Horseshoe Barn and Annex

She searched Vermont for a building to house these fine carriages and found a unique horseshoe-shaped dairy barn near the town of Georgia.

Carpenters specially cut new clapboards for the exterior siding with an up-and-down saw to recreate the markings found on the original building.

However, real progress in carriage building was not made until the late 18th century, when Royal Mail coach service began.

Soon carriage driving became the fashionable way to travel, although for many years the cost of vehicles restricted their use primarily to the nobility and upper classes.

By the late 19th century, American coach builders had developed light and practical vehicles that were available to the general public at low prices through mail order houses such as Sears and Roebuck.

Sleighs were much easier to build and repair than wheeled vehicles; a home craftsperson without specialized training could construct and maintain them.

The museum's sleighs range from small and simple homemade wooden cutters to elaborate, multi-passenger surreys, caleches, and victorias.

Multi-passenger stagecoaches and omnibuses provided public transportation for travelers within and between cities, from train stations to hotels, and on sightseeing trips.

However, it was the steamer, usually driven with horses harnessed two or three abreast, that provided the most spectacular sight as it flew down the street with smoke pouring from the funnel of its boiler, building up a head of steam to run the pumps.