Grant Thorburn, the New York seedsman, tells of the first journey he ever made by land. It was in the winter of 1831; he was then fifty-eight years old.
“We left Hoboken with about fifteen passengers closely packed in a stage with wheels, and a very neat coach, and so foolish was I and ignorant (never having traveled on land) I thought this same fine close carriage would go through thick and thin with me all the way to Albany: in two short hours my eyes were opened. We stopped in Hackensack at a tavern grocery grogshop and post office all under one roof, for we carried Uncle Sam’s letter bags, which was another grievance, as we had to stop every few miles to change the mails. The keeper of the office began to bluster and swear he had neither carriages covered, or uncovered to forward so many passengers. He said the Jockey Club in New York took all the money and gave him all the trouble. In short, says he, unless you remain here till four o’clock P.M. you must go on with such conveyance as I can furnish. We applied to our Hoboken driver. He said his orders were to drop us at Hackensack and bring back the coaches__and sure enough he turned about and back he went. I stepped into the barroom—a large place. In the center stood a large old-fashioned tin-plate stove, surrounded by fifteen or twenty large lazy fellows. After waiting an hour we were sent forward, viz. two in an open chair, four in an open wagon, and the remainder, eight I think, in a common Jersey farming wagon, all the machines being without covers. It now commenced raining, and by the time we got to the next stage, we looked like moving pillars of salt, our hats and coats being covered to the thickness of an eighth of an inch with ice transparency. At the town of Goshen, we changed the mail, thawed our garments, and ate our dinner. As we got north the sleighing got better, so we were accommodated with a covered box and runners, but alas! it was like the man’s lantern without a candle. The cover was of white wood boards placed a quarter of an inch apart without paint, leather, or canvas to protect them from the weather.
“We traveled all night. The rain and snow falling through the roof, our hats were frozen to our capes, and our cloaks to one another. In the morning we looked like some mountain of ice moving down the Gulf Stream. I thought the machine used at the Dry Dock would have been an excellent appendage to have lifted us bodily into the breakfast room: and this is what the horse-flesh fraternity in New York advertise as their safe, cheap, comfortable, and expeditious winter establishment for Albany.”
