'Young Blood in an Old Body'

The Spirit of Stagecoach Days Lives On!

A Stage Passenger's 'Empty Dream'

Oxford Gazette

Wednesday, May 3, 1826

                    [Communication]

   Mr. Chauncey Morgan, Editor. - Not long since, I was riding in a stagecoach, over a rough road in your vicinity, and being the only passenger, as the day was somewhat cold, I wrapped myself in my cloak, and reclined upon the seat, where my drowsy eyelids were shortly closed in sleep. Transported suddenly by imagination, I found myself traveling through a fertile region of country which bore marks of late and rapid improvement.

    The season was that in which the golden harvest waves in the zephyrs, and the summer sun darts his warmest rays, to mature the fields for the sickle of the reaper. As we passed along in an elegant coach, I perceived new buildings and villages, rising as if by magic, and we were greeted by the signs of taverns, nearly as often as by mile stones, while many a jolly landlord gazed upon us from his window.

    I observed that although we traveled with the velocity of Jehu, our carriage moved as easily as a ship on the water; and looked out of the coach, I found that the road was covered with a surface of pounded stone, and perfectly smooth, never varying more than three degrees from the horizon. I inquired the cause of so great improvement, when a fellow traveler informed me that this was the "Great State Road" from the Hudson River to Lake Erie," which was now completed, and notwithstanding it had met with much opposition, was found to be profitable to the state.

    He added that the stages passed, from the Hudson to the lake, in about 50 hours, but he was interrupted by a dispute between two other gentlemen, on the expense of a steam engine, which was shortly to be made for propelling loaded carriages upon the road. Meanwhile, rising over a hill by a circuitous route, we came in view of Oxford village. Having formerly been acquainted there, I was surprised to find that its extent, wealth and population had doubled since that period, and still rapidly increasing.

  But what was my astonishment, when having entered the village, we drover over the bridge of a canal, (which as I then learned, was completed from Utica to Binghamton); and I saw the boats rapidly passing under us, some laden with lumber, grain &c. for New York, via Utica, others with various articles for the merchants of Chenango valley, and others with passengers.  Our stage drove to the door of a magnificent inn, where I was soon seated, and viewing the bustle of business, the neatness of the streets and other signs of general prosperity produced by the road and canal.

   I exclaimed, happy people! Highly and justly have you been favored with these stupendous works of art, through the faithful exertions and accommodating spirit of your public officers. You now enjoy free intercourse with the East, West, North and South; and can transport the productions of your soil to distant markets, and receive a large price for them, bringing back treasures and knowledge of every region on the globe, for your use.

   You no longer complain of hard times, and scarcity of specie, but - at this moment, falling into a hole in the road, the Lines and one of the Traces, being somewhat feeble, gave way; the young driver hallooed whoa! with a few curses, and the noise awoke me. Alas! I found this delectable picture to be an empty dream.      

                                                                          PUBLICUS.

Old Stage Drivers Remembered

DeRuyter Weekly Gleaner
May 10, 1894

(Unidentified newspaper clipping)

      Buckingham Tells Thrillers

     Norwich Man Drove Stages

   

    NORWICH - The early history of Chenango and other counties carries with it the air of adventure and romance. Men in those days rubbed elbows with the savage Indian, the unscrupulous highway-man and the quack doctor. In the forest he fought the wild beast, and with the elements he fought for shelter and warmth.

    There are few more romantic and adventurous stories than that of Joel Buckingham, the South Otselic stage driver who fought his way over the wild and dangerous roads for 30 years, and then when past 50 became the owner of a string of creameries, wresting considerable wealth from the community in which he was born.

    Joel Buckingham was a farm boy, working hard in the summer and attending a log school in the winter. As Joel worked in the field he looked each day for the coming of Lewis Merrill, the aging stage driver who drove the jostling stage from Truxton to McLean. Elderly Mr. Merrill liked the farm boy and each day would stop for a visit and a drink of water.

    Each day as young Joel listened to the tales told by the veteran driver he longed more and more to see the great outside world. He imagined himself shooting the big black bears that came out of the woods to scare the team. He thought of himself walking through the stores at each terminal of the line. To a boy who had never been away from the farm, the picture was one of fascination and charm.

    One day Mr. Merrill offered him a job. He was to take a stage on the main line from Utica to Ithaca. Joel jumped at the chance. Here was a chance to see the world and perhaps obtain a job with sufficient cash to enable him to marry pretty Sally Card, a neighbor. Joel had been courting Sally, who was a mere slip of a girl with pigtails, for several months and already they had become serious. The only trouble was Joel didn't have any money.

    Joel Buckingham took the stage job. An expert with a team, he soon learned the road and started carrying passengers over the wild and rough terrain, his trusty gun at his side. He had many adventures and very soon learned that old Lewis Merrill had told him the truth. He fought off robbers and fought off the troublesome black bears. He watched continually for trouble with the Indians, but these denizens of the forest soon learned to like the boy who drove the stage, and often carried them without charge. 

     By the end of the fifth year Joel had grown into a hardened stage driver. He had even been a mainline driver and had covered part of the route from Albany to Syracuse. Only two serious accidents had marred his career. Once his team had become frightened as Joel was filling the water jug at a spring, and had run away, slightly injuring a passenger. A second accident occurred when his stage was upset because of a landslide, but injured no one.

    During the five years he had just passed,  Joel Buckingham planned his wedding. On each trip the vivacious Sally would meet him at the general store in Otselic, and it seemed to him that each time he stopped she was more beautiful than before. Finally, during the Christmas holidays of 1840, Joel blushingly popped the question and slipped a pretty ring on Sally's finger, a ring he had purchased in far-off Syracuse.

    The following July Joel and Sally were married in the little Otselic church. Joel then decided to settle down and accordingly bought a farm, which he ran faithfully for nine years, but ever and always he was thinking of the stage route, the free and sweet air of the woodlands and of the dusty roads Finally he succumbed to the call of the stage and  engaged himself to run part of the line from Utica to Pitcher, leaving the pretty Sally to manage the farm.

    Joel continued his stage job for four years, and each year he felt worse about leaving Sally and the two children alone. When the third child came Joel again fought with himself. He knew he must make a decision between his love for the stage route or his duty toward his Sally. It took another year, but at the end of 1854 he had made his decision. He would forever give up the adventure of the stage route and settled down with his family.

    Although Joel Buckingham stuck to his word, he was never cut out to be a farmer. For another ten years he worked and accumulated some money. Then, at the age of 50, he made another decision. He would give up farming altogether and go into business.

    A century ago men were old at 50, but even at that "advanced" age Joel Buckingham  built his first creamery in Otselic, and continued it for several years. Then seeing larger opportunity at DeRuyter he built a creamery there also. These factories made cheese of the highest quality and Joel Buckingham began to see success in his new venture. His business was always large, but in the busy season his Otselic factory received as high as 21,000 pounds of milk a day.

    When Joel Buckingham grew old and trotted his grandchildren on his knee, it was not of the the creameries and cheese factories that he told them. Indeed, today it is thought doubtful that Joel Buckingham's love was for the business, or even for his farm. At heart he was a stage driver and always in his memory were the open road, the wooded and dark passaged through the forests, the wild beasts and the savage that roamed the forest.

    It was of these that he told the children as they crowded to his knee - these and the days when he and Sally were young, days upon which circumstances had caused him to turn the page.

Indians Robbed a Stagecoach

 (From: "Early Yates Settlement and an Indian Stage Robbery"   by Floyd H. Benham. Appeared in  "Historical Wyoming," Vol. III, No. 5, May, 1950; newsletter of the Wyoming County Historical Society, Arcade, N.Y.)

    During the heyday of Yates Settlement when stagecoaches made regular stops at the hotel-stage-station, the Indians who had been previously driven out by General Sullivan, filtered back and had learned some of the white man's ways, particularly the use of money. At this time the Indians were being urged to hostilities by the British prior to the War of 1812; besides, there had been Indian trouble near East Pike, and on the Genesee, with some killings.
  The stagecoaches conveyed mail and light express as well as passengers, and occasionally money, which as a custom when in large amounts, was placed in kettles, presumably sealed.

    A stage with such a shipment had left Yates Station and proceeding to East Hebe (Silver Springs), on the old Cummings Road that leaves Route 19 directly north of the Erie underpass, and when passing about where the old Lonian farm it located, out from among the trees sprang a band of Indians who held up the stage and took away the "pot of gold."

    The alarm soon reached Yates Settlement and quickly men on horseback pursued the Indians, overtaking them a short distance south. They had secreted the money, whereupon the incensed settlers severely chastised and terrorized the band, driving them beyond the Genesee  River. They never returned, and there yet may be s buried treasure a short distance south of the "settlement."

    The original record of this robbery was lost in a fire, and I am indebted to Mr. William Streeter, now deceased. who recalled it from memory, and from data furnished me by Mrs. William Gelsor.

The Stagecoach Era in Perry, N.Y.

Perry as it appeared in the 1840s. (From: Historical Collections of the State of New York by John W. Barber and Henry Howe, New York, 1845)

                     

                         By Richard F. Palmer 

      Until the early 1850s, railroads had not reached the more remote regions of western New York. The only public transportation available since the settlement of the region had been the four-horse stagecoach.The road system was developed very early in the 19th century and horses and oxen made their slow tedious journeys to market hauling freight wagons.  Seemingly every other house on the main roads were wayside taverns that provided rest and provender for the weary traveler, teamster and cattle drover.  Roads in the rainy seasons of spring and fall were notoriously bad and only moderately maintained by local farmers in lieu of taxes who were supervised by a pathmaster.

     In the early days of the stage business Perry was one of the largest and most important villages in western New York. Incorporated in 1830, it was on the main stage route called the Allegany Road  between Canandaigua to Ellicottville.  After the opening of the Genesee Valley Canal between Rochester and Mount Morris in 1840, stages commenced running twice daily between Perry and Cuylerville.

    Now let us take a glance at the Village of Perry and see it as it was like in the 1830s and 1840s. At the time it possessed neither a railroad, a bank of a telegraph line. Residents listened for the toot of the horn of from the driver of the mail coach. Drawn by four horses, it dashed through the streets with a flourish and came to a halt in front of the old National Hotel, kept by Thomas Livingston, near the corner of Main and Lake streets.

    The stagecoach was the village's only communication with the outside world, and it brought not only the mail, but visitors, and goods people may have ordered.  

    The stagecoach network was very extensive and spread throughout southern and western New York like a spider web. J.A. McElwain was the proprietor of the stage line  which ran over hill and dale from Perry and Canandaigua, via Moscow, Geneseo, Livonia, Richmond and Bristol.

    A line also ran west from Perry to Buffalo, by way of Buffalo Corners, west via Orangeville, Sheldon, Wales, Aurora and Hamburg. The Warsaw and Batavia line passed through Wyoming and Bethany and connected at Batavia with the New York Central Railroad. Stages also carried the mail from Perry to Sardinia via Gainesville, Orangeville and Java.

  Those were the days when the hearts of the tavern-keepers rejoiced, for business was business, and there was plenty of it. There were 11 taverns alone between Castile and Geneseo, all of which were well patronized, and, to use  an old phrase, "full every night."  Interestingly many of these old taverns survive to this day as private homes and farm houses.

    Some of the drivers were quaint characters, and none more so than Edwin  Root, who everybody knew on the old road between Geneseo and Perry for years.   He had a merry laugh and a light-hearted manner which made him popular. He was the epitome of the stagecoach driver, friendly, talkative and skilled with handling horses. He guided his steeds up and down the hills, snapping his whip with the cracker on the end over their heads. Years of experience made him a master at holding whip and reins in one hand and tin horn up to his lips, blowing it to announced his pending arrival at a tavern or hotel.

  Root published a quarter-sheet poster to advertise his business. It was decorated from a milliner's sign to a skull and cross bones. In fact he used all the woodcuts to be found in a printing office and some that were not. Root advertised: 

 This would alert the boys to bring out a fresh team and allow the landlord to make ready meals for the passengers.  Stage horses galloped up to the stoop at full speed with a flourish and abruptly stopping right where the passengers could step out and into the tavern or hotel. Horses were changed every 10 to 15 miles. 

       Clear the track for the Lightning Line of Male and Female Stages!

         From Perry to Geneseo and back in a flash!

           Baggage, Persons and Eyesight at

             the risk of the owners, and no

                          questions answered. 

    Having bought the valuable rights of young Master James Howard in this line, the subscriber will streak it daily from Perry to Geneseo for the conveyance of Uncle Sam's mail and family, leaving Perry before the crows wake up in the morning and arriving at the first house this side of Geneseo about the same time. Returning, leave Genesee after the crows have gone to roost and reach Perry in time to join them. Passengers will please keep their mouths shut, for fear they will lose their teeth.

   

   The Public's Much Obliged Servant, Edwin Root.

 January 1st, 1844.

     The stage line between Batavia and Perry was also popular for many years.  A.B. Walker ran stages for years on the route from Pike, via Perry to Attica. 

The "palmy days of staging" and "the associations of the old road" were colorful. But by the mid 19th century, except in more remote regions, stagecoaches were rapidly giving way to the more practical railroads. The completion of the Buffalo & New York City (Erie) Railroad between Hornellsville and Attica on July 26, 1852 soon brought stagecoach days to an end to most long distance state travel. William Ward operated a stage between Perry and Castile and a stage continued to operate to Mount Morris and a one-horse wagon transported the mail to Covington, LaGrange and Perry Center.

    Sources:

History of the Town of Perry, N.Y. by Frank D. Roberts and Frank D. Clark, 1915

Warsaw Wyoming, January 10, 1895

Perry Record, September 30, 1915

Perry Herald, October 9, 1915

                ______

Western Repository, July 15, 1823

                                      New Establishment 

                             FROM MOSCOW TO WARSAW

  The subscriber has extended his line of Stages from Canandaigua to Warsaw once in each week. He will leave Moscow on Saturday afternoon, immediately after his arrival from Canandaigua, and return from Warsaw on Monday morning and on Tuesday morning start again for Canandaigua. He will continue as heretofore to run twice a week from Moscow to Canandaigua. His route from Warsaw to Canandaigua will be through Perry, Moscow, Geneseo, Livonia, Richmond and Bristol.

    Persons in the above district of country wishing to reach the Canal, will find daily Stages running from Canandaigua to Palmyra, and (via Geneva) to Lyons.

    All Baggage at the risk of the owner.

     For Seats apply at Putnam's Hotel in Warsaw, Boothby's Hotel in Moscow, at Belden's Hotel in Geneseo, and at Mead's Hotel in Canandaigua.

                                                              P. R. BOWMAN.

Moscow, June 27, 1823. 

Stagecoach Days on the Ridge Road

House known as the Walling Cobblestone Tavern at 7851 Ridge Road (old Route 104 in the hamlet of Wallington, Wayne County, is a Federal style cobblestone building erected about 1834. It is a two story, five bay, gabled roof structure. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
August 25. 1929

Early Tavern Loses Its Romance
But Not Comfort as Modern Home
______
Stage Coach Once Rattled to Door of Turnpike House
Where Weary Travelers Rested or Made Merry:
Remodeled, It Shelters 20th Century Family
____

Wallington, Aug. 24. - The days of stagecoaches and quaint-looking taverns where many years ago travelers along the main turnpike between Eastern and Western New York made merry over the flowing bowl as the village fiddler played "Money Musk," "Pop Goes the Weasel" and other old-tome airs are recalled in an old cobblestone house standing close to the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks here. The Wallington Tavern, for as such it was known in stagecoach days, was built entirely of cobblestones in 1834 by William Walling, the village's honored sage. Shortly afterward the tavern became known as the halfway house between Oswego and Rochester. Here coach horses either rested or were exchanged and passengers whiled away the hours in rollicking pastime. Stories of merry holiday parties, especially around Christmas time, are still narrated and it is said that the jovial landlord spared neither the best of his wine cellar nor the most appetizing which his larder afforded to give his guests a welcome would insure their early return. Many years ago a traveler stopped at the tavern to rest and refresh himself, according to a story which is still told in this village. He entered the tavern through swinging doors over which appeared the boldly painted sign: "Beer." After he had remained in the taproom for some time, he was struck with a blunt instrument by another guest and killed. The motive may have been robbery or revenge. That point has never been made clear in the narrative. After he was killed the body was taken to strip of woods near the village, a shallow grave dug and the body thrown into it. Years late, his remains were accidentally unearthed, but his identity never was established definitely. Above the present front of the once old tavern, now an attractive dwelling owned and occupied by Charles E. Whiting, the marble stone sign bearing the words "William Walling, 1834," is sill plainly visible. Walling conducted the tavern, which he later called the Wallington Hotel, for many years, and its ownership subsequently changed several times until the Town of Sodus went dry under the local option law and eventually Gabriel Ackerman, the last proprietor, barred the doors.

New Family Home

With the coming of the automobile and interurban bus lines, this famous old landmark has been converted into an attractive and comfortable home by its present owner. There are other cobblestone buildings in this vicinity. Some of them are old, while a few of them existed when a war between the United Stages and Mexico never was dreamed of by early residents of the northern tier of Wayne County. The passing of the stagecoach has left many reminders of those romantic days in this section, but the old Walling Tavern will probably be known a long time hence as the popular rendezvous of weary but fun-loving travelers close to a century ago between the "Lake City" and the "Flower City."

[The famous Ridge Road, described as the "Appian Way of Western New York," was one of the most popular stage routes east and west near the south shore of Lake Ontario. Today, it's essentially 121 miles of Old State Route 104 between Lewiston and Wolcott. Map is from the book, "The Ridge," by Arch Merrill, published in 1944].

One of the few surviving stagecoach taverns on the old Ridge Road is the Cobblestone Inn is located at the crossroads hamlet of Oak-Orchard-on-the-Ridge, in the Town of Ridgeway, New York, United States. It is a cobblestone building dating to the 1830s. At the time of its construction it was a stagecoach stop on the busy road which is now Route 104. It remained in use as an inn well into the mid-20th century despite the passing of the stagecoach and even the railroad eras. It is believed to be the largest cobblestone building in New York State. In 2007 it was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

_____

[From: Spafford's 1824 Guide For New York Travelers, PP. 51-52]

[From: History of Monroe County, N.Y. P. 174, Philadelphia, 1877]

As soon as the Ridge road was opened in 1816, Samuel Hildreth & Co. established a daily line of stages between Rochester and Lewiston. The post-office of Parma was then opened, with a daily mail each way, and J. Thompson postmaster. Until the opening of the Erie canal, it was the distributing office for Ogden Centre, Adams' Basin, and, later, for Spencerport.

Levi Talmage bought the line, and soon after sold it to Adams & Blynn, who held it until the completion of the canal, when it was discontinued. Two years previous, in consequence of the immense business, at times requiring three daily states, an opposition line, known as the Anti-Sunday line, was established by Aristarchus Champion, which was also stopped.

Rochester Daily Advertiser

May 20, 1828

Niagara Falls Gazette

November 4, 1949

Niagara Falls Gazette

December 24, 1955

First Stagecoach Line Linking City

With Rochester Did 'Roaring Business'

By CLARENCE O. LEWIS

Niagara County Historian

The stagecoach was the first and only public conveyance in Niagara County prior to the advent of the canal packet in 1825. They were heavy cumbersome vehicles with the body slung on thick leather straps. Twelve first-class passengers rode inside and the second-class fares rode on top. Four horse teams pulled them at top speed over the roughly graded highway and occasional stretches of log or "corduroy roads." In winter "bob sleighs" with long box-like rectangular bodies were used.

Traveling by stagecoach under such primitive conditions was a far cry from our automobiles and paved roads of today. Nevertheless, when the first stagecoach line from Rochester Niagara Falls via the Ridge Road to Lewis way started it did a "roaring business men and emigrants quick stop in front of the tavern. Sometimes the drivers of rival lines would race to get a regular station first and pick up the waiting passengers. Many new communities sprang up around these stagecoach stops and prosperity of the people along the Ridge road in the pre-railroad days was due largely to the stagecoach lines.

Road Cuts Forest

In 1822-3 a narrow and "tortuous" road was cut through the forest from Wright's Corners to the village of Lockport. Thereafter for several years a wagon met the stagecoach at Wright's Corners and brought passengers and mail to Lockport. his service was organized by Otis Hathaway. There being no Market street at that time the "stage wagon" reached the village by way of what later became known as "Factory Hill" and later "Depot Hill" otherwise an extension of Washington street.

As Lockport and county roads were improved, a regular line of stagecoaches left the ridge at Wright's, stopped at the Old Coffee House in the Court House Square in Lockport and continued on to Niagara Falls stopping at the Eagle Hotel there and later at the Cataract.

Another line came from Batavia to Lockport by way of the Old Niagara Road and stopped at Lockport's Eagle Hotel, which stood on the site of the present Lox Plaza. It was a commodious three-story stone building with a Grecian porch and four large white pillars extending nearly to the top of the building with a Grecian porch and four large white pillars extending nearly to the top of the building. It had a covered and lighted stairway down to the towpath of the canal. Here the packet boats stopped and passengers could alight and go up into the hotel for the night and take the stage for Niagara Falls in the morning.

Driverless Coach

One winter's day in 1837 a "stage sleigh" stopped at the Eagle Hotel in Lockport. When the passengers alighted they noticed there was no driver. He had lingered too long at the last tavern and the horses started off without him. It was about five miles from this tavern to Lockport. The coach moved with the usual speed, passed several teams and traversed Main street and reached the hotel with the customary burst of speed and yet the passengers were unaware they had no driver.

Early in the spring of 1838 steam engines replaced the horses that had been used the first year on the Lockport and Niagara Falls or "strap railroad." The one or two car trains pulled by the "tea kettles on wheels" traveled only slightly faster than the stagecoaches and quite frequently due to jumping the track too longer to reach Niagara Falls.

One day at the Frontier House in Lewiston Alva Hill and George Rector, respectively railroad engineer and stagecoach driver from Lewiston to Niagara Falls, got into an argument as to the speed of their conveyances. Finally each wagered $50 that he could beat the other. Word of the race got around and quite a crowd gathered at both ends of the route. On the appointed day Rector and his stage coach and Alva Hill with his one-car horse-drawn Lewiston Railroad train started from the Frontier House.

The railroad made a long gradual ascent of the escarpment to the junction on the Upper Mountain Road road with the strap railroad from Lockport. Here an engine with steam pressure near maximum was awaiting Hill. The horses soon were replaced by the engine and the little train was off to a quick start.

Engine Runs Off Track

In the meantime the stagecoach had traveled a considerable distance along the River road and had come to where the road and railroad tracks were parallel and not far apart. Soon the engine appeared and began to gain on the stagecoach. Recto stood up and lashed his horses and yelling like an Indian. Engineer Hill had the steam pressure at the danger point but kept yelling to the fireman to throw more wood on the fire. Just before reaching the Falls the road crossed the railroad tracks and both contestants wanted to make the crossing first. It looked like a victory for the engine, but while taking a curve, before reaching the crossing at too high a speed the engine ran off the track. Thus the stagecoach amidst the cheers of the passengers reached the Cataract House first and Rector won the wager.

George Rector later became a hotel man and a very popular one. He was one of the first proprietors in 1861 of the Judson House (the present Lox Plaza). His sons born in Niagara County started the Rector chain of restaurants in New York City and Chicago.

Alva Hill became the popular sheriff of Niagara County in 1849. Both men loved to tell about that wild race.

Line's Ad Is Cited

By 1845 there were as many as ten stagecoaches each way daily on the Ridge road and branch lines running to various communities both to the north and south. The Batavia-Lockport Line in order to complete for Rochester passengers sold through-tickets at the American Hotel. The coaches left the hotel at 8 a.m. and arrived at Batavia in time for the passengers to catch the train leaving for Rochester at 4 p.m. They advertised a big saving in time by their line.

An advertisement of "The Old Line Company" reads as follows:

"Mail coach from Lewiston via Lockport leaves Lewiston at 3 a.m. passes Lockport at 9 a.m. and arrives in Rochester at 7 p.m. Extra coaches will be all times be furnished. Seats taken at the Frontier House at Lewiston and at the Mansion House and Washington Houses at Lockport. Baggage at the risk of the owner. December 17, 1828. Samuel Barton, Agent."

After the advent of the railroad from Rochester to Lockport and Niagara Falls in 1851-52 the stagecoach business on the Ridge road began to dwindle although some coaches continued to run for many years longer. Stagecoaches from Lockport to Youngstown, Wilson and Olcott and Johnson's Creek continued to run nearly to the beginning of this century.

In 1843 the trip from Lockport to the Falls by stagecoach was 50 cents. It is hard for us to realize the discomforts of travel in the stagecoach days.

Reminiscences of Stage Coach Days in the 1840's

Perils of the Drivers: Incidents of the Old White Hotel

(From: PP. 33-34, "Grip's" Historical Souvenir Series No. 20 Wolcott. N.Y. and Vicinity" By Edgar Luderne Walsh, Syracuse, 1905).

Amos Nash, an old driver on the Butterfield stage line, is now seventy-eight years old. When a lad, in 1846, he came to Wolcott from Williamson. He married Mary E., the eldest daughter of Nelson W. Moore, who lived to he ninety-four years old and who from 1860 to '67 ran the grist mill here. Moore's business contemporaries were Jedediah Wilder, Roswell Benedict and Messrs. Galloway and Churchill who at different times owned carding machines in Wolcott. For fifty-three years Amos Nash and his wife have lived in their present home.

"After coming to Wolcott," said Mr. Nash, "I was employed on the J. P. Butterfield stage line running through Wolcott between Oswego and Rochester. Butterfield was a Wolcott man who carried on the old Chester Dutton farm and ran the White Hotel east of the creek, which was the stopping place for the stages and where they changed horses. His livery barns were on the present site of the Metcalf stables.

Route of Coaches

"During seasons of bad roads the coaches were drawn by four horses, coming up from Oswego and back the next day. Stopping at the White Hotel to change horses they passed on down Mill street into Main and then on out of the village along the west road over to Port Glasgow, now Resort, which we then called the Bay Bridge. There were two hotels there, one conducted by a man named Ward, which was burned. From there the line ran along west to Irondequoit and into Rochester. The first relay after leaving Oswego was Fair Haven; then Wolcott, Sodus and Webster, Sometimes, on good roads, we drove on to Williamson or Alton for change of teams. The coaches were the heavy Concord thoroughbrace style swinging on straps and carrying from twelve to sixteen passengers. The nearest railroad to Wolcott was the Auburn road. The last owners of the coach line were J. W. Olmstead and James Hyde.

Lifting Coaches Out of the Mud

"To get through with the coaches at times was a real hardship and some peril. I was located in Wolcott but often went out as a driver. In the winter the coaches were frequently stalled in snow. In the spring and fall after the hard rains the heavy coach would get mired in mud. Then the passengers were called upon to turn out, get a fence rail and help pry the coach out. After the close of navigation on the lakes a great many sailors took passage on the coaches at Oswego for their homes in the country. It pleased the drivers to call upon them to lend a and in lifting the coach out of the mud, for it took the conceit out of them.

On a Float Bridge at Night

"A coach from Oswego delayed all day on the road has called me out to hitch up and drive it through when I would be all night on the road. The great peril of that trip was in crossing the float bridge at Port Glasgow on planks supported by stringers floating on the water, the wind blowing a gale, the coach lights all out and not to be lighted in the wind and the horses and

in the town, the first at Wolcott, the second at Red Creek and the wind-up at Thompson's Corners. On one election day that I recollect a white man this side of the creek got his friends together, inviting them to go over to White Hotel and see him 'pick a nigger,' an old colored man who hung around there a great deal. The party managed to start the quarrel after calling all up for drinks, and the white man was soon busy with the nigger. In a brief round the nigger laid the white man on the floor in a heap and then took to the roads leading south, never again being seen in this section. He no doubt thought he had killed his opponent.

______

House known as the Walling Cobblestone Tavern at 7851 Ridge Road (old Route 104 in the hamlet of Wallington, Wayne County, is a Federal style cobblestone building erected about 1834. It is a two story, five bay, gabled roof structure. It is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Rochester Democrat & Chronicle
August 25, 1929

Early Tavern Loses Its Romance
But Not Comfort as Modern Home
______
Stage Coach Once Rattled to Door of Turnpike House
Where Weary Travelers Rested or Made Merry:
Remodeled, It Shelters 20th Century Family
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Wallington, Aug. 24. - The days of stagecoaches and quaint-looking taverns where many years ago travelers along the main turnpike between Eastern and Western New York made merry over the flowing bowl as the village fiddler played "Money Musk," "Pop Goes the Weasel" and other old-tome airs are recalled in an old cobblestone house standing close to the Pennsylvania Railroad tracks here.
The Wallington Tavern, for as such it was known in stagecoach days, was built entirely of cobblestones in 1834 by William Walling, the village's honored sage. Shortly afterward the tavern became known as the halfway house between Oswego and Rochester. Here coach horses either rested or were exchanged and passengers whiled away the hours in rollicking pastime.
Stories of merry holiday parties, especially around Christmas time, are still narrated and it is said that the jovial landlord spared neither the best of his wine cellar nor the most appetizing which his larder afforded to give his guests a welcome would insure their early return.
Many years ago a traveler stopped at the tavern to rest and refresh himself, according to a story which is still told in this village. He entered the tavern through swinging doors over which appeared the boldly painted sign: "Beer."
After he had remained in the taproom for some time, he was struck with a blunt instrument by another guest and killed. The motive may have been robbery or revenge. That point has never been made clear in the narrative. After he was killed the body was taken to strip of woods near the village, a shallow grave dug and the body thrown into it. Years late, his remains were accidentally unearthed, but his identity never was established definitely.
Above the present front of the once old tavern, now an attractive dwelling owned and occupied by Charles E. Whiting, the marble stone sign bearing the words "William Walling, 1834," is sill plainly visible. Walling conducted the tavern, which he later called the Wallington Hotel, for many years, and its ownership subsequently changed several times until the Town of Sodus went dry under the local option law and eventually Gabriel Ackerman, the last proprietor, barred the doors.
New Family Home
With the coming of the automobile and interurban bus lines, this famous old landmark has been converted into an attractive and comfortable home by its present owner. There are other cobblestone buildings in this vicinity. Some of them are old, while a few of them existed when a war between the United States and Mexico never was dreamed of by early residents of the northern tier of Wayne County. The passing of the stagecoach has left many reminders of those romantic days in this section, but the old Walling Tavern will probably be known a long time hence as the popular rendezvous of weary but fun-loving travelers close to a century ago between the "Lake City" and the "Flower City."

The Good Old Stagecoach Days

    (From: Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly January - June 1886)

"A cloud of dust shut out the view of the gaping crowd." 

                                  ____

                      By H.W. DeLong

  A century of assiduous labor was necessary to bring stage-coaching in the United States up to any degree of perfection, while but a quarter of that time was required to destroy the glory of that sort of locomotion for ever.

  One need not delve among musty tomes and dusty manuscript for the record of the good old coaching days. Yonder gray bearded gentleman hurrying to catch the special limited express could tell you all about it had he time. His wedding trip was made in a "thorough trace" coach drawn by four stout bays, and I venture to assert that the glamour of that journey still lingers about him, and is in no danger of being dissipated by the superior speed, comfort and elegance of the Pullman car in which he is about to enter. Yes, fifty years ago the railroad was an experiment and the stagecoach an established fact; and it is of those good old days I propose to write in the course of this article.

   In these days of hurry and bustle, where time is money, and the annihilation of space by sea and land seems to have reached its utmost bounds, when man lives at a rate of speed in keeping with the times, and crowds a whole life into a single year, it is restful and profitable to give to retrospection full sweep, and retrace the years to those times when things moved slower, and man had not become an automaton, borne down the noiseless tide of money getting, but was content to glide easily through life to a good old age, unhampered by the rush and worry of this latter so-called progressive era.

   At the opening of the present century, when the populous portion of the union comprised but a comparatively narrow strip of country along the Atlantic seaboard, the necessities of the people demanded and obtained a very good system of stagecoach communication between the cities and towns. Every morning, from the different booking offices and taverns in the larger places, long lines of great, yellow, thorough trace coaches, drawn by splendid horses, would rattle away to the music of key bugles and snapping whips, bound for different points near and far away. The inside and outside seats would be full of passengers, and the spacious leathern boots packed with trunks and boxes.

   Comfortable vehicles were these old stagecoaches of our fathers, strong and massive, rocking in their great leathern springs as easily, almost, as a palace car, unless the roads were very bad, when the tendency of the passenger's head would be to seek the roof, in spite of convulsive clutchings at the handstraps. The seats were covered with leather, and the inside of the coach was upholstered with the same slippery material as high as one's shoulder. Thirteen people, nine inside and four outside, was a good solid load, although twenty and even twenty-five passengers were often accommodated. There was always room for one more on the old stagecoach.

   It was a very pretty sight on a pleasant Autumn morning a half-century ago, to see a coach of some popular line, well loaded with passengers, speeding through the country bound for some distant city, its four powerful horses guided by the subtle hand of an experienced "Jehu," whose lofty seat and exquisite finger on the reins were the admiration and envy of all the hangers-on at the numerous taverns along the route. Ten miles the hour was schedule time on many a line, and to arrive and depart "o. t." was the pride of every driver's heart.

   To the little hamlet fortunate enough to be on a stage route, the arrival of the coach was the event of the day. Picture a score of houses scattered irregularly along a grassy street! Two of them, from their wooden awnings. signs, and rows of glass candy-jars in the windows, are seen to be stores, while another, with an array of skeleton-wheels and wagon-tires leaning beside its gaping doors, as well as a sprinkling of old harrows and other agricultural debris scattered before it, mark it as the village smithy.   

   A modest church-spire further down the street points quietly heavenward, and the soft grind of an overshot water-wheel, mellowed by distance, comes up from the stream below the road. But the crowning glory of this rural scene is the village tavern, a long, two-story wooden building, with a veranda or stoop extending its whole length, supported by a row of round, wooden pillars. The whole structure is painted white, and the green blinds at the upper windows are in vivid contrast to the prevailing color. 

   A huge swinging sign, suspended from a sort of gibbet, proclaims to the traveling public that this is "The American Hotel," with accommodations for man or beast. A venerable willow-tree shades not only the building, but a large share of the open plot in front, while a capacious watering-trough at its foot, fed from a never-failing penstock, offers refreshment to thirsty beasts and delight to a colony of ducks dabbling and quacking in the copious overflow.

   It is high noon of a bright October day. The rays of the sun pour down with almost the brilliancy and fervor of midsummer. A gentle breeze modifies the air and whispers amongst the gorgeous foliage of the trees, rustling the dry blades in the corn-shocks and bearing on its mild breath those subtle Autumn odors, nowhere so sweet as in rural America. All is quiet in the straggling street. The golden rod and daisies dotting the dusty grass side nod to one another, and a patient cow, chewing her cud in the shadow of an overhanging plum-tree, gives an extra touch of still life to the picture. A faint clatter of queen's ware from the kitchen of the inn says plainly that, in spite of a sleeping lounger tilted back in an armchair on the stoop who is the only ocular evidence of humanity in sight, that there is still an element of wakefulness existing in this second "Sleepy Hollow."

   Suddenly the mellow note of a horn far up the hill, breaks the peaceful silence. What a sudden transformation! Like the prince's kiss on the lips of the "Sleeping Beauty," that bugle-call has wakened everything into activity. The slumbering lounger springs to his feet and becomes metamorphosed into the active hostler of the inn. A dozen men and boys come stringing out of the stores. Women appear at the doors, and heads in all degrees of frowziness are craned from the open windows. Dogs bark, ducks quack, and the cow in the shade lifts up her voice to the general clamor. Again that mellow note, nearer and clearer, fills the air. The rumble of wheels is heard, and the day coach between Boston and an interior city dashes down the hill, and, describing a critical curve, draws up with many a flourish and rattle of drawbars beside the hotel stoop, missing it by that fraction of an inch so dear to the old-time driver.

        "There was always room for one more."       

   "Twenty minutes for dinner," shouts that functionary, as he descends from his perch and magnanimously hands over his steaming team to the hostler, and elbows his way through the crowd to the barroom. A thundering gong now announces dinner, and the hungry passengers, after hurried ablutions from a tin hand-basin hanging beside the watering-trough, rush to the dining-room. In the meantime the horses are unhooked, and the fresh relay brought out and harnessed. Promptly to the minute the driver appears, consults his watch, shouts a peremptory "all aboard " in the direction of the dining room door, mounts his box and, as the passengers hurriedly take their places, picks up the lines, uncoils his long whip, and with a " Let 'em go I" to the men at the horses' heads, rolls away at a quick trot, and a cloud of dust shuts out the view from the gaping crowd, who immediately disappear from sight and the village settles down to that state of quiet restfulness again that prevailed before that magic bugle-note roused it from its midday slumber. 

   As the great West began to develop and towns sprung up as if by magic, dotting the boundless prairies that but a short time before were the home of the buffalo and the red man, lines of communication between the East and West became imperative. The settlers were almost wholly composed of Eastern people, whose interests, business and social, were so intimately connected with the Atlantic States that to be cut off from direct contact with the old home was a condition not to be thought of. 

   Men were found equal to the emergency, and a net-work of stage routes soon permeated to the furthest border settlements, and, like the famous devil-fish, a new tentacle was always ready to reach out at a moment's notice and connect some mushroom settlement with the whole system. It was on these primitive lines that the miseries of stagecoaching developed themselves to the last degree of human endurance.

   There were no roads except the wagon-trails, and, as the bulk of travel was in the spring, when the prairie was like a huge sponge, the coaches would go crawling along at a snail's pace through mud to the hubs, the horses straining every nerve to drag the heavy vehicle, while the driver, with stinging lash and choice expletives, urged on the jaded beasts to greater efforts. It is difficult to conceive the miseries of the passengers on these pioneer lines; jolted and bounced until every bone in the body ached, fi)rced to alight at times and help pry the wheels from the tenacious mud in which they had become firmly set, eating only at irregular intervals, and then such food as only a cast-iron stomach could digest. I tell you that, fifty years ago, the man who made the stage-trip from the little lake port of Chicago, with its plank pavements laid over a bottomless swamp, to the Mississippi Paver and arrived at his destination with sound bones and stomach, was to be congratulated.

   Fifty years ago the commercial traveler did not play the important part in the business of the country that he does to-day. Now, you find him with his sample case or a'ray of trunks on every passenger-train and in every hotel throughout the length and breadth of the land. The merchant sits in his store or steps over to the sample-room of the hotel, and, while discussing a capadura cigar from the traveling man's case, looks over all the new things in his line and makes his selections as well or even better than he could at headquarters.

  But in the good old days of which I am writing, this necessary and ubiquitous person was not known. A merchant, to be up to the times, must make a semi-annual, or at least an annual, trip to New York or some of the other great Eastern marts to replenish his stock.

Stagecoaches ran night and day, regardless of the weather. It was the fastest mode of public transportation before the railroads.

 Today, if a merchant in Rochester, New York, for example, wishes to visit the metropolis, he takes a sleeping-car in the evening and has plenty of time next morning for a bath before taking breakfast at his favorite hotel. How differently his father made this pilgrimage, way back in "thirty-five"! The 5 a.m. stage rattled up to his door, and, as the merchant's belongings were stowed away,

"Good-byes !" and kisses were as feelingly given by the wife and children as if the contemplated trip were an experiment fraught with many dangers. Five long days and nights of incessant travel by stage and boat were necessary before the spires of "Gotham" would gladden the eyes of the traveler, and the many vicissitudes en route were such as to make timid and cautious people hesitate before trusting themselves for long distances in a stagecoach.

But there were many delights about these old stagecoach days that are utterly lost to the traveling public of this rushing age of steam. What could be finer, to the lover of nature, than a deck-seat on a rambling four-in-hand, spinning through some charming section with the whole delightful panorama of hill and dale, tilled fields and bosky woodland, stretching out before him? his gaze taking in the whole picture, even to the horizon frame.

   No dirty, contracted car-window cutting off here a bit and there a corner of the daintiest vistas. No clouds of pitchy smoke blotting out the whole view at times, but everything open and free, and the speed just right to study all tho details of the landscape. And then this sort of traveling seemed to bring its votaries so much nearer to one another than modem railway travel. There seemed to be a bond of sympathy existing between all whom fortune chanced to huddle together in an oldtime stagecoach. 

   The first thing, after getting well started on the road, was to get acquainted all around, and many a friendship, many a courtship, besides other pleasant social combinations, sprang into being on the route. Today, the millionaire traveler takes his section in the palace car, and, away from the common herd, is as secluded and free from annoyance as though sitting in his own library at home. But he who traveled in the cosmopolitan old stagecoach of a half-century ago could not pick his company ; poverty and wealth occupied the same seat. 

   The honorable senator or M.C. bound for legislative halls was unceremoniously sandwiched in between the pauper and the pickpocket, while the clerical dignitary oft-times had for his vis-d-vis the horse-jockey or gambler. And history does not say that harm often came to the traveler through the indiscriminate contact with all sorts of people. Our pockets were full as—save from the deft fingers of the cutpurse—as they are to-day on an ordinary railway car, and safer, I will venture to say; for the field of operation being small, robbery without detection was almost impossible. The money men and sharpers who work our railway trains, accounts of those exploits in fleecing the unwary are found in nearly every daily paper, were then unknown, and the persistent train-boy, with his indomitable perseverance and unlimited audacity had not yet blossomed into being.

  To travel, was not looked upon as a luxury—although there were conditions under which coaching was the very acme of delight to the traveler—and people took the stagecoach because there was nothing else to take.

 What an opportunity to study human nature those old coaching days offered to the reflective traveler! It took but a few hours for the good or evil in a man to find the surface and crop out, and so it would come to pass that each man would know his neighbor—not superficially, but through and through—long before the journey was over. The fat passenger and the lean passenger, the jolly and the morose, the loquacious and the taciturn, each had a place in every load, and the reigning peculiarities of individuals made themselves felt all through the trip, and to travel all day in an old-time stagecoach was to learn more of men and things than a week's trip could reveal on a modern passenger train.

Stagecoaches shared the busy roads with freight wagons and drovers of cattle, sheep, horses, turkeys and even geese. Those were busy times on the pioneer roads. Frequently taverns were located within sight of each other.

   The driver of the old stagecoach was indeed the autocrat of the road. He held a high position and a high prerogative, and ho knew it, and exercised his powers to their full extent. He was engineer, fireman, brakeman and conductor, welded into one symmetrical whole, and happy was the traveler who, through some delicate attention, like the tendering of a well-filled cigar-case or potent flask, secured the goodwill of this mighty factor on the box; while correspondingly miserable was the condition of he who brought upon himself the Jehu's enmity. 

"Always make friends with the driver," was a saying understood by the traveling public, and the attentions showered upon this functionary at the opening of a trip would have spoiled a less modest man. To secure a seat beside the driver was the pride of young America, and while listening to his conversation be able to look down from his noble elevation on the box to the less favored "insides" below, and return condescendingly the glances of admiration of the boys along the road. 

   The box seat was also very desirable to boys of a larger growth, particularly those to whom the country was new, and who desired to become familiar with the route. The average driver was a perfect cyclopedia of information. Every house and farm and village and church along the line held some incident or story with which he was conversant, and these he would reel off with sundry additions and embellishments, to the delight and amusement of his auditor.

   More than one story-writer and novelist has found food for fiction, seated beside some old-time driver, listening to and drinking in his wonderful tales. Tho veneration in which the skillful stage-driver was held by the hangers-on at the wayside inns was something wonderful to behold. Every trip was a sort of ovation, in a mild way, and at these stableyard receptions the knight of the currycomb or broom who was favored with a nod or grunt of recognition was happy, while he who could press the hand that held the reins so skillfully had food for comforting reflection all day. The boys in the little schoolhouses along the route each had their favorite driver, and if by chance he should accost some admirer as he swept by in a cloud of dust with a "Mornin' Billy," or " Hullo Dan," the said Billy or Dan would be the hero of the hour.

   In these days of competition, when parallel railway lines have reduced tho cost of traveling to a minimum, it scarcely seems possible that a half-century ago there would have been any strife for traffic ; but there was, and an examination of old newspaper files contemporaneous with coaching reveals the fact that a fierce rivalry existed between different stage lines.

A typical advertisement in the Geneva Gazette of April 10, 1830.

   Great inducements were offered in the way of "quick time," "easy coaches," "skilled drivers" and "low fares," to secure traffic. Even the religious sentiments of the public were appealed to, and the "Pioneer " line of coaches, started in the thirties, when the Sabbath agitation was at its height, was brought out in defense of the Christian element, and made a great point of carrying neither Sunday passengers nor mails.

  This great moral line was advertised from the pulpits, and a certain Monroe County, N. Y. divine was credited with saying: "The Pioneer line of stages must, shall and will succeed. I will sacrifice every cent of my property to support it. If necessary, I will take the bread from my children's mouths for its support. It is on God's side, and must prosper. Rather than see this pions undertaking crushed, rather than see the hopes of God's people cloven down, I will write reverend on the front of my hat, mount the Pioneer stage box, take the reins and drive the coach myself."

E.L. Henry's famous depiction of the first train on the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad between Albany and Schenectady in 1831. This was the beginning of the end of the stagecoach era.

  When the railway came, and a practical test convinced capitalists of its utility, then began the decadence of the old stagecoach. It did not die out at once ; but as the great railway systems began to ramify and reach out to the larger cities, taking in all the important towns en route, the first blow was struck at the old, time-honored stagecoach. It lost prestige at once ; from being the chain itself it dropped back to the position of a weak and hesitating link, and had to be content to act as a simple feeder for its swifter and more popular supplanter.

   The once unapproachable driver became simply a driver, and nothing more. From the giddy elevation of a through line box, he was forced to descend to the level of the man who steered the fish-wagon or drove the hotel 'bus. In time the corporate towns east of the Mississippi without railway facilities were very few indeed, and the sphere of the stagecoach became very contracted. A few two-horse vehicles, by courtesy stages, might still have been seen plodding out of the cities and larger towns, bound for such outlying hamlets as the railway had skipped ; but scarcely a decade after the completion of the first trunk line, the stagecoach became practically a thing of the past.

  Coaching west of the Mississippi River, however, furnished the only means of public conveyance for many years after it had become entirely extinct in the East, and the completion of the transcontinental railway gave it a new impulse, opening up numerous lines, connecting the mountain towns with that great transcontinental highway.

   Stagecoaching can still be seen to perfection in the far West; but even there the inexorable iron horse is crowding it out. No engineering problems are too abstruse for the modern railway-builder, and soon Hank Monk and others of his like will find their occupation gone, and the road-agent will look in vain from his cover in the chaparral for the Concord coach with its load of bullion.

   In the East, coaching is now indulged in as a luxury, to a limited degree. For a consideration one can take a deck seat on a real old-time coach, in several of our large cities, and spin out a half-score of miles or so, get a good dinner, and back again, getting a very good idea of what coaching was a half-century ago. Wealthy gentlemen have formed clubs, and it is a very pretty sight to see one of these organizations start out of a pleasant morning, with horns tooting and bits jingling; the bright vermillion and orange of the coaches, enhanced by the delicate costumes of the fair ones, sparkling out amidst the more sober garbs of the gentlemen. Yes, coaching is having quite a revival among those who can afford it, and to-day he who would aspire to own a first class array of turnouts must be sure to have a big yellow "Concord" amongst the lot.

   But the old coaching days have gone, never to be revived. The inexorable finger of progress has crowded them out, and to-day only the pleasant memories remain. The discomforts, the breakdowns, the long, tedious trips, the thundering down the narrow causeways with locked wheels, when the variation of an ell meant certain destruction, all these are forgotten and hidden underneath that kindly cloud which time so mercifully diffuses over the past, blotting out the evil, revealing only the good. And to those who lived in the years long gone by, and have been spared to mark the wonderful progress of# this progressive age, I venture to assert, no sweeter memory comes, as they review the past, than the thoughts of the good " old stagecoach days."