It is easy to picture the importance attached to buying or owning a wheeled vehicle in a community which rode chiefly on horseback. Contemporary evidence of this is often found, such as these entries in the diary of Rev. Joseph Emerson of Malden. In the winter of 1735 he writes:--
"Some talk about my buying a Shay. How much reason have I to watch and pray and strive against inordinate Affection for the Things of the World."
A week later, however, he proudly recalls the buying of the "Shay" for £27 10_s._, which must have made a decided hole in his year's salary. His delight in his purchase and possession is somewhat marred by noting that his parishioners smile as he is drawn past them in his magnificence; it is also decidedly taken down by the vehicle being violently overturned, though his wife and he were uninjured. It cost a pretty penny, moreover, to get it repaired. He scarce gets the beloved but sighed-over "Shay" home when he thus notes:--
"Went to the beach with 3 of the Children in my Shay. The beast being frighted when we all were out of the shay, overturned and broke it. I desire--I hope I desire it--that the Lord would teach me suitably to repent this Providence, to make suitable remarks on it, and to be suitably affected with it. Have I done well to get me a Shay? Have I not been too fond & too proud of this convenience? Should I not be more in my study and less fond of driving? Do I not withold more than is meet from charity? &c."
Shortly afterward, as the "beast" continued to be "frighted," he sold his horse and shay to a fellow-preacher, Rev. Mr. Smith, who--I doubt not--went through the same elations, depressions, frightings, and self-scourgings in which the Puritan spirit and horseman's pride so strongly clashed.
On May 13, 1718, Jonathan Wardwell's stage-coach left Jonathan Wardwell's Orange Tree in Boston and ran to Rhode Island--that is, the island proper. At any rate, it was advertised in Boston newspapers as starting at that date. In 1721 there was a road-wagon over the same route. In 1737 two imported stage-coaches were advertised for this road, and doubtless many travellers used these coaches, which connected with the boats for New York.
The early coaching conveyances were named. In 1767 it was a "stage-chaise" that ran between Salem and Boston, while a "stage-coach" and "stage-wagon" were on other short routes out of Boston. In 1772 a "stage-chariot" was on the road between Boston and Marblehead. "Flying Mail-Stages" came later, and in 1773 Thomas Beals ran "Mail Stage Carriages between Boston and Providence." In England there were "Flying-Machines" and "Flying-Waggons." An old English road-bill dated 1774 ends with this sentence, "The Rumsey Machine, through Winchester, hung on Steel Springs begins flying on the 3rd of April from London to Poole in One Day." On the Paulus Hook route to Philadelphia in 1772 the proprietor announced a vehicle "in imitation of a coach"--and perhaps that is all that any of these carriages could be rightfully called.