Palmyra Courier-Journal
April 30, 1909
“Traveling in the Old Days,” is the subject of the letter from our esteemed correspondent who has been writing on “Palmyra In the Early Fifties.” His letter, published in today's Issue of The Courier, will be found very interesting.
Indeed, as it describes the mode of traveling in this section fifty and sixty years ago, when railways were almost unknown.
He refers pleasantly to the old Erie canal packets, and the memory of many of our citizens will go back to those days and the luxurious accommodations when the packet boats afforded to passengers traveling to Rochester, Buffalo and other points. In those far-away days the packet captain was a man of great importance, and to know him personally was a treat which but few enjoyed. Bat the packet captain was always a gentleman, and the comfort of his passengers was always his chief desire.
Even the Pullman dining cars of today cannot offer a better service than was enjoyed by the packet traveler sixty years ago.
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Traveling In The Old Days
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Some Interesting Reminiscences From
a Former Resident of the Village
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I wonder how many of The Courier’s readers remember the palmy days of the Erie Canal, when it was the chief avenue of travel through the state between Albany and Buffalo. Even after several lines of railroad were in operation, through the Mohawk valley and west to Syracuse and Auburn, the Erie packer boat was largely organized. And it was a jolly way to travel.
The packet of sixty-five years ago was a trim craft, with graceful lines, and cutting the water at a good speed for that day - they were not like the strenuous times of the present. Why, we would leave Rome at nine in the evening and be in Syracuse for breakfast the next morning - a distance of forty miles!
They used to ring the bell at the landing just east of the James street bridge, and a crowd of young people gathered to “see the packet in.” And it was not so slow an affair. With the three horse tandem team at a round trot, with crack of the driver’s long lash and a bugle fanfare the boat would make the landing in a rocking swell. Don’t you remember Captain Vedder?
On board it was great fun to watch the waiter boys pull out the extension tables in that long cabin and sling the dishes into position. And wha savory odors issued from the tiny caboose where the black cook was dishing up the dinner, utilizing stove and table and often the floor for that purpose.
But what transformation at night when they put up those hammock berths, end to end and one above the other, lower and middle and upper, along the cabin sides, and the swinging berths in the center. Did you ever have the one above you give way without warning and precipitate a big man on top of you? I remember a small boy who did, and he was ever after distrustful of such sleeping gear.
But people not in a hurry often journeyed by “line boat,” as the boats of the regular freight lines were called. Many a time did the writer come and go between Rome and Lyons and Palmyra in this way. Often these boats were new and neat with their white paint and green blind. There was a comfortable passenger cabin forward, while the dining cabin and kitchen were aft; it was necessary to cross the upper deck in passing back and forth, the big midship space being needed for freight.
There was a boat called “the Musician”that was a great favorite and parties would wait several weeks for the privilege of making the trip in it; it was owned by the Blakeslee family, all the members of which were musicians and there were daily entertainments during the “voyage.” This boat had red window blinds all along its sides. We youngsters always looked forward with pleasure to these canal trips, so full of novelty. There were many things to see and plenty of time in which to see them as we moved leisurely along through countryside, hamlet and village.
We were passing other craft; line-boats and scows, and now and then a trim and aristocratic packet - why, one of those boats could cut a big swell than the flyers and limited expresses of these days. The eastward bound boats were heavily loaded, sometimes to their gunwales, and their teams of horses or mules on the towpath would seem scarcely to move. Some boats would have a cargo of corn, and we could see through the windows the bulk of the grain, yellow as gold, and reminding us of our country days, of corn husking and of samp and hominy and hasty pudding. (Note: Samp and hominy are foods derived from kernels of corn.)
Again here would be loads of flour or salt in barrels piled tier on tier on he deck. At times we would meet scow after scow, square bowed and logy, piled high with bright new lumber; sometimes a load would lean, like the famous old Tower of Pisa, and we wondered the boat did not “turn turtle.”
In passing, one boat was obliged to cast off its towline and to run over the line of the other boat, and this operation was always interesting. The crew would hail each other as the boats met, or occasionally there might be an ill-tempered encounter, but generally of words only.
The liners had regular stations at which they changed teams, but many of the boats carried their own horses in a little cabin stable forward, and it was interesting to see them lay the bridge and pass the animals to and from the towpath. Now and hen a great raft of lumber would be met moving slowly toward the seabed and made up of many sections; on one of these would be a small living cabin, and on another a stable for horses.
Sometimes the women would be preparing the meal from an outside fire, the column of blue smoke curling upward from the short stovepipe. At the locks the sections would have to be unbent and ru through separately, a very tedious operation.
Passing through a lock was always a sensation; to sink down and down between the dark damp walls was a trifle scary, and we were always glad to emerge into the light and the open water.
Do any of my readers remember the Montezuma marshes, or have they passed through them in the night or the white mists of an October morning? The wide water spaces, the stretches of flags and rushes, and the multitudinous chorus of the frogs are weird memories of this dismally romantic tract. But had! I hear the breakfast bell and smell the frying sausages and buckwheat cakes, for good things to eat an an appetite were always accompaniments of a canal boat journey.
Well, presto change! The writer remembers the old short cars of the “Syracuse and Utica Railroad.” They were about the length of two or three of the old-fashioned stage coaches, and the compartments, each with two broad seats facing each other, were entered by side doors. Along the outside ran a foot-board, and on this the conductor would pass to collect his fares; no tickets were used, but each paid in money through the door window, the cars stopping for the purpose just outside the station. Of course everyone was honest in those days.
The railroad was but a crude affair, the tracks being only long strips of strap iron spiked to wooden stringers. Sometimes an end would work loose and a “snake-head" be thrust up through the floor of a car. The first “T” rails were a great curiosity. The cars were very noisy and people were obliged to shout to one another when attempting conversation.
The first approach to a longer car of which I have any knowledge of was on the Auburn and Syracuse railroad. The windows were diamond-shaped and the side of the car looked like a somewhat compressed checkerboard. The effect was unique and pleasing. This must have been about 1840. Soon after a new car was placed on the line east of Syracuse. Our next door neighbor in Syracuse was a conductor and it was with him that I took my first ride i the new cars. However, it was many years later before anything like the present palatial coaches came into use.
So much about the canal and railroad of former days. But for the real romance of travel the reader must go back with me to the old four-horse thorough brace stagecoaches that sixty years ago wound their way through the Mohawk valley or climbed the hills along the state roads of northern New York. Those glorious old coaches! Splendid in red or yellow or green and gold; drawn by their spanking teams of bays or grays or black, and driven by Jehus as well known and as well noted as so many major-generals. There is living today many a gray-headed doctor or professor who can remember when the height of his boyish ambition was to drive a four-in-hand stage coach!
The inside of the coach was of substantial leather upholstery and the three broad seats made room for nine good people. With well-balanced load - inside seas all taken, a full boot behind, and one or two men of good avoirdupois on the seat with the driver - such a coach rode steadily enough; and withe a congenial company, fair roads and a careful driver, nothing could be more delightful. But once upon a time a small boy was the only passenger. In such a coach for some distance he kept no journal of the trump but had he done so he might have found difficulty in saying upon what particular seat he made the journey.
I have only to shut my eyes tonight and I am back again to a little village in the Black River country of Northern New York just as the sun is going over Tug Hill. A cloud of dust towards Martinsburg signals the coming of the southern mail.
The driver sounds his horn, a long-drawn crescendo blast, and the villagers flock to doors and windows. Down the long hill comes the coach and we can hear the rasping of the foot-brakes on the wheels; it rumbles over the creek bridge; with the horses at a round canter it rattles up the street, and with a final crack of the long whip the driver pulls up at the village stage house, the leather thorough-braces rocking the coach like a ship in a storm.
The teams are unhitched and the steam horses file away to the stables while the fresh relays come out to take their places. The old postmaster, bareheaded, and in his shirt sleeves, comes across the street and exchange mail pouches with the driver.
Two or three passengers alight while others enter, and the partly Boniface closes the door with a bang. The driver gathers up the reins, the leaders prick up their ears, and with a word of command and a crack of the whip the coach is off up the street, the villagers go their several ways, and the twilight falls in restful quiet on the little town.
