Stagecoach
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A stagecoach is a type of four-wheeled enclosed passenger and/or mail coach, strongly sprung and drawn by four horses, widely used before the introduction of railway transport. Familiar images of the stagecoach are that of a Royal Mail coach passing through a turnpike gate, a Dickensian passenger coach covered in snow pulling up at a coaching inn, a highwayman demanding a coach to "stand and deliver", and a coach being chased by American Indians in a Western movie. The stagecoach was first developed in the British Isles during the 1500s, and only died out in the early 1900s in the United States. Coaching inns opened up throughout Europe to accommodate stagecoach passengers. Shakespeare's first plays were staged at coaching inns such as The George Inn, Southwark. The Royal Mail stagecoach hastened the improvement of the road system in the British Isles through the turnpike trust system. And the stagecoach was vital in the colonization of North America.
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[edit] Stagecoaches in Europe
The stagecoach, with seats outside and in, was a public conveyance which was known in England from the 16th century. Until the railway systems of Europe drove the stagecoaches out of business they had regular routes (stages) all over Great Britain and the Continent.
In Britain stagecoaches became known as "mail coaches", a name generated from their role carrying the mail from 1784. Between 1765 and 1780, large mail coaches known as turgotines were developed in France by borat, Baron de Laune, who was finance minister under Louis XVI. These turgotines, along with improved roads and an increase in the number and frequency of staging posts significantly reduced cross country travel time, sometimes by up to fifty percent (Braudel fig 32).
The diligence, though not invariably with four horses, was the continental analogue for public conveyance, with other minor varieties such as the Stellwagen and Eilwagen. Stagecoaches could compete with canal boats, but they were rendered obsolete in Europe as the rail network expanded in the 19th century.
[edit] Stagecoaches in the United States
[edit] Concord stagecoaches
The first Concord stagecoach was built in 1827. Abbot Downing Company employed leather strap braces under their stagecoaches which gave a swinging motion instead of the jolting up and down of a spring suspension. The company manufactured over 40 different types of carriages and wagons at the wagon factory in Concord, New Hampshire. The Concord Stagecoaches were built so solid that it became known that they didn't break down but just wore out. The Concord stagecoach sold throughout South America, Australia, and Africa. Over 700 Concord stagecoaches were built by the original Abbot Downing Company before it disbanded in 1847. Mark Twain stated in his 1861 book Roughing It that the Concord Stagecoach was like "a cradle on wheels".
[edit] The mail service
At a time when sectional tensions were tearing the United States apart, stagecoaches provided regular transportation and communication between St. Louis, Missouri, in the East and San Francisco, California, in the West. Although the Pony Express is often credited with being the first fast mail line across the North American continent from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast, stagecoach lines operated by George Chorpenning and the Butterfield Stage predated the Pony Express by nearly three years.
Butterfield Overland Stage began rolling on September 15, 1858, when the twice-weekly mail service began. A Butterfield Overland Concord Stagecoach was started in San Francisco and another Overland Stage in Tipton, Missouri, they ran over the better roads. As the going got rougher, the passengers and mail were transferred to "celerity wagons" designed for the roughest conditions. Each run encompassed 2,812 miles and had to be completed in 25 days or less in order to qualify for the $600,000 government grant for mail service.
In March of 1860, John Butterfield was forced out because of debt. The beginning of the Civil War forced the Stage Company to stop using the ox bow route and to use the central overland road instead. The Eastern end of the central route, St. Louis to Denver, was taken over by Ben Holladay. Ben Holladay is characterized as a devoted, diligent, enterprising man who became known as the Stagecoach King. At the western end, Denver to San Francisco, the Stage Company was taken over by Wells Fargo due to large debts that Butterfield owed. Wells Fargo commandeered the monopoly over long-distance overland stage coach and mail service with a massive web of relay stations, forts, livestock, men, and stage coaches by 1866. Transcontinental stage-coaching came to an end with the completion of the transcontinental railroad in 1869.
[edit] Final American use: Short haul
The last American chapter in the use of the stage coaches took place between 1890 and about 1915. In the end, it was the motor bus, not the train, that caused the final disuse of these horse-drawn vehicles. After the main railroad lines were established, it was frequently not practical to go to a place of higher elevation by rail lines if the distance was short. A town 10 to 25 miles off the mail rail trunk, if it were 1000 or more feet higher, would be very difficult and expensive to serve by rail due to the grade incline. This final portion of the trip, during that 25-year period, was usually served by local stage lines, with a ride of less than a half day being typical. Once the mainline rail grid was in service, the railroad actually stimulated stage line operations well into the 20th century. These were eventually replaced by motorbuses, and so many local private bus lines were early-on called motor-stage lines. By 1918 stage coaches were only operating in a few mountain resorts or western National Parks as part of the "old west" romance for tourists.
Some bus lines still have the word "stages" in their names, though it's difficult to say whether such usages come from actual corporate descent from predecessor stagecoach operators, or is just a marketing strategy.
A real danger for stagecoach travellers was the threat of robbery by highwaymen or bandits, right up into the early 20th century. Cash payrolls, and bank transfers were regularly carried by these scheduled stage lines, which operated without a telephone service to report robberies.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Stagecoaches of Great Britain: John & Sue Meyer
- Stagecoaches: TombstoneTimes.com
- Laa an der Thaya, Austrian Carriage Museum
- Stagecoach Model.
- Stagecoaches and other wagons.
[edit] Reference
- Braudel, Fernand, The Perspective of the World, vol. III of Civilization and Capitalism 1979 (in English 1984)
