Portrait of Lewis Downing from History of Merrimack and Belknap Counties NH
As early as 1835 the word was out that Downing & Abbot were the makers of quality conveyances. The New Hampshire Patriot and Gazette (Concord, New Hampshire), dated Monday, June 1, 1835, page 2, carried this story:
“A splendid Coach.” We have been a good deal amused since our return from a short visit to Sullivan and Cheshire counties, by the manner in which certain federal editors have spoken of our traveling equipage. One of them said that “the editor of the Patriot drove up to the Tremont House” in Claremont, “in a splendid four wheeled carriage.” He said nothing of the number of horses, but left it to the imagination of the reads to supply the “four wheeled carriage” with an elegant span or two of dapple greys, a coachman, and if they pleased, footmen, and out-riders in livery. Another improved upon this, and converted the elegant “four wheeled carriage” into a “splendid coach” and thought it quite too aristocratic for a democratic editor to travel in such “pomp and splendor.” Now, in gratitude to the federal editors, who have done us so much honor, we regret that duty compels us to spoil all the “pomp and splendor” of the “elegant four wheeled carriage,” by saying it was simply a one horse carryall, drawn by a single sober family beast–which we hired at the stable of Grover & Prescott, and which carryall was manufactured by our enterprising townsmen, Downing & Abbot–“elegant” to be sure in its way, and a most neat, convenient and comfortable vehicle for any gentleman who wishes to travel with his wife and children, and the usual appendages of such expeditions, trunks, bags, and bandboxes. So much for the “splendid coach.” But since we have been the cause of bringing the elegant workmanship of Messrs. Downing & Abbot into such honorable notice, we think it no more than right, that they should “call at the captain’s office and settle” for the hire of the “elegant four wheeled carriage.”
