Pam Withers, age 13, of Beaumont, Texas, for her question:
WHEN WAS THE CARRIAGE FIRST USED?
A carriage is a wheeled vehicle. It is used for carrying persons and is designed to be drawn by one or more draft animals. Dating from earliest history, the carriage is a development of the sledge, a platform on runners frequently depicted on ancient Egyptian walls.
The first carriage wheels, solid disks cut from tree trunks, doubtless evolved from rollers that were placed under sledges to lessen friction.
By 1500 B.C., horse drawn two wheeled chariots for hunting and military purposeswere being used by the Egyptians. The Assyrians, Greeks and Romansalso used this kind of chariot. The chariot of antiquity was the prototypeof the cart.
The primitive form of the chariot was changed as it was adopted by different nations. Its wheels were enlarged, it was made to hold many persons and finally four wheels were used.
During the Middle Ages, carriages fell into disuse mainly because of the ruinous condition of the old Roman roads. Travelers moved from place to place chiefly on horseback, on mule or carried on litters. Goods were conveyed in huge panniers hung on the sides of strong draft animals.
The use of carriages was revived gradually, however, at first by the nobility and later by wealthy burghers.
One of the earliest vehicles to appear in medieval times was the whirlicote, a form of horse drawn litter on wheels. Also developed in the Middle Ages was the carreta, a highly ornamented two wheel cart.
The most important development in carriage making occurred possibly before the 16th century when the first coach was made, probably in Hungary. Later, leather springs and small front wheels were introduced, a modification that made turns in a narrow space possible.
Stagecoaches were first built during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I of England.
Although important changes in the art of carriage making occurred during the 17th and 18th centuries, the most significant developments in the field did not begin in the British Isles until the early part of the 19th century. Then, as a result of the work of the British engineerr John Loudon McAdam and others, the highways of Great Britain were put into a condition that made vehicular travel pleasant.
In 1804 a device was patented in Great Britain by which vehicles were hung upon eliptic springs, thus eliminating the heavy perch, or longitudinal wood or iron pole, that had always been used to connect the front and back wheels of four wheeled carriages.
With this new invention, modern methods of carriage construction started. The best known of the many types of carriages developed in the course of the 19th century included the phaeton, the brougham, the barouche, the chaise, the omnibus and the hansom cab.
In the United States, the manufacture of carriages and wagons was an important industry throughout the 18th and 19th centuries.