Private coaches remained restricted to the elite; the Massachusetts tax list of 1753 includes only six. Copenhagen Subway Map Of somewhat lower status was the two-wheeled calash. Another vehicle, the chaise, or as it became known in Country, the shay, was a light two- or four-wheeled carriage; it was introduced between 1710 and 1730. All of these horse-drawn vehicles were largely urban phenomena, except for a few owned by wealthy rural Southern planters. One evidence of the spread of coaches and other vehicles in the South is that while the Virginia ferry law of 1702 mentioned only rates for people and horses, the revision of the law in 1720 added rates for two- and four-wheeled vehicles.
As bearers of status, these coaches and other vehicles were not designed in merely functional terms. Strict Puritans suspected them as worldly vanities and sometimes went through agonies of conscience about purchasing them. Riding a coach or carriage on the Sabbath was felt to be particularly damnable. Use of horse-drawn vehicles was not restricted to individual owners and their families. Stagecoaches and other forms of public transportation emerged in the early eighteenth century. By 1716, there was a fortnightly run between Boston and Newport, although it lasted only a few years.
Regularly scheduled wagon-based transit began in New Jersey, building on the freight wagons that traveled between the coast and the Delaware River. By 1750, there was a regular New York-Philadelphia run, traveling by land and water and taking about three days. Philadelphia-Chesapeake lines emerged in the 1760s, taking various routes to different endpoints, although over time Baltimore dominated. The first successful New England stage route was between Boston and Portsmouth in 1761, and a Boston-New York stage route was finally established in 1772. In addition to these intercity routes, there were also local routes in the areas of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia.
