Thomas Hamilton (1789-1842) rode in "a wooden house or chamber...drawn by a horse at the rate of about four miles an hour." After 3 hours he arrived in "Ellicot Mills" to a poor breakfast.
RAIL-ROAD TRAVELLING.
As the best mode of proceeding to the South, I had been recommended to
cross from Baltimore to Wheeling, on the Ohio, and there to take steam for New
Orleans, so soon as the navigation of the river should be reported open. In a
few days the newspapers announced that the ice had broken up, and the Ohio was
again navigable…and on the morning of the 6th of March, before daylight,
stepped into the railway carriage which was to convey us ten miles on our
journey.
The vehicle was of a description somewhat novel. It was, in fact, a
wooden house or chamber, somewhat like those used by itinerant showmen in
England, and was drawn by a horse at the rate of about four miles an hour. Our
progress, therefore, was not rapid, and we were nearly three hours in reaching
a place called Ellicot Mills, where we found a wretched breakfast awaiting our
arrival.
Having done honour to the meal in a measure rather proportioned to our
appetites than to the quality of the viands, we embarked in what was called the
"Accommodation Stage,"—so designated, probably, from the absence of
every accommodation which travellers usually expect in such a vehicle. The
country through which we passed was partially covered with snow. The appearance
both of the dwelling-houses and the inhabitants gave indication of poverty,
which was confirmed by the rough and stony aspect of the soil wherever it was visible.
The coach stopped to dinner at a considerable village called Frederickstown,
where the appearance of the entertainment was so forbidding that I found it
impossible to eat. My appetite, therefore, was somewhat overweening, when we
reached Hagarstown, a place of some magnitude, where we halted for the night,
having accomplished a distance of eighty miles.
At three o'clock on the following morning we again started on our
journey. The roads were much worse than we had found them on the preceding day,
the country was buried deeper in snow, and our progress was in consequence
slower. The appearance of poverty seemed to increase as we advanced. Here and
there a ragged negro slave was seen at work near the wretched log hovel of his
master; and the number of deserted dwellings which skirted the road, and of
fields suffered to relapse into a state of nature, showed that their former
occupants had gone forth in search of a more grateful soil.
Hamilton, Thomas. Men and
manners in America, v.2 London:1834
©2018 Patricia Bixler Reber
Forgotten history of Ellicott City & Howard County MD
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