By Thomas
R. Bayles
During the 1800's
before the railroad came through on the south side of Long Island
the mail stage was the only means of land transportation, and
Jeremiah Dayton was the driver of the stage that ran between the
eastern villages and the city in 1827. In those days the arrival of
the mail stage attracted great attention from the inhabitants of the
country villages through which it passed. If the weather was very
cold the driver might be seen wrapped in heavy coats and beating his
arms against his sides to warm his hands. When the stage stopped at
the old American house in Babylon a crowd collected to stare at the
passengers as they alighted. In those days a man going to New York
was considered almost as famous as a traveler taking a trip to
Europe in later years. A villager who had been "down to York" was
hailed by his friends for a week after his return, and called onto
relate what he had seen and heard in city.
The driver of the
mail stage in those days performed many duties aid acted as driver,
conductor, baggage master and express man. He carried money to be
paid to merchants and for deposit in banks. Along the route he was
hailed and handed money with a request to purchase some article in
the city, and a good memory was required to keep everything in
shape.
On one trip about
1830, Mr. Dayton had received a large sum of money to bring from New
York, which was the proceeds of the sale of the cargo of two whale
ships, and amounted to several thousand dollars in cash in canvas
bags. Mr. Dayton decided to stop over night at Babylon and resume
his trip east in the morning, and was a little nervous about leaving
so much money in the stage house, so decided to take it down the
street to Simon Cooper, the village postmaster for safe keeping. The
bags of money were taken upstairs into Mr. Cooper's bedroom,
although Mrs. Cooper objected strongly to having so much money left
in the house overnight. The next morning she said she had not slept
a wink all night, but that her husband had slept soundly and snored
as loud as usual.
One morning, the
stage arrived at Babylon from Patchogue and the driver went into the
stage coach tavern and began taking from his pockets the various and
memorandum slips that had been handed to him along the road that
morning. He accidentally dropped a roll of bills amounting to
several thousand dollars. After he left for breakfast Mr. Cooper
found the roll of money and picked it up. The driver soon returned
looking for-the money and was very grateful to Mr. Cooper for
keeping it for him.
On a hot Summer
afternoon the stage, with a load of passengers from the city, had
reached Carll's brook, when Scudder Soper, the driver decided to
drive through the water below the road, near the dam, so as to water
his horses. As he drove into the scream one of the reins broke and
the horses became frightened and plunged into the water near the
waste gate up to their heads, with water filling the stage, which
appeared to be about to turn over and dump its passengers into the
deep water. An accident was averted by Ichabod Bedell, who happened
along with his farm wagon, and seeing the danger, drove near the
stage and helped the frightened passengers to transfer to his farm
wagon and landed them safely on shore again.
Among the names of
those who drove the mail coach in those years were Eleazer Hand,
Jeremiah Dayton, John Thurston, Nathaniel Smith, Scudder Soper,
Jesse Conklin, Gilbert Miller and Charles Ketcham. Jeremiah Dayton
lived In East Hampton in, 1856 and expressed a desire to ride over
his old route again, but as he was then quite an old man he never
had his wish granted.
The roads on the west
end of the Island were “turnpikes” owned and Worked by three
incorporated companies, The Hempstead and Babylon Turnpike Co., the
Hempstead and Jamaica Turnpike Co., and the Jamaica and Brooklyn
Turnpike.