An era ended as stagecoach driver passed

The powerful hands, thickly calloused from a lifetime of holding harness reins, were still.

James “Jinks” Isaacs, a man who spent much of his life as a slave, was gone. For 40 years he had driven stagecoaches along routes from Richmond to Staunton.

When death came calling for him on Feb. 27, 1876, his way of life was ending, too. The powerful steam locomotives that by then were following webs of tracks in every direction were seeing to that.

Isaacs was one of those all-too-rare people who could be confided in and then trusted to keep what was said to himself. His character and moral constitution were the subjects of the elegy that the Rev. Steele gave during the funeral service at an African Methodist Episcopal church in Staunton.

Blacks and whites alike filled Allen Chapel to pay their last respects. For those in attendance, Isaacs was not defined by the color of his skin, but by the personal qualities that made him loved and admired.

Before emancipation, Isaacs had been owned by William Farish, who operated one of the best-known and -respected stagecoach lines in Virginia. During the 19th century, when most roads were two worn ruts in the ground, it took considerable skill to get a stagecoach safely from one place to another.

By the 1830s, it would take a stagecoach about 18 hours to travel from Richmond to Charlottesville. Because Charlottesville is basically an island surrounded by creeks and rivers, just getting into town could be an iffy proposition.

Driving in from Richmond, Isaacs had two fords to choose from to cross the Rivanna River. There was the dangerous Secretary’s Ford and the more forgiving Moore’s Ford, near where Free Bridge now stands.

Crossing the Blue Ridge Mountains on steep, narrow roads offered other challenges.

In all probability Isaacs drove a Concord stagecoach, built by the Abbot-Downing Company in Concord, N.H.

The Concord model first hit the road in 1827 and quickly earned a reputation for being the finest ever hitched to a team of horses. Each coach cost $1,050, and weighed 2,500 pounds.

These were masterpieces, from the tie-down bars on top to the wheels made from seasoned white oak. Every wheel spoke was handmade and fitted so perfectly to the rim that it’s been said the human eye was unable to see where they were joined.

The body of the coach, made from straight-grained white ash, rested on 3-inch-thick oxen-leather straps called through-braces. Mark Twain, in his book “Roughing It,” described the Concord he and his brother rode in as “a cradle on wheels.”

There were certain rules of etiquette that men in particular were expected to observe. For example drinking wasn’t encouraged, but if you did you were expected to share the bottle with the other passengers.

Chewing tobacco was fine, but it was suggested that one spit with the wind, not against it. Hogging the warming blankets provided by the stage line during cold months was considered such a grievous offense that the guilty party would be banished from the coach and made to ride with the driver.

And woe to any male passenger who demonstrated any type of “unchivalrous behavior” toward a female. The offender would be put off the stage immediately, regardless of where it was at the time.

Sadly, death took with it the opportunity to hear all the tales of travel that Isaacs surely had accumulated during his time guiding teams of horses “four-in-hand.” But his “high character” and the fact that so many people “had enjoyed the confidence” of this man resulted in his passing being noted in a story in the Staunton Virginian newspaper, as well as the Jeffersonian newspaper here in Charlottesville.

The story reported that Jinks was as well known in these parts as the men who owned the stage lines he drove for. If the tone of the piece serves as an indication, Isaacs also was as highly respected.