Concord Stage Coach

Concord Stage Coach Soundex Code C200

Per: https://www.wellsfargo.com/about/corporate/stagecoach

Built high and wide to handle the rough, rutted roads of a new country, the design of this classic American vehicle was perfected in Concord, New Hampshire. Carriage builder J. Stephens Abbot and master wheelwright Lewis Downing built the famed stagecoaches of Wells Fargo & Company

In 1828, Lewis Downing joined J. Stephens Abbot to form Abbot-Downing Coaches. Their most famous coach was the Concord Stage Coach, modeled after the coronation coach of King George III.

The curved frame of the body gave it strength, and perhaps a little extra elbow room. Perfectly formed, fitted, and balanced wheels stood up to decades of drenching mountain storms and parching desert heat. The unique feature of these coaches was the suspension. Instead of steel springs, the coach body rested on leather “thoroughbraces,” made of strips of thick bullhide. This feature spared the horses from jarring and gave the stagecoach a (sometimes) gentle rocking motion, leading Mark Twain to call it, “An imposing cradle on wheels” (Roughing It, 1870).

Concord Stage Coaches weighed about 2,500 pounds, and cost $1,100 each, including leather and Damask cloth interior.