MEM ORIES OF THE 



stage come and go. It was a great sight to watch it come up the 

 road from the " Huddle," with its four horses on a sharp jump, 

 with a deck-load of laughing, joking passengers, the driver sit- 

 ting straight as a cob on his seat, holding the four lines in his 

 gloved hands and occasionally swinging and cracking a long 

 whip over the heads of the leaders, or with the long lash en- 

 tangling a chicken or touching up a saucy dog beside the road. 

 As they came opposite the old distillery near the corner, the team 

 was put to a sharp gallop and whirled up to the tavern door with 

 a splurge and hurrah that brought things up standing. The pas- 

 sengers jumped out and ranged up to the bar in a jiffy, suaged 

 their thirst, climbed aboard and were off again like a shot for the 

 next tavern. They did not always stop at every house; the pas- 

 sengers or their appetites controlled that. A load that would 

 take their sap at every tavern from Watertown to Rome was said 

 not to be uncommon in those times, when tippling and rum 

 drinking was thought to be the right thing by almost everybody. 



I was, with several other good, little boys in our school, ex- 

 pecting some day to be president of the United States, for our 

 teacher. Aunt Lucinda Barton, had assured us that our chances 

 were good; but I would have gladly swapped my chance for pres- 

 ident for a dead certainty that I would some day be a stage-driver. 



About 1848 the building of the Rome and Watertown rail- 

 road was begun. Farmers all along the line and in adjoining 

 towns were solicited to take stock, and many did so. It was 

 completed as far as Adams July 4, 1851, and a great opening ex- 

 cursion was advertised. Father was a stockholder to the extent 

 of five hundred dollars. There were no hideous trusts then, and 

 holding a nice, five-hundred-dollar block of railroad stock gave 

 him financial standing and made him feel good; so he took us on 

 this excursion, which was to run from Adams to Richland, about 

 ^eighteen miles. j-q 



