Online Horse-Drawn Vehicles Collection

The horse-drawn streetcar was an important means of public transportation in 19th-century American cities. New York's Brooklyn City Railroad ran this car on its line between Hunters Point in Long Island City, and Erie Basin in South Brooklyn. But horses were expensive to stable and feed -- and messy too. Operators embraced electric streetcars starting in the late 1880s.

Angelica Bratt Campbell purchased this sporty, two-passenger carriage from coachmaker William Ross of New York City. She used it in and around Schenectady, New York, where her husband had made a fortune as a merchant. In the 1790s carriages were much rarer than cars today -- especially for city dwellers. Only the wealthy could afford closed carriages like this one.

Popular with wealthy Americans, the landau carriage featured a falling top that divided in the middle to convert it from a closed coach to an open vehicle. Sarah Cooper Hewitt, wife of industrialist and politician Abram Hewitt, ordered this landau from prominent coachbuilder Brewster and Company in May 1890. The Hewitt family crest is painted on its doors.

Horses and mules were everywhere on 19th-century American streets pulling cabs, carriages, streetcars, and commercial vehicles. This ambulance wagon, used by Detroit veterinarian Elijah Patterson, transported sick or injured draft animals for medical treatment. The wagon bed was lowered toward the street with a winch, which then pulled the bed, complete with animal, back into the wagon.

Hansom cabs, introduced in Great Britain during the 1830s, were among the most common public cabs in London. Their low bodies made it easy for passengers to get in and out. By the late 19th century, they were found in larger American cities too. People occasionally purchased hansom cabs for private use. Chicago industrialist Joseph Thatcher Torrence bought this example.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, horse-drawn beer wagons were familiar sights in American cities. Bars and saloons were numerous and provided places for working-class patrons to relax and socialize. This wagon's racks held beer kegs in an inward, sloping position so they wouldn't roll. The top rail supported a cover that shielded kegs from the hot sun.

Horse-drawn hearses like this one first appeared in the mid-19th century. A floor-mounted roller assisted in loading and unloading coffins, and large oval windows provided an unobstructed view for mourners outside the vehicle. Decorative elements on hearses ranged from plain to elaborate -- and sometimes garish. This example is tastefully appointed with brass rails and finials.

Farm wagons were all-purpose vehicles that could haul crops from the field to the barn or to market. This wagon body was used in the field for harvesting corn by hand, but it could be changed for other purposes, such as hauling hay or gravel. Franz Eilerman of Shelby County, Ohio, bought this farm wagon in 1902 for his son, Henry.

Farmers used hay, made of dried grasses, to feed their livestock when pastures were covered in snow or affected by drought. Hay was cut and baled in the fields, and then either stored in the fields or hauled to the barn in a wagon like this one. This hay wagon was used in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia.

The buckboard was simple, practical, and distinctly American. Instead of a body and springs, a long resilient board provided the suspension. This buckboard belonged to Dr. George E. Woodbury of Methuen, Massachusetts. Family tradition holds that Woodbury designed the vehicle himself and used it for recreational driving around Methuen in the 1880s.

Letter carrier August Edinger used this horse-drawn wagon to deliver mail around Kimmswick, Missouri, for more than 20 years. Sliding doors offered ventilation in summer, and a tiny coal stove provided heat in winter. Rural Free Delivery, instituted by the U.S. Post Office in 1896, eased the isolation felt by rural Americans and boosted mail-order businesses as well.

By the time Standard Oil ordered this wagon in 1892, petroleum products were common in the rural and urban United States. The wagon has three separate compartments -- for kerosene, for lubricating oil, and for gasoline. As late as the 1920s, horse-drawn wagons were still the primary means for moving these products from the railroad depot to the customer.

The pleasure wagon, developed in New England in the early 19th century, was pretty and practical. Its stylish body and bright paintwork were appropriate for a drive to church on Sunday. But, with its seat lifted out, the vehicle had room to carry produce to market the rest of the week. New Hampshire farmer Jonathan Fitts owned this pleasure wagon.

Drivers used breaking carts to train and exercise horses. It took great skill to prepare a horse to accept the weight of a vehicle, get used to the noise of the moving carriage, learn to pull in harness with other horses, and respond to the driver's commands. This cart was used to train horses owned by railroad mogul Leland Stanford.

If they couldn't go by railroad, Americans often traveled by stagecoach -- even into the early 20th century. Stage lines moved their vehicles in "stages" with continual relays of fresh horses. Open-sided wagons were lighter and less expensive than closed coaches. Canvas curtains protected passengers from bad weather. The Julian Stage Line operated in San Diego County, California.

Farmers began to use stationary power sources in the nineteenth century as they mechanized barn or farmyard work like threshing, winnowing, or corn grinding. Some invested in animal treadmills like this one. Animals walked on an "endless belt," a device similar to those on modern exercise treadmills. A wheel and belt converted the animals' movement to drive a variety of agricultural machinery.

Inspired by the lightweight horse-drawn vehicles he saw at the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Samuel Tooney, a manufacturer of horse-drawn racing vehicles, set to making the lightest carriage possible. The result, weighing in at just 96 pounds, is a design masterpiece: practical minimalism derived from refined engineering and fluency with natural materials.

Mid-19th-century Americans loved harness racing. The minimalistic sulky was essential to the sport. The lightweight little cart consisted only of what was necessary: wheels and axle, driver's seat, and a pair of shafts. When harnessed to a fast trotting horse, this high-wheeled sulky might reach 25 miles per hour or more on a race track.

Harness racing enjoyed wide popularity in the late 19th century with competitions staged at dirt tracks, at state and county fairs, and sometimes on the streets. The "bicycle" sulky -- named for its bicycle-style wheels -- quickly proved superior over wooden high-wheel sulkies when introduced in 1892. Alma Bedford of Coldwater, Michigan, built this bicycle sulky and later manufactured them commercially.

Winter didn't stop the fun for 19th-century horse racing enthusiasts. They simply hitched their energetic trotting horses to speeding cutters like this one. Abraham E. Perren, a carriage and sleigh maker in snowy Buffalo, New York, built this speeding cutter for Everett L. Smith of Westborough, Massachusetts. Smith used the cutter frequently in wintertime trotting races.

This miniature carriage was custom built for entertainer Charles Stratton, better known by his stage name Tom Thumb. Discovered by P.T. Barnum, the diminutive Thumb (3 feet, 4 inches tall when fully grown) sang and danced to the delight of 19th-century audiences. Thumb advertised his show by riding in this carriage, behind a team of ponies, through cities where he performed.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, traveling circuses entertained millions of Americans. When a circus arrived in town, it staged a spectacular promotional parade down main street, and the musical steam calliope was a highlight. This calliope was built for the John Robinson Circus of Peru, Indiana, about 1917. Other circuses used it before the calliope's retirement in 1929.

Vehicles designed to be drawn by ponies were well suited for governesses taking their young charges for a drive in the fresh air. The basket-work body on this pony wagonette formed a sort of hamper from which small children weren't likely to fall. This wagonette is one of several styles built by the Eagle Carriage Company of Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Albany cutter, a two-passenger sleigh, was the preferred wintertime vehicle for wealthy 19th-century families in the northeastern United States. James Goold of Albany, New York, developed this graceful, swell-sided sleigh design by the 1830s. David M. Anderson of Watertown, New York, bought this example secondhand about 1890. Anderson added paint and gilt decoration to the elegant vehicle.

New York City's Brewster & Company built this brougham for the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Manufacturers sent their best products to the fair to be admired by millions of attendees. This brougham won first prize in the fair's carriage competition, besting entries from other American and European makers. The coachman-driven brougham style was popular with urban professionals.

This vehicle combines elements of the wagonette (a wagon with a rear entrance and longitudinal seats) and the break (a carriage used to train horses for draft work). This wagonette break's large seating capacity and rugged springs made it ideal for carrying wealthy families and their friends on informal outings and excursions.

American cities used horse-drawn omnibuses for public transportation from the 1830s into the 1910s. Passengers entered through a rear door and sat on seats that ran lengthwise along each side. Larger hotels, like the fashionable Hotel Del Monte in Monterey, California, used omnibuses to transport guests between railroad station and hotel, or on special excursions during their stay.

New Englanders called this versatile family carriage a "carryall." With its light square-box body and two removeable seats, the informal carryall was handy for transporting people and their baggage. This carryall belonged to Boston merchant Charles S. Dana. He used it at his family's summer home at Buzzards Bay on the Massachusetts coast.

Mary Kellogg Hopkins of San Francisco, California, whose husband made his fortune in the railroad industry, used this Ladies' Phaeton, sometimes called a Basket Phaeton or Morning Phaeton. These light, fashionable vehicles, driven almost exclusively by women, were popular at resorts, parks or beaches. The ample foot bay allowed women to display their sweeping skirts.