The Leviathan Coach.
I have been interested in the Leviathan Coach ever since the 1960s, when I purchased in New York the engraving below. The Leviathan has many references in the various Cobb and Co and coaching books published over the years, but this illustration has never appeared. I was able recently to identify the publication in which it appeared, and include here the text of its covering story.
Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, New York. December 8, 1860.
AMERICAN ENTERPRISE ABROAD
“We have to record a new instance of American enterprise in the far-off colony of Victoria, Australia. We illustrate below a very large coach, built in Ballarat by Mr J D Morgan (formerly of New York), for Messrs F B Clapp and Co., coach proprietors and mail contractors. This is only one of many coaches possessed by this company. It is intended to seat sixty five persons, and is drawn by six horses. The outside is beautifully ornamented – the panellings having painted on them the American Eagle, the Goddess of Liberty, and several other appropriate devices. The interior is divided into two compartments, one being set apart for ladies, and the other for gentlemen. It is most gorgeously fitted up with velvet pile cushions, damask hangings, Brussels carpets and mirrors.
The proprietors are all citizens of the United States; Mr Frank Boardman Clapp, of Massachusetts, Mr William Warren and Mr Henry Hoyt, both of New York State. Their agents and business men generally are also Americans.
The number of horses in constant use by the firm is between seven and eight hundred. Their mail contracts amount to about twenty five thousand pounds, or one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars per annum. This will give an idea of the extent of the operations, and shows that Americans there, as well as in all other parts of the world, are men of enterprise, and consequently valuable to any community that they settle with. This company alone does about one third of the whole of the coaching done in that Colony. The rest of it is also in the hands of Americans, and all running, or at rather, carrying on their business, under the title of Cobb and Co., from the fact of Mr Freeman Cobb, a native of Massachusetts, having initiated the coaching here, in which he was very successful, having returned to his home with a large fortune.
The following extract from a Victorian paper will give an idea of the sensation made by the starting of this mammoth coach.
The Leviathan Coach.
We (that is, Victorians) may be in our infancy, and there are possibly a great many things in which either London or New York might beat us, but if England can produce a Greta Eastern, and Americans an Astor House, we can afford to give them credit for their possessions, and point with calm contempt to our Monster Coach. It is a coach, a regular double barrelled three decker; and as it appeared on Saturday morning, loaded with an unascertained number of passengers, with compartments somewhat resembling the cuddy, intermediate and steerage, of one of Mackay, Baines and Co vessels; with sundry members of the enterprising firm of F B Clapp and Co “shouting” champagne from the box seat; with Shepherd that celebrated, handling his ribbons with becoming Yankee nonchalance; with Liberty and the Great Eastern Steamship painted on its panels; and noisy dancing masters hurrahing on the roof; with half Ballarat surrounding it and young Australia yelling congratulations with exemplary vigour; with all these accessories, none of which was particularly required, that same Leviathan Coach was launched on its trial trip, perhaps the most splendid specimen of vehicular manufacture ever seen in the country; and, at all events, the most favoured coach as regards public interest that we ever had the pleasure of seeing.
It was manufactured by Mr J D Morgan of this town, and is constructed to carry sixty passengers. The interior is divided into two compartments, the “forecastle” being reserved for ladies and the afterpart for gentlemen. On the roof are fixed a number of benches, properly cushioned, on which the lovers of fresh air can comfortably seat themselves, and resign themselves to the pleasures of rapid locomotion and the soothing wind. Besides these there are the box seats and the seat behind them, every available inch of space being cleverly appropriated to the accommodation of passengers. Certainly the coach, loaded as it was on Saturday, had to us an unpleasant appearance of top-heaviness; but experienced persons tell us that its breadth of base is sufficiently great to warrant the safety of the superstructure. At all events it went down the Main Road in perfect safety on Saturday, and although we hear that the wheels required periodical greasing ever so many times on the way to Buninyong, we cannot help congratulating the district on possessing a maker able to construct, a Jehu able to drive, and a company sufficiently enterprising to purchase such a coach as the “Leviathan”.
oooooooooOOOOOOOOooooooooo
I am providing here as background to the initial period of the Leviathan operation, some contemporary newspaper references:
The Ballarat Star gives the following dimensions of the new monster coach, ‘the Leviathan,’ of the Messrs Cobb and Co. : — The width I of axle is 6 feet 10 inches, and there is a distance of 12 feet from axle to axle. The length of the coach is 17 feet 9 inches, and the height from the ground to the top seat 11 feet 3 inches, the diameter of the wheels being five feet 7 inches and 4 feet respectively. The weight is computed at a ton and a half. It is constructed to carry sixty passengers.
[The Age (Melbourne, Vic.) Tue 3 Jan 1860]
The Big Coach. — The completion of the “Leviathan” coach for Cobb’s Line, by J. D. Morgan, coach- builder, Armstrong-street, was duly notified in the Local papers, and on Saturday the huge vehicle was got under way for her first trip to the seaboard. For dimensions, commodiousness, beauty of finish, there is certainly nothing like her in Victoria, whatever there may be out of the colony; a fact our readers may guess at when we intimate she cost £375 and took nine weeks to build. We borrow the feminine pronoun in deference to the custom of her builders, and because the Leviathan vehicle is really suggestive of a big ship upon wheels. The coach is fitted inside with five luxuriously-fitted seats, two of which in front form a ladies’ compartment, distinct from the rest of the coach, and having a mirror fitted at the front end of the coach. These seats will each accommodate four persons, or under ” high pressure” five, thus making a total of twenty-five ” insides” and on the outside there are seven seats, each capable of accommodating a similar number of persons as each inside seat, thus making a total of sixty insides and outsides.
[Mount Alexander Mail (Vic.) Wed 4 Jan 1860.]
The Leviathan,’ as Cobb’s new monster coach is named, started on Monday from Bath’s Hotel, with 70 passengers, for the Caledonian games. It was drawn with 16 horses. The longest reins measured over 100 feet in length.
[The Age (Melbourne, Vic Wed 4 Jan 1860.]
A Monster Coach. – Ballarat has another boast now. We have signalised the last day of the old year by turning out the large coach ever made in the colony, and can now boast the biggest coach as well as the biggest nugget in Australia, and for all we know, in the world. The completion of the ‘Leviathan’ coach for Cobb’s line, by Mr. J. D. Morgan, coachbuilder, was duly notified in the local papers, and on Saturday the huge vehicle was got under way for her first trip to the seaboard. For dimensions, commodiousness, and beauty of finish, there is certainly nothing like her in Victoria, whatever there may be out of the colony; a fact our readers may guess at, when we intimate that the cost £375, and took nine weeks to build. We borrow the feminine pronoun in deference to the custom of her builders, and because the Leviathan vehicle is really suggestive of a big ship on wheels.
The coach is fitted inside with five luxuriously fitted seats, two of which in front form a ladies’ compartment, distinct from the rest of the coach, and having a mirror fitted at the front end of the coach. These seats will each accommodate four persons, or, under ” high pressure,” five, thus making a total of 25 ” insides;” and on the outside there are seven seats, each capable of accommodating a similar number of persons as each inside seat, thus making a total of 60 insides and outsides. The first sight of the enormous seat room on the outside gives the impression of topheaviness, but the great width of axle and the low level of the body appear to counterbalance that probability; and there is no doubt that the ” Leviathan” is as well or better balanced than the coaches usually in vogue on our several lines.
The width of axle is 6 feet 10 inches, and there is a distance of 12 feet from axle to axle. The length of the coach from “stem to stern,” not including the bowsprit or polo of 10 feet 11 inches, is 17 feet 9 inches, and the height from the ground t0 the top seat 11 feet 3 inches, the diameter of the wheels being 5 feet 7 inches and 4 feet respectively. The weight of this monster coach is computed at a ton and a half.
Saturday having been fixed by the proprietors for the launching of the ” Leviathan,” the builder and his aids were engaged early and late during the week in getting her ready, and up to the moment of starting Mr. Morgan’s men were hard at it, fixing a screw here, tightening another yonder, or adjusting breaks, linings, hangings, or some of the many belongings of the great thing. All the morning of Saturday the workshop was crowded with eager onlookers, whose expressions of astonishment were more forcible, some of them, than polite. Fifteen men at length lifted the body on to the carriage, and the work of finishing and fixing for the start went rapidly on. When on the carriage the size of the vehicle became more apparent, but it was not till filled inside and out with passengers, and with her eight horses attached, that she was seen to best advantage.
The outside was bright in colours and gold, inscriptions, and panel pictures. Mr. Morgan, whether an American or not, did not forgot old Cymry, and so put a couple of coronets, surmounted with the Prince of Wales’ plume, in each side of the coach. The American eagle, stars and stripes, and the motto E Pluribus Unum were painted on the centre panel of each side. The front panels of each side were ornamented with fancy paintings, one representing a girl with a vase, and the other a woman with a ferociously-tragical expression, about to spear a lion in the mouth. ‘ Cobb and Co.’ and ‘Royal Mail,’ and ‘Cobb and Co;’ and ‘Telegraph Line,’ figured here and there, while the-name ‘ Leviathan’ was spread out on each side the full length of the body-of the vehicle.
The finish was at last brought about, and the ‘ ribbons’ taken by that veteran ship Sheppard, who ‘tooled’ the great craft away from her moorings amid the acclamations of an excited crowd. Passing round by Dana street to Bath’s, Sheppard pulled up his eight steeds, and copious libations of champagne and claret were ordered by the proprietors or the builder, or both, and were drunk to the success of the huge novelty. The ‘ space about Bath’s Hotel was filled with eager gazers, and the coach, having started amid cheers proceeded to the George Hotel, where another large crowd greeted her arrival. From the George she went round Mair-street, Armstrong-street, and down Sturt street, the streets everywhere being alive with spectators, while cheer answered cheer from passengers and lookers-on.
The trip to Geelong was gratis for the occasion, and there was no stint of patronage, 62 passengers starting from the George, some of whom, including our representative proceeded no further than Buninyong. As the monster passed down the Camphill, with her outside passengers seated like the spectators in the gallery of a theatre, tier above tier, the sight was really a fine one. At last we got clear of the town, and went off with a deliciously easy motion, comparable to nothing more than a comfortable first-class carriage on an English broad-gauge line of railway. On the way Mr. Morgan and his aids had to turn to at the halting places in order to brace up the leather springs, and add anti-friction grease to the axles, but the action of the machine was very satisfactory, and seemed to require a little wear only to make it perfect.”
[ Ballarat Star Wednesday 4 January 1860 repeated in the Argus (Melbourne, Vic) Thu 5 Jan 1860.]
Among the episodes of the day, we may mention the arrival at the grounds, between three and four o’clock, of Cobb’s ‘ Leviathan’ coach, loaded inside and out with no fewer than sixty passengers for the sports. The coach was drawn by eight horses, and was one of the day’s wonderments, as it was also on Saturday in the town itself.
[Bell’s Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle (Melbourne, Vic.) Sat 7 Jan 1860 Page 2 HIGHLAND SPORTS AT BALLAARAT. ]
Mr. Edward Devine, one of the drivers on the Ballarat-road, performed a feat in town the other day that is worthy of notice. He got twelve greys, two abreast, harnessed to the great Leviathan coach, Cobb’s line; and getting about forty passengers into or upon the coach, he, drove through the town, handling the ribbons, and turning the corners, as smoothly and safely as though he were driving tandem. he finally finished up by driving into the yard of the Western Hotel, through an eight-foot gate, and over a narrow wooden bridge that covers the street drain.
[Bendigo Advertiser 28 Oct 1861]