The old Boston Post Road

Front matter

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THE LIBRARY

By STEPHEN JENKINS

Preface

IN the year 1673, the first mail upon the continent of America was dispatched from New York to Boston by way of New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Brookfield, Worcester, Cambridge, and a few intermediate places. It is hard for us of this day and generation to realize that at that time these present flourishing towns and cities were small groups of houses huddled together for mutual protection; mere pioneer hamlets upon the frontiers of advancing civilization. The depredations of Indian foes, and the harassing raids of French rivals for supremacy upon the continent could not stay the progress of the indomitable Anglo-Saxon spirit; and gradually the frontier advanced farther and farther westward. Stern and repressive were the Puritan fathers in their religious ideas, and the same characteristics affected them in their government of civil affairs. Notwithstanding the misfortunes and vicissitudes of the new settlements, there was no thought of letting go; and the General Courts issued and enforced mandates against the desertion of these plantations in the wilderness.

Common dangers brought forth mutual appreciation and mutual help, then followed the Confederacy of the New England Colonies in 1643, the first step, practically, toward that greater union of the States which exists to-day. Though formed for military purposes, the Confederacy took a political cast, and the royal governors, for

VI

Preface half a century, were engaged in combating the pretensions and independence of a league of scattered colonies, individually weak, but collectively strong. The seed of united action was too firmly planted to be eradicated; and when the oppressions of the home government began in 1765 with the Stamp Act, we find it blossoming into full flower. The home government was forced to submit, though asserting lamely that it had power to do as it pleased with the colonies.

Meanwhile, there had been material progress in agricultural lines. As long as the settlements were along the coast, communication and interchange of commodities were easy by means of vessels; but the settlements began to grow inland, and roads became necessary to maintain communication; and roads are great factors in development and civilization. Several such roads were developed from the Indian trails leading from Boston, so that in time there came to be two well defined post roads from Boston to New York, and a third developed later in the days of the turnpikes.

I have chosen for the subject of this volume the oldest and most northerly of these post roads: that over which the first post-rider went; that which echoed to the war-whoop of the savage; that which saw the passage of the soldiers to and from the seat of activities during the French wars ; that which beheld the flocking of the minutemen upon the Lexington Alarm, or the rallying of the militia to the standard of Gates; that which served several times for the journeys of Washington, and that which later became the pathway of countless thousands of emigrants on their way to the rich valleys of the Mohawk and the Genesee, or to the fertile prairies of the Middle West.

I have tried to trace these pioneer settlements to their

Preface

Vll present positions as manufacturing towns and cities; and, above all, I have tried to emphasize the personalities of those men and women who have been chiefly instrumental in causing the progress of their towns and of the country in material wealth, or in literature, art, or education. This being a tale of a post road, it is natural that there will be a good deal about taverns and about means of transportation; for the former were of great importance in the early days, and the improvements in the latter culminating in the railroads of to-day have been, probably, the chief factor in the opening up of new country and its resources and in advancing its settlement and prosperity.

s. J.

Mt. Vernon, N. Y., September, 1913.

Acknowledgments are made for the use of copyrighted material, especially to Houghton Mifflin Co. for extracts from the Cambridge edition of the American Poets.

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PUBLISHER’S NOTE

Owing to the death of the author while this book was passing through the press, the proofs of the final chapters did not have the advantage of his personal supervision. These proofs, have, however, been read by representatives of the author who had familiarized themselves with the material. This volume must constitute the completion of the series which presents the result of investigations made by the scholarly author covering a long series of years.

ix

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

I. — The Era of the Post-Rider . . . i

II. — The Era of the Stage Coach ... 22

Chapter I

IN August, 1668, the Honorable Francis Lovelace arrived in New York as successor to Colonel Nicolls in the governorship of New York. In accordance with his instructions to do all in his power to promote friendly intercourse with the other English colonies in America, and especially with those of New England, he and Colonel Nicolls visited Governor Winthrop of Connecticut. The establishment of a post was discussed between them, with the result that, in December, 1672, Lovelace wrote to Winthrop as follows:

I here present you with two rarities, a pacquett of the latest intelligence I could meet withal, and a Post. By the first, you will see what has been acted on the stage of Europe ; by the latter you will meet with a monthly fresh supply ; so that if it receive but the same ardent inclinations from you as at first it hath from myself, by our monthly advisoes all publique occurrences may be transmitted between us, together with severall other great conveniencys of publique importance, consonant to the commands laid upon us by His sacred Majestic, who strictly injoins all his American subjects to enter into a close correspondency with each other. This I look upon as the most compendious means to beget a mutual understanding; and that it may receive all the countenance from you for its future duration, I shall acquaint you with the model I have proposed ; and if you please but to make an addition to it, or subtraction, or any other alteration, I shall be ready to comply with you. This person that has undertaken the imployment I conceaved most proper, being both active, stout and indefatigable. He is sworne as to his fidelity. I have affixt an annuall sallery on him, which, together with the advantage of his letters and other small portable packes, may afford him a handsome lively hood. Hartford is the first stage I have designed him to change his horse, where constantly I expect he should have a fresh one lye. All the letters outward shall be delivered gratis, with a signification of Post Payd on the superscription ; and reciprocally, we expect all to us free. Each first Monday of the month he sets out from New York, and is to return within the month from Boston to us againe. The mail has divers baggs, according to the townes the letters are designed to, which are all sealed up till their arrivement, with the seale of the Secret arie’s Office, whose care it is on Saturday night to seale them up. Only by-letters are in the open bag, to dispense by the wayes. Thus you see the scheme I have drawn to promote a happy correspondence. I shall only beg of you your furtherance to so universall a good work ; that is to afford him directions where and to whom to make his application to upon his arrival in Boston; as likewise to afford him what letters you can to establish him in that imployment there. It would be much advantagious to our designe, if in the interval! you discoursed with some of the most able woodmen, to make out the best and most facile way for a Post, which in process of tyme would be the King’s best highway; as likewise passages and accommodations at Rivers, fords, or other necessary places.

In addition to being a sworn messenger, the post-rider was required to direct travellers, who might choose to accompany him, to the best roads and to the most com-

George Washington’s State Coach.

Stage Coach (America).

Drawn by Capt. Basil Hall, R.N., by means of camera obscura.

FARE REDUCED.

Fac-simile of an Old Stage-coach Handbill.

Stage Notice, Hartford. The original is now in the possession of Judge Sherman W. Adams.

modious stopping places, and was to select the most convenient places for leaving letters and packets and for gathering up the same. It was designed by Governor Lovelace that the first mail should leave the fort at New York on January i, 1673; but, owing to the failure of some Albany dispatches to reach New York in time, the post-rider did not make his departure until the twenty-second.

His route led him from the fort at the lower end of Broadway, north over that highway, through the landgate in the palisades at Wall Street, and thence over the cow-path to the Fields, the present City Hall Park. Here he turned east around the rectangular pasture land of the city into the Bowery Lane leading to the Bowery Village, and over the recently opened road to New Harlem. Perhaps he turned aside for a glass of beer for which the village was already famous, or, it may be, continued on to the ferry at Spuyten Duyvil; and, after chaffing the ferryman, Johannes Verveelen, put up at his tavern for the night, after a day’s ride of fifteen miles. The short winter’s day would not permit him to go farther, and his horse must be conserved until he reached Hartford.

Refreshed by his night’s repose, he started on his ride across the country to Eastchester, following the old Indian trail to that place and crossing the Bronx River at Williamsbridge, not far from where the bridge has been for more than two centuries. At Eastchester, he pushed on over the Westchester Path, the ancient Indian trail by which the Mohicans of New York kept up communication with their kinsmen of the Connecticut valley, and over which the Connecticut English had found their way to the Vriedelandt of the Dutch and had settled, in 1642, at Throgg’s Neck and, in 1654, banks of Westchester

Creek. He stopped, probably, at Horseneck for the night.

and the next day resumed his journey through the settlements along the shore of the Sound. Trails, slowly developing into wagon roads, connected these villages; for the indefatigable colonizers of New England had been for years spreading their settlements ever westward, encroaching on the lands of the Dutch, and arousing disputes in regard to ownership and boundaries that came down almost to our own times.

From New Haven to Hartford, his way was plain; and from the latter place to Springfield, it was plainer still. At Springfield, he crossed the Connecticut River and turned eastward over the Indian trail from Massachusetts Bay to the valley of the Connecticut, over which the first white men had found their way in 1633. Since then many thousands of feet had trodden the Old Bay and the Old Connecticut paths on their way to Springfield, Windsor, Holyoke, Hartford, Wethersfield, and other Connecticut River towns. Two weeks after his departure from New York, he rode through Roxbury into Boston over the narrow neck connecting the mainland with the tri-mountain peninsula, where he delivered his mails and received congratulations on the success of his journey.

Two days of rest, perhaps, and then the return journey began; for he must be back within the month. His westward trip was easier, for he knew the way, the ordinaries and houses at which to stop, and the distances between ; nor had he to stop and blaze his way through the sometimes pathless forests — ^all this had been done on his outward trip. It was the winter time, and he was not delayed by the smaller streams, for they were frozen over ; the larger ones he crossed by ferries. Within the month he rode into the fort at New York and turned his mail bags over to the Secretary. Once more he was ready to start on his eastward trip with the contents of the “locked box, ”

Route — New York to Boston.

Route — New York to Boston.

kept in the Secretary’s office. His newly arrived mail was displayed in the Secretary’s office — later, at the Exchange — where people came and helped themselves to what belonged to them.

Several trips were made by the post-riders, ana all seemed going well, when a Dutch fleet appeared off New York in August, 1673, the city once more became Dutch. The newcomers did not desire communication with their eastern neighbors, and so the post-rider ceased his trips. When the fleet appeared. Governor Lovelace was in Hartford enjoying the hospitality of Governor Winthrop of that colony. Edward Palmes of New London sent word '‘post hast for his Majesties speciall service” to Governor Leverett of Massachusetts-Bay that "New Yorke was taken last Wednesday with the loss of one man on each side. ”

In November, 1674, the Dutch gave up the city, and Major Andros restored the English authority. The year following, 1675, King Philip’s War broke out, and the southern and western settlements of Massachusetts were devastated. Under such circumstances, the post was not resumed. After a year, the war ended with the death of Philip ; but the post was not re-established until Governor Dongan revived it in 1685, setting up an office in New York and fixing the charge at three pence for distances not exceeding one hundred miles. In 1687, when Edmund Randolph had been named deputy-postmaster for New England under the lord-treasurer of England, Dongan appointed for his own province a notary public named William Bogardus. These appear to have been the first officials of the kind in the colonies. The post was not seriously interrupted from this time until the Revolution.

In November, 1639, the General Court of Massachusetts-Bay enacted:

For the preventing the miscarriage of letters, it is ordered, that notice bee given that Richard Fairbanks, his house in Boston, is the place appointed for all letters, which are brought fiom beyond seas or to be sent thither, are to be brought unto him, and he is to take care that they bee delivered or sent according to their directions; provided that no man shall be compelled to bring his letters thither except hee please.

This first post-office in the town of Boston was located on Washington Street, not far from the Merchants’ Exchange near the head of State Street. On January 6, 1673, under the title, “Messengers to be sent post,” there was enacted a rate of wages as follows :

3d per mile to the place to which he is sent, in money, as full sattisfaction for the expence of man & horse; and no inholder shall take of any such messenger or others travayling vpon public service more than two shillings p bushell for oates, and fower pence for hay, day & night.

In June, 1677, it was stated that “many times letters are thrown upon the exchange, that who will may take them up”; and the Court thereupon appointed Mr. John Hayward, the scrivener, “to take in and convey letters according to their direction. ” Hayward was reappointed three years later to the same position. Previous to this action, the inhabitants had come and selected their own mail, or taken and delivered that belonging to their neighbors.

It was not until 1691 that a proper postal service was established in the colonies. On February seventeenth of that year, Thomas Neale received a royal patent for twenty-one years to control the colonial post-offices. Neale never came to America, but, in connection with the royal postmaster-general in London, he appointed Andrew

Hamilton of Philadelphia his deputy in America. Hamilton applied to each of the colonial legislatures

to ascertain and establish such rates and sums payable for the conveyance of postal matter, as, affording him sufficient compensation, should tend to the quicker maintenance of mutual correspondence amongst all the neighboring Colonies and Plantations, and that trade and commerce might be the better preserved.

In New York, under date of November ii, 1692, there was passed “An Act for the Encourageing a Post Office,” reciting that Andrew Hamilton of Philadelphia, having been appointed postmaster for all the colonies, is given power to appoint a postmaster in New York, who shall have the sole power “to prepare and provide horses and furniture to Let to hyre unto all through Posts’ and Persons’ Rideing in Post . . . and for the Post of Every Single Letter from Boston to New York . . . nine pence currant money aforesaid, and Soe in proportion as aforesaid.” No person or corporation shall carry letters for hire, or furnish horses or “furniture for the horses of any through Posts’ or Persons’ Rideing Post with a guide and horn as is usuall in their Majties Realme of England,” under penalty of one hundred pounds current money for every offence. This act was renewed and extended at intervals of three years for many years thereafter. The Act of September 18, 1708, fixes a rate of nine pence current money for one sheet from Boston to New York. ^

Duncan Campbell was appointed deputy postmaster-general in Boston. His receipts did not equal his outlay, so that the General Court made him an allowance of about £25 a year. He was so enterprising that he established

* This was before the days of envelopes.

a post to carry letters once a fortnight during the three winter months betwen New York and Boston, his carrier to go “alternately from Boston to Say brook and Hartford, to exchange the mail of letters with the New York rider.” This mail was known as the “western post, ” a name that it bore until the end of the staging days.

On May i, 1693, Hamilton’s scheme for the postal service went into effect with a weekly post from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to Boston, Saybrook, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. Five riders were engaged to cover each of the five stages twice a week in summer, and in winter, fortnightly. This scheme was well adapted to colonial needs, but, as late as 1705, no post-rider went east of Boston or south of Baltimore. In addition to other help, the New England colonies gave the post-riders free ferriage over the streams where ferries were located. The great offices of the country were Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Andrew Hamilton died in 1703, and his son John succeeded him.

In 1706, a statute of Queen Anne placed the American postal service imder the immediate control of the crown, which, in 1707, purchased the good will of the postal service from Neale and continued John Hamilton as postmaster-general. Two years before the expiration of Neale’s patent, in 1710, the House of Commons fixed higher rates of postage — one shilling for a single letter from New York to Boston. From this time until the Revolution, the postal service was under the crown, but it was not a revenue-producing part of colonial administration for many years.

In 1704, Governor Lord Bellomont of New York informed the home government that “the post that goes through this place goes eastward as far as Boston; but westward, he goes no further than Philadelphia; and there is no

Route — New York to Boston.

Route — New York to Boston.

other post upon all this continent. ” In 1708, Lord Cornbury states: “From Boston there is a Post, by which we hear once a week in summer, and once a fortnight in winter.”

In the code of laws of the Connecticutt Colony, printed in 1702, we find “An Act for Encouraging the Post-Office. ”

Whereas Their most Excellent Majesties King William, and Queen Mary, hy their Letters, Pattents, have Granted a Post- Office to he Set up in these Parts of New-England/or the receiving and dispatching of Letters and Pacguetsfrom one place to another, for Their Majesties Special Service, and the benefits of Their Majesties Subjects in these Parts; and this Court being willing to promote so good a work. It is Declared, etc.

Another act of 1702 speaks of the extravagant charges of “persons imployed by authority for conveyance of Letters and Pacquets of importance”; and a third act of 1702 fixes the post charges as follows: From May 15th to October 15th, for forty miles’ travel out from home and back, eight shillings, and for a horse, five shillings; in all, thirteen shillings, and a proportional amount for lesser or greater journeys; from October 15th to May 15th, forty miles’ travel from home and back for man and horse, fourteen shillings, and proportionate pay for greater or lesser distances. In May, 1712, an act was passed, “Because complaints are made about post wages,” that postmen should receive from April ist to November ist, three pence outward per mile in money, and no more; and from November ist to May ist, three pence halfpenny money per mile outward, and no more. These wages are to include the post-rider’s horse and the subsistence of both.

Madam Sarah Knight of Charlestown, Massachusetts, made a trip from Boston to New York and return, in order to attend to some business in which she was interested, and kept a journal of her experiences. She left Boston on Monday, October 2, I704» 3 P-M., and reached

New Haven at 2 p.m. on Saturday, the sixth. She stayed in New Haven until December sixth, when she continued her journey to New York, arriving there on the ninth. She returned home after five months’ absence. Later, she conducted a school in Boston, of which Benjamin Franklin was a pupil during the last year she held it. On a pane of glass in the Kemble house in Charlestown— the house of her father, destroyed in the fire of June, 1775 — there were scratched these lines:

Through many toils and many frights I have returned, poor Sarah Knights Over great rocks and many stones God has preserved from fractured bones.

This journal is one of the most valuable of our early colonial documents; and, as Madam Knight had a keen sense of the ridiculous and was prone to break into poetry upon occasion, it is also at times intensely funny. Notwithstanding her many experiences and the many times she was in danger, her sense of humor prevails. She accompanied the post-rider by way of Dedham, Providence, New London, and Say brook to New Haven — the Pequot Path, as it was called from the fact that it had formerly been an Indian trail leading to the villages of that tribe in Connecticut. She, of course, rode horseback. A few extracts from the journal will give some idea of the dangers that threatened the travellers of that day:

Tuesday, October y® third, about 8 in the morning, I with Post proceeded forward . . . and about 2, afternoon, arrived at the Post’s second stage, where the western Post met him

1 1

and exchanged letters . . . Having there discharged the Ordinary for self and guide, as I understood was the custom, about 3 afternoon, went on with my third guide, who rode very hard; and having crossed Providence fery, we come to a River w*^^ thay Generally Ride thro’. But I dare not venture; so the Post got a Ladd and Cannoe to carry me to t other side, and hee rid thro’ and Led my hors . . . Rewarded my sculler, again mounted and made the best of my way Forward . . .But the Post told me wee had near 14 miles to ride to the next stage, where we were to Lodg. I asked him of the Rest of the Rode, foreseeing we must travel in the Night. Hee told me there was a bad River to Ride thro’, w^^ was so very firce a hors could sometimes hardly stem it. I cannot express the concern of mind this relation sett me in ; no thoughts but those of the dang’ros River could entertain my Imagination; and they were as formidable as varies, still Tormenting me with blackest Ideas of my Approching fate — Sometimes seeing myself drowning, otherwhiles drowned, and at the best like a holy Sister Just come out of a Spiritual Bath in dripping Garments.

She conducted me to a parlour in a little back Lento w*^^ was almost fill’d w^^ the bedstead, w'^^ was so high that I was forced to climb on a chair to gett up to ye wretched bed that lay on it; on w^^ having Stretcht my tired Limbs, and lay’d my head on a Sad-coloured pillow, I began to think on the transactions of y® past day.

Here we found great difficulty in Travailing, the way being very narrow, and on each side the Trees and bushes gave us very unpleasant welcomes w^^ their Branches and bow’s.

I on a suden was Rous’d from these pleasing Imaginations by the Post’s sounding his horn, which assured me hee was arrived at the Stage, where we were to Lodg.

I then betook me to my Apartment, w®^ was a little Room parted from the Kitchen by a single bord partition . . . But

I could get no sleepe, because of the Clamor of some of the Town tope-ers in next Room ... I heartily fretted, and wish’t ’um tongue tyed ... I sett my Candle on a chair by my bed side, and setting up, fell to my old way of composing my Resentments, in the following manner:

I ask thy Aid, 0 Potent Rum!

The man confounded w*^ the Beast —

And I, poor I, can get no rest.

Intoxicate them with thy fumes:

O still their Tongues till morning comes!

And I know not but my wishe took effect; for the dispute soon ended w^^ ’tother Dram; and so Good night.

About four in the morning we set out . . . with a french Doctor in our company. Hee and y® Post put on very furiously, so that I could not keep up with them, only as now and then they ’d stop till they see mee.

From hence we hasted towards Rye, walking and Leading our Horses neer a mile together, up a prodigies high Hill; and so Riding till about nine at night and there arrived and took up our Lodgings at an Ordinary w'^^ a French family kept. Here being very hungry, I desired a fricasee, w'^^ the Frenchman undertaking managed so contrary to my notion of Cookery, that I hastned to Bed superless . . . nevertheless being exceeding weary, down I laid my poor Carkes (never more tired) and found my Covering as scanty as my Bed was hard . . . and poor I made but one Grone, which was from the time I went to bed to the time I Riss, which was about three in the morning . . . and having discharged our ordinary w'^^ was as dear as if we had had Better Fare — wee took our leave of Monsier and about seven in the morn came to New Rochell a french town, where we had a good Breakfast And in the strength of that about an how’r before sunsett got to York.

Route — New York to Boston.

JF'rom 1/) ) 4? Slro^t'd^

Route — New York to Boston.

In order to bind the different parts of the Province and also to bind it with the other colonies, the Provincial Assembly of New York, on June 19, 1703, passed:

An Act for the better Laying out ascertaining and preserving the Publick Comon and General highways within this Colony . . . That there be laid out preserved and kept forever in good and sufficient Repair one Publick Comon & general highway to Extend from the now Scite of the City of New York thro’ the City and County pf New York and the County of West Chester of the breadth of four Rod English measure at the least, to be Continue and remain for ever the Publick Comon General Road and highway from the said City of New York to the adjacent Collony of Connecticoot.

Other clauses provide for the laying out of roads connecting contiguous villages; for fining any one, other than a road commissioner, for cutting down a living tree of four or more inches in diameter ; for punishing encroachments on the public roads, and for the appointment of road commissioners with pay at the rate of six shillings a day. This act was revived over and over again, generally at intervals of three years, with various additions and emendations. The Act of October 30, 1708, establishes not more than six days’ work on the roads by the inhabitants each year, or a payment of three shillings for each day neglected. Thus was established the system of working the roads ^ which, in the course of two centuries, produced a lot of rural roads that were — ^and in many places are still — sl disgrace to any community calling itself civilized.

The village of Harlem had been established in 1658 “for the promotion of agriculture and as a place of amusement for the citizens of New Amsterdam.” Lovelace had established a ferry to the mainland in 1669 and encouraged the building of a road to connect New York and Harlem; this was completed before his first postman started on his trip. An Act of October 23, 1713 reads:

Whereas the High- ways and Post-Road through Manhattans Island leading from the City of New York to Kings- B ridge . . . are become very Ruinous, and almost impassible, very dangerous to all Persons that pass those Ways ... Be it Enacted . . . from the Limits of the Harlem Patent, to the Causeway of Kings-Bridge, shall be, from time to time hereafter, cleared, repaired and amended by the Inhabitants of Harlem Division, as hath been formerly done.