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(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
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In the early 19th century, travelers who lacked their own conveyance had limited transportation options. Inland water travel by canal or on navigable rivers answered the needs of some. To journey east or west in New England, travelers would more often rely on the stagecoach. This broadside announces the service and schedule of the Union Telegraph stage line between Albany, New York, and Boston, Massachusetts. A steamboat, one of the stage's competitors, is pictured in the background of the engraving. Ironically, the first American railroad began operation in the year that this broadside appeared. Within a decade, railroads would overtake the stagecoach as the dominant form of public transportation in the Northeast.

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