Pilots of the Republic: The Romance of the Pioneer Promoter in the Middle WestHulbert, Archer Butler
History
Pilots of the Republic: The Romance of the Pioneer Promoter in the Middle West
Hulbert, Archer Butler
Canals -- United States; Mississippi River Valley -- History; Northwestern States -- History; Pioneers -- United States
These sober statistics give only a hint of those gay, picturesque
days when this highway was a teeming thoroughfare, lined with towns
of national importance that are now forgotten, and with thousands of
taverns and road-houses, even the foundation-stones of which have
vanished from the old-time sites. Great stagecoach lines operated here,
known as widely in their day as the railways are now, their proprietors
boasting over rival lines in points of speed, safety, and appointments.
The largest company on the Cumberland Road was the National Road
Stage Company, with headquarters at Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The Ohio
National Stage Company was the most important west of the Ohio River.
There were the "Good Intent" line, and the "Landlords," "Pioneer,"
"June Bug," and "Pilot" lines. Fine coaches bore names as aristocratic
as our Pullman cars do to-day. There were "trusts" and "combinations,"
quarrels and lawsuits, worthy of the pen of any sensational
magazine-writer or novelist.
The advertisement of an "opposition" stagecoach line of 1837 is of
interest on several accounts:
OPPOSITION!
DEFIANCE FAST LINE COACHES
DAILY
FROM WHEELING, VA., to Cincinnati, O., via Zanesville, Columbus,
Springfield, and intermediate points.
Through in less time than any other line.
"_By opposition the people are well served._"
The Defiance Fast Line connects at Wheeling, Va., with Reside &
Co.'s Two Superior daily lines to Baltimore, McNair and Co.'s
Mail Coach line, via Bedford, Chambersburg, and the Columbia
and Harrisburg Rail Roads to Philadelphia being the only direct
line from Wheeling--: also with the only coach line from Wheeling
to Pittsburg, via Washington, Pa., and with numerous cross lines
in Ohio.
The proprietors having been released on the 1st inst. from burthen of
carrying the great mail (which will retard any line), are now enabled
to run through in a shorter time than any other line on the road. They
will use every exertion to accommodate the travelling public. With
stock infinitely superior to any on the road, they flatter themselves
they will be able to give general satisfaction; and believe the public
are aware, from past experience, that a liberal patronage to the above
line will prevent impositions in high rates of fare by any stage
monopoly.
The proprietors of the Defiance Fast Line are making the necessary
arrangements to stock the Sandusky and Cleveland Routes also from
Springfield to Dayton--which will be done during the month of July.
All baggage and parcels only received at the risk of the owners thereof.
JNO. W. WEAVER & CO.,
GEO. W. MANYPENNY,
JNO. YONTZ,
_From Wheeling to Columbus, Ohio_.
JAMES H. BACON,
WILLIAM RIANHARD,
F. M. WRIGHT,
WILLIAM H. FIFE,
_From Columbus to Cincinnati_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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