c. 1897-1905 Staver Concord Buggy

Throughout the 1800s and into the 1900s, people on the North American prairie who could afford a buggy like the one you see here used it to travel around town or to journey over longer distances.  Even when automobiles became more widely available in the early 1900s, people continued to use horse-drawn buggies, carriages, and wagons to get around.
 Thanks to a small metal plaque on the rear of this buggy, we can date it to sometime between 1897 and 1905. The plaque states that Staver sold this buggy through an Omaha, Nebraska, agent, Lininger & Metcalf Company. Lininger & Metcalf carried that name until Metcalf passed away; and, in 1905, Lininger continued their company as the Lininger Implement Company. As a result of this change, the label on this buggy would only be applicable to the period from 1897, when the Staver Buggy Company was incorporated, to 1905, when Lininger & Metcalf ceased to be. If we wish to conjecture more, we might even date this buggy to 1898. On December 22, 1898, Staver sent a train of thirty cars loaded with about 1,000 horse-drawn vehicles to Omaha to be distributed by Lininger & Metcalf. Having "never been done before," as stated by Henry Staver himself, this train load was dubbed the "Good Times Special" by Staver's company. Perhaps, this buggy was one of those nearly 1,000 vehicles, approximately three-quarters of which were sold to farmers in Nebraska and Iowa.¹

 The Staver company made this buggy to carry two seated adults and luggage behind and beneath the seat.  It has two side springs for suspension, in contrast to the buggy next to it which has springs in the front and back.  If you were to remove the cushion from the wood seat, you would find two wood doors which give access to the storage space beneath.  Along the front edge of the wood seat is the name “Staver” carefully pressed into the wood along with what look to be the numbers “110” and “119.”  We have not yet figured out what those numbers might tell us about this buggy.

A close-up of the suspension on the side bar.

 Henry Clay Staver, the founder of The Staver Carriage Company, was born in Loganton, Pennsylvania in 1844.²  Drawn to the possibilities for success that the West offered, he and his family moved to a farm in southwestern Wisconsin when Henry was about ten years old.  When Henry was about twenty-one, he left home, traveled throughout the Midwest, and got involved in a variety of farm implement companies.  In 1874, for example, he joined the Sandwich Manufacturing Company, the company that would build the large corn sheller found here in Stuhr Museum’s exhibit.  For another example, from 1879 to 1885, he became part of the J. I. Case Company of Racine, Wisconsin, which would make a tractor and a thresher found here at Stuhr Museum.³

In 1883, while still working at J. I. Case, Henry established H. C. Staver and Company; a year later, he reorganized it as the H. C. Staver Implement Company, making buggies, farm implements, and feed mills.⁴  In 1885, he left J. I. Case and focused his energy on his own implement company, renaming it the H. C. Staver Manufacturing Company by 1889.  In 1890, Henry merged his company with another buggy maker, the Abbot Buggy Company, creating the Staver and Abbot Manufacturing Company.⁵  After the new venture's decline in 1896, Henry organized the Staver Carriage Company in 1897.  Throughout all of these changes, and all of the ups and downs of the business, Henry’s long-term business grew.  When Henry took charge of his implement company in 1885, it made about $85,000 worth of product; in 1902, Staver Carriage Company made over $1,000,000 worth of product.  The company in 1902 covered over five acres and employed about 400 workers.⁶  Henry Staver was a big part of the company’s success, guiding them into the twentieth century and preparing them for continued success after his death in 1907.⁷  By 1908, according to Farm Implement News Buyer’s Guide, the Staver Carriage Company had several lines of products, making buggies, carriages, stanhopes, phaetons, surreys, concords, runabouts, road wagons, bike wagons, spring wagons and harnesses.⁸  The company also added automobiles to its products at this time.

An advertisement from Farm Implements,
vol. XV, no. 1 (January 28, 1901).

 On a side note, after Lininger & Metcalf ceased to be, with Metcalf's death, Lininger Implement Company continued to be a significant farm implement and buggy dealer for Nebraska and surrounding states. By 1919, the company contracted out a line of engines which they sold under their own “Champion” trademark. The 1919 line of Champion engines included 1 1/2, 3, 5, 9, and 12 HP sizes. The company that made these engines for Lininger was the Hercules Gas Engine Company of Evansville, Indiana, the same company that made two other engines here in this exhibit.

Notes

¹ The information on the 1898 train load of vehicles sent by Staver to Lininger & Metcalf is from The Hub, vol. XL, no. 10 (January 1, 1899). One of Staver Carriage Company’s patents, developed by J. H. Cloyes, is a patent for a buggy spring seat, which may be the seat design on this buggy.  It is Patent 604368, dated May 24, 1898, and can be found here.  A nice, informative resource for learning about buggies and carriages is the Carriage Museum of America in Lexington, Kentucky whose website can be accessed here.  The Carriage Museum’s page focusing on Staver & Abbott, which includes several snippets and images from late nineteenth century sources, can be found here.

² Henry Staver was a well-known businessman from the 1880s to the early 1900s, and there are several sources providing information on him from that time period.  Not all of these sources agree on dates for events.  The main source for the information here is the Encyclopaedia of Biography of Illinois, vol. III (Chicago: The Century Publishing and Engraving Company, 1902), pp. 389-393.  Other sources include Farm Implement News, vol. VIII, no. 8 (August, 1887), p. 21; Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery of the Representative Men of the United States, Illinois Volume, ed. John Moses (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1896), pp. 361-364; Successful American: A Monthly Illustrated Magazine for the Home Circle and the Business Office, vol. V, no. 3 (March, 1902), published in New York City by The Writers’ Press Association, pp. 160-161; and The Book of Chicagoans: A Biographical Dictionary of Leading Living Men of the City of Chicago, ed. John W. Leonard (Chicago: A. N. Marquis & Company, 1905), p. 546.

³ Looking at a 1901 advertisement for Staver buggies marketed by J. I. Case Implements, Staver apparently kept his ties to the company for which he worked in the early 1880s.

⁴ The Lakeside Annual Directory of the City of Chicago.  1887.  Embracing a Complete General and Business Directory, Miscellaneous Information, and Street Guide, compiled by Reuben H. Donnelley (Chicago: The Chicago Directory Press, 1887).

⁵ According to the Biographical Dictionary and Portrait Gallery, Staver had about 150 employees and Abbott had about 300 when they merged.

⁶ Successful American, pp. 160-161.

⁷ Obituaries were printed in various publication late in 1907, including Farm Implements, vol. XXI, no. 11 (Nov. 27, 1907), p. 35.  About eight years after Henry’s death, the Brown Carriage Company of Cincinnati purchased Staver Carriage Company in 1915, as stated in The Hub, vol. LVII, no. 9 (December, 1915), p. 36.

⁸ Farm Implement News Buyer’s Guide: A Complete Directory of Manufacturers of Farm and Garden Implements, Wagons, Carriages and other Vehicles, Gasoline Engines, Wind Mills, Pumps, Dairy Apparatus, Wire Fencing and the Many Accessory Lines Sold by Implement Dealers, vol. XVIII (Chicago: Farm Implement News Company, 1908), p. 358.