But it must not be supposed that public stage-coach travel on the route
here indicated began with the opening of the Norfolk and Bristol
Turnpike. The first conveyance of the kind started on its devious way
over the poor county roads from Boston to Providence in 1767; and the
quaint Jedediah Morse records that twelve years later the "intercourse
of the country barely required two stages and twelve horses on this
line"; but the same authority states that in 1797 twenty stages and one
hundred horses were employed, and that the number of different stages
leaving Boston during the week was twenty.

The first stage-coach that passed over this new turnpike was driven by
William Hodges, familiarly called "Bill," a famous Jehu, whose exploits
with rein and whip, being really of a high order of merit, were
graphically set forth to any passenger who shared the box with him,
after Bill's spirits had been raised and his tongue limbered with the
requisite number of "nippers"; and the increased comfort and rapidity of
the journey were so clearly apparent, that the line was soon after
extended to connect the capitals of the Bay State and Little Rhody.

In those days there was but one way to drive out of Boston, and that a
narrow one known as the "Neck," beyond which was Roxbury. Across this
isthmus all northward, westward, and southward-bound vehicles must pass,
in leaving or entering the city. The narrowest place was at the present
intersection of Dover Street with Washington, or, as it was then called,
Orange, Street. In _ante-bellum_ times this was the southern limit of
the city, and here a gate stood, which opened on to a causeway that
crossed the "salt marish," which at high tide was covered by the water.
To this gateway, then, the turnpike was extended from Dedham
court-house; and when the work was finished a coach, starting from the