Two hundred fifty years ago, completing the trip between Annapolis and Philadelphia took several days, so any innovation that eased some of the inconvenience and discomfort of planning and accomplishing the journey was welcomed by stressed and weary travelers. An advertisement in the May 14, 1772 Maryland Gazette described just such an improvement.
John Bolton, Joseph Tatlow, and James Hodges announced a coordinated schedule that allowed travelers to count on making timely transportation connections along the Eastern Shore route between Annapolis and Philadelphia. Bolton’s “Stage-waggon” drove a weekly circuit between Rock Hall, Maryland and New Castle, Delaware, with stops at Chestertown heading in either direction. Tatlow’s “compleat Stage-boat” carried “Passengers and Goods” between New Castle and Philadelphia. Hodges provided accommodations at Rock Hall and sailed a “compleat Boat” across the Chesapeake Bay to and from Annapolis.
Image Caption: Annotated detail from “A map of Virginia and Maryland” by H. Gavin, 1767. For some reason, Baltimore is depicted well northeast of its actual location. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division.
According to the published schedule, a traveler could board Hodges’s boat in Annapolis at 6:00 on a Saturday morning, sail to Rock Hall, and catch a ride from there to Chestertown on Bolton’s wagon. Bolton set out from Chestertown each Monday and arrived in New Castle about noon on Tuesday. At New Castle, “Gentlemen and Ladies” could embark for Philadelphia on Tatlow’s boat, which had “excellent Accommodations for Passengers” and would be “kept neat and clean.” The ad doesn’t specify when the boat would arrive in Philadelphia, but I’m guessing it would have been at some point on Wednesday or Thursday depending on the river current and wind conditions.
Image Caption: Detail from “A View of The Town of New Castle From The River Delaware, —Taken the 4th July 1797—By Ives le Blanc” showing the town’s waterfront 25 years after Joseph Tatlow’s “Stage-boat” dropped off and picked up passengers on a weekly schedule.
Travelers heading in the opposite direction could board Tatlow’s boat in the “City of Brotherly Love” on Sunday and arrive in colonial Delaware’s capital on Monday. Bolton’s wagon would pick them up in New Castle on Tuesday and get everyone to Chestertown on Thursday and Rock Hall on Friday. Hodges’s boat would take the “Passengers, &c.” safely across the bay to Annapolis by Friday evening.
Getting between Naptown and Philly in less than a week “with far less Trouble and Expence than the usual Way” may not sound very impressive to us, but for colonial road trippers, John Bolton, Joseph Tatlow, and James Hodges had put together a winning travel combination.
You can read the May 14, 1772 issue of the Maryland Gazette beginning here: https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc4800/sc4872/001282/html/m1282-0108.html
To view the full 1767 map of Virginia and Maryland, see: https://www.loc.gov/item/2013587749/
For more about the 1797 watercolor of New Castle’s waterfront, including a link to a scrollable image of the full painting, visit: http://www.nc-chap.org/chap/leblanc.php
Glenn E. Campbell
HA Senior Historian
