440 HISTORY OF CO H ASSET. 



Black Rock House and the Cold Spring House * were 

 growing resorts. The above-mentioned stage driver re- 

 members seeing Ex-President John Ouincy Adams stopping 

 at the Cold Spring House and fishing off the rocks. 



The roughness of that rocky stage road was terrible. 

 The horses would sometimes tumble over the bowlders in 

 the road when the evening was a dark one, overturning 

 the coach, so that the passengers had to climb out and 

 get things righted. 



But the day of stagecoaches came to an end when the 

 iron horse rolled puffing in at the year 1849, as we soon 

 shall see. The vehicles used in our town for private con- 

 veyance were few and clumsy until fifty years ago. 



The only "vehicles" taxed in the whole town of Hing- 

 ham in the year 1757 were three chaises and six sedan 

 chairs. That was before we were set off as a town, and 

 it is doubtful if even one of these was owned in Cohas- 

 set ; for the inventory of our wealthiest man, John Jacob, 

 1759, does not include any. 



But chaises were afterwards owned, for these cheaply 

 built two-wheeled things with wooden axles could be made 

 by our own smiths. 



One of the old wheels shown to the writerf has a hub 

 seven inches thick and fourteen inches long. There were 

 fourteen spokes held in by seven bits of felly, with the 

 rough iron tire in seven pieces holding together the sec- 

 tions of the felly. This chaise had a top made of leather 

 with a window in the back eighteen inches long, and with 

 sides that unbuttoned to let in the driver or passenger. 

 Thus was constructed a vehicle somewhat more convenient 

 than an ox cart. 



The appearance of the first four-wheeled carriage in our 



*This house no longer exists. It was a cheap building, a sort of club house, 

 where people might find a summer shelter and cook their own chowders. It stood 

 in front of the present Kendall estate near where the cold spring still flows to 

 quench the thirst of travelers. 



t Shown by Robert T. Burbank. 



