Commodore Perry's namesake: Stage Coach Days 2

This is the second in a three-part series about stage coach days in south central and southwest Iowa that focuses specifically on two men who were among its pioneers --- Perry B. "Buckskin" Tracy and his partner, Stephen Clark. Part 1 may be found here.

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Stagecoach days on the main east-west line through Lucas County lasted only about 15 years, from July of 1853 when regular routes west from Fairfield were established, until 1868 --- when the Burlington & Missouri River Railroad, which had reached Chariton during July of 1867, established a depot in Osceola as it marched steadily west toward the Missouri River. 

Dan Baker, in his 1881 history of Lucas County, sets July 1, 1853, as the precise date stage service began and gives credit for establishing the line to the Western Stage Co. although it actually may have been established by that company's predecessor, John Frink & Co., which sold out to Western during 1854.

The reason for 1853 interest in the heart of southern Iowa was the fact the government land office had moved from Fairfield to Chariton during February of that year, turning just another muddy county seat village out there in the middle of nowhere into a major destination --- and something of a boom town, too.

Even then, however, as it was expanding west across Iowa, the stagecoach industry was dying, pushed west out of territories where it had originated and across the Mississippi by the ever-expanding U.S. rail network.

The stage company established three stops in Lucas County, one at LaGrange on the Lucas-Monroe county line, the second in Chariton and the third at Tallahoma, located northeast of the current site of Lucas in Liberty Township. LaGrange and Chariton were the major stops, where fresh teams of horses would be hitched to the coaches and rested drivers might climb aboard. Tallahoma, most likely, was more of a rest stop where passengers could stretch and mail for the surrounding rural neighborhoods would be delivered and outgoing letters picked up. A blacksmith would be on hand in case the horses or the coach needed attention, however, and fresh horses would have been available.

Passengers, once aboard a coach, usually were there for the duration of their journeys. Unless roads became impassable, travelers rarely disembarked for a good night's sleep.

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The Western Stage Co. had originated about 1840 in Pennsylvania as Moore & Co. The advance of railroads pushed it west into Ohio, where it became the Ohio Stage Co., and prospered until those pesky trans pushed it west again into Indiana and Illinois, where it became the Western. The rapid advance of rails in Illinois then pushed it across the Mississippi into Iowa, where during 1854 it purchased the assets of  John Frink & Co., which previously had been the industry leader here.

When the Western moved into Iowa, it was assumed that it would continue west into Nebraska and Kansas once our state's rail network reached the Missouri. That, however, didn't happen. Iowa proved to be the end of the line and the Western Stage Co. ceased operations after a final coach reportedly was dispatched westward from Des Moines during July of 1871.

The two gentlemen around whom this series of posts revolves, Perry B. "Buckskin" Tracy and Stephen Clark, apparently signed on with Western during its earliest days in Pennsylvania.

Leander Sickmon, another veteran stage driver who ended his days in Red Oak, died there on Aug. 6, 1902, age 87. His obituary in The Red Oak Express of Aug. 8 contains the recollection that prior to 1850, "for a number of years he drove stage between Erie and Waterford, Pa., his fellow workers being P. B. Tracy, familiarly known in later years in this county as "Buckskin" Tracy, and his partner, Steve Clark."

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Mr. Clark, as noted in an earlier post, was a reticent man --- so we know next to nothing about his early years. Mr. Tracy, however, was gregarious and outgoing, so we know a lot more about him. He also had a number of close friends in Red Oak at the time of his death during 1886 who saw to it that an informative obituary was published in The Express of Aug. 13 that year.

Perry was born Aug. 9, 1813, at Colt Station, just outside Waterford, in Erie County, Pennsylvania --- not far from Lake Erie --- to Jedediah and Mary "Polly" (Royce) Tracy, but moved with his family in 1815 to Mayville, in adjoining Chautauqua County, New York, where his parents operated a public house for many years. So he would have grown up there. And it is entirely possible that Stephen, also a New York native, had been a friend from boyhood.

Oliver Hazard Perry

Buck's obituary contains this little story about his name which Mr. Tracy most likely had told many times: "His birth place was in Pennsylvania on the border of Lake Erie where Commodore (Oliver Hazaard) Perry landed and where the historic battle was fought. from this event he derived his name. Being but a babe when the trouble occurred his mother hid him in a hollow log where she might shield him from the Indians. After the battle was over the citizens were invited onto the vessel by Commodore Perry, and Mrs. Tracy with her infant son was among the number. The Commodore was greatly pleased with the boy and named him Perry, afterward giving him a little monkey cap which he retained for many years and prized very highly."

The obituary goes on to state that, "When he came to years of boyhood he left the restraints of home and started out as a stage driver. From this he came to be the manager of the stage line and established routes westward, following the 'Course of Empire' as the railroads superseded him," ending up eventually in Chicago.

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There are tales out there of the caravans of coaches and veteran drivers that traveled into Iowa from Illinois once Western had purchased the assets of Frink & Co. in 1854. It's tempting to speculate that the partners, Tracy and Clark, were among them.

When the 1860 federal census was taken, Stephen Clark was enumerated in Chariton as "stage agent," resident of a hotel managed by Allan M. and Ellenora Wilson. This most likely was Henry Allen's old hotel on the southeast corner of the square which had doubled as the Western Stage Co.'s stop when routes were established in 1853.

Five stage drivers also were enumerated as hotel residents: Michael Yonkin, William Wiles, George (illegible), Charles Trotts and George Bohan.

We have no way of knowing how long Stephen had been serving as depot agent in Chariton, but do know that during 1858, Buck Tracy, by then the company's regional road agent, had blazed the Western Stage Co. route west from Chariton to the Missouri River through Montgomery County --- driving a buckboard.

Road agents were a step higher in the managerial pecking order than depot agents, but also led more active and harder lives. They worked the stage lines, driving or riding in coaches, recruiting drivers and blacksmiths, purchasing harness and other equipment, making sure the coaches were in good repair, supervising station agents, contracting with those who maintained stage stops that were not company owned and paying the bills.

Buck most likely was moving too fast for an 1860 census-taker to catch up with him, but his nephew, Perry T. Tracy, 18, who had come west from New York to Chariton that year to work for his uncle as a driver, was enumerated as such at the stage stop operated by Isaac Bolt at Sciola in eastern Montgomery County, the first Western Stage Co. outpost established by his uncle in that county.

I'll pick the story up here --- and conclude it --- another time.