In 1814 it set out from the same place every day, except Sunday, at noon. In 1825 it left Boston daily at i P. M. and arrived there at 8 A. M.
In 1830 our stage, this time again called a mail stage, (though the name depended upon the almanac consulted,) started from S. Wildes', Elm street, every day except Sunday.
In 1845 Medford had four omnibus trips each day, and in 1846, six, according to The Boston Almanac.
It would be pleasant to know who were the passengers by the stage-coach in the early days of the Medford line. Probably Timothy Bigelow, who moved to Medford about this time, and later his son, John Prescott Bigelow, for they were lawyers, and must have used this means to reach their office, 7 Barristers' Hall, Court Square, Boston. Perhaps, too, some members of the Brooks, Magoun or Porter families, when they did not choose to use their own carriages, travelled by stage-coach. Many Medford citizens who have passed the four-score mile-stone were among the later passengers, and they enjoy recalling their old-time experiences of travel.
The successful merchants and business men of today who ride over our country in palace cars would often, as young lads, walk one way and ride the other when the necessary fare was not jingling in their pockets. As one told me, ‘Why, when we went to Boston to see the fireworks on the Common, we would have had no money for popcorn and lemonade if we had paid two fares.’
Many of the adults, both men and women, rode but one way, for although it was the days of Medford's prosperity through her ship-building, it was also the time of thrift and economy over against the present-day extravagance and easy spending of money.
Henry Richardson, called the Poet of the 1818 Club, read at one of the meetings a poem called ‘Old Memories,’ in which he describes the changes he had seen in
