Evening star., 1896-08-15

NJ
NY///H by the patient horse.
=" II HW The capital city was.
in 1923, with u t
means of transportation younger than
those employed by Abraham, and even
none as swift as they; for 1t had no camels
nothing but horses and mules The latter
Were indeed. masters of the rapid-transit
situation here until the summer of 1885,
sixty-one years ago. The Baltimore and
Ohio railroad. which had been chartered
In lS2s, had then succeeded so far as to
get the rails on it's Washington and Balti-
more road as far as Bladensburg. Up to
that time hacks. wagons and carts had
made up the methods of internal transit
In the city; while the stage lines of G.
Beltzhooyer & Co. and of Stockton &
Stokes. in some senses the respective rep-
resentatives of the National Hotel at one
end of the city and of Willards at the
other, controlled the outgoing and incoming
travel Of the capital ''i
Ii often puzzled the writer to know how
the people of stage coach days managed tn
beguile their long Journeys until the late
Charles Elliott, a noted stage ooac chman
who many times had brought General Jack
son and a coachload of Senators from Rich
mond to Washington. enlightened him.
An Old-Tfme Stage Journey.
Tney had an elegant time" he said, In
response to a query. You see, a pack of
cards or two and two or three bottles Of
good whisky or brandy made the time go
faster than the horses
AS soon as the stage bowled away from
Lexington, which generally at night
tney would take a drink two, tell some
yarns and then go to sleep. Next morning
they would stop a good while at breakfast
dress, stretch their limbs. enjoy the COM
pany of some gentlemen in the neighbor-
la ton naCfo nd
times go a-huntin' and let the stage go on
and wait Sor the stage the next day. They
never travelled at night after the first
night. They would set up all night at the
hotel drinking and playing cards get into
the coach after an early breakfast next
mornin and sleep all day, except when
they stopped at the wayside house for din
her II they were awake little while af-
ter dinner they had a sociabie game and
several drinks in the stage and then went
to sleep again. Every night after supper
at the taverB5 where We stopped they
would have a royal good time. A royal
blue time, they called it, for, you see they
knowed nothing about painting the town
red so they come on until they got to
Fredericksburg, where they cleaned them
Selves up. took bath and come into Wash
Ngton fresh as kids. That's the way thew
did 1t. sir These kind Of men never knew
What tireSome hour was in the old stage
coach Ii was the best way of travel for
gentlemen that they ever knowed Why
sir. every one of them were sorry when the
St'SeS stOppeu carrying shem through the
country. Ef horses could have draw'd as
fast as steam they'd have been going in
the stages yit."
Well. perhaps it may be the stages will
come IN after awhile run by electricity"
was suggested.
1T will be a long time yit: then maybe
we old stage drivers will be sittin' up thar
In the clouds maxim the thunder and
iehtnin' to drive EN-; somep'n like our
old-time work.
The BeGiuninx of the steam Era.
The beginning of the abandonment of
stage coaches and of the use of q car on
rails was not so long ago but that many
old Washnstonians remember it, and
the building In which the cars were first
slowed is still standing. and by a coinci-
dence has recently been used for the dy-
namo of the United States Electric Com
pany- The steam cars came to Washing
ton in the summer of 1895. The National
lntenigencer of July 3 OF that year an
nCunces the coming of the railroad in this
way:
between this city and Baltimore is about
to be brought In use, to the great Joy, no
doubt. of all who have to go to and from
Washington, in q direction north. On
Wednesday the president and directors,
with the principal officers of the Balti-
more and Washington Railroad Company
accompanied by several invited citizens of
baltimore. made trip of inspection on the
rev road from Baltimore to Bladensburg
at which place the company was met by
the mayor OF this city and some other gen.
temen. We are pleased TO
learn that an arrangement has been made
by the enterprising stage COMPANY of G.
Reltzhoover & Co. with the railroad COM
pGny to open the road on Wednesday next
the passengers. until the final completion
of the road to the canal bed in this city to
be conveyed to the city in stage coaches.
so that person may hereafter go and re-
turn between Washington and Baltimore
In less time than when travelling at the
fastest rate it used to take to accomplish
the single distance between the cities'
The Baltimore Gazette announced a few
days afterward that the first train of cars
with passengers for Washington on the
railroad left that city on Monday morning,
July ~. at O'Clock, moved by a new steam
engine. made expressly for the use Of this
road, and superior in power and construc-
tlon to any before made in that city An
other train left Baltimore at 3 in the after
ECon- The passengers for Baltimore leave
Washil gton in stage coaches at 9:15 and
feach me present terminus of the railway
rear Bladensburg about the time of the
arrival of the cars. and are by them COZ
Seyed to Baltimore
improvements.
July %. 1875, ii IVES announced that .the
cars on the Washington and Baltimore
railroad will run regularly between BaIt!-
more and Bladensburg twice a day, each
way. and already the company's receipts
have been SrO Per day since the cars COM
nenced to run"
1t was the design at that time that the
Washington and Baltimore railroad should
terminate at the basin of the canal"
Whlch was then in the of Center mar
ket. not far from the present local ter
minus of the Baltimore and Potomac
railroad. The road continued at Bladeas-
burg for a month. when the tracks were
extended not to the canal basin, hut to
rear the west side OF Tiber creek NJ ifa