226 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



ox-carts were used for farm work, and chaises and gigs were used 

 on the roads, but these were not abundant, very nearly all the travel 

 being on horseback. About 1815 or 1820, wagons became some- 

 what common, and about 1830, light four-wheeled wagons ceased 

 to be rare, but that they were usually without springs. 



An aged citizen in Hartford county, a "teamster" in his boy- 

 hood, says that in his youth all the wagons were two or four- 

 horse, and used for teaming; they were rare on the farms; that 

 there were two chaises in his town (Simsbury), one of which be- 

 longed to the doctor, but there were no one-horse wagons until 

 later, and the first was without springs. He first saw a light one- 

 horse wagon with steel springs about 1828 or 1830, and in 1840 

 he bought one. An aged citizen of Bridgeport says that buggies 

 did not come into common use there until after 1840. Another 

 aged citizen near Mount Carmel told me some years ago that the 

 first one-horse wagon of any kind in his town was introduced by 

 his father about 1825; it had the body down on the axle, and had 

 wooden springs under the seat. This sort of wagon appears to 

 have been very popular, and many were used between 1815 and 

 1830, both in Connecticut and in New York. In eastern New 

 York, along the Hudson river, I have had many accounts of them. 



An aged citizen in Branford told me that in 1808 there were 

 but two chaises in that town (one with and tbe other without a 

 top), and that the first buggy with steel springs was introduced 

 about 1825 or 1826, and that his father got the second in 1830, 

 but by 1840 there were several. A newspaper account says that 

 the first spring wagon built in Branford was in 1835. A citizen 

 of Ledyard told me that the first buggy was brought into that 

 town in 1840 or 1841, but that six were brought in there within a 

 year. A citizen of Groton tells me that the first buggy he saw 

 in that town was in 1841, but that then they came in very rapidly. 

 This very day, talking with an aged and well known citizen of this 

 place (Rockville) on this matter, he told me that he went as ap- 

 prentice to the wagon-making business sixty-one yeirs ago; that 

 then light wagons were not common, and what they had were with 

 the bodies down upon the axles, with wooden springs under the 

 seat; that he bought a pair of elliptic steel springs, in either 1827 

 or 1828, for a wagon he built; that it was ten years later before 

 they came into common use. Several carriage builders of New 

 Haven have told me that light buggies with springs only became 

 common about 1840 to 1843. 



