Many, many years before the coming of the white man, the Indians travelled over a route leading from the mouth of the Columbia River to Puget Sound, by the way of Shoalwater Bay and Grays Harbor. As the whites began to settle the coast country, this was the route over which they carried their mail and supplies. Owing to the great influx of settlers in the early 1880s, passengers and mail were being taken over the route three times a week. The operation of three steamers and three stage lines was necessary in the carrying of mail and passengers from Astoria to Olympia, the capital of Washington Territory.
The first leg of the journey was by steamer. The General Canby, a tug of considerable size, built in South Bend, was run between Astoria and Ilwaco by way of Fort Stevens and Fort Canby.
The next leg, from Ilwaco to Oysterville, was by the Loomis Stage Line. The stage coach traveled right along the ocean beach!
Part three of the journey was by the little steamer Garfield, which crossed Shoalwater Bay from Oysterville to Bay Center, South Bend, Riverside, Woodard’s Landing, and North Cove.
At North Cove, passengers and mail were again transferred to a stagecoach for the run to Peterson’s Point, now known as Westport.
The fifth leg of the journey, from Peterson’s Point to Montesano was again by water on the little stern-wheeler Montesano.
The sixth, and final leg of the trip was by stage line from Montesano to Olympia
Total time for this incredible mail run — 60 hours!
Most years it was Lewis Loomis who procured the mail contract for the run from Astoria to Olympia. Years later, former stage driver Morehead told this story about the most memorable part of the journey:
In the operation of the stage line between Oysterville and Ilwaco, eight horses were used daily. These were of a bronco type, tough and wiry, of about one thousand pounds weight. The stage was a primitive affair, resembling a prairie schooner with both ends closed and an entrance on either side. At the back end was a strongly built ‘boot’ used for the purpose of carrying freight and baggage.
There were five seats, upon which fourteen passengers could be uncomfortably carried. But as no one was ever intentionally left, there was always ‘room for one more,’ and sometimes more than twenty passengers were crowded on. The driver’s seat was perched on the outside, where it had no protection whatever from the storms. There were no springs either under the seats or the body of the stage.
The road was confined to the hard sands of the ocean beach and made an ideal road when the tide was out but a very unsatisfactory one when the tide was high. The incoming swells would be allowed to come as high as possible around the stage before it could be swerved off the hard sand and when the swells receded a dash would be made over the firm sand until another swell approached. This would be repeated with each incoming swell until the trip was completed. Care always was needed to watch for the drift logs being carried back and forth on the swells, which would work havoc with the horses and the stage if they were struck by them.
Page after page has been written about the exploits and adventures of the old stage drivers of the mountains and plains, but one of those spectacular drivers would have had an experience that he never dreamed of had he found himself on the weather beach with a heavy load of passengers, two or three hours before daylight in the morning, with an eighty-mile gale blowing the cutting sand into his face and a ten-foot tide shooting the drift logs past his horses and the swells that only could be kept out of the stage by careful and watchful driving.
Their task was easy, compared with that of the beach driver, who three times a week was obliged to get out of bed at the unholy hour of two o’clock in the morning, go to the barn and feed, groom and harness his horses, eat his breakfast, hitch up and drive around the town, and out on the oyster beds gathering up his load so as to leave the hotel door promptly at four o’clock. All this by the light of a smoky lantern and very often in a driving storm. As the steamer awaited the return of the stage to Oysterville before leaving, and another was awaiting his arrival at Ilwaco, he was hurried at every point of the trip.
However, three mornings in the week, when only local passengers and mail were to be carried, he could sleep until the late hour of four in the morning. On these days heavy loads of freight were carried. Oysters, out of Oysterville, and general freight from Ilwaco for points all over the bay, and as far as Grays Harbor.
In looking over the old stage books, which the writer still has in his possession, it was noted that this incoming freight was made up largely of beer and saloon supplies. They had the right of way over luxuries such as flour and bacon. These books show the names of the majority of you old pioneers, and the history of the county, state and nation. Many of you that are now grandfathers were then riding for half fare, or bunched in with other children at so much the bunch.
Looking back upon the lot of the old stage driver, his was a particularly hard one. His days were long, often more than sixteen hours, and the responsibility was great. He had no assistance in loading and unloading these heavy trunks and articles of freight. He must account for every passenger, every piece of baggage and every pound of freight carried by both the stage and freight wagons, and collect all bills and be on the job seven days in the week. He had no holidays nor vacations nor anyone to make the trip for him if he felt indisposed. That mail must go, and to the credit of the drivers, it was never known to miss a trip.
There were some of the drivers who drove longer than the writer but during the four years that he was on the job he drove more than fifty thousand miles. Sitting on that seat during all kinds of weather, urging those horses to their hard tasks, a distance was driven that would circle the earth, and having completed this circle, another such trip was started at two o’clock the next morning.
While the driver may have thought his task somewhat strenuous, it was not to be compared with that of those horses that were obliged to do this work. The driver could quit his job at any time but the horses well knew that the moment they slackened up on those traces that four-horse lash would be swung across their bodies, by one whose job depended upon his ability and willingness to swing it.
There was one horse on this line that was driven continuously for more than six years. In this time, she traveled more than thirty thousand miles, often dragging a load more than the weight of her own body. You old pioneers who plodded your weary way over the old emigrant trail will realize this distance of fifteen times the distance covered by you on the trip.
But those old times are gone forever. The old stage coach has been corroding on the junk heap for many a year. The stage horses made their last trip long ago. The stage barns at Oysterville and Ilwaco have long since given up their sites for other uses. The old Pacific House, in Oysterville, the center of so many activities during the stage times, has been razed to the ground. Those faithful drivers — Jack Winchell, Bill Denver, Bill Taylor, Lou Slack and Charlie Burch, have passed to their reward, leaving a record of devotion to duty seldom equaled.
Though the stage run along the weather beach was the most colorful part of the mail run, it was also the slowest. Ultimately, it was to shorten the time between Ilwaco and Oysterville that led Loomis to construct his railroad. Subsequently, several new post offices sprang up along the route. Besides those at Sealand and Nahcotta, Ocean Park (1906), Seaview (1907), Breakers Hotel (1908-1919), and Klipsan Beach (1912-1919) began mail service during the years the train ran on the Peninsula.
