Stagecoach days in Angelica, N.Y.

(Excerpt from The Angelica Advocate, May 11, 1944 - From a letter to the editor by Harry C. Gardiner)

    I also distinctly remember the huge stagecoach with its four horses driven by Mr. Martin that used to pass our house daily to and fro on its trips from Belvidere Station. Martin found the big coach too cumbersome and expensive for the 5-mile up hill and down  trips twice each day; so the old coach was replaced by a covered wagon which many Angelicans will remember ran until the railroad came. 

  Mr. Martin died shortly after the change was made and beloved old Ed Blanchard took over the mail, express and passenger transportation between Angelica and Belvidere. There are, according to information I now have, only four people now living in Angelica who might remember the school fire and the old four-horse coach. Mighty progress has taken place since the time when Angelica had no telegraph, no railroad and a large proportion of the people used tallow candles for illumination; also many of them talked just like David Harum and Aunt Polly of radio fame. The railroad locomotives burned wood in those days. I wonder how many people remember the huge woodsheds at many of the stations, the one at Belvidere, I believe, about one-eighth of a mile in length.