Boston in the summer of 1772. A coach starting from one of the places on Monday morning would arrive at the other on Saturday evening. The fare was threepence a mile. A single stage soon proved to be inadequate, and by 1802 a coach departed over the route daily from each end.

News could travel no faster than the stage-coaches, and when Washington died in 1799 at Mount Vernon on December 14, the news of his death did not reach Boston until ten days later. It took a month to get in all the returns of a state election in Massachusetts in those times.

The early stage-coach was a wagon, the body of which was a large oblong box with high sides. This box was on springs, and up above was a canvas or leathercovered top with side curtains which let down in cold or stormy weather. There were usually four seats, and these accommodated eleven persons besides the driver. The seats had no backs, and the rear one was preferred because there one could lean against the end of the wagon box. It was customary to let the women passengers occupy that seat.

Only fourteen pounds of baggage could be carried by each person free. It was placed under the seats. In the warmer months about forty miles a day were covered, but in winter rarely more than twenty-five.

Josiah Quincy, president of Harvard College, who went from Boston to New York by stage just after the close of the Revolution, says: "The carriages

were old and shackling and much of the harness of ropes. We reached our resting-place for the night, if no accident intervened, at ten o'clock, and, after a frugal supper, went to bed with a notice that we should be called at three."

Whether it snowed or rained, the traveller must make ready to start by the help of a candle or rude lantern. Sometimes the coachman would call out to the passengers to lean to one side or the other, so as to prevent the coach from toppling over when the wheels went into a rut. There were occasions when they had to alight and help lift the coach from a quagmire. Once, when the passengers of a coach rebelled at this requirement, the driver sat down by the roadside and calmly lit his pipe. They made anxious inquiries as to the meaning of his inaction, and he said, “Since those horses can't pull that carriage out of that mudhole and you won't help, I'm going to wait till the mudhole dries up."

The passengers concluded to alight and assist.

In the early years of the nineteenth century the stagecoaches were built with oval bodies suspended on stout bands of leather. There were three seats inside, each intended for three persons. The middle seat was a movable bench with a broad strip of leather to support the passengers' backs. The driver sat outside in front, and most of the baggage was carried on a rack behind. These coaches travelled six miles an hour on good roads.

In 1827 a Concord, New Hampshire, carriage-maker invented the Concord coach, which has never been excelled. It has a strong heavy body, and passengers can ride both inside and on its stout top. This is the kind of coach that transported the mails and treasure across the western plains and mountains, and it is still used in all parts of the world where there are no railroads.

Toward the end of the stage-coach period one hundred and eight lines ran out of Boston, and forty-two from Hartford.

In the less thickly settled parts of the country a stage wagon was used. This was a primitive uncovered vehicle usually drawn by two horses. Chairs sometimes served as seats, and there were not always enough to go round. A traveller writing in 1807 of a summer journey in Vermont from Burlington to St. Albans says: "I had a seat on the mail bag and other goods. The road in many parts was continually obstructed by large stones, stumps of trees, and fallen timber, deep ruts, and holes. I shall never forget the shaking, jolting, jumbling, and tossing over the road. We had only two poor jaded horses to drag us, which obliged me to alight and fag through the sand and dust, exposed to a burning sun.'

America's earliest railroad was built in Quincy, Massachusetts, from the great granite quarries there to tide-water in the Neponset River, a distance of less than three miles. The cars were run by horse-power,

and the first trip was made in October, 1826. Wooden rails were used. They were laid on blocks of stone, and covered with strips of iron. A single horse could draw twenty tons of granite on one of the wagon-like cars.

The first locomotive trip in New England was made from Boston to Davis's tavern in Newton in March, 1834. By the end of the next year railroads from Boston to Lowell, Boston to Worcester, and Boston to Providence were in operation. The railroad reached Springfield from Worcester in 1839, and two years later had been built over the mountains to Albany.

On these early railroads the speed was about fifteen miles an hour, and the fare was three or four cents a mile. The first cars were Concord stage-coaches with the wheels altered to fit and stay on the rails, but soon long cars were substituted. They were coupled together like freight cars with no platforms nor entrances at the ends. The outside was commonly painted yellow. There was a running board and three doors on each side. The seats were arranged as now, except that they were in twos back to back and not reversible. They were covered with drab cloth and had looselyhung bands of haircloth for backs. Each car accommodated twenty-four persons. The train was in charge of a "trainmaster," who carried a whip to keep boys from stealing a ride. Neither he nor the brakeman wore uniforms. The brakes were levers worked by hand.

People from all around came to see the trains when

they first began running. Here is a paragraph from a local paper that gives some idea of the excitement this new method of travel caused. It refers to the passing through Stamford, Connecticut, of the first New York and New Haven train on an autumn afternoon in 1849: "The citizens of this village were nearly frightened out of their propriety by such a horrible scream as was never heard to issue from any other than a metallic throat. Animals of every description went careering around the fields, sniffing at the air in their terror; and bipeds of every size, condition, and color set off at a full run for the railroad depot. In a few moments the cause of the commotion appeared in the shape of a locomotive, puffing its steam and screaming with its so-called whistle at a terrible rate."

The first engine on the Boston and Albany road was the "Meteor," imported from England. This was soon followed by the Massachusetts-built engines, "Yankee," "Comet," and "Rocket." Some of the earlier cars and engines had only four wheels.

None of the engines had headlights. The freight engines were called "crabs." They had upright boilers, and on the front was the engineer's cab with curtains around the sides. The fireman was back of the boiler, and he had no shelter.

At first the cars were without springs, and their jarring motion was far from comfortable. Accidents were many, and often, when the locomotive broke down, the train had to be dragged by horses or oxen

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