Walking is Faster

[Peter Duval]

“Henry Hikes to Fitchburg” tells the story of a race between a steam train and a rambler.

It appears that long before Thorough imagined this competition, a Vermonter may have won a similar race with a stagecoach.

"Guy and Laura Waterman in “Forest and Crag,” their 1989 history of hiking in the Northeast, relate a story told about Partridge. He was setting out from Concord, New Hampshire, heading to Hanover, when a stagecoach driver offered him a ride. Partridge declined, noting that the coachman would have to change horses 3 or 4 miles up the road. He’d see him then. By the time the new horses had been harnessed, Partridge had already passed the spot. The stage passed Partridge along the road, before making another scheduled stop. When the stagecoach finally reached the hotel in Hanover, the driver spied Partridge sitting on the porch, reading.

The story is no doubt apocryphal. Nobody could walk that far, that fast. Or could they?” — http://vtdigger.org/2016/10/02/then-again-a-trailblazers-journey-to-the-top-of-vermont-and-beyond