Stage wagons are light horse-drawn or mule-drawn public passenger vehicles often referred to as stagecoaches. Like stagecoaches they made long scheduled trips using

stage station A stage station or relay station, also known as a staging post, a posting station, or a stage stop, is a place where exhausted horses could be replaced by fresh animals, since a long journey was much faster without delays when horses needed rest ...

s or posts where the horses would be replaced by fresh horses. Stage wagons were intended for use in particularly difficult conditions where standard stagecoaches would be too big and too heavy. This style of vehicle was often called a mud-coach or mud-wagon. More like wagons than coaches, the sides of the vehicle gave passengers little protection from the dirt of the road. Abbot, Downing named theirs an overland wagon. A brand-name, ''Celerity'', later became popular in place of mud (wagon).Ken Wheeling, ''They Called Them Mudders.'' The Carriage Journal, Vol 43 No 5 October 2005

Use

They were employed wherever the poor state of the roads and or demand for services did not warrant the expense of a stagecoach. Most stagecoach routes in the United States' West were opened with them and often operators continued to use these vehicles as stagecoaches.

Structure

They were not unlike a

freight wagon A wagon or waggon is a heavy four-wheeled vehicle pulled by draught animals or on occasion by humans, used for transporting goods, commodities, agricultural materials, supplies and sometimes people. Wagons are immediately distinguished from ...

with a high driver's seat, bench seats on the tray, and posts holding up canvas to shelter passengers from the weather. Those stage wagons with throroughbraces had an undercarriage like those used by a Concord coach but the thoroughbraces were much shorter and mounted to make sure there was much less motion of the body. The thoroughbraces were brought over a bar at each end and attached to another bar above the outer side of each axle. Stage

wagon wheels Wagon Wheels are a sweet snack food sold in the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, other Commonwealth countries like New Zealand and India, and Ireland. They consist of two biscuits that form a sandwich with a marshmallow filling with jam, and ...

and their

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in f ...

tire A tire (American English) or tyre (British English) is a ring-shaped component that surrounds a wheel's rim to transfer a vehicle's load from the axle through the wheel to the ground and to provide traction on the surface over which t ...

s were as much as fifty per cent wider than those of conventional stagecoaches

Development

Wagons carrying freight had been taking passengers in Europe since 1500. This particular stage wagon type was first recorded near the end of the 18th century in use in eastern North America, US and Upper and Lower Canada. It was an unsprung wagon with the driver's bench seat providing room for two more passengers beside him. It might also carry more passenger seats on the tray behind. These extra seats were reached by climbing over the driver's seat. About this time, the Postmaster General

Joseph Habersham Joseph Habersham (July 28, 1751 – November 17, 1815) was an American businessman, Georgia politician, soldier in the Continental Army, and Postmaster General of the United States. Early years Born in Savannah, Georgia, to James Habers ...

required the driver's seat to be moved from the tray onto a front wall to improve the driver's vision and by dropping the tray improve the wagon's stability. This created the characteristic stagecoach-like profile of the stage wagon. Their relatively simple design and construction allowed them to be sold by Abbot, Downing at around half the price of full-size Concord coaches. Their suspension employed thoroughbraces that were much shorter than those used on Concord stagecoaches.

Some manufacturers

* Abbot, Downing, Concord, New Hampshire * Milton P Henderson of Stockton California made stage wagons of the same style as Abbot, Downing. The firm began in 1869 as a partnership with E G Clark. They can be identified by the finish of the sides of the bodies and the method of attachment of iron stays back and front. * P O LeMay and Livy Swan at

Yreka, California Yreka ( ) is the county seat of Siskiyou County, California, United States, near the Shasta River; the city has an area of about , most of it land. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 7,807, reflecting a meager increase fr ...

* Weisenhorn Carriage in Helena, Montana built a vehicle very like an Abbot, Downing ''Australian wagon'' * Celerity was a brand of Stage wagon made in

Troy, New York Troy is a city in the U.S. state of New York and the county seat of Rensselaer County. The city is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany ...

. File:Abbot, Downing 1871 catalog Chart A1.jpg, Abbot, Downing's ''Overland Wagon''
a canvas-topped stage wagon 1871available in two sizes, 6 or 9 passengers and available with:
doors, painted sail duck top, sail duck or enameled curtains, lined in leather, back boot, driver's apron.
Abbot, Downing & Co. catalog 1871 File:A Mud-Wagon-type stagecoach (possibly a mail stage?) with a six-horse hitch, Goldfield, Nevada, ca.1905 (CHS-5426).jpg,

Goldfield, Nevada Goldfield is an unincorporated small desert city and the county seat of Esmeralda County, Nevada. It is the locus of the Goldfield CDP which had a resident population of 268 at the 2010 census, down from 440 in 2000. Goldfield is located ...

, circa 1905 File:Grabill - The Deadwood Coach-1.jpg, Two large Overland stage wagons on the road to

Pierre, South Dakota Pierre ( ; lkt, Čhúŋkaške, lit=fort) is the capital city of South Dakota, United States, and the seat of Hughes County. The population was 14,091 at the 2020 census, making it the second-least populous US state capital after Montpelier, ...

in 1889. It is the "last official visit of Supreme Court Judges to

Deadwood, South Dakota Deadwood (Lakota: ''Owáyasuta''; "To approve or confirm things") is a city that serves as county seat of Lawrence County, South Dakota, United States. It was named by early settlers after the dead trees found in its gulch. The city had it ...

and the first "

Legislative Delegation A parliamentary delegation (or congressional delegation, also CODEL or codel, in the United States) is an official visit abroad by a member or members of a legislature. To schedule a parliamentary delegation, a member must apply to the relevant ...

" for the new state of

South Dakota South Dakota (; Sioux language, Sioux: , ) is a U.S. state in the West North Central states, North Central region of the United States. It is also part of the Great Plains. South Dakota is named after the Lakota people, Lakota and Dakota peo ...

File:Grabill - The last Deadwood Coach-2.jpg, December 28, 1890. The last Deadwood stage File:Grabill - The last Deadwood Coach-4.jpg, December 28, 1890. The last Deadwood stage

Notes

References

{{reflist Wagons Coaches (carriage) Animal-powered vehicles History of road transport Horse transportation