A Concord Coach once owned by Henry Ford was moved from its longtime home Thursday and will eventually join a city museum about the company’s long history of making what was once the nation’s preferred method of long-distance travel.

The coach was taken from the former headquarters of the Concord Group, 4 Bouton St., where it has been displayed for a half-century.  The long, slow process involved lifting it a foot and a half, removing one of the huge glass panes of the green-tinted building so it could be taken outside, and building a long ramp to ease its transition.

“This one was built in 1855, I think. … It’s in really good shape,” said Tom Prescott, co-president of Abbott Downing Historical Society, as the coach was being maneuvered. “Every coach has its own problems – you wouldn’t want to pull it with horses - but … it will not need any refurbishing.”

The Coach, No. 80, will be stored away while money is raised and work is done to turn the former Concord Stables, a dilapidated concrete facility once used to store the horses that pulled Concord’s famous coaches, into a museum for the history of the coaches and their maker, the Abbott-Downing Co.  Fund-raising is ongoing for the new museum, which is not expected to open for a couple of years.

The Abbot-Downing Historical Society has been working for years to get a better way to display the world-famous coaches and the history of the company, which made coaches and carriages for decades. It was the city’s best-known firm for much of the 19th century until the arrival of the automobile killed it off.

About 150 original Concord Coaches are known to exist. Eight will highlight the new museum’s showroom, including coaches currently on the grounds of Prescott Oil.  Some are stored in a barn owned by the Abbot-Downing Historical Society.

Concord Group Insurance, one of the city’s oldest companies, moved its headquarters this spring out of its mid-century building facing North State Street and went to Bedford, seeking more access to workers and a more modern building.  It was one of a couple local companies, including the Concord Monitor, that had a Concord Coach on display in their lobby.

Concord Group started as a farm-insurance company in 1928, and is a major insurance carrier for independent agents in the four northern New England states. It is moving south to get closer to its expanding market in Massachusetts and to attract more employees, but will maintain a presence   in Concord.  

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