Shelburne Museum Finale – 'Transportation Edition'

My final post on our visit to the Shelburne Museum near Burlington Vermont is focused on transportation related exhibits.  There was more than enough to look at that fit this category…

Of course, this isn’t an antique.  There is a lot of walking around Shelburne in order to cover its 45 acres and 39 different building with over 100,000 artifacts on exhibit.  For those who might have a hard time walking the entire facility or who just get tired, from May through October this wheel-chair accessible bus circles this open air museum every 15 minutes.

To begin this segment about our visit to Shelburne, we will start with the Horseshoe Barn.  Its exhibits are continued in the Horseshoe Barn Annex that is directly behind this beautiful structure.

The 2-story Horseshoe Barn was built here in 1949.  It was designed like an unusual horseshoe shaped dairy barn in Georgia Vermont.  The hand-hewn beams used in its construction came from 12 different Vermont barns.  The stone came from 2 Vermont gristmills.  The structure of over 238 feet long with a 32 foot wide interior space.  The Horseshoe Barn Annex was also built on site.  It was completed in 1957.

As I stated at the beginning of this post, it’s all about transportation.  The Horseshoe Barn has a large collection of horse drawn sleighs on exhibit. 

The same is true for carriages and wagons... The variety is remarkable!

You may not recall the history of the museum that I briefly related in my first post on Shelburne.  When Electra Havemeyer Webb founded the Museum in 1947, her first objective was to provide a place to preserve her family’s collection of horse-drawn carriages. 

This carriage is called a Mail Phaeton. (ca. 1882) It was built by the F.S. Brown and Company in New York City.  The Mail Phaeton got its name from the first English mail coach built during the reign of King George IV.

This road coach is named ‘Liberty’.  It was built in Paris France in 1900 for James Hazen Hyde. (Heir of founder of Equitable Life Assurance) The builder was a preeminent European coach maker, “Million et Guiet of Paris”.  In 1901, Hazen and Alfred G. Vanderbilt set a speed record with this coach, traveling from New York City to Philadelphia in only 19 hours and 35 minutes.  In 1903, the coach was put into public service between New York City and New Jersey.

This ‘Pony Road Coach’ named “Defiance II” was also built ca. 1900 by Million et Guiet of Paris.  A ‘pony’ coach is a small version of a road coach.  It was designed to a pony four-in-hand team.  Points of departure, intermediate stops and destination towns are painted on the sides of the coach. (All are New Jersey locations)

This Gypsy Wagon or “Wardo” was built in the late 1800s.  Wagons like this were home to gypsy’s, providing a place for their possessions as well as mobility.  Note the elegant details…beveled glass, stained glass windows, iron work and carved wood.  In the early 2000s, this particular wagon was used as a chuck wagon for hunting.

This is a more familiar wagon to most of us.  It’s a Conestoga wagon that was used to haul grain 60 miles from Lancaster Pennsylvania to Philadelphia.  It was built by wagon maker A. Griffin and blacksmith/wheelwright Peter Criley in 1837.  This is one of the few remaining Conestoga wagons in existence. 

The Conestoga wagon is a heavy covered wagon that was widely used to haul freight during the late 1700s and throughout the 1800s.  It was large enough to transport up to 6 tons of cargo.  Conestoga wagons were built with an upward curved floor to prevent its contents from tipping or shifting.  Including its tongue, the average Conestoga was 18 feet long, 11 feet high and 4 feet wide.

Note:

·         Conestoga wagon is not a generic term for “covered wagon”.  Most wagons used in America’s westward expansion were ordinary farm wagons fitted with canvas covers.  A true Conestoga wagon would have been too heavy for use on the prairies.  

  

This is a conveyance you just don’t see every day.  It’s a “School Bus Sleigh” ca. 1910.  It was found in Northern Vermont.  Used to take children to their 1-room schoolhouses, it has long benches on either side, and it’s equipped with a very small wood stove to keep its passengers warm on the journey.

This ‘omnibus’ is named the “Barge Lady Oxford”. (1890 – 1918) It was first used to transport tourists from the train station to the Marshfield House/Hotel north of Boston Massachusetts.  Later it was used to carry students at St. Paul’s school in Concord New Hampshire.  While these vehicles were once widely used in New England, only 3 survive in public collections today…

If you have cars, you must have gas stations and mechanics.  If you have horses and carriages, you must have blacksmiths and a blacksmith shop!  This 1-room brick shop was built in Shelburne ca. 1800.  It was moved to the Museum in 1955. 

Although blacksmiths were critical to horse, oxen or mule powered transportation, they provided significant other value to the communities where they were located.  In addition to the shoes for animals, the smithy also built tools, utensils, agricultural implements, architectural hardware and vehicle parts. 

Toward the end of our long stroll through the grounds and buildings at the Shelburne Museum, we came to this big red round barn.  This barn measures 80 feet in diameter and it was built in East Passumpsic Vermont in 1901.  It was dismantled and moved to the museum in 1985 – 1986.  

Round barns were first built by Shakers in 1826.  They were designed to simplify daily farm operations.  The Round Barn provides display space for some of the Museum’s collection of horse drawn carriages.  It also provides space for special exhibitions and events.  It can be rented by the public for weddings, anniversaries and other private gatherings.    

By the time we reached the Round Barn we thought that we’d seen all of the carriages and horse drawn vehicles that the museum had on exhibit.  As you can see, we were wrong.

Did you think that food trucks were a new phenomenon?  Wrong!  This Popcorn Wagon was built ca. 1880.  It would have been positioned along busy roadways, parks and at sporting events.  The steel body ensured that it would be fireproof, a good thing considering that the popcorn was popped on 2 open-flame kerosene burners, one at either end of the wagon. 

I didn’t pick up any information on this handsome stagecoach named “Ipwich”.  I love the look of it due to both its color and the fact that the major cities served by the line are painted on it…

In the 1800s stage coach routes readily sprang up wherever post roads appeared.  These vehicles created jobs and commerce wherever routes were established.  Livelihood was provided for owners, drivers, ticket agents, coach manufacturers, blacksmiths, tavern owners, stable hands and farmers who raised the horses as well as the crops that sustained them.  Regular stagecoach runs were also an important means of communication before the invention of the telegraph.    

I wanted to finish our tour or horse-drawn transportation before I moved on to other means of moving people and merchandise.  Many of you know that I’m partial to railroads, locomotives, rolling stock and old railway depots…. I was happy to see a depot as well as a protective structure covering a display of rolling stock.

The Museum’s Railroad Station once served as the original station for the town of Shelburne.  This shingle style depot was designed by the same architect who designed the Vanderbilt-Webb estate on Shelburne Farms. (A future post) The station was built in 1890 and it served passengers of both the Central Vermont and Rutland Railroads. 

Museum founder Electra Havemeyer Webb and her family used this depot on their many trips to and from New York City.  Rail service to the village of Shelburne was discontinued in 1953 and Electra Webb had the station moved to its current location on Museum grounds.

Exhibits at the depot include the stationmaster’s office, waiting rooms for men and women, telegraphic equipment, maps, message hoops, a “high-speed delivery fork” as well as early telephone equipment.  In addition there are historic photos, maps of Vermont and US rail routes, models of locomotives, advertisements and timetables.

This private rail car, the Grand Isle was built in 1889 for Dr. William Seward Webb.  It was built by the Wagner Palace Car Company which was located in Buffalo New York.  The car was listed at Rutland Railroad 500 Grand Isle.  This was because Webb, who’d been trained as a physician, had been persuaded to quit medicine and join the family business by his father-in-law…William Henry Vanderbilt. 

As President of the Wagner Palace Car Company and then the Rutland Railroad, Webb lived part of the years in Shelburne…commuting back and forth to New York City in comfort on the Grand Isle.  Webb actually owned a group of rail cars.  At some point Webb presented this coach to former Vermont Governor and President of the Vermont Central Railway, Edward C. Smith. 

This is the sleeping car portion of the Grand Isle.  This private rail car also has a mahogany-paneled parlor, an elegant dining room, a bathroom and of course, a kitchen.  These private luxury rail cars were important symbols of rank for wealthy business-men in the latter part of the 1800s.  J. Watson Webb, Jr, Dr. Webb’s grandson, personally supervised the Grand Isle’s renovation to ensure that it would accurately reflect the day of luxury rail travel…and to commemorate his family’s role in the railroad industry.

Note:

·         Politician and inventor Webster Wagner invented the sleeping car and luxury parlor car.  He also invented a railroad car ventilating system.  His company was in constant legal battles with the Pullman Car Company.  Coincidentally, Wagner was killed in a head-on crash between 2 trains in the Bronx in 1882.

Also on display in that protective shed is this medium-sized 4-6-0 locomotive.  Locomotive 220, which was built in 1915, was the last coal-burning steam ten-wheeler used on the Central Vermont Railway.  Because of its size, this locomotive served double duty, pulling both freight and passenger trains.  The Central Vermont Railway retired this locomotive from service in 1956, presenting it to the Museum for preservation. 

Note:

·         Locomotive 220 became known as the “Locomotive of the Presidents” because of its use on special trains carrying Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight D. Eisenhower.  In 1941, #220 pulled a special train for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill during his visit to Canada and the United States. 

This Railway Express Agency Freight Shed is a reproduction that was constructed in 1963.  It was needed to protect and exhibit equipment used by railroad workers.  It looks old and quite authentic…

Note:

·         I’m old enough to remember the Railway Express Agency and its iconic railway related signs.  It was a national package delivery service that operated via the railroad system from 1918 until 1975.  It was much like UPS, DHL or FedEx is today…only via the rails vs. road and air.  The Railway Express Agency was created through the forced consolidation of existing services into a federal near-monopoly to ensure the rapid and safe delivery of parcels, money and goods during World War I. 

The freight shed/Railway Express Agency building contains exhibits of picks, shovels and other hand tools used by railroad workers.  As the photo shows, there also is a large collection of railroad lanterns and glass globes.  Before today’s radios, railroad lanterns were an important method of communication between conductors, brakemen, signalmen and engineers.

Part of this collection includes hand-powered work and inspection cars.  An unusual item is the “Gertie Buck”, a self-propelled steam powered inspection car built used on the Woodstock Railway in eastern Vermont in the last part of the 1800s.

What the heck!  Is that a lighthouse at the far end of this garden?  What is it doing here?  Is Lake Champlain right over there?

Not really…but this lighthouse will lead us to the last exhibit I’ll be reviewing at the Shelburne Museum.

The Museum’s lighthouse was built in 1871 and it originally guided vessels past dangerous shoals in Lake Champlain.  Visitors to the Lighthouse learn about the lake’s history and what daily life was like on the lake in the 1800s.  This lighthouse was originally situated on the lake’s Colchester Reef, actually 3 reefs between New York and Vermont.  It was the home and workplace for 11 different lighthouse keepers and their families.  In 1952, the abandoned lighthouse was dismantled and re-constructed at the Museum.

For those not familiar with Lake Champlain, it’s a natural freshwater lake that stretches for 107 miles primarily between the US States of Vermont and New York, although the northern portion of the lake lies across the Canada-U.S. border in the province of Quebec.  The lake is only 14 miles across at its widest point and it has an average depth of 64 feet. (Deepest point 400 feet)

If there is a lighthouse, there just has to be a ship!  This is the steamboat Ticonderoga peeking over the hill and framed by the forest behind it… It certainly has to grab visitor’s attention… It certainly caught my eye!  This restored 220 foot long steamboat is a National Historic Landmark and it is the last walking beam side-wheel passenger steamer in existence.

The Ticonderoga is no less impressive when viewing her from the stern.  Actually built in Shelburne in 1906, this beautiful ship operated as a day boat on Lake Champlain.  She served ports along the New York and Vermont shores until 1953.  Amazingly, in 1955 Ticonderoga was moved 2 miles overland to Shelburne Museum.  What a challenge that must have been!

Lake Champlain was named after the famous French Explorer, Samuel de Champlain.  During his explorations he arrived at the lake in July of 1609. 

Today the ports around the lake are primarily used by small craft, ferries and lake-cruise ships but back in the 1700s and 1800s, the ports and the lake were of substantial commercial and military importance.  

In the early 1800s, the Champlain Canal was constructed.  It connected Lake Champlain to the Hudson River system to the south, allowing north-south commercial traffic from New York City to Montreal and Atlantic Canada.  The canal officially opened in 1823.  It was immediately a financial success.  It carried substantial commercial traffic until the 1970s. 

As she is displayed today, the Ticonderoga provides a picture of life on board her in 1923.  Visitors are able to explore the ship’s 4 decks, look at its engine, and then check out the pilot house, galley and crew’s quarters. 

This is the inside passenger area on one side of the main deck.  Note the carved and varnished woodwork and gilded ceilings along with some original deck chairs.

The Ticonderoga was never intended as an overnight boat but passengers could book one of five suites on the ship to coincide with their arrival by train the evening before the ship was scheduled to depart.  That would save them from having to wake up in a hotel or inn in time to board the ship for its 6 AM departure. 

This luxury suite is set up to show what it was like in 1923.  At $3.00 per night, it was the most expensive suite of the 5 on board.  The least expensive suite was $1.50 a night. 

Both crew and passengers had to eat.  This is the galley where the food was prepared.  It’s located on the Engine Deck.  Other key rooms or areas on the Engine Deck include the Lazerette (ship’s storage), the Dynamo Room, Pump Room, Boiler Room, Power Steering and Blower Room and Crew’s Quarters.

While the Captain and other ranking crew members had cabins on upper decks, most of the crew slept on the Engine Deck.  This included deckhands, firemen and the like.  The crew included the Captain, pilots, mate, deckhands, engineers, firemen, a purser, stewardess, freight clerk, bartender, hall boys, cook, waiters, scullion and mess boys.

The Ticonderoga had a displacement of 892 tons.  Her vertical beam steam engine was constructed by the Fletcher Engine Company of Hoboken New Jersey.  It was powered by 2 coal-fired boilers manned by 2 firemen who kept those boilers stoked.  The ship could achieve a maximum speed of 17 miles per hour or about 15 knots. 

On this particular trip, the Ticonderoga was transporting a passenger’s 1925 Durant Five Passenger Touring Car.  This type of car was typical of those used by adventurous travelers who took road trips in the mid-1920s.  This model Durant cost $830.00 in 1925. 

I like this view of the upper deck and wheel house.

 

Initially, Ticonderoga served a north-south route Lake Champlain.  She would dock at Westport New York where she would meet the New York City evening train.  The next morning she would carry travelers and freight north toe St. Albans Vermont.  

During both World Wars, Ticonderoga transported US troops between Plattsburgh New York and Burlington Vermont.  Other routes and a short stint as a floating casino followed.  When modern ferries made her obsolete, Ticonderoga continued as an excursion boat, ending in 1950. 

Ahh… I see that Laurie is ready for the cruise on Lake Champlain.  It was hard telling her that we were in ‘dry dock’! 

FYI…To learn more about Lake Champlain and its significance in American History, go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Champlain. 

I’m not sure whether I like this photo best or the one at the beginning where I saw Ticonderoga over the hill…

The Shelburne Museum tried to continue to operate the ship for a short time…but a lack of available properly trained personnel ended that effort.  In 1954, it was decided to move the Ticonderoga 2 miles overland to the Museum grounds.  At the end of summer season, the boat was floated into a newly dug, water-filled basin on Shelburne Bay.  She was then floated over a railroad carriage resting on specially laid tracks. 

When the water was pumped out of the basin, the Ticonderoga settled onto the railway carriage.  During the winter of 1955, the ship was hauled across highways, over a swamp, through woods and fields and then across the Rutland Railway’s tracks to reach her permanent home at the Museum.

…and so ends our adventures at Shelburne Museum.  I only covered what we considered the most interesting exhibits of the places we visited.  We skipped a couple buildings altogether as we were getting tired.  In my 3 posts about this Museum, I didn’t cover anything about the following: Artisans Shop/Diamond Barn; the Carousel; the large Circus Building; Dutton House and Tavern; Jail; Meeting House; Pizzagalli Center for Art and Education; Pleissner Gallery; Prentiss Home; Print Shop; School House; Smokehouse; Stencil House; Sawmill; Stone Cottage; Weaving Shop or the Settler’s House and Barn.

 

It would be very easy to spend 2 full days at Shelburne Museum… We would highly recommend this fabulous collection for its variety and many collections.  There is something for everyone!  Check out the Shelburne Museum for yourself.  Website: https://shelburnemuseum.org/visit/.  Adult tickets for a 2-day admission are $25 but only $23 for seniors.  Active military are free…

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for persisting and following along with us on our tour!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave