Editor's Note - A version of this
article first appeared in The Pelham Weekly,
Vol. XII, No. 38, Sept. 26, 2003, at p. 1, col. 1.
On the coach for Pelham, Hear the long
horn blowing;
Dashing on for Pelham, Bless me! How we’re going,
Sound the horn “yo ho!” again, Snap the whip now,
Colonel Kane!
Give the “four-in-hand” full rein, Be on time at
Pelham
From the Song “Coaching To Pelham”
Published 1876
(Two Different Covers to the Music Appear Below)
There was a time in the 19th century when New
Yorkers thought of Pelham as “The
Country” – a romanticized area in the region north of Manhattan dotted
with tiny, quaint villages. “Pelham,” then, was less like today’s
Pelham and more like the Manor of Pelham: a massive acreage that Thomas
Pell carved out of 17th century wilderness lands purchased
from Siwanoys on June 27, 1654. The City of New York had not yet
annexed much of the land that later became Pelham Bay Park and large
portions of the Bronx.
In 1876 a horse-drawn road coach known as “The Pelham
Coach” began running between New York City’s Hotel Brunswick and the
“Pelham Manor” of yore. This road coach was not a simple hired coach
that ferried passengers from New York City in the days before Henry Ford
mass produced his
Model
T. Rather, this road coach was driven by Colonel Delancey Kane, one of
the so-called “millionaire coachmen,” who engaged in a sport known as
“public coaching” or “road coaching” as it sometimes was called. The
sport, conducted pursuant to the published rules of The New York
Coaching Club, has been described as follows:
“Public coaching, as it was called when it was a flourishing anachronism
in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early years of the
twentieth, is . . . now quite forgotten. It was one of those curious
but artificial customs that suddenly drop into oblivion. . . . [Records
of the sport] furnish a droll and flickering insight into the lives of
that very small group of Americans, born and bred to wealth and leisure,
whose influence on the nation’s social and economic life was so
disproportionate to their numbers.”
The story of Colonel Delancey Kane and The Pelham Coach
inspired three popular songs published in 1876. This article explores
the story behind those songs.
The Sport of
Public Coaching
The history of the sport of coaching is interesting in
its own right. The sport reportedly grew out of mail runs that began in
England and made their way to the colonies. By the early- to mid-19th
century, horse-drawn mail coaches were replaced in many locations by
railroads. It was then that nostalgia led to the development of
coaching as a sport.
The sport is much more involved than might appear. It
might be described as a sport of spectacle. It was as much about the
display of the carriage, costumes and traditions as about the need for
getting from one place to another – much like fox hunting might be said
to be about much more than merely the fox. The coachman, or whip, and
the coachman’s “guard” actually engaged in the sport. Coach passengers
were “along for the ride” – and to be part of the spectacle.
Considerable skill was required to drive four-in-hand.
The more skillful and avid practitioners of the sport banded together in
“clubs”. The “Four-in-Hand Club” began in England in 1856. The
competing “Coaching Club” began there as well in 1870. In 1875, Col.
Delancey Kane and William Jay formed The New York Coaching Club.
According to a brief history of coaching as a sport published for an
exhibition of carriages sponsored by The Museums at Stony Brook in 1999,
The New York Coaching Club held its first meet in 1876 at Madison
Square. That history further says:
“The Club, which thrived for decades, began excursions at the Hotel
Brunswick (Fifth Avenue between 26th and 27th
Streets) and drove north on Riverside Drive to Pelham or east to Long
Island. The costumes and coaches, the clatter of horses’ hooves on the
pavement and the skill of the drivers made the Coaching Club meets
dramatic and popular public spectacles.”
It turns out that such coaching “meets” were not the
epitome of the sport of coaching. Rather, according to one author who
has studied the sport, the “supreme achievement for a Coaching Club
member was to own and drive a public coach that ran regularly between
fixed termini on an announced schedule and carried paying passengers.”
And, according to an authoritative book on coaching (including the sport
of public coaching): “Every one who runs a public coach takes a pride
in making it come as nearly as possible to paying expenses; to do which
requires a systematic, businesslike management.” Col. Delancey Kane
achieved the epitome of the sport and ran his public coach for some time
between the Hotel Brunswick and “Pelham Manor”.
Prospective passengers booked The Pelham Coach long in
advance. The daily
coach
left Hotel Brunswick at 10:30 a.m. and arrived at the “old Lorillard
home near Pelham Bridge” (in what now is the Bronx) at noon. Passengers
would enjoy the countryside and, perhaps, picnic for four hours. Then,
the coach would depart on its return trip promptly at 4:00 p.m.,
arriving at the Hotel Brunswick promptly at 5:30. Often passengers
ended their festive day with dinner in the famed restaurant of the Hotel
Brunswick.
Hotel Brunswick, Detail from Sheet
Music Published in 1876
What Was a
“Coach to Pelham” Like?
A coach to Pelham was a festive and traditional event.
Coachmen dressed in fine garb occasionally including white box coats,
top-boots, high hats and large nosegays on their breasts. Traditional
coaching horn calls were used for everything from clearing the road
ahead to signaling an upcoming change of horses.
Undated Advertisement for The Pelham Coach,
Courtesy of The Office of The Historian of The Town of Pelham
Col. Delancey Kane’s road coaching exploits became so
famous that Harper’s New Monthly Magazine devoted an article to
his exploits in its July, 1876 issue. The article, which extolled the
nostalgia and virtues of road coaching, contains a glowing account of
The Pelham Coach:
“In this pastime [road coaching] several New Yorkers have taken
degrees. Stage-coach driving in England by Americans has not, indeed,
been wholly unknown hitherto, but never before has there been a club and
a system, and for the first time the taste and the practice have been
transferred to this country. This has been done so effectively that the
lounger upon [Fifth Avenue] may now see all the poetry of
stage-coaching, so far as an arbitrary imitation can restore it.”
“A true English coach, with its spacious outside accommodations, whirls
up to the door of the Hotel Brunswick, which for readers of the year
2876 who may make excavations in our magazine literature, the [editor]
will record is at the southeastern corner of Fifth Avenue and
Twenty-sixth Street. It is an attractive-looking house, and its sunny
southern aspect in toward Madison Square. The dining-room, on the lower
floor, and opening upon the square, recalls, on a warm spring day, the
pleasant cafés of Paris in the early summer. . . . [T]he Hotel
Brunswick is an exceedingly desirable place to which to return after a
gay excursion into the country. Before the coach has reined up at the
door, however, the sound of a real horn, blown by a real English guard,
has been heard; and when the coach stops, a coachman in a white
box-coat, with top-boots, and a large nosegay at his breast, throws down
the ‘ribbons’ which guide the four horses, each with a nosegay at his
left ear, and so leaps to the sidewalk. This driver is a gentleman of
New York, Mr. Delancey Kane, who drives the coach daily to the Markis of
Granby, or more accurately, to the old Lorillard House, at Pelham
Bridge.”
“The gay company, whose names have been booked long before, climb to
their seats. The attentive guard sees that all is right. Then the
accomplished driver mounts the box, takes the ribbons, or the lines, or
the reins – as they are variously called by the spectators – the guard
winds his horn, the crowd stares, the horses start, and up the Avenue
rolls the stage-coach, the ‘buses drawing out of the way, and all of the
‘town’ that is on the street looking on content. Swiftly through the
leaving and blossoming Park, along the broad way beyond, over the
bridge, and out to the placid fields of Westchester the team gallops and
runs. Presently, it is changed. The good-humored passengers, excited
by the novelty of the circumstances and the beauty of the landscape,
enjoy the scene, familiar, yet strange, and in an hour and a half have
reached their bourn, and alight. Four hours with luncheon swiftly
pass. Then on with the coach, let joy be unconfined; and galloping and
running back again, the coach dashes up on time at the Brunswick, and
the ‘lark’ is ended. Except, indeed that the passengers will not
forget to fee the driver and the guard, who both bow respectfully, and
pocket the two shillings from each one of the company.”
“It is as good a bit of poetic stage-coaching as could be had . . . .”
As the account in Harper’s suggests, the
spectacle of public coaching was steeped in tradition. Although grooms
and others supported the drive, the two-man team that handled the coach
consisted of a coachman and a “guard” who assisted the passengers and
handled the horn and its various melodies. Each melody had its own
traditional meaning.
Four or five minutes before the scheduled departure, the
guard would place a step-ladder at the side of the coach and sing out
“Coach!” as a signal for the passengers to take their places. Two
minutes before the scheduled departure, the coachman would have his
“apron” (an over garment) buckled and would take up the reins and “mount
the box” (box seat) ready to depart. The coachman then would compare
his clock with the guard’s and call out “hold fast!” “sit tight!” or
another such warning to the passengers which would be repeated by the
guard. This was also the signal for the grooms to finalize preparation
of the horses so the coach could depart.
According to one account, as the coach traveled through
the city, or any town for that matter, the guard would “remain standing,
sounding his horn as he sees the necessity for it. Once out of town,
the guard may take his seat, standing, however, when it is necessary to
sound the horn.” On quiet country roads one might sometimes drive for
miles without needing the horn “except to sound the relay”. There were
special coach-horn calls for “the start”, “clear the road”, “steady”,
“slacken pace”, “change horses”, and “home”, among others. As the coach
passed along Fifth Avenue spectators cheered.
Near the beginning of its trip, the Pelham Coach
traveled the newly-constructed carriage drives in Central Park and
headed for Riverside Drive and north. Though passengers were along for
the spectacle and the sights, they would at times break into song.
One excitement of the trip was “the change” of horses –
horses “staged” for the coach along the way. Upon approaching the
staged team of horses and their grooms, the guard would begin signaling
the change with the horn and the coach would approach a team of horses
steadied by grooms and would “pull up some feet beyond it”. In
meticulous precision that would impress the most demanding clockmaker,
the grooms would unhook the spent team of horses and replace them with a
fresh team in under five minutes – a particularly difficult feat given
the complexity of the equipment involved.
An arrival, as one would imagine, was always a flurry of
activity. The guard would assist passengers off the coach and grooms
would scurry about, unhitching and caring for the team.
Songs About
Coaching to Pelham
The festive public spectacle of Col. Delancey Kane’s
four-in-hand team attracted attention far and wide and brought fame to
“Pelham.” That fame was so widespread
that composers wrote at least three songs in 1876 dedicated to the sport
of Coaching to Pelham. People soon were singing and humming about
coaching to Pelham.
In 1876, the American Music Publishing Company published
sheet music for the song “Coaching To Pelham”. The song, with words by
W.A. Armstrong and music by Charles E. Pratt, was “Respectfully
Dedicated To Col. Delancey Kane and The Coaching Club of New York.” The
words of the song emphasize, once again, the festiveness involved in
coaching as the bugler sounds the horn and Colonel Kane “snaps the
whip”:
Jump on board now,
one and all, Take the coach for Pelham,
Hark! The Bugler sounds the call, “All aboard for Pelham”
Good bye Brunswick Here we go, Rocking on to Pelham,
Up and down, and to and fro, On the coach for Pelham.
Chorus
On the coach for
Pelham, Hear the long horn blowing;
Dashing on for Pelham, Bless me! How we’re going,
Sound the horn “yo-ho!” again, Snap the whip now, Colonel Kane!
Give the “four-in-hand” full rein, Be on time at Pelham.
Nobly gents in seats
on top, Coaching it to Pelham,
Always ready for a stop, On the way to Pelham.
Lovely ladies dressed so neat. Taking coach to Pelham,
Chatting ever such a treat, As a ride to Pelham.
Chorus
Oh! It is a charming
sight, From the coach for Pelham,
Joyful times and prospects bright, As we drive to Pelham.
Over bridge and hill and dale, Speeding on for Pelham,
See! The town at last we hail, Just on time at Pelham.
Chorus
The same year, Wm. A. Pond & Co. published sheet music
for the song “Hip! Hip!! Hurrah!!! Or On The Road To Pelham.” The
song and chorus were written by S. Schoenbrun and included an engraving
showing Col. Delancey Kane and his “Four-In-Hand Team” on the cover.
Also in
1876, Oliver Ditson & Co. published sheet music for the song “New
Rochelle
and
Pelham Coach Galop”. The song, an instrumental with no lyrics, was
composed by Samuel H. Speck. As in the other two instances, the song
was “respectfully dedicated to Colonel Delancey Kane”. The cover of the
sheet music included a lovely engraving of the coach, driven by Col.
Delancey Kane, as well as engravings that included the coach in front of
the Hotel Brunswick and the bridge traveled by the coach as it left
upper Manhattan.
Cover Sheet, New Rochelle and Pelham Coach Galop.
The Passing of the Road Coach Era in Pelham
It has been many years since a public coach driven
four-in-hand has clattered along the roads to Pelham. Given the rich
history of our Town and its surrounding area, though, it certainly is
not hard to imagine Col. Delancey Kane driving his steeds with his
passengers holding tight on top of the Pelham Coach marveling at the
beauty of the countryside in days when coaching to Pelham meant a
luncheon in the country far from the trials and tribulations of Gotham.
. . .
Blake A. Bell and
his family live in Pelham. Blake serves as Deputy Historian of the Town
of Pelham and Village Historian of the Village of Pelham. He and his
son, Brett, are avid students of Pelham history.
