AUGUST 2013

The Last Stand of the Stagecoach

Cape Cod Life  /  August 2013 / ,

Writer: Sara Hoagland Hunter / Photographer: Maddie McNamara 

The Last Stand of the Stagecoach

AUGUST 2013

Cape Cod Life  /  August 2013 / ,

Writer: Sara Hoagland Hunter / Photographer: Maddie McNamara 

The next time you are stuck in midsummer traffic, crawling your way across the Bourne Bridge and cursing all motorized vehicles, turn up your air conditioning and consider traveling around Cape Cod in a time before modern conveniences.

Relics of the horse-drawn era are embedded in Cape Cod’s history.

Relics of the horse-drawn era are embedded in Cape Cod’s history.

From the mid-1700s to the mid-1800s, the sole alternative to walking, horseback riding, or a packet sailboat from Cape Cod Bay was the stagecoach—a narrow, springless carriage that jostled up to eight passengers, their baggage, and, often, the daily mail, behind four slow-moving horses. And the teeth-clattering ride on hard seats over rutted sand paths spawned a growth industry of tavern stops, some of which remain fixtures on Cape Cod’s roads today.

Relics of the horse-drawn era are embedded in Cape Cod’s history.

Photo by Maddie McNamara

In his book Cape Cod, Henry David Thoreau devotes an entire chapter to his coach journey through the Cape’s towns during the waning days of the stagecoach. His nostalgic view of the “good humor” of his “free and easy” fellow passengers and the leisurely unfolding of small town scenes as the stagecoach passes from village to village serves as a welcome reminder of a slower-paced Cape Cod.

Relics of the horse-drawn era are embedded in Cape Cod’s history.

As this new form of transportation grew in prominence, Keith Car Works of Sagamore reinvented itself into a nationally renowned stagecoach manufacturer. Begun in 1826 as a small blacksmith shop, the company first made sleighs before constructing stagecoaches. Bourne selectman and historian Donald “Jerry” Ellis describes the stagecoaches from Keith Car Works as the “Cadillac of carriages between Yarmouthport, Harwich, and the Lower Cape.”

Relics of the horse-drawn era are embedded in Cape Cod’s history.

Photo by Maddie McNamara

Sara Hoagland Hunter

Sara Hoagland Hunter is a longtime contributor to Cape Cod Life Publications and her articles have covered a visit to the dune shacks at Sandy Neck Beach in West Barnstable as well as a fun feature on seven Cape & Islands country stories. Sara has written ten books for children including her most recent, Every Turtle Counts, which is based on the massive rescue operation of earth’s rarest sea turtles on the shores of Cape Cod which won a Ben Franklin gold award and was named an outstanding classroom science book by the National Science Teachers Association and the Children’s Book Council. Her book The Lighthouse Santa celebrates the Christmas flights of Edward Rowe Snow who dropped presents for 40 years to families safeguarding Cape and Island lighthouses. The Unbreakable Code about the Navajo Code Talkers of WWII earned a Smithsonian award, a Western Writers of America award, and was the Arizona book of the year gifted to each of the state’s 100,000 fourth graders.