Gilded Door Pantry’s Merchant Wagon

08/01/2022

Our wagon project may be on hold, but it's not forgotten! We found this beauty in CT today. While it is in a sad state of disrepair, it could be restored again. It also demonstrates how we could work with a welder to add bench seats to ours if we want!

11/16/2021

Photo courtesy of the Cumberland County Historical Society collection. After much research, we found our wagon to re-create!!! The design, at least. This was a Shippensburg butcher’s wagon

10/13/2021

What? A wagon is being worked on? Haha, yes this project is taking a bit longer to complete than I expected originally. But it’s still going to happen, hopefully over Winter!

"Goat-carting". Rogers, Arkansas - 1900.

08/21/2021

This post is just meant as a “PS” to today’s announcement about the wheels being ready. As part of the rebuild, we all had rubber rims added so that we can use the wagon in venues such as Market of Curiosities. To do so safely we had to also buy these rollers.

One goes on each side of the wagon and lines up with where the wheel would connect on a tight turn. For metal rims, a simple metal plate does the job - but for rubber wheels the consequences of not making this change could be highly dangerous.

Just one example of how important it is to do the homework before starting a custom or restoration project!

08/20/2021

The new wagon wheels are home! They’re totally refurbished in a historically authentic way - even the rubber is authentic (remember how I mentioned that Firestone had tire stores 120 years ago?).

We’ve been approaching this project like they do on the Netflix “tiny house” series - Gilded Door Pantry gave me a budget, and I do my best to stay within it. These wheels honestly cost as much to restore as the place could have sold us a modern wagon for! But we all felt that to NOT do this would be to issue a death sentence for something that’s at least 140 years old.

What that means for ME, is that I won’t be building a fully enclosed box wagon as was originally intended. Instead, I’m going to be figuring out how to add a removable cover and awning which might be better anyway!

I also have a new deadline - Karen and Jelena are starting to talk about making tables out of these (yikes). Wish me luck!

08/20/2021

The wheels are on their way

08/14/2021

So we’re down to a week or two until we should have our wagon wheels back! Meanwhile I’ve been doing quite a bit of research. One slightly unrelated find that popped up was this video about a unique, factory made 1916 Harley Davidson that can only be driven “from” the sidecar. It totally fits the theme of how our modern technology is much older than we assume it to be; such as mention of the Delco batteries that power it - it’s an electric vehicle!

Be sure to watch the last two minutes when he takes it for a spin!

Harley-Davidsons with a sidecar aren't all that unique, but one you drive from the sidecar, now that's a different story! Follow us today as we show you the ...

07/27/2021

A Philadelphia area lumber delivery wagon with a five horse star hitch (you can still see this and other hitch styles demonstrated during the PA Farm Show each year).

Note where the driver is seated; personally I would take some convincing!

07/27/2021

So many fantastic examples of innovative wagons can be found in the old sources. This one is a delivery wagon for bank safes. It could load and unload a 12 ton safe through use of the geared apparatus beneath the driver’s seat. The seat itself was designed to fold out of the way.

07/27/2021

With a little expert help, we’ve officially classified our wagon! It was a hardware dealer’s wagon, practically an exact match for this one shown.

07/27/2021

With our wheels due back in a few weeks, I’ve been focusing on the planning side of rebuilding the wagon for event use. Recently I happened on a fantastic source in the form of the Carriage Museum of America, based in Kentucky. They have been very helpful with advice on our project and sent me these amazing resources, including loose leaf complete drafting diagrams of many wagons.

We also talked about how the story of carriages and wagons is really the story of the auto industry. As quoted in their book, “By the time the Ford Model T was replaced with the brand-new Model A after 1927, annual industry sales routinely surpassed 3 million units, and 27.5 million U.S. families (55.7 percent of the total) owned at least one car.”

While much attention is devoted to Henry Ford’s automation innovations - he cranked out 3 million model Ts per year during WWI - the other factor is definitely that an entire industry was already primed to refocus toward “horseless carriages”.

Check out the Firestone store photo from way back in 1904! As they say, nothing is really “new”...

07/18/2021

It’s been a few months since this page was created, and lately it’s been a bit quiet on the wagon restoration project.

As some background, the wagon is currently raised on blocks while all four wheels are being rebuilt by A&A Carriages in Lancaster. The wheels should be back to us by early August. Until then, not much is happening as it’s much safer to work beneath the wagon with the wheels installed.

I’ve also been pretty busy with an exciting new full time job, ongoing work on the art at Lincoln Cemetery, and a complete revamp of the rear of our building in town. By fall we hope to have a much prettier rear facade and an awning!

With all that said, I will share a great resource that I’ve been exploring recently - the Carriage Museum of America in Kentucky. Among other finds, they maintain a historic list of national wagon and carriage makers, including about 20 from Carlisle. More to come on that!