A Stage Coach Vocabulary

• BOOT: the baggage compartment at the rear of the stage and also under the driver's seat; it was made of leather
• BOX: the stagecoach driver's seat
• BULL-WHACKER: a driver of a freight wagon, usually with oxen
• CARRY-ALL: a light, covered carriage holding several people
• CHARLIE: a stage coach driver
• CONCORD COACH: a stage coach made by Abbott, Downing Company, Concord, New Hampshire
• CORDUROY ROAD: a road created by logs laid across a swampy, low-lying area, placed together or "ribbed" like corduroy cloth
• EXPRESSMAN: a messenger carrying express items
• GROOM: a stableman, one who takes care of the horses
• HAME: one of two curved bars fitted to a horsecollar, holding the traces of a harness
• HOSTLER: a stableman
• JEHU: a stagecoach driver, taken from the name of a Biblical character who drove fast and furiously
• LEADERS: horses leading a four- or six-horse hitch
• LINES: reins
• REACHES: bars connecting rear axles with forward part of the coach
• REINSMAN: stagecoach driver
• RIBBONS: reins
• RIG: harness
• ROAD AGENT: a stagecoach robber
• "SHOTGUN": a stagecoach guard
• SINGLETREE: horizontal crossbar, to the ends of which the traces of a harness are attached
• STAGERS: men who ran the staging business
• STAGING: the business of carrying people and mail by stagecoach
• SWINGS: the horses in the middle position in a six-horse hitch
• THOROUGHBRACE: a leather strap of many layers supporting the stagecoach body
• TRACES: the side straps by which a horse pulls the stagecoach
• WHEELERS: the horses nearest the front of a stagecoach
• WHEELWRIGHT: the person who makes and repairs wheels
• WHIPPLETREE: the horizontal bar at the front of the stagecoach, to which singletress are attached
• WHIP: the stagecoach driver

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Created and maintained by Elizabeth Larson
1996, 1997 & 1998, 1999, 2000