Stagecoach Lines Proliferated in Pelham in the 1870s, Part of Pelham's Old Stage Coach Days

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On August 7, 1874, a cryptic announcement appeared in the New-York Tribune regarding the opening of a new stagecoach line through City Island and Pelham Bridge in the Town of Pelham.  It read:

"CITY ISLAND. -- A stage line was recently established between Mount Vernon and Yonkers, connecting with trains on the New-Haven, Harlem, and Hudson River railroads.  The success of the line has induced the proprietor to establish another line between Mount Vernon, Eastchester, Pelham Bridge, and City Island, so that persons can now cross between Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, passing through the villages named."

Source:  CITY ISLAND, New-York Tribune, Aug. 7, 1874, p. 8, col. 5 (Note:  Access via this link requires paid subscription).  

Although the announcement did not identify the "proprietor" of the new line, it noted that it was the same proprietor who had recently established a stage line between Mount Vernon and Yonkers to connect with trains on the New Haven, Harlem, and Hudson River railroads.  Thus, it seems nearly certain, the unidentified "proprietor" likely was Theodore Valentine who was the man who ran "Valentine's Mount Vernon and Yonkers Stage Line."  For a time in the 1870s, that stage line ran three trips daily.  It ran from Mount Vernon to Yonkers at 7:53 a.m., 12:00 noon, and 4:15 p.m.  It ran from Yonkers back to Mount Vernon at 9:15 a.m., 2:00 p.m., and 5:30 p.m.  The fare on Valentine's Mount Vernon and Yonkers Stage Line was twenty-five cents each way.  

1878 Advertisement for Valentine's Mount Vernon and

Yonkers Stage Line.  Source:  VALENTINE'S MOUNT

VERNON AND YONKERS STAGE LINE [Advertisement],

The Chronicle [Mount Vernon, NY], Jul. 5, 1878, Vol. IX,

No. 459, p. 4, cols. 5-6.  NOTE:  Click on Image to Enlarge.

The move by Theodore Valentine to establish a stage line " between Mount Vernon, Eastchester, Pelham Bridge, and City Island, so that persons can now cross between Long Island Sound and the Hudson River, passing through the villages named" may have played some role in the decision by Robert J. Vickery of City Island to establish his stage line that shuttled between Bartow Station on the New Haven Branch Line and City Island.  I have written before of Robert J. Vickery and his stage.  See, e.g.:  

Fri., Jul. 25, 2014:  Stagecoach Accident in Pelham in Early 1883. 

Fri., Mar. 21, 2014:  Examples of Very Early Merchant Advertisements in the Town of Pelham. 

Wed., Mar. 03, 2010:  1879 Advertisement for Robert J. Vickery's City Island Stage Line, A Predecessor to the City Island Horse Railroad. 

Thu., Sep. 24, 2009:  Brief Newspaper Account of the January 1, 1883 Annual Meeting of the Pelham Manor Protective Club (article includes account of an accident involving one of Vickery's stages). 

Tue., Jan. 27, 2009:  Biography of William Vickery, a 19th Century Resident of City Island in the Town of Pelham.

No definitive history of stagecoach transportation in the Pelham region has been written.  That history, however, can be pieced together from a variety of sources and sheds light on the growth of the region and the role Pelham has played over the last few centuries as a small town along Boston Post Road near the metropolis of New York City.  (Included at the end of today's article is a bibliography of links to other Historic Pelham articles that touch on stagecoach days in old Pelham.)

One of the earliest efforts to provide regular stagecoach from New York to Boston on the Boston Post Road that passed through Pelham at the time via today's Colonial Avenue occurred in 1772, shortly before the onset of the Revolutionary War.  A carriage-maker in Hartford, Connecticut named Nicholas Brown partnered with a driver named Jonathan Brown to offer stagecoach service along the Post Road between New York City and Boston.  According to one account:

"[T]he partners had trouble attracting patrons.  The Browns may not have made any trips at all until late July.  Even then they had only enough interest to go twice a month, and be fall they went no more."

Source:  Jaffe, Eric, The King's Best Highway -- The Lost History of the Boston Post Road, the Route that Made America, p. 80 (NY, NY:  Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2010).  

It was not until Autumn 1784 that another attempt to establish stagecoach travel between New York and Boston on the old Boston Post Road through Pelham.  That year, a group of four local stagecoach proprietors in the northeast successfully joined their various stagecoach lines to make stagecoach travel from the old Morris mansion in New York City to Boston.  See id., pp. 81-83.  These local stage lines included those of Jacob Brown (New Haven to Hartford to Springfield), Levi Pease and Reuben Sikes (Hartford to Somers to Boston), and Talmadge Hall (New York City to Norwalk).  For the next few years, the stage lines that made up the service were able to survive by supplementing their income carrying newspapers and U.S. mail back and forth along the Post Road.  

During the latter part of the eighteenth century the stages run by Talmadge Hall routinely rumbled through Pelham on today's Colonial Avenue carrying passengers, mail, newspapers, and more.  At the same time, Levi Pease played an ever greater role in the expansion of stagecoach transportation from Boston to as far as Philadelphia and even Baltimore in the later years of the eighteenth century and the first two decades of the nineteenth century.  

In 1796, the First Massachusetts Turnpike opened along the Boston Post Road near Boston in an effort to charge travelers fees that could be used to improve the rough roadway.  Soon, "turnpike fever swept the country" including the New York City region.  Soon a turnpike was built and opened through Pelham to shorten the travel between the Bronx and New Rochelle via the Boston Post Road.  

Thus, in about 1804, stagecoach traffic shifted in Pelham from the old Boston Post Road (today's Colonial Avenue) to the new Westchester Turnpike (today's Boston Post Road).  The Westchester Turnpike included toll gates along the roadway not far from the Shrubbery that once stood near today's Split Rock Road in Pelham Manor.  

At about this time, stagecoach lines popped into and out of existence, sending stagecoaches back and forth between New York and Boston through Pelham on the Westchester Turnpike.  For example, In 1813, New York City newspapers published announcements of the opening of another new stage coach line:  the New-York & Boston New Line Diligence Stage running from New York City to Boston by way of New Haven, Hartford, and Providence.  See Tue., Dec. 27, 2016:  Stage Coach Days In Old Pelham.  

For the next few decades, stagecoach and wagon traffic along the Westchester Turnpike through Pelham continued to grow.  During this time, however, the population of Pelham was beginning to grow on City Island and on Pelham Neck and along Shore Road on the mainland.  Shortly before the widespread advent of trains on the east coast, stagecoaches along the Boston Post Road were being engineered for speed for the benefit of passengers and the U.S. Mail.  Indeed, Pelham became a regular station stop for the mail and passenger stagecoaches of Dorance, Recide & Co.  According to an article published in The New York Times on May 8, 1880:

"A few New-Yorkers still remember the old stages of Dorance, Recide & Co., which used to carry the United States mails between this City and Boston. Fifty years ago two stages started from the corner of Bayard-street and the Bowery every morning. One of them was an especially fast stage. It carried the mails and never booked more than six passengers, and when the mails were unusually heavy no passengers were allowed at all. 'Six passengers only allowed inside,' was the announcement contained in the words painted on the panels of this nimble vehicle, which legend many a time carried dismay to the hearts of impetuous business men who arrived at the stage office only to find the last seat taken. The slow stage carried nine passengers inside and two upon the box. These two stages always left the hotel in company and proceeded up Third-avenue. They crossed Harlem bridge and stopped for dinner 28 miles out. The mail stage usually arrived at Boston half a day in advance of its companion coach. The principal stations on the route were East Chester, West Chester, Pelham, New-Rochelle, Port Chester, Horse Neck, Stamford, Norwalk, Hartford, Springfield, and Worcester."

Source:  Before the Locomotive - The Ways over Which the Stage-Coach Rumbled, N.Y. Times, May 9, 1880, p. 10.

By the early 1870s, the New Haven Main Line and the New Haven Branch Line had been built through Pelham.  Paradoxically, the advent of the railroads prompted local expansion of stagecoach lines that ferried passengers between the various railroads that traversed the region such as the stagecoach lines of Theodore Valentine described at the outset of today's article.  Similarly, local stagecoach lines such as that established by Robert J. Vickery between Bartow Station on the New Haven Branch Line and City Island sprang up to ferry passengers from railroad stations to specific nearby locations.  

By the 1880s, however, horse car railroads and, a little later, electric trolleys were beginning to overtake the region marking the decline of the stagecoach days in old Pelham.  Another chapter in the transportation history of Pelham was drawing to a close.

Post Card View of "Bartow and City Island Stage Line."

Post Card is Postmarked September 6,  1910.  NOTE:

Click on Image to Enlarge.

*          *          *          *          *

Below is a bibliography of links to other Historic Pelham articles besides those already listed above that touch on stagecoach days in old Pelham.  

Tue., Dec. 27, 2016:  Stage Coach Days In Old Pelham.

Fri., Nov. 11, 2016:  John Robert Beecroft and the Beecroft Family of Pelham Manor (describes December 19, 1900 NYAC stagecoach accident that led to death of Beecroft).

Fri., Mar. 11, 2016:  How Did Pelhamites Travel To and From Nearby New York City in 1857? 

Fri., Sep. 05, 2014:  Post Card Image of Bartow and City Island Stagecoach With Driver. 

Wed., Aug. 13, 2014:  The Nineteenth Century Stagecoach Presented to Local Boy Scouts by Famed Illustrator Edward Penfield During the 1920s. 

Fri., Aug. 08, 2014 1894:  Pelham School Budget Vote: Stagecoach Authorized To Transport Pelham Students in Days Before Autos and Buses. 

Mon., Apr. 12, 2010:  New York Athletic Club Stagecoach Accident Leads to Death of Pelham Manor Man. 

Mon., Oct. 26, 2009:  Pelham Was a Principal Station on the Stagecoach Route of Dorance, Recide & Co. Which Carried Mail Between New York and Boston. 

Mon., Mar. 21, 2005:  Pelham Was A Station Stop for the Stagecoach That Carried Mail from New York To Boston in the Early 19th Century.

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Rev. Francis Asbury, Methodist Minister, Preaches in Pelham in 1772

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Francis Asbury served as one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America. Born in England on August 20, 1745, he became an ordained minister at the age of 22. He volunteered to spread the Gospel to America and traveled here in 1771. According to some sources, when the American Revolution began, he was the only Methodist minister to remain in the country. He died on March 31, 1816 and is buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.

Francis Asbury kept meticulous journals of his travels. His journals for early 1772 show his travels and preaching through the Manor of Pelham. Today's Historic Pelham Blog posting transcribes pertinent entries from the published version of some of his early journals.

"ASBURY'S JOURNAL [JAN. 1772. . . . .

On Wednesday the 15th I preached at two in the afternoon at Mairnock [Mamaroneck] with some power, and in the evening returned, preached at Rye, to a large company, and felt my Master near. Thursday 16, I was taken ill with a cold and chill. The next morning I rode to New-City [this is "New City Island", today's City Island], but the cold pinched me much. On New-City Island a congregation was assembled to receive me. I spoke to them with some liberty and they wished me to come again. A wise old Calvinist said, he might experience all I mentioned, and go to hell. I said, Satan experienced more than I mentioned, and yet is gone to hell. After preaching I rode to Mr. B.'s, though in much pain. When I had preached there I went to bed. During the whole night I was very ill. My friends behaved very kindly, and endeavored to prevail upon me to stay there till I was restored: but my appointment required me to set off for Eastchester, where I preached, and rode near eight miles in the evening to New-Rochelle. On the 19th, the Lord's day, I preached three times, though very ill. Many attended, and I could not think of disappointing them. Monday the 20th, I rode to P.'s Manor [i.e., Pell's Manor -- Pelham], and preached there at noon, and at six in the evening at P. B.'s in Roechelle [New Rochelle]. The next day I rode to D.'s, but the day was extremely cold. In the night I had a sore throat, but through the help God I go on, and cannot think of sparing myself:

'No cross, no suff'ring I decline,
Only let all my heart to thine!'

Tuesday the 21st I preached at my friend D.'s for the last time, on, 'Those things that ye have both learned, and received, and heard, and seen in me, do.' The people seemed deeply affected under the word. In the morning of the 22d, I set out for the New-City, and preached there in much weakness and pain of body, and in the evening went to my friend P.'s [Pell's ??]. That night I had no rest: ane when I arose in the morning, the pain in my throat was worse. On the 23d [Page 22 / Page 23] I came in a covered sleigh to my friend B.'s, where I took up my lodging, being unable to go any farther. I then applied to a physician, who made applications to my ears, throat, and palate, which were all swelled and inflamed exceedingly. For six or seven days I could neither eat nor drink without great pain. The physician feared I should be strangled, before a discharge took place: but my God ordered all things well. I am raised up again; and cannot help remarking the kindness with which my friends treated me, as if I had been their own brother. The parents and children attended me day and night with the greatest attention. Thus, though a stranger in a strange land, God has taken care of me. May the Lord remember them that have remembered me, and grant to this family life forever more!

February 5. Still I feel myself weak. It is near a fortnight since I came to my friend B.'s. Dr. W. has attended me in all my illness, and did all he could for me gratis. Yesterday was the first day of my going out. I went to Westchester to hear a friend preach. My kind friends S. and W. brought up a sleigh from York on Monday last, but my friends at this place would not suffer me to go with them. In the course of my recovery, I have read much in my Bible, and Hammond's Notes on the New-Testament. I have also met with a spirited piece against predestination. I did not expect to find such an advocate for general redemption in America. This day I ventured to preach at Mr. A. B.'s to his family and a few other people. In the evening returned home, and found Mr. D. L., the former governor's son, there; who lives in the woods near Salem, and invited me to his house. We spent the evening comfortably together."

Source: Journal of Rev. Francis Asbury, Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Three Volumes, Vol. I, From August 7, 1771, to December 31, 1786, pp. 22-23 (NY, NY: Lane & Scott 1852).

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Abstract of 1772 Will of Mary Pell of the Manor of Pelham

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The following is an abstract of another early will prepared by an 18th century resident of the Manor of Pelham. It is an abstract of the will of Mary Pell prepared on April 18, 1772 and proved May 30, 1772. Beneath the abstract is a citation to its source.

"ABSTRACTS OF WILLS - LIBER 28. . . . .

Page 261. -- In the name of God, Amen. I, MARY PELL, of the Manor of Pelham, in Westchester County, widow, being of sound disposing mind. I direct all debts to be paid. I leave to my son, Caleb Pell, my Great Bible. 'I leave to my son James one good feather bed and bedding thereunto belonging, which he now ledges in.' I leave to my son Elijah one good feather bed, and a negro boy, if my son lives to be 21. 'The reason I give my sons no more by this will is they having received the rest of their portion already.' I leave to my daughter, Ann Van Kleeck, 'the use of 6 large Table silver spoons, to be bought with my money of £8 value, so long as she lives, and then to her daughter, Mary Lawrence.' I leave to my daughter, Mercy Rodman, the same number of spoons for life, and then to her daughter Charlotte. I [Page 43 / Page 44] leave to my daughter, Bathsheba Pell, 6 large silver Table spoons that I have marked C. P. M., and £10, and a Damask Table cloth. I leave to my daughter, Euphemia Pell, my silver Tankard marked C. M. P. during her life. If she leave issue she may give it to whom she pleases, but if not, then to my daughters, Bathsheba and Philena. I also give to my daughter Euphemia a pair of brass candle sticks. I leave to my daughter Helena my Silver Pint Mugg marked T. P. A. and 6 silver tea spoons, one pair of sugar tongs marked M. P., and one Mahogany Tea table, and £10, and a feather bed and furniture. I leave to my granddaughter, Mary Pell, daughter of my son Caleb, one pair of gold sleeve buttons of 40 shillings price, to be bought for her with my money, and my silver shoe buckles. I leave to my grandson, Caleb Haviland, one pair of gold sleeve buttons, 40 shillings price, My negro man, Dick, is to be sold, and may choose his master. The money is to be paid to my three daughters, Bathsheba, Euphemia, and Helena, and I leave them the rest of my estate. I make my brothers, James Ferris and John Ferris, executors.

Dated April 18, 1772. Witnesses, Charles Vincent, Sr., Joshua Pell, Jr., John Bartow. Proved, May 30, 1772."

Source: Pelletreau, William S., Abstracts of Wills on File in the Surrogate's Office, City of New York - LIBER 28 Continued in Collections of The New-York Historical Society For the Year 1899, pp. 43-44 (NY, NY: New-York Historical Society 1900).

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