Fifth Avenue | Page 8

without
intermission. A fare of eleven dollars was usually exacted for the trip.
Even to go to one of the towns of Connecticut, the shore towns of the
Boston Post Road, was an undertaking that called for serious
preliminary study. A New York paper, now before the writer, carries in
its first column an advertisement of a new steamer, the "Fairfield,"
plying between New York and Norwalk. But in order to make use of its
services, the traveller had to be at the pier at the foot of Market Street at
six o'clock in the morning. Upon the arrival at Norwalk stages were at
hand for the convenience of such of the passengers who wished to
travel on to Saugatuck, Fairfield, Bridgeport, Stratford, Milford, and
other points. The same column carried information for those who
contemplated voyaging to Newport or Providence. Every Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday the steamboats "Benjamin Franklin" (Capt. E.S.
Bunker) and "President" (Capt. R.S. Bunker) left New York for those
Rhode Island towns at five o'clock in the evening.
The Post Road to Boston of those days differed much from the Boston
Post Road of the present; especially in its first stages going northward
from New York. There was no spacious Pelham Parkway skirting the
waters of the Long Island Sound. Before crossing the Harlem the road
followed in a general way the Broadway trail. Beyond the river it
zigzagged in a northeasterly direction through Eastchester. Not until the
crossing of the Byram River transferred the road from New York to
New England did it take on any resemblance to the trail of today, and
even beyond, the town of Greenwich seems to have been neglected
entirely.
Yet, in comparison, the East was developed. It was the bold Sinbad
turning his face resolutely and courageously towards the setting sun
who experienced the real inconveniences and perils. Nor, at first, did
that mean the adventurous journey into the lands that were beyond the

great Appalachian range. The shining countenance of the unknown was
nearer at hand. It is just a matter of turning the clock back a hundred
years.
From the windows of the apartment houses looking down on the
Riverside Drive the Delaware River is just beyond the Jersey hills. To
journey there today does not even call for the study of time-tables. Mr.
Manhattan rises at the usual hour and eats his usual leisurely breakfast.
At, say, nine o'clock, he settles back behind the steering-wheel of his
motor-car. Crossing the Hudson by the Forty-second Street Ferry, he
climbs the Weehawken slope, and swings westward over one of the
uninviting turnpikes that disfigure the marshy land between the Passaic
and the Hackensack. Then he finds the real Jersey, the Jerseyman's
Jersey, of rolling hills, and historic memories of Washington's
Continental troops in ragged blue and buff.--Morristown, with its
superb estates, the stiff climb of Schooley's Mountain, the descent
along the wooded ravine, the road following the winding
Musconetcong River through Washington, the clustered buildings of
Lafayette College crowning the Pennsylvania shore, and in good time
for luncheon Mr. Manhattan is over the bridge connecting Easton and
Phillipsburg.
A few years ago there appeared a little book telling of the experiences
of a family migrating from Connecticut to Ohio in 1811. In interesting
contrast to the morning dash just outlined is the story of that journey of
a little more than one hundred years ago. Before crossing the North
River the voyagers solemnly discussed the perilous waters that
confronted them. "Tomorrow we embark for the opposite shore: may
Heaven preserve us from the raging, angry waves!" The first night's
stop was at Springfield, where, within the living memory of the older
members of the party, a skirmish between the American troops and the
soldiers of King George had taken place.
Another day's travel carried the party as far as Chester. At that point the
task of travel became arduous. Over miry roads, in places blocked by
boulders, there was the painful, laborious ascent of the steep grade
leading to the summit of what we now call Schooley's Mountain. There

the party camped for the night, beginning the descent early the morning
of the following day. The brisk three or four hours' run that gives the
motorist of today just the edge of appetite needed for the full enjoyment
of his midday meal was to those hardy adventurers of a century ago
almost the journey of a week.
For transatlantic travel there was the Black Ball line, between New
York and Liverpool, first of four ships, and later of twelve. That service
had been founded in 1816 by New York merchants. The Red Star line
followed in 1821, and soon after the Swallowtail line. The packets were
ships of from six hundred to fifteen hundred tons burden, and made the
eastward