An Imposing Cradle

For decades it carried passengers and mail across the river to the old railroad station in Lewiston and Dartmouth athletic teams to local matches in Lebanon or Woodstock, Vermont the latter a threehour journey. Now the Dartmouth Concord coach stands in refurbished and static splendor, anchored firmly under the portico of the Hanover Inn.

Through the generosity' of Fred Stockwell '43, the painstaking research of Gregory Schwarz, assistant curator of the College Museum, and the meticulous craftsmanship of several local artisans, the historic coach was restored to close to its former glory in time for the start of the Inn's bicentennial year in the fall of 1979.

Retired from active duty in 1912, the coach has had a checkered past, once having barely missed an ignominious end as fuel for a bonfire celebrating a football victory over Brown. To learn more about the history of the coach, we dropped around to see Schwarz, the man most in the know about its ups and downs and its recent rescue from obscurity.

"Little is known about Dartmouth's coach prior to 1912," he told us, adding that he would dearly love to hear from any alumnus with recollections of the days when it was used primarily as the hotel's taxi and baggage carrier.

What Schwarz has learned a good deal about from his sleuthing is Concord coaches in general. So named because they were developed in 1827 by Lewis Downing and J. Stephen Abbot in Concord, New Hampshire, they revolutionized longdistance travel. "Instead of a jolting ride on the metal springs used in other stage-coach models," he explained, "the passenger compartment was suspended instead on leather straps, resulting in a gentle rocking motion, which incidentally made it easier for horses to free a coach stuck in the mud a frequent occurrence in those days. Mark Twain called it 'an imposing cradle on wheels.'

In all, 3,000 were built through 1899, in six-, nine-, and twelve-passenger models, of which only 150 survive. Each was custom-made, with a variety of options that would stagger even the purchaser of Detroit's latest. Paint jobs featured gilded stripes and scrollwork, and murals of landscapes, people, or even the coach itself parked at the owner's establishment could be ordered to decorate the doors and the driver's box. Weights ranged from 1,200 pounds for a hotel type like Dartmouth's to well over a ton for an overland stage.

The coach was in reasonably good condition for its age, Schwarz said, having been stored in a local barn from 1912 until 1929, when it was repainted and placed on display at the College Museum. Major restoration included the upholstery, the leather suspension, and two of the wheels, with great care being taken to keep the materials as authentic to the period as possible. Almost perfect matches were found for both the embossed plush red velvet upholstery and the gold damask for the ceiling. The thick, specially tanned harness leather for the thoroughbraces, common in the last century but made by few modern tanneries, was more of a problem, and a replacement door handle had to be custommade by a blacksmith.

But now, Schwarz reported cheerfully, "Save for lanterns and a complete restoration of the protective and decorative painting of the coach, it appears much as it did while serving the Dartmouth Hotel a century ago."

Dobbin & Cos. spent their nights hitched upat the Inn's livery stable, but the newCollege mail van is plugged in to theheating plant, for a charge when power useis low. The electric van has many advantages: It saves energy, purrs quietly aroundcampus, and leaves the streets cleaner thanearlier power trains.