A yellow stagecoach on sleigh runners turned up in Barnstead, NH recently after having been stored away in a trailer there for decades. The gentleman upon whose property it had been abandoned contacted me at the Kennebunkport Historical Society to inquire about it since Kennebunkport was lettered above the doors on both sides of the coach. I recognized something in his photographs of the 10x4x6 foot vehicle. The shape of the coach reminded me of old photos I have seen of Ham Littlefield’s stagecoaches. He had a stable on Ocean Ave at the foot of Wharf Lane until it burned in the 1887 Skating Rink Fire. He used to deliver people from the train depot to the Ocean Bluff Hotel in Cape Arundel.

Landscapes painted on either door of the abandoned sleigh kept nagging at me. I knew I had seen a big sleigh with landscapes on it. But where? My computer search terms didn’t help much though I did retrieve a sepia picture of Ham Littlefield’s coach in the 1880s. It looked similar but not exactly the same, and of course it was on wheels not runners. Wasn’t it a black & white photo I was remembering? Yes, a big black & white, modernish photo, definitely not sepia. The people in the picture were in old fashioned costumes riding on old fashioned vehicles. Then I remembered reading an article about how Henry Parsons had loaned the town of Kennebunkport many old-fashioned vehicles for the 1953 pageant celebrating the 300th Anniversary of the town. That was it!

Once I knew the image I was looking for was in the 300th Anniversary collection it was simple to find it. The 1953 George Stevens photograph was of a parade float with the same sleigh coach decorated by the same landscape. I couldn’t tell if the coach was yellow in the black & white photo but the picture was marked ‘Kennebunkport winter school bus’. What fun! Can you add anything to the story? Anyone remember it?