February 15, 2012
After a couple of weeks of computer “issues” that have made this magazine-production cycle move really sloowwwwly, and having just (finally) finished the last piece of the March issue, I’m feeling a little too mushy-brained to be able to post anything much today.
So have a look at the lovely photo, by Robert Mischka, that will grace the cover of this issue of The Carriage Journal, which will mail to all current CAA members on March 1.
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(photo by Robert Mischka)
October 4, 2011
The October issue of our CAA magazine, The Carriage Journal, was mailed yesterday to all current association members.
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In this issue are the usual departments (“In the Carriage House,” “In the Stable,” “Nuts and Bolts,” “The Road Behind,” and more), plus feature articles on an early-nineteenth-century coach owned by James DeWolf of Rhode Island; “reining” a six-horse team of horses the Western way; and the Private Driving Club’s “Route de Lorraine” drive earlier this year.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Carriage Association of America and our publications (including The Carriage Journal), please visit our website: www.caaonline.com.
September 15, 2011
It would seem that I’ve run out the “easy” carriage-history-related posts from our recent vacation. Unless you’d like to see some photos from Dinosaur World??
And it’s suddenly 6 p.m., and I’m still working on the October issue of The Carriage Journal (which was, of course, sadly neglected while I was on vacation and is now due to the printer in just a few days … ack!).
So this may be all there is for today, I’m afraid.
August 1, 2011
The August issue of our Carriage Journal magazine was mailed today to all current CAA members.
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In this issue are the usual departments (“In the Carriage House,” “In the Stable,” “Nuts and Bolts,” “The Road Behind,” and more), plus articles on the Carriage Association’s first fifty years and the Death Valley Borax Wagons (reprinted from 1893), and a photo essay from the CAA’s 2011 trip to Sevilla, Spain.
If you’re interested in learning more about the Carriage Association of America and our publications (including The Carriage Journal), please visit our website: www.caaonline.com.
July 31, 2011
Over the past three Sundays, I’ve doled out the lower left, upper left, and upper right squares of the image featured on the cover of the August Carriage Journal.
In case you haven’t already guessed, the vehicle is a Concord Coach.
Here is the full image:
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photo by Bob Mischka
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This vehicle is owned by Sut & Margaret Marshall, and it’s one of the many in the book The Marshall Collection: Horse-drawn Commercial Vehicles.
Here is Ken Wheeling’s description of this coach, borrowed from the book:
Concord Coach #23
The small, six-passenger Concord Coach was made with one of two types of seating arrangements. A very narrow coach body has three seats, including a middle seat, accommodating two passengers on each seat. The middle seat, unlike the three-piece folding seat found in nine-passenger coaches, was either a single solid board seat which folded forward to permit entry, or a removable, two-part double seat mounted on a stanchion at the center and risers on the outside, such as this coach has. There were five different company configurations, since Lewis Downing founded his shop in 1813. The first of these was Downing & Abbot, founded in 1828. It lasted until 1847, when each of the partners, Lewis Downing and J. Stephen Abbot, founded their own companies: L. Downing & Sons and J. S. Abbot.
This coach is thought to have come from the shops of L. Downing & Sons’ new coach yards across the street from the original shop site. The identifying number “23” is carved into the outermost cross piece of the luggage rack. Since Downing bought coach bodies made in the J. S. Abbot shops and mounted them on his own carriage gear, it is quite possible that J. S. Abbot made the body, at least. The coach, which was originally painted green, was restored by James Morton, owner of the Highway Hotel, Concord, New Hampshire.
The Slower Road 