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The Chariton Leader, Chariton, Iowa
Thursday, September 17, 1908
Uncle BEN BROCK, who was one of the pioneer stage drivers of this part of
Iowa, can give some interesting experience during his fourteen or fifteen
years in the service. A few days since he became reminiscent to the Leader
and again went back to the days when he drew the reins over the four horse
team of prancing steeds, cracked his whip and started over the route.
Uncle BEN is a native of Pennsylvania, but followed his avocation in
Illinois before coming to Iowa. Modern transportation methods made staging
unprofitable and so like the course of empire, was gradually crowded to the
west.
He tells of meeting a train of one hundred stage coaches and drivers coming
to Iowa -- and then he caught the inspiration. He principally drove between
Ottumwa and Des Moines, but the building of the Des Moines Valley railroad
drove him out of business. This was an evolution but he concluded to go no
further west, so retired from the strenuous life.
The exposure at times was intense, mounted high up on the box in all kinds
of weather -- night and day -- through blizzards, rain and mud. He also
says he never held any ill feelings toward the railroads for their part in
his retirement or asked a subsidy from the government because he could not
meet the competition, and therefore would have been eligible to a seat in
the legislature, but never urged the advancement.
One would hardly believe that stage drivers were superstitious, leaving that
to the navigators of the sea, but Uncle BEN says the dry land navigators
hold to their superstitions too. There were "hoo-do" stage coaches as well
as "hoo-do" ships. One coach he remembers that all refused to drive, it had
met with numerous accidents and to his knowledge three people had been
killed in its "up-sets," and the record was that six fatalities was due to
its ill-fated antics.
The old fashioned stage coach is now almost a thing of the past even in the
remote parts of the west and the old fashioned stage driver has almost
dropped from view but what few of him is left is nearing the sunset slope
and dwells largely in romance and the literature of the border days.
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Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
March 31, 2005
iggy29@rnetinc.net
http://www.rootsweb.com/~ialucas/Main.htm
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