Illustrated in the History of Albany. 



99 



4. Travel and Transportation. 



Under this head, let us first consider the improvement in carriages. 

 The evolution of the carriage is a most curious and interesting sub- 

 ject. It seems strangely connected with the state of civilization in a 

 country. Wherever the human mind has been most active, there the 

 carriage has been most rapidly developed. Before the revolution, 

 there were scarcely half a dozen family coaches in the province of 

 New York. When Eobert Murray, the Quaker merchant in New 

 York city, after whom Murray Hill is called, set up a carriage, it was 

 so unusual a step that he felt called upon to excuse himself, on the 

 ground that he lived three or four miles from his place of business. 

 Traveling then was mostly on horseback, and the country roads were 

 so bad that nearly all the transportation had to be carried on by pack 

 horses. But the American inventive mind has surpassed itself in 

 improvements of wheeled vehicles. Even the most elaborate of the 

 state coaches that you see at the museums of Paris and Versailles are 

 crude, clumsy affairs, compared with the modern coach. Solomon in 

 all his glory rode in a chariot without springs. Even as late as 1785, 

 the best that had been attained was to suspend the body of the 

 carriage on strong leather straps, so as to give it in passing over 

 obstacles a rocking motion. Then came the invention in 1795, in 

 England, of the elliptic steel spring. But it was long before carriages 

 with these springs were manufactured in America. Far into the 

 present century the old leather strapped coaches were used. It is 

 within the memory of living men that spring wagons have become 

 common in the country. It was only in 1830, that an American black- 

 smith invented the method of making a wagon tire in one continuous 

 hoop. Before that time they were put on in pieces. Fifty years ago 

 Albany had a leading position in the manufacture of carriages, and 

 her fame in this particular has been well maintained. 



The omnibus originated in Paris in 1825, and they were running 

 in Broadway in New York in 1830. The stage-coach was from an 

 early period a great institution in Albany. 



Albany lay in the direct line of travel to the western and northern 

 part of the State. A continuous stream of immigrants poured through 

 it into the rich regions of the Genesee valley. They came up the 

 Hudson river in boats or across from Massachusetts and Connecticut. 

 They crossed over the turnpike to Schenectady, and then followed up 

 the Mohawk. Stage lines were started to accommodate this travel. 

 In 1785, a company was started to run a line from New York to Al- 



