February 13, 2013
I was considering using this (undated) photo to illustrate an article in the upcoming issue of The Carriage Journal. I don’t think it will actually work (or it might, you’ll just have to check out the March issue to see whether it made the cut!), but I find it rather delightful and thought I would share it here with you regardless.
The lady sitting next to the driver of this Spider Phaeton has the most enormous pile of feathers on her hat …
.
.
February 12, 2013
Can you imagine going for a snow-day outing in this??
.
.
.
CAA member Greg Cuffey sent the two images you see here, and this story:
.
Almost two millennia have passed since the Queen of Egypt sailed on her ornate barge down the Nile. One might ask what this has to do with New England folklore? Well, George Crowninshield, of Salem, Massachusetts, built the first American ocean-going pleasure yacht in 1816 and named it Cleopatra’s Barge. This brightly painted and ornamented vessel was meant to be seen. In 1845, Boston carriage builders Niles and Ward Co. were inspired to construct an unusual sleigh from a ship’s long boat, adding sturdy runners and a large swan’s neck to the bow so the driver would stand high above eight horses. Boston’s largest, most impressive sleigh was also christened Cleopatra’s Barge.
The sleigh’s seats were profusely lined with fur to keep the forty or so passengers warm. When the snow piled up on Boston streets, sleighing proved to be a popular pastime, and this stylish sleigh was the one to be seen in. Sleighing excursions, like the one seen in this 1856 engraving, proved lucrative to inner-city stables.
.
.
Some think that Boston composer James Pierpont may have been inspired to write Jingle Bells after seeing and hearing the eight spirited horses jingling their bells ahead of the Barge as it traversed the city streets.
In 1873, long after the Barge was taken out of regular service, it was called out to duty one more time. Redemptorist priest Father Timothy Enright of the Parker Hill Mission needed a vehicle to deliver eighty-four Christmas dinners to the snowed-in Roxbury/South End areas of Boston. Charles Ward offered the Barge and, with the help of a few volunteers, he loaded and delivered the bounty to Father Enright’s poor parishioners.
After 1888, the sleigh seemed to drift away into the silent night. The sight of this sleigh certainly left lasting impressions on all who saw or rode on it. As late as 1906, folks still reminisced about it in the Boston Herald’s editorial pages. Collectors continue to search for clues to the Cleopatra’s Barge’s final resting place.
February 11, 2013
Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans and elsewhere may culminate tomorrow, on Fat Tuesday, but in most of Germany it’s today — Rosenmontag — that marks the end of the Carnival (Fasching) season. And the highlight of Rosenmontag in several German cities is a huge, festive parade.
When I was growing up in southern California, the big parade, of course, was the annual Rose Parade on New Year’s Day. I dutifully watched it (and still do) every year on TV, and have even seen it in person a few times.
But I didn’t grow up in a culture, a town, or even a part of the country that really celebrated Mardi Gras and so never really knew much about it. Then, when I was twelve, we moved to Germany, where I lived for most of my teenage years. And we lived near Mainz, which is one of the hotbeds of Fasching celebrations. After growing up with the Rose Parade, Rosenmontag’s Fasching Parade was quite a change of pace (although, coincidentally, “Rosenmontag” literally means “Rose Monday).
Most of us skipped school that day to go into downtown Mainz with our families or friends, to stand along the parade route with thousands of other people, all of us bundled up against the cold, and many in wacky costumes. I remember a group of people waddling along the edge of the parade route one year, in chicken costumes, stopping periodically to perform the, well, the “chicken dance.” (You’re humming the tune now, aren’t you?)
In the parade were huge-headed “puppets,” bizarre floats displaying political satires, all sorts of crazy costumes, and people throwing candy and confetti and more candy. And everyone, participants and spectators alike, shouting “Helau!”
While we lived overseas our “hometown” English-language newspaper was, of course, the Stars and Stripes … which just last week published an article on Mainz’s Fasching celebrations. And there’s even a video, so you can see and hear a bit of the festivities for yourself.
Happy Rosenmontag! Helau!!
February 10, 2013
The sport of “Indoor Driving,” at the FEI level at any rate, is a fast-paced, exciting blend of cones driving and two marathon-like obstacles … all taking place in an indoor arena. We don’t see much of this type of driving here in the States, but it’s a really big deal among Europe’s top FEI drivers. During the winter, the FEI recognizes a series of “Driving World Cup” events, which are held at a variety of indoor show-jumping competitions. This weekend, in Bordeaux, France, was the Driving World Cup Final. Koos de Ronde (who came here to the KY Horse Park in 2011 to drive a team in an exhibition round on the marathon course at the Kentucky Classic CDE) won this year’s Final event, beating out Boyd Exell, who’d held the title for the past several years.
You can watch Koos’s winning round here:
.
.
If the embedded video won’t work on your computer and/or to see other drivers in both the first and final rounds (and at some of this season’s previous World Cup events), click here.
February 8, 2013
One of the ads I’m designing for the March issue of The Carriage Journal is a full-page advertisement our 2014 International Carriage Symposium (next February at Colonial Williamsburg). The focus of this fourth biennial symposium is carriage and wagon accessories, which includes lamps, livery, whips, etc.
In searching for an image to illustrate this particular ad, we went through Jill’s collection of Vanity Fair’s prints of famous coaching men. And we found this lovely print of Alfred G. Vanderbilt. You may remember him as the American coaching enthusiast who took his coach, the Venture, and eighty horses to England, in order to drive them on the London-to-Brighton road for several weeks during the summer of 1908. (You either already knew this or picked it up from yesterday’s tweets, right?).
He was a little too tall for my scanner, but I managed to scan him in two parts and stitch him back together quite nicely.
.
.
The Slower Road 