Horseshoe Barn and Annex facts for kids
The Horseshoe Barn and its Annex are two special buildings at the Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. Inside, you can see many different horse-drawn vehicles. These include fancy carriages, wagons used for trade, big stagecoaches, and even sleighs for winter.
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History of the Barns
Electra Havemeyer Webb loved collecting old things. She especially wanted a good home for the amazing collection of carriages that belonged to her father-in-law, Dr. William Seward Webb. This desire actually inspired her to create the Shelburne Museum!
Electra looked all over Vermont for a building that would be perfect for these carriages. She found a unique barn shaped like a horseshoe near the town of Georgia. When the owner didn't want to sell it, Electra decided to build an exact copy of it.
For two years, her team worked hard. They found and moved hand-cut wooden beams from twelve different barns in Vermont. They also used stone from two old gristmills. All these materials were used to build their very own horseshoe barn right on the museum grounds.
The huge barn was finished in July 1949. It is 238.5 feet (72.7 m) long and 32 feet (9.8 m) wide. It was built with 745 large timbers, posts, and braces. Workers used 17,000 feet (5,200 m) of wood planks and 9,000 square feet (840 m2) of slate for the roof. Carpenters even used a special up-and-down saw to cut the new clapboard siding. This made the outside look just like the original barn.
In 1957, the museum added 150 more vehicles to its collection. Because of this, they built the Horseshoe Barn Annex. This new building helped show off more of the important vehicles using a mix of old and new building materials.
Unique Horseshoe Barns
It's quite rare to find barns shaped like a horseshoe in the United States. In Vermont, only two horseshoe barns were ever recorded. Sadly, the original barn in Georgia, Vermont that the museum's barn was copied from burned down. This means the Shelburne Museum has the only horseshoe barn left in Vermont today! There's even a road named Horseshoe Barn Road in St. Albans, Vermont.
Another known horseshoe-shaped barn is at Llangollen Farm in Virginia.
The Carriage Collection
The museum's collection of horse-drawn vehicles started with those owned by Dr. William Seward Webb and his wife, Lila Vanderbilt Webb. Today, it has grown to include 225 different vehicles! Many of these vehicles came straight from their original owners. This means they still have their first upholstery (the fabric inside) and decorations.
Types of Horsedrawn Vehicles
Carriages and coaches became popular in Britain during the 1600s. However, carriages really improved in the late 1700s when the Royal Mail coach service began. For the first time, many carriages were made for comfort and speed. They were also built with parts that could be easily swapped, making them easier to fix. Soon, riding in carriages became a stylish way to travel. But for many years, only rich people could afford them.
In 19th-century America, making horse-drawn vehicles got much faster. Vehicles quickly became available to everyone, no matter their social class. By the late 1800s, American coach builders made light and practical vehicles. These were sold at low prices through mail-order companies like Sears and Roebuck. For example, a fancy runabout made by Brewster & Co., a top American coach builder, cost $425 in 1900. A similar runabout from Sears cost only $24.95!
The Shelburne Museum's collection includes many types of vehicles from the 1800s and early 1900s. You can see carriages, farm wagons, trade wagons, stagecoaches, sleighs, and early firefighting equipment. It has almost every type of vehicle used in New England during the 1800s. This collection is one of the best in the country. It's especially important because most vehicles still have their original insides, lamps, and decorations.
Many of the museum's best vehicles belonged to Dr. William Seward Webb. These include elegant carriages and coaches from Brewster & Co. in New York. There's also a special pair of custom-made vehicles: a caleche and a satin-trimmed Berlin. These were made by Million et Guiet in Paris.
Winter Travel with Sleighs
People in rural America were often too busy to travel during warm months. Farm work kept them close to home. But winter brought more free time. Snow could be packed down with horse-drawn rollers. This created a much smoother surface than the dirt roads had in other seasons.
Sleighs were also much easier to build and fix than wheeled vehicles. Someone without special training could make and take care of them at home. Because of this, a typical farm family in the north might own three sleighs for every wheeled vehicle they had!
Sleighs often looked like wheeled vehicles. Some wheeled vehicles, like the museum's hearse, could even be changed from wheels to runners when the seasons changed. The museum's sleighs range from small, simple homemade wooden cutters to fancy, multi-passenger surreys, caleches, and victorias. The collection also has a stage sleigh, a school bus sleigh, a butcher's delivery sleigh, and even a police ambulance and paddy wagon sleigh.
Public and Commercial Vehicles
Large omnibuses and stagecoaches offered public transportation. They carried travelers within and between cities, from train stations to hotels, and on sightseeing trips. Businesses also used horses to transport goods. They often used wagons and sleighs that showed off their products with pictures and signs.
The museum's collection of commercial vehicles includes a Concord stagecoach. This coach was used to carry hotel guests in the White Mountains. There's also a butcher's wagon, complete with hanging scales and meat hooks. You can see a Maine druggist's patent medicine wagon and a Pennsylvania Conestoga wagon. Conestoga wagons were used to haul farm produce from the countryside to city markets.
Firefighting Vehicles
Vehicles were also very important for firefighters. They needed to move water and equipment quickly. The museum's collection shows many early firefighting vehicles. Horses didn't become widely used in firefighting until the 1870s. To save precious time, horses were kept right in the firehouse. Their stalls had chains that would break away. When the alarm sounded, the horses would race to their places in front of the waiting equipment. Their collars and harnesses hung from the ceiling, ready to drop down quickly.
The steam-driven pumper, the hose wagon, and the hook-and-ladder truck became the three main horse-drawn firefighting vehicles. The steamer was the most exciting to see. It was usually pulled by two or three horses side-by-side. Smoke would pour from its boiler's funnel as it raced down the street. This smoke meant it was building up steam to run its powerful pumps!
See also
- Liz Whitney Tippett (Llangollen estate)
