1860-ish Abbot-Downing Stagecoach
The Concord coach’s most distinctive feature wasn’t its silhouette but what lay beneath it: a suspension built from thick leather straps called thoroughbraces, which allowed the body to rock fore and aft rather than jolt vertically over rough roads. Mark Twain described the resulting motion as riding in “a cradle on wheels”.
The egg-shaped wooden body, built from oak, hickory, and ash, distributed structural loads efficiently, while the flat roof carried overflow baggage and additional riders. Drivers sat elevated on a high box seat for better road visibility and braking leverage.
Abbot-Downing of Concord, New Hampshire built each coach to order and assigned it a serial number. Western-specification coaches received heavier wheels, longer thoroughbraces, and roll-down curtains in place of glass door windows to handle more demanding terrain.
A finished coach cost upward of $1,200, and doors typically received hand-painted landscape scenes by the company’s in-house artists.
Wells Fargo, established in 1852, used Abbot-Downing coaches to move mail, valuables, and passengers across the Western states, and the red and gold livery became fixed to the company’s identity.
Of roughly 1,800 Concord coaches produced over the company’s history, approximately 160 are known to survive today.
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