On May 10, 1808, the following notice appeared in the Western Repository newspaper in Canandaigua:
WESTERN MAIL STAGE
The subscriber informs the public that he intends carrying the Mail from this place (Canandaigua) to Niagara in a STAGE COACH, to commence on the 1st Monday of May next under the following regulations, viz: Will leave Canandaigua every Monday at 6 O’Clock, A.M. and arrive at Niagara, by way of Buffalo, every Thursday, at 9 A.M. Leave Niagara every Thursday, at 3 P.M. and arrive at Buffalo on Friday, at 5 P.M. Leave Buffalo the same evening and arrive in Canandaigua the Sunday following at 5 P.M. The subscriber informs the Ladies and Gentlemen that he has furnished himself with a convenient carriage and good horses, and that no attention on his part Shall be wanting to render their seats pleasant and agreeable. Rates of fare will be 6 cents per mile, including 14 lbs. baggage.
JOHN METCALF, Canandaigua, April 26, 1808
With that notice, stagecoach service to Niagara County started on a regular basis, the same year that the county was established. The primary purpose of the stages was the delivery of the mail and passenger service was an added accommodation (similar to the British RMS (Royal Mail Streamer) ocean liners). The route the stage traversed was the Genesee and Ontario Turnpike, which followed an Indian trail and was an extension of the Great Genesee Road that stretched across New York state from the Mohawk Valley to Canandaigua. It is present-day NYS Route 5. When the stagecoach left Buffalo, it headed north along the Niagara River to Black Rock and then connected with the “Military Road” to Niagara Falls. Before the War of 1812, some passengers choose to cross the Niagara River into Canada and continue their journey on that side since the roads were in better condition. They would then cross back over into the United States at Lewiston and either go to Niagara Falls south on the Military Road or to Fort Niagara via a boat or the River Road.
By 1816, sufficient improvements had been made to “Ridge Road” (Rt. 104) through Niagara County that stagecoach companies were now offering direct routes to Niagara Falls and Lewiston without going to Buffalo first. The Coe Brothers of Canandaigua started a line from that village, and Samuel Hildreth ran one out of Rochester. In 1823, a young man named John Gooding came from Henrietta to Lockport and bought a large tract of land on the northern edge of the village bordering on the Niagara Escarpment. A few years later, Gooding, who was a deacon in the Presbyterian Church, was outraged to learn that stagecoaches not only operated on Sundays, but also delivered the U.S. mail on the Sabbath as well. In 1828, to counter this perceived violation of the Lord’s Day, Gooding joined other men across the state and started a new stage line that would not run or carry the mail on Sundays. Called the Pioneer Line, the service operated between Albany and Buffalo six days a week. Coming from the east, the Pioneer stages would turn north at Canandaigua to reach the Ridge Road. Upon arrival at Wrights’ Corners, the stages traveled to Lockport before returning to the Ridge and continuing on to Lewiston, then Niagara Falls and eventually, Buffalo. Gooding used elliptical-shaped coaches in the warm weather months, while utilizing a rectangular box coach on skids in the winter. The area became known as “Pioneer Hill” because of the stage line that stopped there. Initially, the Pioneer stage line competed favorably with the other stages but when they bid on the U.S. mail contract and lost to another line that operated on Sundays, it became apparent that most people were not willing to give up their Sunday mail or the convenience of traveling on that day. After two years of operation, the Pioneer Line was abandoned.
With the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825, competition for passengers heated up. Several stage lines went out of business, but others expanded by offering transportation to places not reached by the canal. Compared to the smooth ride on a packet boat, stage coach travel was not the most comfortable or enjoyable experience, but it provided a necessary and more affordable service before the advent of trains and automobiles. In 1832, when British traveler Frances Trollope arrived by stagecoach at Wright’s Corners, she wrote, “when this ridge ceased, the road ceased too, and for the rest of the way to Lockport, we were most painfully jumbled and jolted over logs and through bogs, till every joint was nearly dislocated.”
Stages were so common, and kept to such tight schedules, that horses used on regular routes were so accustomed to the routine that it was possible for them to pull a coach from one stop to the next without the benefit of a driver. This happened in Lockport in the winter of 1837 when a “stage sleigh” arrived at the Eagle Hotel and, when disembarking, the passengers were startled to find there was no driver. The horses had left him at the last stop when he was late returning to the coach.
As the 19th century went on and trains became more common and convenient, fewer people were using stagecoaches for travel. However, even as late as 1900, the Lockport City Directory listed seven stage lines that operated throughout the county, most of them running out of the local Wells Fargo offices. This was the last year that stage lines appeared in the directories, although some may have continued into the first years of the 20th century until the automobile finally put an end to this century-long enterprise in Niagara County.