This period of the brilliant existence of the Eastern Stage Company was also the date of the coaching age of England, given by Stanley Harris as from 1820 to 1840. The year 1836, which saw the publication of _Pickwick_, wherein is so fine a picture of old coaching days, was the culminating point of the mail-coach system. Just as it was perfected it was rendered useless by the railroad.
In the earliest colonial days, before the official appointment of any regular post-rider, letters were carried along the coast or to the few inland towns by chance travellers or by butchers who made frequent trips to buy and sell cattle. John Winthrop, of New London, sent letters by these butcher carriers.
In 1672 "Indian posts" carried the Albany winter mail. With a retrospective shiver we read a notice of 1730 that "whoever inclines to perform the foot-post to Albany this winter may make application to the Post-Master." Lonely must have been his solitary journey up the solemn river, skating along under old Cro' Nest.
The first regular mounted post from New York to Boston started January 1, 1673. He had two "port-mantles" which were crammed with letters, "small portable goods and divers bags." It was enjoined that he must be active, stout, indefatigable, and honest. He changed horses at Hartford. He was ordered to keep an eye out for the best roads, best ways through forests, for ferries, fords, etc., to watch keenly for all fugitive servants and deserters, and to be kind to all persons travelling in his company. During the month that he was gone the mail was collected in a box in the office of the Colonial Secretary. The arrivals and departure of these posts were very irregular. In 1704 we read, "Our Philadelphia post (to New York) is a week behind, and not yet com'd in."
In unusual or violent weather the slowness of mail carriage was appalling. Salem and Portsmouth are about forty miles apart. In March, 1716, the "post" took nine days for one trip between the two towns and eight days the other. He was on snowshoes, and he reported drifts from six to fourteen feet deep; but even so, four to five miles a day was rather minute progress.
It is pleasant to read in the _Winthrop Letters_ and other correspondence of colonial days of "journeys with the Post." Madam Knight rode with him, as did many another fair traveller with his successors at later dates. A fragment of a journal of a young college graduate, written in 1790, tells of "over-taking the Post, who rode with six Dames, neither young nor fair, from Hartford to Boston." He tells that the patient Squire of Dames was rather surly when joked about his harem. Mrs. Quincy tells of travelling, when she was a little girl, with the Post, who occupied his monotonous hours by stocking-knitting.