collections

1890 Porter Steam Engine

If you have been in the Industrial History Center, you may have noticed the largest object on display—our steam engine! Although it does not chug along to produce power for manufacturing anymore, it was once an important tool for industry. Our engine (called a horizontal mill engine) is from Cape Cod, where it was used to provide power for an ice-manufacturing company. When the company switched to electrical power, the steam engine became obsolete. It was made by the Porter Manufacturing Company of Syracuse, New York, in 1890. Read about steam engine operation in an article by Mike Harrold here.

To be able to demonstrate running steam engines at the IHC, we enlisted the help of our industrious volunteer Mike Harrold. Mike sourced and built three mini steam engines operated by pressurized air and demonstrated the machines' mechanics for our visitors. The engines made their debut at our Going Places: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles event, and both kids and adults alike tried their hand at operating the engines with the use of bicycle pumps. Read about our model steam engine set up here.

Wills st. claire automobile

s St. Claire AutomobileThis photograph from the Amesbury Carriage Museum was taken during the early 1920s. It is a window into Amesbury history of the auto body building industry.

SPRRHS Collection

In 2015, the Amesbury Carriage Museum absorbed the assets of Salisbury Point Rail Road Historical Society (SPRRHS), which included the SPRR station and a large collection of photographs. Other SPRRHS collections remain on the SPRRHS website, which is still running today -- although frozen as it was in 2015.

1908 Folger & Drummond Beach Wagon

“Beach wagon was a term found along the Atlantic coast, particularly in New England, for wagons used for beach or countryside trips,” Amesbury Carriage Museum (ACM) Executive Director Kelly Daniell said. “This particular beach wagon has a rubber rug on its floor—not uncommon in the time—that looks remarkably like a floor mat for a car that you might buy today, and it served the same purpose of protecting the floor from mud and debris.”

The manufacturer, Folger and Drummond, was in business from 1888 until 1914, operating out of the five-story brick factory that once dominated the skyline of Amesbury’s Lower Millyard. David J. Folger was a major player in the Amesbury carriage manufacturing industry.

The 1908 Folger and Drummond beach wagon shown on the left is part of ACM’s current carriage collection.

Buggy Wrenches (AKA Axle Nut Wrenches)

Carriage and wagon wheels were attached to their axles with axle nuts, usually square and recessed within the hub of the wheel. Removing these nuts to remove the wheel for repair or lubrication required a specialized wrench that could reach into the wheel hub and engage the nut to spin it off.

These wrenches were made by a variety of manufacturers in an amazing number of configurations. Some were plain box-style wrenches, but others were adjustable with features for clamping onto the nut and removing it quickly.

The Amesbury Carriage Museum’s buggy wrench collection consists of several styles and designs.

Wagon and Carriage Jacks

In the days of horse-drawn wagons and carriages, wheels and axles often needed service and repair. Such operations required lifting the axle and wheel a few inches above the ground so the wheel could be removed for greasing its journal bearing, changing a wheel or making a repair. For this, wagon and carriage owners often kept a jack on hand in the vehicle or at home.

Jacks came in an almost endless variety of shapes and mechanisms, mainly made from wood, iron, and steel. The Amesbury Carriage Museum has about a dozen of these jacks in its collection. Some were made by Amesbury artisans and by jack manufacturers in nearby towns.

1890 Cabinet Cards of the Bartlett Rifles

Back in 1890, before the Spanish American War, Capt. Edwin WM Bailey and 45 members of the Bartlett Rifles were photographed by WC Thompson, who had studios in both Amesbury and Newburyport. Forty-seven of these “cabinet cards,” so-called because they were large enough to be displayed on a cabinet, were mounted together in one large frame at the Biddeford (Maine) Historical Society, which donated the framed collection to the Amesbury Carriage Museum.

Merrimac Hat Company Photographs

Our collection of 34 photographs of workers at the Merrimac Hat Company was purchased by the ACM, thanks to the generous support of Suzanne Cote and Maris DiTolla.

The images, which are jointly owned by ACM and the Merrimac Hat Museum, offer a look into the process of hat making and capture the faces of many Amesbury workers, who were part of the company. Some of the photos were used in the 1944 promotional catalog “Making the Headlines” while others date as recently as the 1960s.