Stagecoach Way-Bills 1829-1832

Although the Greyhound Bus was not around in the 1820's, the stage coach certainly was. Lake County (then Geauga) had transportation in at least two directions fairly early on in its history. A wonderful little manuscript collection at the Ohio History Connection's Library and Archives has proof of these stage coach lines in the form of original way-bills.¹

Of the 37 documents in the collection the earliest is from 1826 and it appears that it ran from Erie to Mentor with stops in Fairview (likely the township in Erie County, Pennsylvania), Ashtabula, Wrightsburg (called Saybrook since 1827), Madison, and Painesville.

The other way-bills are from a north-south line running from Fairport Harbor to Warren and beyond. In plotting all the stops on a map, it appears they would be, in order, Fairport Harbor, Painesville, Chardon, Burton, Nelson, Batavia (now Middlefield), Parkman, Farmington, Warren, Youngstown, and Poland. People got on or off at any of the stops.

There were never more than six people on a way-bill, sometimes only one, and several had no passengers at all. A few shipped items like a ream of paper, or a trunk, or a case of tools.

The Ashtabula published an advertisement for the "New Union Line of Mail Coaches" in June 1830.² It touted its daily routes from Fairport or Ashtabula to Wheeling, Virginia, the trip taking only 2 days, or 2 ½ days from Erie. The Fairport stage would take off shortly after the steam boats from Detroit and Buffalo docked, about 8 to 10 am. It arrived in Warren about 12 hours later. The Fairport line would pass by Painesville, Chardon, Parkman, Warren, Canfield, N. Lisbon, Wellsville, Steubenville, Wellsburgh, Virginia to Wheeling. The passengers began the Fairport trip at the" Stage House at A. Cable's Steam Boat Hotel. " The ad lists the proprietors, most running hotels or other stops in their towns, as Rufus S. Reed, Erie, Pa.; H. J. Rees, Ashtabula, O.; John P. Converse, Parkman, O.; J. L. Van Gorder, Warren, O. ; D. Watson, New Lisbon, O. ; J. Feehan, Wellsville, VA., J. Jenkinson, Steubenville, O.; O. J. Gardiner, J. C. Campbell, and D. Brown, Wellsburgh, Va.

The men who accepted passenger and baggage fares in the small number of way-bills in this collection were: Jas. Belden, C. Brant, John P. Converse, D. Graves, L. N. Hoyt, J. Peoples, W. Phillips, Scott Sath[?], John Smiliey, J. L. VanGorder, J. S. Wallbridge, N. Williams, and D. S. Worley.

There are other local way-bills in manuscript collections, one being 1820-1829 at Western Reserve Historical Society (MS 3345). There are a few online as well.

Transcription Details

This is a transcription of each of the fronts of the 37 way-bills in the collection at Ohio History Connection. The backs consist of filing information which is, for the most part included on the fronts.The date column was derived from the top of the way-bill, or if absent, from the back. Ditto marks and spacing indicating the meaning of ditto marks were transcribed as the text they intended. This was usually in the form of a signature between lines indicating the same person accepted the money from two or three passengers. Chd probably means charged, and was written with the superscript d, Anything in square brackets is a transcriber comment.