332 ANNUAL KEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1934 



ends of the body, slanting outward and giving the distinctive and unmistakable 

 silhouette of the Conestoga. Infinite variations occur, but always these charac- 

 teristics remain. 



The Conestoga was a ponderous vehicle capable of carrying a load 

 of from 2 to 4 tons. In the larger ones the top ends of the body were 

 as much as 16 feet apart; the top of the front bow supporting the 

 white cover was 11 feet above the ground; the rear wheels were 5 

 to 6 feet in diameter; and the cover was 24 feet long. With a six- 

 horse team pulling, the overall length of the wagon and team was 

 about 60 feet. Although designed primarily for general use on the 

 farm, Conestogas were soon adopted for overland freight haulage, 

 and for upward of 100 years (1750-1850), the bulk of the goods and 

 most immigrant passengers were transported to the West and back in 

 these vehicles and their smaller cousins, the prairie schooners. 



As the Colonies became more permanently organized, particularly 

 in the New England and Middle Atlantic sections, and as settled 

 communities and towns were established, there arose a real demand, 

 political as well as commercial, for the betterment not only of the 

 primitive and much traveled routes between places but also of the 

 mode of conveyance of the traveler. Prior to 1700 the person who 

 was compelled to travel from one town to another or one colony to 

 another either walked or rode a horse. Later, besides these two, he 

 had a third choice of riding among the barrels of flour and bundles 

 of hides on a freight wagon. Then about 1725, stage wagons of 

 English origin made their appearance here and there on the most 

 traveled routes, and from that time on until the completion of a 

 transcontinental railway in 1870, stage lines were the chief transpor- 

 tation agencies of the traveling public in the United States. 



The stage coach at first was a simple, straight-sided, springless 

 wagon with an oval woolen cloth top. Three or four wooden benches, 

 without backs, placed crosswise served as seats for the passengers. 

 " This is to give notice unto gentlemen, merchants, tradesmen, travel- 

 ers and others " reads an advertisement in the Philadelphia Mercury 

 of March 1732, " that Solomon Smith and James Moore of Burling- 

 ton, N. J., keepeth two stage wagons intending to go from Burlington 

 to Amboy, and back from Amboy to Burlington again, once every 

 week or oftener if that business presents." The owners and operators 

 of this line did not devote their stage exclusively to passengers and 

 took what freight they could obtain, but the unique and great advan- 

 tage to the traveler in the establishment of this line was that for 

 the first time in the history of America on certain days of every week 

 (weather permitting) there was available to him a way to get from 

 Burlington to Amboy and back again. 



Such regular schedules over the same route were quickly inaugu- 

 rated in many other sections of the Colonies following this initial 



