The Stagecoach Line
A trip between Hamilton and Cincinnati by stagecoach initially required 14 hours, if on schedule. By canalboat, the same journey was halved, to seven hours. When the first railroad opened in the county in 1851, it took about an hour to travel between the cities.
As "canal fever" had infested the Midwest in the 1820s, so did "railroad fever" from the 1830s into the 1850s. Butler County's first railroad -- the Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton -- started operations in September 1851.
The stage coach line ran from Cincinnati Hamilton Dayton and beyond. It took 14 hours to get from Cincinnati to Hamilton and 14 hours to get from Dayton to Hamilton. In 1830 there were 12 stages making round trips from Cincinnati to Dayton. The coaches operated in the first half of the 19th century. The canal system, which ran from 1825 to 1845, hurt the stagecoach prosperity. By the civil war the stagecoaches were defunct.
Charles Dickens came rode a Stagecoach from Cincinnati to Lake Erie in 1842 and said "beautiful country, richly cultivated and luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest”.
Charles Dickens came rode a Stagecoach from Cincinnati to Lake Erie in 1842 and said "beautiful country, richly cultivated and luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest”.
More in depth...
The stagecoach usually is associated with the American West. But it also transported Ohioans, including residents of Butler County. The peak stagecoach era in Ohio was from 1815 — at the close of the War of 1812 when road-building accelerated — until the mid 1850s, when the railroad boom began.
Many of the earliest lines didn't publish a schedule and most operated only in daylight hours. Some ran only in the summer and fall, avoiding the mud and other hazards of the winter and spring.
As early as 1805 a stage line ran from Cincinnati to Yellow Springs via Hamilton, Franklin and Dayton.
By the late 1820s, there were as many as 20 stages making daily-trips between Cincinnati and Dayton by various routes.
According to an 1825 schedule, it took a stagecoach 14 hours for the trips from Hamilton to Cincinnati, and Hamilton to Dayton.
That year the Cincinnati and Dayton mail line — which made an overnight stop in Hamilton each day — completed one round trip a week.
The northbound stagecoach left Cincinnati each Monday at 4 a.m. and reached Hamilton by 6 p.m. The trip resumed at 4 a.m. Tuesday and ended in Dayton by 6 p.m.
The southbound schedule was similar. The coach departed Dayton on Friday at 4 a.m. and stopped in Hamilton by 6 p. m. The Saturday trip began at 4 a. m. in Hamilton and reached Cincinnati at 6 p. m.
As area roads improved, travel times shrank.
For example, in the 1840s the Eastern Stage Coach Company advertised nine hours for its runs between Richmond, Ind., and Cincinnati through Hamilton.
In 1847 there were at least three daily Hamilton-Cincinnati coaches.
In their heyday, stagecoaches linked several Butler County communities.
In May 1849, a Hamilton newspaper ad reported two daily departures from Cincinnati to Hamilton — at 7:30 a.m. through Symmes Corner (now Fairfield) to Hamilton and Rossville, and at 2 p. m. through Carthage and Springdale to Hamilton and Rossville.
The U. S. Mail Stage ad boasted of connections in Hamilton with a line serving Darrtown, Morning Sun, Fairhaven, Boston, Richmond, Centerville and Cambridge City, Ind.
The same company also offered daily service, except Sunday, from Cincinnati through Venice (Ross), Millville, Stillwell, Oxford, College Corner, Liberty, Brownsville and Connersville, Ind.
Another stage linked Cincinnati, Venice (Ross) and New London (Shandon) three times a week.
Passenger fares varied during the stagecoach era.
In 1805, for example, it cost $5 for the entire one-way trip from Cincinnati through Hamilton and Dayton to Yellow Springs. For partial trips, it was six cents a mile.
In 1828, a Cincinnati-Dayton line charged eight cents a mile, which also allowed a passenger up to 14 pounds of baggage without an additional fee.
By 1848, fares from Hamilton included 50 cents for the one-way trip to Cincinnati and 75 cents to Eaton.
Most stage lines in this region had disappeared by the start of the Civil War (1861).
The building of canals (1825-1845) and railroads (starting in the 1840s) brought quicker, more efficient and more comfortable transportation to Southwestern Ohio.
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39. May 28, 1989 - Stagecoach played large role:
Journal-News, Sunday, May 28, 1989
Stagecoaches played large role in economy
(This is the second of two columns on the stagecoach era.)
By Jim Blount
The arrival of a stagecoach -- bringing mail and visitors -- stirred excitement in Hamilton during the first half of the 19th century.
The typical Ohio coach — usually pulled by six horses — carried from nine to 12 passengers, plus baggage and mail.
"It was in the days of the stagecoaches that the Hamilton Hotel obtained its greatest prestige," wrote Dr. Henry Mallory in his 1895 book, Gems of Thought and Character Sketches.
"The stage office was in the hotel and the drivers, when within a mile or two of the town, would crack their long whips and the horses knew by instinct that they would be changed and have a rest," recalled Dr. Mallory.
"No matter how badly they were loaded, they (the horses) would start on a sweeping trot and never let up until the front of the hotel was reached."
"And while a fresh relay of horses was being hooked on, the passengers would alight, register their names and take refreshments."
"Then when the postmaster changed the mails, they were ready to start again. But if the postmaster was a little slow, the stage driver would cry out in rather dictatorial tones, 'Hurry up that mail and be quick about it, too.'"
Unlike movie and TV portrayals, most Ohio stagecoaches were one-man operations. There was no one riding "shotgun" to guard against a robbery between stops.
To many persons then, Including Dr. Mallory, stagecoach drivers were the heroes of the era. Dr. Mallory believed the "old stage drivers were a dignified set."
Drivers were idolized for numerous reasons, including their independence, the opportunity to travel, skill with a whip, horsemanship and their command of their vehicles.
"When the weather was pleasant, many of the passengers would ask the driver to let them sit on top of the stage beside him," Dr. Mallory noted. "But the driver was very select and would look them over before he would permit them the honor."
"It was said a very distinguished foreigner was once riding over the country by stage and, for some impertinence from the driver, threatened to report him to the minister at Washington."
"The driver told him very plainly that he would thrash both him and his minister if he heard anything more from him. This, to the foreigner, was a new idea of the principle of American equality," Mallory said in his book.
A foreign visitor who wrote about his stagecoach experience in this region was Charles Dickens. The British author's 1842 U. S. trip included a stage trip from Cincinnati to Columbus.
Dickens was one of 12 passengers "in a great mail coach" which, he said, "rattles through the streets of Cincinnati."
"It is a distant about 120 miles from Cincinnati, but there is macadamized road (rare blessing) the whole way, and the rate of traveling upon it is six miles an hour," he noted.
Dickens was impressed by the area, describing it as "beautiful country, richly cultivated and luxuriant in its promise of an abundant harvest," comparable to Kent, southeast of London, in his homeland.
But he didn't share Dr. Mallory 's opinion of drivers.
"The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the coachman's character. He is always dirty, sullen and taciturn."
"If he be capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he has a faculty of concealing it which is truly marvelous," Dickens said.
"He never speaks to you as you sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to him, he answers (if at all) in monosyllables."
"He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself with a pocket-handkerchief," Dickens complained. "The consequences to the box passengers, especially when the wind blows towards him, are not agreeable."
More on Charles Dickens...
Charles Dickens arrived in the United States in January 1842 and spent six months looking around — not so much as a tourist as an analytical observer — studying how was this relatively new country doing and whether was life better or worse than in England. Both, he decided, depending what he was looking at.
He was only 30 years old and his writing career was equally young. Even so, he was surprised and then rather irritated when he was instantly recognized, followed and harassed by rambunctious American fans. Already in print on both sides of the Atlantic were the novels “Sketches by Boz,” “The Pickwick Papers,” “The Mudfog Papers,” “Oliver Twist,” “Nickolas Nickleby” and “The Old Curiosity Shop.”In fact, one of his goals was to convince U.S. publishers to pay him for the privilege. Stealing and reprinting foreign literary works was common and almost as abhorrent as he found another American custom — slavery.
But after he returned home, Dickens would produce an amazing amount of work; including “A Christmas Carol” (1843),” “David Copperfield” (1850) and “A Tale of Two Cities” (1859), all gobbled up by an eager American public.
They were not so enthusiastic, however, by the forthright and sometimes scathing book, “American Notes for General Circulation,” that resulted from his 1842 trip.He and his wife traveled through Ohio by stagecoach, a rough means of transportation discussed last week, from Cincinnati to Columbus to Sandusky, where they were more than ready to jump on a Lake Erie steamboat. For some reason they traveled through Upper Sandusky and Tiffin, bypassing Mansfield, but the experience probably wasn’t much different. Here are some excerpts of stagecoach travel in 1842 from a (rather critical) passenger’s point of view:
“We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and silent. The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it to the horses’ heads. There is scarcely ever any one to help him; there are seldom any loungers standing round; and never any stable-company with jokes to crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our team, there is a difficulty in starting again, arising out of the prevalent mode of breaking a young horse: which is to catch him, harness him against his will, and put him in a stage-coach without further notice: but we get on somehow or other, after a great many kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before again.
“Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half-drunken loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or lounging on the window-sill, or sitting on a rail within the colonnade: they have not often anything to say though, either to us or to each other, but sit there idly staring at the coach and horses. The landlord of the inn is usually among them, and seems, of all the party, to be the least connected with the business of the house. Indeed he is with reference to the tavern, what the driver is in relation to the coach and passengers: whatever happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and perfectly easy in his mind.
“The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the coachman’s character. He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn. If he be capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he has a faculty of concealing it which is truly marvelous. He never speaks to you as you sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to him, he answers (if at all) in monosyllables. He points out nothing on the road, and seldom looks at anything: being, to all appearance, thoroughly weary of it and of existence generally. As to doing the honors of his coach, his business, as I have said, is with the horses. The coach follows because it is attached to them and goes on wheels: not because you are in it. Sometimes, towards the end of a long stage, he suddenly breaks out into a discordant fragment of an election song, but his face never sings along with him: it is only his voice, and not often that.
“He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself with a pocket-handkerchief. The consequences to the box passenger, especially when the wind blows towards him, are not agreeable…
“We dine … with the boarders in the house, and have nothing to drink but tea and coffee. As they are both very bad and the water is worse, I ask for brandy; but it is a Temperance Hotel, and spirits are not to be had for love or money. This preposterous forcing of unpleasant drinks down the reluctant throats of travelers is not at all uncommon in America, but I never discovered that the scruples of such wincing landlords induced them to preserve any unusually nice balance between the quality of their fare, and their scale of charges: on the contrary, I rather suspected them of diminishing the one and exalting the other, by way of recompense for the loss of their profit on the sale of spirituous liquors. After all, perhaps, the plainest course for persons of such tender consciences, would be, a total abstinence from tavern-keeping.“Dinner over, we get into another vehicle which is ready at the door (for the coach has been changed in the interval), and resume our journey; which continues through the same kind of country until evening, when we come to the town where we are to stop for tea and supper; and resume our journey; which continues through the same kind of country until evening, when we come to the town where we are to stop for tea and supper; and having delivered the mail bags at the post-office, ride through the usual wide street, lined with the usual stores and houses (the drapers always having hung up at their door, by way of sign, a piece of bright red cloth), to the hotel where this meal is prepared.
“When the meal is over, and another coach is ready. In it we go on once more, lighted by a bright moon, until midnight; when we stop to change the coach again, and remain for half an hour or so in a miserable room, with a blurred lithograph of Washington over the smoky fire-place, and a mighty jug of cold water on the table: to which refreshment the moody passengers do so apply themselves that they would seem to be, one and all, keen patients of Dr. Sangrado. …”
He was only 30 years old and his writing career was equally young. Even so, he was surprised and then rather irritated when he was instantly recognized, followed and harassed by rambunctious American fans. Already in print on both sides of the Atlantic were the novels “Sketches by Boz,” “The Pickwick Papers,” “The Mudfog Papers,” “Oliver Twist,” “Nickolas Nickleby” and “The Old Curiosity Shop.”In fact, one of his goals was to convince U.S. publishers to pay him for the privilege. Stealing and reprinting foreign literary works was common and almost as abhorrent as he found another American custom — slavery.
But after he returned home, Dickens would produce an amazing amount of work; including “A Christmas Carol” (1843),” “David Copperfield” (1850) and “A Tale of Two Cities” (1859), all gobbled up by an eager American public.
They were not so enthusiastic, however, by the forthright and sometimes scathing book, “American Notes for General Circulation,” that resulted from his 1842 trip.He and his wife traveled through Ohio by stagecoach, a rough means of transportation discussed last week, from Cincinnati to Columbus to Sandusky, where they were more than ready to jump on a Lake Erie steamboat. For some reason they traveled through Upper Sandusky and Tiffin, bypassing Mansfield, but the experience probably wasn’t much different. Here are some excerpts of stagecoach travel in 1842 from a (rather critical) passenger’s point of view:
“We often stop to water at a roadside inn, which is always dull and silent. The coachman dismounts and fills his bucket, and holds it to the horses’ heads. There is scarcely ever any one to help him; there are seldom any loungers standing round; and never any stable-company with jokes to crack. Sometimes, when we have changed our team, there is a difficulty in starting again, arising out of the prevalent mode of breaking a young horse: which is to catch him, harness him against his will, and put him in a stage-coach without further notice: but we get on somehow or other, after a great many kicks and a violent struggle; and jog on as before again.
“Occasionally, when we stop to change, some two or three half-drunken loafers will come loitering out with their hands in their pockets, or will be seen kicking their heels in rocking-chairs, or lounging on the window-sill, or sitting on a rail within the colonnade: they have not often anything to say though, either to us or to each other, but sit there idly staring at the coach and horses. The landlord of the inn is usually among them, and seems, of all the party, to be the least connected with the business of the house. Indeed he is with reference to the tavern, what the driver is in relation to the coach and passengers: whatever happens in his sphere of action, he is quite indifferent, and perfectly easy in his mind.
“The frequent change of coachmen works no change or variety in the coachman’s character. He is always dirty, sullen, and taciturn. If he be capable of smartness of any kind, moral or physical, he has a faculty of concealing it which is truly marvelous. He never speaks to you as you sit beside him on the box, and if you speak to him, he answers (if at all) in monosyllables. He points out nothing on the road, and seldom looks at anything: being, to all appearance, thoroughly weary of it and of existence generally. As to doing the honors of his coach, his business, as I have said, is with the horses. The coach follows because it is attached to them and goes on wheels: not because you are in it. Sometimes, towards the end of a long stage, he suddenly breaks out into a discordant fragment of an election song, but his face never sings along with him: it is only his voice, and not often that.
“He always chews and always spits, and never encumbers himself with a pocket-handkerchief. The consequences to the box passenger, especially when the wind blows towards him, are not agreeable…
“We dine … with the boarders in the house, and have nothing to drink but tea and coffee. As they are both very bad and the water is worse, I ask for brandy; but it is a Temperance Hotel, and spirits are not to be had for love or money. This preposterous forcing of unpleasant drinks down the reluctant throats of travelers is not at all uncommon in America, but I never discovered that the scruples of such wincing landlords induced them to preserve any unusually nice balance between the quality of their fare, and their scale of charges: on the contrary, I rather suspected them of diminishing the one and exalting the other, by way of recompense for the loss of their profit on the sale of spirituous liquors. After all, perhaps, the plainest course for persons of such tender consciences, would be, a total abstinence from tavern-keeping.“Dinner over, we get into another vehicle which is ready at the door (for the coach has been changed in the interval), and resume our journey; which continues through the same kind of country until evening, when we come to the town where we are to stop for tea and supper; and resume our journey; which continues through the same kind of country until evening, when we come to the town where we are to stop for tea and supper; and having delivered the mail bags at the post-office, ride through the usual wide street, lined with the usual stores and houses (the drapers always having hung up at their door, by way of sign, a piece of bright red cloth), to the hotel where this meal is prepared.
“When the meal is over, and another coach is ready. In it we go on once more, lighted by a bright moon, until midnight; when we stop to change the coach again, and remain for half an hour or so in a miserable room, with a blurred lithograph of Washington over the smoky fire-place, and a mighty jug of cold water on the table: to which refreshment the moody passengers do so apply themselves that they would seem to be, one and all, keen patients of Dr. Sangrado. …”