A Stagecoach Waybill

The railroad came to Concord in 1844. Until train travel became the dominant form of transportation, stagecoach lines and the hotels that served them did good business here. In his A History of the Town of Concord, Lemuel Shattuck wrote, “Public Stages were first run out of Boston into the country through Concord, in 1791, by Messrs. John Vose & Co. There are now (1833), on an average, 40 stages which arrive and depart weekly, employing 60 horses between Boston and Groton, and carrying about 350 passengers; 150 have passed in one day.” William Shepherd (owner of Shepherd’s Hotel on Main Street) ran a line of stages between Concord and Boston from 1817. Stages also stopped at the Middlesex Hotel.

This Harvard & Groton Accommodation Stage waybill records the details (passengers, boarding and destination points, and charges) of a trip from Boston on February 23, 1843, and shows that the payments collected were turned over to Sam Staples—at that time manager of the Middlesex Hotel, which was owned by his father-in-law Thomas Wesson. The passengers included Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, who got on at the American House on Hanover Street in Boston and traveled to Concord.