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Chapter XX
Traveling And Transportation.
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heavy, he must rise at three or four o'clock in the morning and prolong the ride far into the night. In the winter, if the road was much traveled, it soon became a quagmire, into which the horses would frequently sink to their knees in the adhesive mud. Then all hands would have to get out and help pry the great lumbering vehicle, which was hub-deep, out of the trouble. As recent as Jan. 10, 1834, the Queen's Highway between Chester and Darby was so bad that the mail-coach from Washington stuck fast in the mud below Darby, and had to be drawn to that village by oxen; while on Jan. 9, 1836, a heavy lumber box on runners, used as an omnibus between Darby and Philadelphia, stuck fast in a snow-drift near the former place, and it was two days before it could be moved.
I have not definitely ascertained when the first stage-line was established between Philadelphia and Baltimore, but Martin1 gives the abstract of a long advertisement which appears in the Independent Gazetteer, or the Chronicle of Freedom, published in Philadelphia, Jan. 2, 1788. Greeshorn, Johnson & Co., of "the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Eastern Shore Line of Post Coach Carriages," state that carriages will set out on Fourth Street, nearly opposite the old Indian Queen Tavern, during the winter on Mondays and Thursdays of every week, at ten o'clock in the forenoon, and arrive in Baltimore on Wednesdays and Saturdays in good season for dining. The passengers on their way from Philadelphia will dine at the "Queen of France Inn," kept by Mr. John Jarvis, twenty-two miles from the city. In the issue of the same paper, July 12, 1788, the notice is somewhat changed, and the rates of fare are given thus: | 1 History of Chester, p. 194. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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In the same journal, issue of Feb. 11, 1788, the following note is given: "The proprietors of the Old Line of Stages, having united with the lines from New York to Philadelphia, and thence to Baltimore, will begin to run on Monday, the 18th inst. The stages will leave the New York and Baltimore Stage Office on 4th Street, two doors from the Indian Queen, Kept by Mr. James Thompson, at 6 o'clock on the mornings of Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and will return again on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays each week during the Winter Season." At the time mentioned there must have been rival lines running to Baltimore, that of Greeshorn, Johnson & Co., and G. P. Vanhorne, Kerlin & Co. The following advertisement appears in the Pennsylvania Packet, March 11, 1790:
"The well-established Mail Stages between the City of Philadelphia and Baltimore continue their regular Tours respectively from each place by the way of the Susquehannah, on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Returning on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. To facilitate the dispatch and arrival of the Public Mails is an obligation indispensable, and every exertion to accommodate engages the duty and interests of the proprietors. The passengers are therefore requested to be early in their preparations for the Stages starting, as the most assiduous efforts are requisite and will be practiced, to render general and complete satisfaction.
William Kerlin and Matthias Kerlin, Jr., were both interested in stage coach companies, by which occupation they became wealthy; Matthias Kerlin retiring from business about 1792 with an ample fortune, returned to Delaware County, his native place, to reside. The American Annual Register for 1796, published Jan. 19, 1797, presents the unattractive picture of the post-road through the county at that period, and the unpleasant experiences that then awaited the traveler. It says, "The roads from Philadelphia to Baltimore exhibit for the greater part of the way an aspect of savage desolation. Chasms to the depths of six, eight, or ten feet occur at numerous intervals. A stage-coach which left Philadelphia on the 5th of February, 1796, took five days to go to Baltimore. The weather for the first four days was good. The roads are in a fearful condition. Coaches are overturned, passengers killed, and horses destroyed by the overwork put upon them. In winter, sometimes, no stage sets out for two weeks." Isaac Wild, Jr., of Dublin, in 1796 visited this country, and describing his journey by stage from Philadelphia to Baltimore, he records, "The driver had frequently to call to the passengers in the stage to lean out of the carriage, first on one side, then at the other, to prevent it from oversetting in the deep ruts with which the road abounded. 'Now, gentlemen, to the right,' upon which all the passengers in the stage stretched their bodies half out of the carriage to balance it on that side; 'Now, gentlemen, to the left,' and so on. These performances took place about every half-mile. If the road was contiguous to a wood, they just cut down a few trees to open a new passage, an operation which they called making a road." During the first thirty odd years of the present century there were several lines of stages running between the points named, - Reeside, Stockton & Stokes, Murdock & Nasp, and Janviers' rival lines of coaches. They changed their horses and stopped for meals at designated places, and made certain inns their headquarters. The large stable-yards around the old Washington Hotel (Reeside's line stopped at that house), the Columbia House, and the City Hotel (then known as the Eagle and afterwards as the National), in Chester, were necessary for the change of horses and coach stopping-places. It was a busy scene in those times when the lumbering stage, with | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||