[62] An old Ohio National Stage driver, Mr. Samuel B. Baker of Kirkersville, Ohio, is authority for the statement that the Ohio National Stage Company put a line of stages on the Wooster-Wheeling mail and freight route and "ran out" the line which had been doing all the business previously, after an eight months' bitter contest. [63] The following appeared in the _Ohio State Journal_ of August 12, 1837: "A SPLENDID COACH--We have looked at a Coach now finishing off in the shop of Messrs. Evans & Pinney of this city, for the Ohio Stage Company, and intended we believe for the inspection of the Post-Master General, who sometime since offered premiums for models of the most approved construction, which is certainly one of the most perfect and splendid specimens of workmanship in this line that we have ever beheld, and would be a credit to any Coach Manufactory in the United States. It is aimed, in its construction, to secure the mail in the safest manner possible, under lock and key, and to accommodate three outside passengers under a comfortable and complete protection from the weather. It is worth going to see." [64] Before the era of the Cumberland Road the price for hauling the goods of emigrants over Braddock's Road was very high. One emigrant paid $5.33 per hundred for hauling "women and goods" from Alexandria, Virginia, to the Monongahela. Six dollars per hundredweight was charged one emigrant from Hagerstown, Maryland, to Terre Haute, Indiana. [65] _Ohio State Journal_, February 9, 1838. "The land mail between this and Detroit crawls with snails pace."--_Cleveland Gazette_, August 31, 1837. Cf. _Historic Highways of America_, vol. i., p. 29. [66] The northern and southern Ohio mails connected with the Great Eastern and Great Western mails at Columbus. They were operated as follows: NORTHERN MAIL: Left Sandusky City 4 A. M., reached Delaware 8 P. M. Left Delaware next day 3 A. M., reached Columbus 8 A. M. Left Columbus 8:30 A. M., reached Chillicothe 4 P. M. Left Chillicothe next day 4 A. M., reached Portsmouth 3 P. M. SOUTHERN MAIL: Left Portsmouth 9 A. M., Chillicothe 5 P. M., Columbus 1 P. M., day following. Delaware 7 P. M., Sandusky City 7 P. M. day following. A Cleveland mail left Cleveland daily for Columbus via Wooster and Mt. Vernon at 3 A. M. and reached Columbus on the day following at 5 P. M., returning the mail left Columbus at 4 A. M. and reached Cleveland at 5 P. M. on the ensuing day.