about
noon
The coaches of that day were cumbersome affairs , huge of wheel , and with ridiculously small bodies slung on wide strips of bull 's hide which served for springs . The driver 's box was high above the forward running gear . There were as yet no `` seats on top , '' such as were developed in the later days of fast stage-coach service . In one of these rumbling , swaying conveyances the boys rode the thirty miles to Philadelphia , crossing the Schuylkill at Gray 's Ferry about noon . They had barely time for a bite of lunch in the White Horse Tavern before the horn was blown outside and they hurried to take their places in the north-bound coach . Along the cobbled streets of the bustling , red-brick town they rumbled for a few moments , then out upon the smooth dirt surface of the York Road , where the four good horses were put to a gallop . The Delaware , opposite Trenton , was reached by six o'clock , and there the half-dozen passengers left the coach and were carried across on a little ferry boat , rowed by an old man and his two sons .