When You REALLY Had To Want To Get There, A Seat On The Stage

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
stage passengers 2.jpg

Talk about less than 6 feet of distance. It occurs to me daily that examining period photos is a terrific way to de-myth a ton of our history or at least wipe away Hollywood's fuzzy, indistinct filter. Our iconic stagecoach, swirling into town behind 6 horses or galloping over the plains- what a way to travel! OK. This Boston, Massachusetts stage blown-up. Six passengers, seats the airlines swiped for later designs in discomfort, knees touching, jolting, bumping, swaying and lurching to a destination hours later? How glamorous was it, really?

This once again might be a big snore- fatal flaw here in that everything is interesting.

As automatically identifiable as ' dog ' and ' cat ', children's primer's included " Stage Coach " - love this from " Dixie Primer " ( Hathitrust )
stage dixie primer stage.jpg


The thing is, we tend to look at a lot of these old treasures without looking at them. I mean really getting an idea at what we're seeing which can mean we're missing something inside history that's awfully valuable. You know where the cowboy waits for the stage and swings his perfectly coifed, not a hair out of place, un-wrinkled, not-frazzled, beautiful wife down from that stage coach? Never happened.

THIS is how we got anywhere and everywhere. Picturesque? I'm not so sure.
stage coah brimfield.JPG


Sorry, not a photo- this is the era version of glamorizing stage coach travel! Note the happy passengers, galloping horses, effortless trip through ( this time ) Australia. Seriously- you know how much fun it is 4-wheeling on purpose because it's so raucous? That, sitting on top much less inside on of those things.
stage carriage leviathon stage.jpg

In our vanishing landscape you can still easily spot old stage coach stops. Honest. In some areas of the country they've been meticulously maintained, renovated and preserved. Around here another one was just earmarked for demolition. You know. A crumbling, old brick 3 story at the intersection of an old town? Last reincarnation was apartments, before that a seedy bar, maybe some seedier activity upstairs but before that? An incredibly busy, important and prosperous stagecoach stop and hotel, last one before a fresh team tackled that last, treacherous stretch over Peter's Mountain.

Sometimes examining era photos is examining who we aren't anymore, too. Maybe it's wondering how much of that is good- travel is a lot swifter in 2020 but I'm not sure the last time I flew those seats were a lot more comfortable than what you'd think it'd be like stuffed in one of these.
stage passengers.jpg


Seats on the roof were cheaper. They'd have been fun for maybe 25 minutes. This is from 1865.
stage 1865.JPG


Rail roads tied in with stops later and stages picked up and dropped off well-heeled visitors to those fashinable resorts discussed here not long ago. BUT it was still an incredibly uncomfortable way to travel. And frequently dangerous.

stage and coach route 1863.JPG

Short and long trips- this is 1863 so smack in the middle of the war- stage coaches were so much a part of our lives there was a position called ' Proprietor of Stages ', E. Ferguson apparently based in District of Columbia.

I ' think ' the last stage was booked in 1907? This image is around that time, not a lot of difference between colonial America and our stage coaches when it all began this final trip.
stage coach post war.JPG


No intent here except ' examine ' these old images- who we were, how we lived, maybe what it was like. While we're all home.

stage coach post war2.jpg
 
Another great post, Annie!

Passengers seated on top [without seat belts, of course] were lucky in that there wasn't much 'galloping" going on -- stagecoach travel averaged well less than 5 miles per hour -- in city traffic even slower.

Of course we all know, thanks to Hollywood, that just about every one of them was pursued across the plains at some point by would-be robbers [or Comanches] ... but, hopefully, Roy or Hoppy and the posse are on their way to the rescue.

 
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Great post and pictures! Everything I've read about stage coach travel makes it sound just awful. There are frequent mentions of the hygiene of the other passengers - or rather the lack of hygiene. And if anyone is thinking the ride resembled a trip on asphalt in a car - think again. Roads were rutted and coaches had minimal shocks. The term I've seen most often was "bone-jarring." Like so much in the past, it sounds romantic until you learn the facts.
 
Those seats on top look awfully precarious. The drawing of the Leviathan, with a team at a gallop looks impossible, but if, in reality speed was kept down to 5 mph, horse walking speed, then maybe it wasn't too scary.

However, I often wonder how gunners used to manage to stay aboard a bouncing caisson when the team were at a canter or even a gallop.
 
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Really neat post. We do see a very romanticized depiction of coach travel, don’t we? All I can think of is the dust, and the heat of so many pressed into a tight space. And the gentleman who had beans for lunch, not to mention the lady with onion on her breath!
 
Great post and pictures! Everything I've read about stage coach travel makes it sound just awful. There are frequent mentions of the hygiene of the other passengers - or rather the lack of hygiene. And if anyone is thinking the ride resembled a trip on asphalt in a car - think again. Roads were rutted and coaches had minimal shocks. The term I've seen most often was "bone-jarring." Like so much in the past, it sounds romantic until you learn the facts.
I don't think we even knew what the word hygiene meant back then.
 
Another great post, Annie!

Passengers seated on top [without seat belts, of course] were lucky in that there wasn't much 'galloping" going on -- stagecoach travel averaged well less than 5 miles per hour -- in city traffic even slower.

Of course we all know, thanks to Hollywood, that just about every one of them was pursued across the plains at some point by would-be robbers [or Comanches] ... but, hopefully, Roy or Hoppy and the posse are on their way to the rescue.

looks like the guy in lead has a trace up under his belly. Supposed to be maybe or some shenanigans were going on before the pic.
 
And did you know that most of the coaches in the US were made here in NH by the Abbot-Downing Coach Company? Eventually, bought up by Wells Fargo in the early 1900s.



I've been in a couple of restored ones - not hitched - and they are mighty snug! The worse seats are the middle because there is no brace for your back.

A feature of the middle seats is.... if you are seating there, you absolutely have to interlace your knees with the knees of the person that has the seat with the back rest, so choose carefully! :eek: :sneaky:

I've read that on very long, very cold, dead of winter coach rides (not here in NH though) that occasionally at a coach stop, they'd find a passenger had frozen to death in the seat next to some one!
 
And did you know that most of the coaches in the US were made here in NH by the Abbot-Downing Coach Company? Eventually, bought up by Wells Fargo in the early 1900s.



I've been in a couple of restored ones - not hitched - and they are mighty snug! The worse seats are the middle because there is no brace for your back.

A feature of the middle seats is.... if you are seating there, you absolutely have to interlace your knees with the knees of the person that has the seat with the back rest, so choose carefully! :eek: :sneaky:

I've read that on very long, very cold, dead of winter coach rides (not here in NH though) that occasionally at a coach stop, they'd find a passenger had frozen to death in the seat next to some one!
Interesting, guessing kids got to use the middle seats.
 
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