Even as this page is written, in January 1903, another old coachman—again “the last”!—has died. This was Sampson Brewer, who, living in his later years at Cedar Cottage, Vancouver, declared himself to be the last survivor of the old coaching days. Born in 1809, he was, therefore, ninety-four years of age at his death. He said he drove on its final journey “the last regularly-running mail in England”: that between Plymouth and Falmouth, by way of Liskeard and St. Austell. He must thus have been in the employ of Charles Ward.
William Salter
Yarmouth Stage Coach Man
Died October the 9th 1776
Aged 59 Years.
Here lies Will Salter honest man
Deny it Envy if you can
True to his Business and his trust
Always punctual always just
His horses coud they speak woud tell
They lov’d their good old master well
His up hill work is chiefly done.
His stage is ended Race is run
One journey is remaining still.
To climb up Sions holy hill
And now his faults are all forgiv’n,
Elija like drive up to heaven
Take the Reward of all his Pains
And leave to other hands the Reins.
A STAGE COACHMAN’S EPITAPH AT HADDISCOE.
Two, at least, of the coachmen committed suicide. One of these was Dick Vickers, who had driven the Holyhead Mail. In an evil hour he resigned the ribbons to indulge a fancy he had nursed of becoming a farmer. But farming was beyond him: he lost all his money at it, and hanged himself in one of his own barns at Tynant, near Corwen. Charles Holmes, for more than twenty years coachman and part-proprietor of the “Old Blenheim” London, Oxford and Woodstock coach, and the recipient in 1835 of a handsome present of silver plate, subscribed for by Sir Henry Peyton and many other gentlemen, committed suicide by throwing himself off a steamer into the Thames.
The question, “What became of the coachmen?” is partly answered in the subjoined collection of epitaphs and eulogies got together from far and near. First comes the early and curious one at Haddiscoe, near Lowestoft, to William Salter, said to have lost his life by falling from his coach at the foot of the hill near the churchyard, shown on the page opposite.
To this succeeds the highly interesting example in Over Wallop churchyard, Hampshire, to Skinner, the coachman of the Auxiliary Mail, upset at Middle Wallop, on the Exeter Road, by one of the wheels coming off. Skinner was killed on the spot, and the passengers injured. The inscription runs:—
Sacred
to the Memory of
HENRY SKINNER, a Coachman,
who was killed near this place
July 13th, 1814,
Aged 35 years.
With passengers of every age
With care I drove from Stage to Stage,
Till Death’s sad Hearse pass’d by unseen,
And stopt the course of my machine.