A Visit to Fanthorp Inn

Whenever John Wayne met the stagecoach, you knew there had to be a beautiful woman on board.  She’d have blond curls, starched crinolines, and a matched set of carpetbags.  She always looked as if she had arrived in town via air-conditioned limo.

 An afternoon at a historic stagecoach hotel helped us separate Hollywood fiction from fact.

The eighteen-room Fanthorp Inn in Anderson, Texas, began as a simple dogtrot cabin.  Built in 1834 by British immigrants, Henry and Rachel Fanthorp, the home underwent a number of expansions over the years.   Rooms were added as the family grew.

Eventually, Henry became a postmaster and the proprietor of one of the most luxurious stagecoach hotels in the state.

Sam Houston had a favorite room at Fanthorp Inn. 

Zachary Taylor slept there.  Legend claims Generals Ulysses S. Grant, Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Jefferson Davis were guests as well.  In 1845, the Vice President of The Republic of Texas, Kenneth Lewis Anderson, died at the inn. 

The hotel’s large dining room served three meals a day, each one identical to the next. 

Provisioning and cooking were made simple by the repetition.  The meal consisted of boiled eggs, meat stew, corn, fruit preserves, and cornbread.  A coffee pot and a sugar cone sat on the table.  Overhead, fans kept flies away.

After dinner, men gathered to smoke, drink, and play games in the large parlor at the front of the home.

Guest rooms were located on the second floor. 

Going to sleep alone did not assure that you would awake that way.  Late night arrivals crawled into bed wherever there was space.  Fanthrop had a five-star sort of reputation among the staging inns.  Mattress stuffing was replaced several times a year to reduce the ongoing menace of bed bugs.

Women were sometimes hotel guests, but rules of propriety discouraged them from traveling by stagecoach.  We doubt that many women demanded equality on this front.  Staying home to scrub chamber pots would have been preferable to traveling Texas in the pre-railroad era.

In 1850, the Concord Stagecoach was considered a state-of-the-art conveyance.  Nine passengers sat in its cramped quarters — three faced forward; three faced the rear; three more sat on a center bench.  To make it all work, (and to stay off the floor), passengers interlocked their knees.  Six or seven additional passengers joined the driver on top of the coach.   Exposed to the elements; and hanging on best they could, those atop the coach may have had the best seats in the house.

The Concord was noted for its unique suspension.  It swayed from side-to-side on thick leather straps.  Rather than a tooth-jarring ride across rutted roads, the cradle motion was easy on the bones.  It wasn’t easy on the stomach.  Motion sickness was the price paid for this element of comfort.

On an eighteen-hour trip from Austin to San Antonio, (circa 1850), passengers could smoke their cigars, drink their whiskey and spit to the leeward side of the coach.  If they approached a rain-swollen creek, the egg-shaped coach floated to the other side.  If stuck in the mud, all climbed out to push.  If currents proved too swift, delays could be long.

Almost without exception, passengers carried firearms.  Sixteen armed passengers and a shotgun-toting driver is a formidable force.  Stagecoach robbers had to be very brave in those days.

Both Rachel and Henry Fanthorp died of yellow fever in 1867.  The inn closed and reverted back to a private home for their children.  One hundred and ten years later, when the inn was sold to Texas Parks and Wildlife, it was still owned by a Fanthorp descendant.

One of the best things about visiting the inn today is that it’s in one of our favorite small towns, Anderson, Texas. 

After you tour Fanthorp, you can drive down the Bahia Road.

And explore Anderson’s seven hills.  (Yes, just like Rome!)

You can take a look at some Grimes County official buildings.

And some not so official ones.

It’s an interesting place to shop for antiques.

This shop has everything you could possibly want.  See Mickey?  Well, Rin Tin Tin was there too.

There is even a restaurant (closed Sundays).  We understand the food is good.

Actually, there are two restaurants, but we understand the first closed almost as soon as it opened.  It was just too busy.  (It may have reopened by now.)

Don’t leave Anderson until you’ve snapped a few photos of the Grimes County Courthouse. 

You just might capture the ghost.

If you are interested in Texas stagecoach city-to-city travel times, click here for a list of schedules from 1861. By the 1860s, more ferry operators made things move a bit faster.  You could go all the way from Hempstead to Austin in twenty-six hours.

We enjoyed our tour of Fanthorp Inn.  We will be back soon.  It’s a great place to visit.   It’s so nice to have a car, great roads, and bridges.  We can make it there in less than two hours.

What a great time to travel Texas!