Perleys Reminiscences, v. 1-2 | Page 8

has never been a more imperious
despot in political affairs than Mr. Clay. He regarded himself as the
head-centre of his party-- L'état, c'est moi--and he wanted everything
utilized for his advancement.
General Jackson was meanwhile being brought before the public, under
the direction of Aaron Burr, Martin Van Buren, and Edward Livingston,
as a "man of the people." They had persuaded him to resign his seat in
the Senate of the United States, where he might have made political
mistakes, and retire to his farm in Tennessee, while they flooded the
country with accounts of his military exploits and his social good
qualities. Daniel Webster told Samuel Breck, as the latter records in his
diary, that he knew more than fifty members of Congress who had
expended and pledged all they were worth in setting up presses and

employing other means to forward Jackson's election.
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, two of the three survivors of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence, passed hence on the Fourth
of July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of their signing the Magna Charta
of our Republic. Their names had been inseparably connected in the
minds and upon the lips of the people, as their labors were united in
bringing about the events of the Revolution and its final triumph. Mr.
Jefferson was the writer, Mr. Adams the orator, of the Congress of '76.
The one penned the Declaration of Independence, the other was
pronounced "the pillar of its support and its ablest advocate and
defender." Mr. Jefferson called Mr. Adams "the Colossus of the
Congress," the most earnest, laborious member of the body, and its
animating spirit. For the loss of these men, though they fell as a ripe
shock of corn falleth--both having arrived at an advanced age--Mr.
Adams over ninety--the whole nation clothed itself in mourning.
CHAPTER II.
TRAVELING IN "YE OLDEN TIME."
The old stage route between Boston and New York, before John
Quincy Adams was President, passed through Worcester, Springfield,
Hartford, and Norwalk. Passengers paid ten dollars for a seat and were
fifty- six hours or more on the road. This gave way about 1825 to the
steamboat line via Providence, which for five dollars carried passengers
from Boston to New York in twenty-four hours.
Stage books for the Providence line were kept in Boston at offices in
different parts of the city, where those wishing to go the next day
registered their names. These names were collected and brought to the
central stage office in the Marlboro Hotel at ten o'clock each night,
where they were arranged into stage-loads, each made up from those
residing in the same part of the city. At four o'clock in the morning a
man started from the stage office in a chaise to go about and wake up
the passengers, that the stage need not be kept waiting. The large brass
door knockers were vigorously plied, and sometimes quite a

commotion was caused by "waking up the wrong passenger."
In due time the stage made its appearance, with its four spirited horses,
and the baggage was put on. Trunks, which were diminutive in size
compared with those now used, were put on the rack behind, securely
strapped; valises and packages were consigned to the depths of a
receptacle beneath the driver's seat, and bandboxes were put on the top.
The back seat was generally given to ladies and elderly gentlemen,
while young men usually sought a seat on top of the stage, by the side
of the driver. When the passengers had been "picked up," the stages
returned to the stage office, where they way-bills were perfected and
handed to the drivers. As the Old South clock was striking five, whips
were cracked, and the coaches started at the rate of ten miles an hour,
stopping for breakfast at Timothy Gay's tavern in Dedham, where many
of the passengers visited the bar to imbibe Holland gin and sugar-house
molasses--a popular morning beverage.
Breakfast over, away the stages went over the good turnpike road at a
rapid pace. Those who were fellow passengers, even if strangers to one
another, gradually entered into conversation, and generally some one of
them was able to impart information concerning the route. Occasionally
the stage would rattle into a village, the driver giving warning blasts
upon his long tin horn that he claimed the right of way, and then dash
up to a wayside inn, before which would be in waiting a fresh team of
horses to take the place of those which had drawn the coach from the
previous stopping-place. Time was always afforded those passengers
who desired to partake of libations at the tavern bar, and old travelers
used to see that their luggage was safe.
Providence was in due time reached, and the procession of stages