Early History
While the exact date this carousel was built is not known, the simple styles of the horses show it to be from the beginning of the golden age of carousel building in America, between 1890 and 1900. Constructed in the style common for transportable "Country fair" the carousel features two rows of twelve horses each. The carousel was made by either the Armitage Herschell Company or the Herschell Spillman Company. During the golden age of carousels an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 carousels were built by a number of different companies. Of that estimated number only 208 were listed in the National Carousel Associations 2000 census. The original owner and destination of the carousel is unknown. Belly mounts on the horses indicate the carousel was originally track driven, but the track mechanism was replaced at some point with a 1935 mechanism built by Hatfield Engineering, when the entire carousel was refitted to the jumping format present today.
Read more about this topic: Ferry County Carousel
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or history:
“The Americans never use the word peasant, because they have no idea of the class which that term denotes; the ignorance of more remote ages, the simplicity of rural life, and the rusticity of the villager have not been preserved among them; and they are alike unacquainted with the virtues, the vices, the coarse habits, and the simple graces of an early stage of civilization.”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)
“You that would judge me do not judge alone
This book or that, come to this hallowed place
Where my friends’ portraits hang and look thereon;
Ireland’s history in their lineaments trace;
Think where man’s glory most begins and ends
And say my glory was I had such friends.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)