations were indulged in, and from the resulting battles the old "wagon inns" gained their hard names.

These wagons alter the development of railroads in this State became the "prairie schooners" of the West, and bore many an emigrant and his household to the far distant homesteads of that portion of our country.

STAGECOACH DAYS

The first coach was made in England in 1555 by Walter Rippen for the Earl of Rutland. Eight years later he made one for Queen Elizabeth. The early English stagecoaches were clumsy things, without windows or scats, but necessity soon developed them into the fine vehicles of later years. These vehicles were imported into the Colonies in 1737, but the colonists were compelled from the nature of the country to develop their own conveyances.

In 1705 a stage line ran from Philadelphia to New York, the fare being four dollars. The vehicle had four benches, without backs or cushions, placed across the interior, the passengers being compelled to climb over each other to get to the back seat, the coveted one, owing to the opportunity to rest the back against the rear of the coach. Leather curtains covered the top, and the passengers had to stow their baggage under the seats, where it shifted at every move of the lumbering coach. Having no springs, this vehicle was one to create terror in the heart of the unfortunate traveler who had a long journey before him.

The coaches of 1818 had "thoroughbraces” fitted to them, which made the motion much easier. These were leather straps, by which the body of the coach was suspended from hickory bows. At this date the coach also had a seat for the driver, with a footboard, and had a trunk-rack bolted 10 the rear. Many other modifications were from time to time made in the coaches, all of which were superseded by the famous Concord coach, first built in Concord, N. H., in 1827. This famous coach is still the model for vehicles of its class at the present time.

The word "stagecoach" strictly applies to a vehicle for the transportation of passengers over a route at different stages of which the horses are changed, and the word "omnibus" indicates a coach used for short distances. The first stages from Philadelphia to New York made the trip in three days, but later the trip was made in much shorter time. The National road was a famous coaching route, at one time four lines of coaches being run upon it.

The coaches in this section of the State were of similar character to those elsewhere, but the roads were not as good and the hilts more steep. The rivalry between the different lines was great and in many instances the warring drivers cut the rates to almost nothing in order to drive their rivals out of business. Upon the patronage of these stage lines and their passengers depended the prosperity of many of the towns of Columbia and Montour counties. The village of New Columbus (just over the line in Luzerne county) was founded especially to cater to the coaching traffic, but failed almost in birth, owing to the advent of the railroads.

The journey by stagecoach was a mixture of pleasure and pain. The autumn was probably the best time to travel, for then the roads had settled to their best condition. In summer the dust so covered the passengers that sometimes one could not tell the color of their garments. In winter and spring the coaches sank to the hubs in the soft soil of the poor roads, or humped over the loose stones of the turnpikes. It seemed to be adding insult to injury to demand toll from the passengers for a journey over such highways. And the tollgates seemed to appear at remarkably frequent intervals.

There was one curious and most depressing condition of stage travel. It seemed no matter how little or how long the journey was, nor where the destination, the coach always started at daybreak, or before. The traveler had to rise in the dark, dress by the feeble illumination of a tallow dip, and start out in the cold, depressing gloom of the early dawn, without breakfast. As most deaths occur in the early hours before dawn, it is surprising that the poor travelers of those days did not gladly shuffle off this mortal coil to evade the terrors of the journey before them. Sometime later in the morning the breakfast post would be reached, and something warm taken within, just as the victim had almost despaired of keeping alive the vital spark. It was no unusual thing for the coach to make ten miles ere the travelers were given their breakfast. From three to five in the morning were the starting hours of the coaches, and the journey often lasted until eight at night. In such a journey many miles could be covered in a day.