A steamboat line was established with the advent of the _General Lafayette_,[24] in 1828. She left Plymouth when the tide served, and left Boston at hours which on her arrival would enable her to reach her dock. The fuel was wood and she made the passage in five hours, making about eight and one half statute miles per hour. In 1830 the steamboat _Rushlight_ came to Plymouth and advertised to carry passengers to Boston for a dollar and a quarter, the fare by stage being two dollars. In 1840, the _Hope_ left Boston at two, reaching Plymouth at six. Wm. Davis tells of an incident that year. He took a stage which left the same time as the ship. The driver, Samuel Gardner, told Davis that he would beat the steamboat that day. Gardner did not leave the box, horses were ready at the three places where changes were made and, “as I dismounted at my mother’s house on Cole’s Hill the boat passengers were coming up the wharf.” That day the stage did thirty six miles in four hours. In 1801, Davis quotes the _Farmer’s Almanac_, there were twenty-five lines of stagecoaches running out of Boston.[25] The stage to Plymouth made three trips per week by the way of Hingham, being ten hours on the road. The New England stage in the early part of the nineteenth century was a long covered wagon hung on leather thorough-braces and contained seats without backs. “After a few years the clumsy stage gave way to the well-known English stage made with the addition of a middle seat with an adjustable tack strap.”[26] In 1834 a line of stages to and from Boston for mail and passengers was established and continued until the opening of the Old Colony Railroad in 1845. The accommodation left Plymouth at six or seven each day, and returning left Boston by two. By way of Pembroke, Hanover, Weymouth Landing, Quincy and Dorchester was the route up from Plymouth. The mail stage, when separate, left Boston at five o’clock in the morning, arriving at Plymouth at ten thirty. The first post office and postmaster were established in 1775 in Plymouth.[27] In this year a horseback mail route was established from Cambridge to Falmouth through Plymouth. The two post riders made the trip down and back once a week. On March 18, 1844, the Old Colony Railroad was incorporated.[28] On the 8th of November, 1845, the road was opened. The next day trains ran twice daily at 7 a.m. and 3:30 p.m. from Plymouth and 7:45 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. from Boston. Running time was an hour and three quarters. The railroad for the next twenty years used wood for fuel. The distance was 37 miles. The population of Plymouth in 1820 was 4384. In 1833 it was 5,000. By 1905 it had reached 11,107.