a large coach-and-four formerly used to carry passengers and mail on regular routes between towns; "we went out of town together by stage about ten or twelve miles"
Stagecoaches were large carriages pulled by horses which carried passengers and mail. a vehicle pulled by horses that was used in past times for carrying passengers and letters. Public coach pulled by horses regularly traveling a fixed route between stations or stages. Stagecoaches appeared in London by 1640 and in Paris by 1660. In the 19th century they were most widely used in the U.S. and in England, where in 1828 stagecoaches ran 12 times a day from Leicester to London. In the U.S. they were the only means of travel for long distances overland, carrying passengers and mail to locations especially in the West. As railroad travel became more common, stagecoach travel diminished except to remote locations