Shrewsbury
Historical Society
Established 1898
Mario - Fats - Caruso
1928 - 1993
Mario - Fats - Caruso
1928 - 1993
Transportation
Stagecoach & Trolley
Stagecoach lines streamlined routes and express services allowing news and information to travel faster. It helped businesses stay informed about markets, suppliers, and competitors. Trolleys moved goods and people leading to increased efficiency and economic growth.
Levi Pease Stagecoach Line
The Boston Post Road, originally known as Bay Path, was the first developed road west from Boston through central Massachusetts. The road cut through local towns like Sudbury and Northborough, through Shrewsbury and Worcester, ending in Hartford, Connecticut. For colonial America, it was a thoroughfare for foot traffic, horseback riders and wagons.
Levi Pease, born in Enfield, Connecticut, in 1740, served in the army during the Revolutionary War. He was largely responsible for transportation concerns. His duties included correspondence, delivering horses, moving artillery and foraging for supplies. After the war, Pease used his experience to develop transportation routes. In 1783, he partnered with Reuben Sykes, and began offering transportation services between Hartford and Boston. In 1793, he purchased Farrar's Tavern in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, establishing headquarters for his stagecoach line.
Pease introduced several transportation innovations. He employed conductors to thwart dishonest ticket collection practices. He convinced competitive stage lines to open a ticket office to create one point of purchase. He created an express service with fewer stops for faster delivery. And in the early 1800s, Pease lobbied the Massachusetts legislature for a charter to build the first turnpike from Boston to Worcester. Before his death in 1824, Levi Pease became known as the Father of the Turnpike. [1]
Boston & Worcester Trolley Line
The trolley comes to the little village of Wessonville and soon goes over the line into Shrewsbury, passing between Boston Hill on the left and Hamblin Hill on the right. Shrewsbury is an interesting town and will well repay the visitor of the trolley tourist. It was settled by people from Marlboro about 1717 and named in honor of Charles, Duke of Shrewsbury.
The town is picturesquely located among the hills, which command wide views of the surrounding country. Coming into the town, the car passes great carnation green houses, where thousands of blossoms are picked daily. One of this town’s historic houses which the car passes is the old Balch Tavern, used as a hostelry in stagecoach days and in 1792 taken by the town as a smallpox hospital.
A short run brings the passenger to South Shrewsbury Commons, where there are other old taverns. Hard by the old meetinghouse, near the road leading to Grafton in Providence, is the site of the old Harrington Tavern, and half a mile farther on, at the top of Arcade Hill, is the Arcade Tavern, which in the old days was a favorite stopping place for travelers.
The Pease Tavern was first occupied by Major John Farrar, an officer in the Revolution, as an inn, and when Washington visited the house on his journey to New England, Farrar became by far the most prominent man in the community. Later he sold the place to Levi Pease, who maintained its traditions, and it is said that its tables afforded something better to drink than water from the noted sulfur spring which is near the tavern.
Worcester & Marlboro Line
Running out of Worcester are a number of trolley lines, connecting the surrounding towns with the Heart of the Commonwealth. Some of these afford pleasant side trips out of the city.
The North Grafton and Grafton line connects with cars for Upton and Milford, while another takes one through Shrewsbury and Northborough to Marlboro. [2]
(1) Levi Pease, Stage Route and Transportation Innovator (Connecticut History, 2019) connecticuthistory.org/levi-pease-stage-route-and-transportation-innovator
(2) Robert H. Derrah, By Trolley Through Western New England (Compiled by R.H. Derrah, Boston, Mass., 1904)