On the Old Boston Post Road

The Spirit of Stagecoach Days

The Old Stage Coach in Towanda.Pa.

Bradford Argus, Towanda, Pa.

April 30, 1868

    An Old Stage Coach. -While passing down Main Street a few evenings since, our attention was attracted to an old worn-out coach, whose dilapidated condition brought back to our memory days gone by.

    Its wheels were all broken, and the tires rusted, as if they would hide from view their bright faces. Those wheels whose rumble once was a sign for this gathering of all the urchins and neighborhood in front of the country Post Office are now, spoke by spoke crumbling away as if too old to jolt over the stones or skim over the hard frosty ground.

    A Stage Coach is a world in itself. In  former days when it rolled swiftly on its way past houses, fields, and towns, the sunburnt laborer would shade his brown face with his still browner hand and look upon its well filled seats, as if he gained renewed strength thereby.

    The lean, tired horses, whose strength seemed hardly able to hold them up, but who drew its cumbersome proportions after them as if they were no heavier than a feather,  no longer will have its rattle follow them as if a ghost were upon their track. The times like these have passed. The coach-and-four which came rumbling into our sleepy town and deposited its few passengers, who taking a look at our peaceful slumber, proceeded to follow suit, is now superseded by the snorting engine, which brings its crowds into our midst, which acre swallowed up by our crowded streets, as if they were but a speck.

   In the days of coaches Towanda was a village, but now it is almost a city. Let us not forget that the years the old coach rumbled over our hilly roads, were the years that have built up out now prosperous and go-ahead town.

Athens, Pa. in Stagecoach Days, ca. 1840s

                                          View looking north. - Tioga Point Museum  
    

Runaway Stagecoach

Oswego Commercial Advertiser

Thursday, April 6, 1865

    A Stage Team Runs Away. - While at Colosse on Monday night, the team attached to the Syracuse stage, became frightened by the firing of a gun, and ran away. A lady and child were in the coach at the time, but could not get out.

    Great efforts were made to overtake the team, but were unavailing. When the team had reached the vicinity of George Wheeler's, some two miles from Colosse, they were stopped by Mr. Wheeler, who, very fortunately, was expecting something by the stage, and therefore was on the lookout. 

    Considering the distance run, and the liability of meeting teams on that route, the escape of the lady and child was almost miraculous.

(Note: Colosse is a four corners on New York State Route 11 between Central Square and Pulaski, N.Y.)

Old Stagecoach Schedules

Geneva Gazette, June 20, 1827

Geneva Gazette, June 1, 1829

Unadilla House, Unadilla, New York

Stage line between Syracuse and Oswego

Oswego County Whig
July 23, 1839

    Rail-Road Line of Post Coaches
    Between Oswego and Syracuse
    Through in six hours. Coaches will be in readiness at the Steam-Boat Landing in Oswego, on the arrival of the morning Steamers from Lewiston, to convey passengers to Syracuse, in time for the afternoon cars for Albany.
    Returning, leaves Syracuse on the arrival of the morning cars from Albany, and arrive at Oswego in time for the Steamboats for Lewiston and Buffalo.
    Passengers, by taking this route, can leave Buffalo at 9 o'clock in the morning, and 12 M., and arrive in Oswego early next morning, and in New York on the afternoon of the second day from Buffalo.

KINYON, LEWIS & CO. AND OTHERS.
Oswego, July 16, 1839. - 29 4w.        Proprietors.