This past weekend, my boyfriend and I visited the Wesley W. Jung Carriage Museum at the Wade House historical site in Greenbush, WI. It’s a 20,000 square-foot museum with some of the finest carriages and displays I’ve seen. It has been cold and snowy in the area, so I hope that is why there weren’t many visitors. It’s a great place that maybe people take for granted. But, maybe it’s more seasonal when people can tour the grounds and partake in festivities in warmer months. Even though we didn’t go to the other places in the complex, the carriage museum alone was worth the visit.
There’s a gorgeous stagecoach before you reach the ticket counter, and you can climb inside. There’s an automated speaker that gives you a fun experience, and a gift shop with a lot of vintage candies.
Since we were the only visitors, the curator Jim gave us a guided tour of some of the more relevant carriages for my RFD build. While they didn’t have an actual mail wagon in the collection, there were a couple that had similar suspensions and features to various mail wagons I’ve seen in my research. After this helpful start, we roamed the museum, making two full laps to take it all in.
This tobacco wagon was the closest in size and type of suspension, at least for the front.
I was able to get some great photos of the underside that showed me how it was all put together. Much of this was made from metal. I don’t plan to recreate in metal, but I think I can get a nice replication in other materials.
There was a great side room that showed the springs and wheel construction, as well as how it was all put together.
This milk wagon has sliding interior doors, which I’ve seen in some of the mail wagons.
This carriage has a closer match to the back suspension I’ve seen in mail wagons.
There were a few horse models on display, so I was also able to get some great shots of the harness setup.
I have some library books to peruse as well, which I will detail separately, but it was awesome to see examples in person.
