Chapter IX

Stage Coaches And Stage Stands

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The first stage line was established between Charleston and Lewisburg by Caldwell and Surbough and was in operation by January 1827, making one trip each week.  The fare was $7.00 and preference given to "those who first registered their names for seats."

As soon as the road was extended to Big Sandy, the same weekly stage was run from Catlettsburg, Kentucky, to Lewisburg, W. Va. where it connected with a stage line to Sutton.

Although the first stages ran via Pea Ridge (Teays Valley) directly to the mouth of the Big Sandy, Guyandotte promptly extended a road to Barboursville in order to profit by the travel, and thereby became the point of connection with a steamer owned by the stage company which made regular trips to Cincinnati twice each week.

By 1835, with a population of nearly 300, Guyandotte was the most important point of steamboat embarkation and debarkation in western Virginia excepting Wheeling.  Three miles below, however, she had a possible competitor for future supremacy: Brownstown (earlier incorporated as South Landing) which had been surveyed by Crozet in 1832 and which still awaited the disposition of the proprietors of the land to put their lots on the market.

Since there was no competition of the stage lines as on the National (Cumberland) road, stage fares changed little in the course of several decades.  The schedule time for the entire trip was from Thursday at 1 p. m. to Saturday evening.  The fare from Big Sandy was 75 cents to Guyandotte, $4.50 to Charleston, and $11.00 to Lewisburg.  Each passenger was allowed 20 pounds of baggage free, and for excess (carried at the option of the driver) was charged $4.00 per 100 pounds for each 100 miles.  Passengers from the steamers at Big Sandy or Guyandotte, of from the connecting stage at Lewisburg, were given preference after those who registered for seats.  In April 1829 the stage line from Guyandotte to Lewisburg was purchased by Peter and Beldon; and by the close of

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1830 stages were running tri-weekly, and the company advertised to make the trip by daylight and to rest on Sunday, although, when the roads when bad condition and the stages were delayed, the passengers got little sleep.

The extension of the road to the "perfect wilderness" at the Kentucky line, by "foreign engineers," was criticized as an egregious blunder because it tended toward the "destruction of a flourishing Virginia town (Guyandotte) and because its terminus was closed for a large part of the year by obstacles which Kentucky probably would not help to remove.  This argument was used especially by those who advocated a branch road from Charleston down the Kanawha to Point Pleasant as a means to connect with the Ohio road.

Early in 1831 in accordance with the regulations of the post office department relating to mail stages, and to avoid delays in the mail, the stage drivers were prohibited from doing errands excepting the carrying of medicine.  The mail contracts enabled the company to run daily stages.  In establishing this line the speed

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was increased so that 75 to 80 miles were covered in a day - "nearly if not altogether accomplished in daylight."  For a while Point Pleasant and Gallipolis mail was carried from Coalsmouth on horseback but later it was dispatched from Charleston by water.  In July 1831 the increase of travel eastward compelled the contractors to put on extra stages.  The steamers connecting with the stage lines at Guyandotte and at Charleston were doing a good business.  In 1832 the stage line carried mail daily, although under contract to do so only six days a week.  Late in the year, however, the postmaster general established a daily mail from Richmond to Guyandotte.  At the close of 1833 this was reduced to a tri-weekly mail.  By 1837 the mail, carried in the regular passengers stages, was transmitted from Richmond to Guyandotte in four and one-half days.

In 1831 there was considerable opposition to the increases tolls on the portion of the turnpike which had been completed above Gauley Bridge.  Objection was made to the law requiring not only the stages but also the individual passengers to pay a heavy toll.  At the Gauley river and Greenbrier river bridges 6-1/4 cents was collected from each passenger.  Those who at first refused to pay finally yielded to the strong arm of the law.  The "Daily Stage" line, which had been "established at great expenditure," and in the face of great obstacles, applied to the legislature of an "abatement of excessive tolls to which the stages would be subjected," but without success.  In 1832 the House of Delegates by a vote of 72 to 44 passed a bill authorizing the James River Company to regulate from time to time the tolls on stage coaches using the Kanawha turnpike.  By an act on March 6, 1833 the toll previously charged passengers on the stage coach or riding carriage crossing the Gauley bridge and Greenbrier bridge was abolished.  Notwithstanding the tolls the stage line attracted much travel which previously had gone a more circuitous route.  The scenery along the route was an attraction to many travelers.

In 1832 Hall and Trotter of Kentucky established a tri-weekly line of stages from the mouth of the Big Sandy to Guyandotte where it connected with the Kanawha stage line of Porter, Beldon & Co.  At Big Sandy this line connected with a stage line for

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Lexington, Kentucky.  In order to improve westward connections, Kentucky in 1837 began two turnpikes, one heading toward Owensville, thence to connect with Maysville and Lexington turnpike, and the other down the Ohio.  At Lewisburg connection was made with Caldwell's line which extended eastward through White Sulphur, Salt Sulphur and Sweet Springs, and Fincastle and at Teaks' on Blue Ridge intersected with the line leading east to Lynchburg and Richmond or south to Salem where it connected with the great valley line to Huntsville and Nashville.  White Sulphur Springs, a resort which has been crowded with visitors during the warm season of each year since its first opening in 1818, was reached from Washington in three days travel, by steamboat to Fredericksburg, thence by stage via Charlottesville Staunton, and Warm Springs.  Callahan's celebrated tavern 13 miles east of White Sulphur was the center of travel from all directions - Pennsylvania, Maryland, and North Carolina - and an interjunction of several mail routes.

In the Gazetteer of Virginia published in 1835 appears a vivid description of the route from Covington westward over the mountains"

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   To describe the stage coaches: They were but after the style of the overland coach carried by the late Buffalo Bill with his show only finer and more pretentious.  They were highly varnished and painted, and in the earlier days had a name painted on them after the battles of the Mexican war, such as "Monterey," "Buena Vista," and "Palo Alto," etc.  Baggage was carried on top and

on a boot behind.  The springs were of leather and did not do much towards smoothing the journey.  The coaches were hauled by from four to six horses.

STAGE DRIVERS

The stage drivers, who were usually young but expert in their line of work, were aristocratic in their bearing, stopping at the best taverns and conversing freely with their passengers.  The horses behind which they wielded the whip were the finest that could be obtained from the blue grass region of Kentucky or the Valley of Virginia, and were dressed in the finest harness ornamented in brass.

Each stage driver drove at a rapid rate, swiftly turning the shortest curves of the mountain without fear of danger.  Unless halted by prospective passengers, he seldom stopped until he reached a relay station, or stage stand, the approach to which being announced by blasts from the tin horn which he always carried at his side.  For his expert service he received about $1.00 per day, the highest wage paid on the road at that time.

The following who lived n Fayette county are remembered as stage coach drivers: Micajah, Matthias, Thomas and John Smailes, all brothers, who lived on Big Sewell mountain; Joseph M. Smailes, son of Micajah Smailes, now living at Jodie, W. Va.; Nathaniel

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STAGE COACH DRIVERS

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Smailes brother of J. M. Smailes; Joseph Crow, Sydney B. Clews, William Cannady, and John Cannady, of Sewell Mountain; George Andrews of Little Sewell; Henry Haynes of Sewell Mountain district; Alexander Thompson of Mountain Cove; John Zimmerman and John Beets of Hico; P. S. Zimmerman and John Walker of Ansted; James Paddleford and Alex Gunnell of Gauley Bridge; William Hawkins of Kanawha Falls; Daniel Nihoof of Boomer; Joseph Perkins, also known as Jehu Jo Perkins, who lived near Boomer; and Dick Vandever who made the last trip from Charleston to Lewisburg in 1873.

PROPRIETORS OF THE FAMOUS STAGE STANDS

It is interesting to know the names of the houses and of the proprietors who made famous the great stage stands along the James River and Kanawha Turnpike.  The list is as follows:

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THE OLD STONE TAVERN

Nestling in a beautiful cove at the western foot of Big Sewell mountain in Fayette county stands the Old Stone Tavern, on of the most famous a well as the most popular of the road houses of the stage coach days.

When Virginia began to settle her domain beyond the Alleghanies, she found it necessary to build roads into that territory and in doing so she followed the old Indian trails across the mountains,

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up hill and down dale, through the passes and gaps.  It began at Richmond, Virginia, on the James river, running up through Piedmont and on through the Rockfish valley and crossed the Blue Ridge at Afton into the valley of Virginia crossing the Shenandoah at Waynesboro, following the Middle river on through Staunton and crossing North mountain through Buffalo gap, winding its way ever westward along the waters of the Greenbrier, to White Sulphur Springs where it leaves the water courses and crosses the smaller mountains into western Virginia, over Meadow mountains, Bushy Ridge, Little and Big Sewell, and on to the valley of the Great Kanawha.

Big Sewell is the highest and most picturesque of the several mountains forming the Alleghany range in this, the center of the "Mountain State" and represents vast values being underlaid with the finest bituminous coal and covered with the finest timber.

Along this picturesque thoroughfare was operated a famous line of coaches, before the days of the railroads.  At stated intervals along this line it was found necessary to establish road houses for the accommodation of the vast hordes who used this route, and the Old Stone Tavern was one of the mot popular of these stopping places along this, the James river and Kanawha turnpike which is the oldest and most used road from the South and East to the Ohio and beyond.

It was over this historic road that the savage tribes of Indians from the West travelled to prey upon the settlers of Virginia.  It was along this way that the Trans-Alleghany pioneers, facing the perils of the forest, savages and the elements, went when they blazed the trail from the security of the eastern settlements and et their faces towards the setting sun.  It was over this route that the armies of both the North and South pushed into West Virginia, and this Old Stone Tavern was at different times the headquarters of General Lee and General Rosecrans.  It was over this road and by this old Tyree Inn that supplies were hauled by ox-cart, mules and horses to those who made the first permanent settlements on the Ohio, and along this way came back the salt from the salt wells at Malden to go to all parts of the East to Virginia, Maryland, and the two Carolinas.

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   The Old Stone Tavern was popular because of its location, being situated almost at the half way place between Charleston in the west and Lewisburg in the east, and because it stood in its simple beauty in the midst of some of the finest scenery of this or any other country, surrounded by towering hills covered with stately trees, and on the banks of a beautiful creek which winds around the base of the bluffs and through the gorges ever seeking lower land and tumbling through deep ravines and over high cliffs making, in its onward way many beautiful fall, and finally reaching the wonderful New river at what in the old days was Bowyer's Ferry, but now is Sewell on the C. & O. railroad; thence through the Great Kanawha, Ohio and Mississippi to its ultimate resting place in the Gulf of Mexico.

The waters around the Old Tavern are filled with mountain trout, the speckled beauties of song and story, while there jutting over the landscape on all sides are cliffs and crags from which eagles and hawks scream their hunting cry.  In the days when the stage coach was "the cannon ball" of passenger traffic, the hills and mountains around this noted old place were full of deer and even the bear made his habitat here and the untold acres of virgin forest were filled with all the smaller game from mink to fox, and even to this day the hills abound in squirrel, rabbit, quail and pheasant and the elusive fox is a source of great pleasure to those who delight in following the hounds.

The Tyree Road House, or Old Stone Tavern as it has been called in different periods, was built by Sam Tyree in 1824 and continued in the Tyree family until 1884 when it was purchased, along with many other tracts of land in this immediate section, by the Longdale Iron Company.  After that company began to develop its coal property at Cliff Top, which is two miles west of the Old Stone Tavern, it was allowed to get into a dilapidated condition, being used as a tenement house and had the appearance of an old garment being cast aside because it had outgrown its usefulness.

When the Babcock Coal & Coke Co. secured the property from the Longdale Iron Co., they acquired along with the rest of it the Old Stone Tavern, and at the instigation of ex-Governor William A. MacCorkle of West Virginia, repaired and restored it until now

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it stands as a monument, not only to the pioneers who built it, but also to Mayor E. V. Babcock and his brother Fred of Pittsburg, Pa., who for sentimental reasons, and a desire to preserve the historic landmarks of the country, spent several thousand dollars putting this old house back into its original condition of repair.

The house is a two-story building, built of native stone with wooden porches and roof.  The lumber used in it was whip-sawed and dressed by hand, the rafters are unhewn poles, the laps and splices held together by wooden pins.  The old wainscoting which has in great measure been preserved, was made by hand from the tree to the wall.  The laths used in the building were rived by hand from oak timber and smoothed with a draw knife and put o with nails made by hand in the local blacksmith shop.  Taken all in all this is a most remarkable building with a most remarkable history.

Among the men whose names were prominent in public affairs a century ago, who at some time enjoyed the hospitality of the Tyree Road House, are Henry Clay, Andrew Jackson, Thomas H. Benton,

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Daniel Webster, John C. Breckinridge and hundreds of others who stood in the forefront and fought the battles of progress and civilization.

While the men of affairs were being entertained within the spacious walls of the Old Stone Tavern, the aristocrats of the equine race were being care for in the old log stable that still stands.  It was made of hewn logs fifty feet long by thirty feet wide and some thirty feet high and is a model of excellence in the construction of log buildings, and that it still stands today four square to the elements speaks well for its architects.

The Old Stone Tavern standing on the James River and Kanawha Turnpike, which is now a link in the Great Midland Trail, and can be reached from the East or from the West, stand now as it then stood with arms outstretched to the weary traveller and bids a hearty welcome to all.

We are indebted to Jas. M. Callahan's "Semi-Centennial History of West Virginia for much of the data included in this chapter.

The foregoing text was taken directly, verbatim, from The History Of Fayette County, West Virginia as it was originally written.  This book was written by J. T. Peters and H. B. Carden.  It was published in 1926 by the Fayette County Historical Society, Inc., Fayetteville, West Virginia, and printed by Jarrett Printing Company, Charleston, West Virginia.  All rights reserved.

[Table Of Contents]
[ Dedication | Foreword ]
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[ 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 ]
[ 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 ]