438 Ifl^ TOR } ' OF CO HA SSE T. 



the even tenor of his way, neither elated by success nor depressed 

 by difficulties and doubts. I have no doubt his horses knew just 

 how many steps they took from Cohasset to Boston. But who 

 shall describe the scene when a coach drawn by four horses left 

 the tavern, then kept by our fellow-citizen, Thomas Smith ! 



This line of stagecoaches was continued under different 

 owners for about twenty years, until the railway was built. 



One of the famous drivers was " Bill Ferguson," who 

 used to be popular with the children, for he sometimes 

 would let them climb up on the coach for a short ride. 



One of the outfits is said to have been a red coach with 

 four gray horses. The capital stock of the company is 

 reported at one time to have been $1,500 at $15 per share, 

 a few shares being owned in our town by Samuel Brown, 

 Christopher James, and others. 



This mail coach, with its little leather bags of mail and 

 its occasional passengers, became a daily event of the 

 town, as it bowled along on its way to and from Boston. 



The Hingham steamboat Eagle was put into service 

 between that town and Boston as early as 1819-20, so 

 that even before Jedidiah Little's stage was operated our 

 citizens had a daily transportation line to Boston after a 

 walk or a drive to Hingham. 



From 1 82 1 to 1829, however, there seemed to have been 

 a break in the steamboat service. Then began the short 

 career of the Lafayette, a single-decked side-wheeler, 

 whose low-pressure engines kept up a wheezy puffing for 

 two hours on each trip between Hingham and Boston. 

 The fare was thirty-seven and a half cents, as advertised 

 in the Hingham Gazette, May 21, 1830. 



One of our Cohasset boys, George Beal, became captain 

 of this craft in 1830, but he soon was promoted to a 

 better boat in the same service. It was the General Lin. 

 coin,* built for the Boston and Hingham Steamboat Com- 



* For completer accounts of the Hingham boats, see Francis H. Lincoln's article 

 on " Public Conveyances" in The History of Hingham. 



