The Overland Mail vehicle is of that description known as the Concord wagon, - a stout oblong box on springs, painted red, with heavy wheels and axles, having a flat arched roof of water-proof cloth erected on strong posts, like those of a rockaway, and to this are attached curtains of the same fabric, which in bad weather may be let down and buttoned so tight as to make the sides practically as proof against storms as the top. In fine weather, when the curtains are up, no airier arrangement or more unobstructed view could be desired. The seats of the wagon are three, the passengers at the end sitting vis-à-vis; those in the middle looking forward, with their backs against a strap hooked to the side-posts, as in the old-fashioned stage-coach. Six persons can ride comfortably inside, if they are only used to sleeping in an upright position; but the great pressure of travel to Denver often at that day compelled passengers to ride three on a seat…
Poet and journalist Bayard Taylor also wrote of his journey from Denver eastwards along the Cut-Off through Fort Morgan in the relative “comfort” of an Overland coach:
ON Monday morning last, Mr. Beard and I took our seats in the overland coach, at Denver. Our hopes of a comfortable trip were blasted at the outset: there were seven passengers for Fort Kearney, and four for the “Junction,” [Fort Morgan] as it is called, on the Platte. The fare of one hundred and twenty-five dollars which one pays the Holladay Company, is simply for transportation: it includes neither space nor convenience, much less comfort. The coaches are built on the presumption that the American people are lean and of diminutive stature — a mistake at which we should wonder the more, were it not that many of our railroad companies suffer under the same delusion. With a fiery sky overhead, clouds of fine dust rising from beneath, and a prospect of buffalo-gnats and mosquitoes awaiting us, we turned our faces toward “America” in no very cheerful mood. The adieus to kind friends were spoken, the mail-bags and way-bill were delivered to the coachman, the whip cracked as a sign that our journey of six hundred miles had commenced, and our six horses soon whirled us past the last house of Denver….
Toward evening the clouds lifted for an hour or two, and we took our last look at the Mountains, lying dark and low on the horizon. The passengers for the Junction were pleasant fellows, and I mean no disrespect in saying that their room was better than their company. After sunset another setting in of rain drove them upon us, and by eleven at night (when we reached their destination) we were all so cramped and benumbed, that I found myself wondering which of the legs under my eyes were going to get out of the coach. I took it for granted that the nearest pair that remained belonged to myself…. The coach is so ingeniously constructed that there are no corners to receive one's head. There is, it is true, an illusive semblance of a corner; if you trust yourself to it, you are likely to lean out with your arm on the hind wheel. Nodding, shifting of tortured joints, and an occasional groan, made up the night. There was no moon, and nothing was visible except the dark circle of the Plains against the sky.
___________
Sources:
Ludlow, Fitz Hugh, The Heart of the Continent (NY: Hurd & Coughton, 1870), p. 10.
Taylor, Bayard, Colorado: A Summer Trip (NY: Putnam, 1867), p. 170.
No comments:
Post a Comment