The growth in stage-coaches and travel came with the turnpike at the beginning of this century. In transportation and travel, improvement of roadways is ever associated with improvement of vehicles. The first extensive turnpike was the one between Philadelphia and Lancaster, built in 1792. The growth and the cost of these roads may be briefly mentioned by quoting a statement from the annual message of the governor of Pennsylvania in 1838, that that commonwealth then had two thousand five hundred miles of turnpikes which had cost $37,000,000. Many of these turnpikes were beautiful and splendid roads; for instance, the "Mohawk and Hudson Turnpike," which ran in a straight line from Albany to Schenectady, was ornamented and shaded with two rows of the quickly growing and fashionable poplar-trees and thickly punctuated with taverns. On one turnpike there were sixty-five taverns in sixty miles. The dashing stage-coach accorded well with this fine thoroughfare. With the splendid turnpikes came the glorious coaching days. In 1827 the Traveller's Register reported eight hundred stage-coaches arriving, and as many leaving Boston each week. The forty-mile road from Boston to Providence sometimes saw twenty coaches going each way. The editor of the _Providence Gazette_ wrote: "We were rattled from Boston to Providence in four hours and fifty minutes--if any one wants to go faster he may go to Kentucky and charter a streak of lightning." There were four rival lines on the Cumberland road,--the National, Good Intent, Pioneer, and June Bug. Some spirited races the old stage-road witnessed between the rival lines. The distance from Wheeling to Cumberland, one hundred and thirty-two miles, was regularly accomplished in twenty-four hours. No heavy luggage was carried and but nine passengers; fourteen coaches rolled off together--one was a mail-coach with a horn. Relays were every ten miles; teams were changed before the coach ceased rocking; one driver boasted of changing and harnessing his four horses in four minutes. Lady travellers were quickly thrust in the open door and their bandboxes after them. Scant time was there for refreshment, save by uncorking of bottles. The keen test and acute rivalry between drivers came in the delivery of the President's Message. Dan Gordon carried the message thirty-two miles in two hours and thirty minutes, changing horses three times. Bill Noble carried the message from Wheeling to Hagerstown, a hundred and eighty-five miles, in fifteen and a half hours.