On the wagon again
By Dale Goodner | 28th October 2008
The clank of the wagon tongue, a forward jolt, and we’re off! Murmurs of excitement escape from the crowd into the cool quiet October evening. The horses pull the wagon along beneath the bright stars of the Big Dipper to the north, and the brilliant planet, Jupiter, to the south.
This isn’t just any harvest time hayride. For 27 autumn explorers, it’s a short sojourn into a piece Central Illinois’ past. What makes it special is these two huge percheron draft horses pulling the wagon. The Peoria Park District acquired them just about five years ago and they’ve become a regular part of Pioneer Days events and also the Hotdogs and Hayrides programs on Thursday evenings in October. They’ve also done hayrides for private groups and for Ancient Oaks Camp, all within the rustic rural confines of W.H. Sommer Park.
A French breed of work horses, percherons have been around Illinois for a very long time. This is because their large size and ‘dinner plate’ hooves make them ideally suited to heavy pulling. I was explaining to a group on the wagon this past summer that they date back to around the 1840’s well before the Civil War. They were used to cultivate the thick resistant prairie sod. Like Caterpillar Tractor Company today, their forte was power with traction.
An old timer on the wagon raised his hand and said that he had a very special family heirloom. It was a bill of sale, written in French, for a pair of percheron horses purchased by his great great great grandfather in 1837. I stood corrected! His presence on that wagon was the perfect connection. The Park District obtained these particular horses for just such a link to living history.
The wagon we were riding on was designed by the late Dean York, a long time Park District employee and foreman of the forestry crew. It was actually built by Park District employees, onto an old wagon bed, from oak recycled from trees that came down on Peoria’s streets decades ago. With stairway, railings and hydraulic brakes, it may not exactly be an 1850 replica hay wagon, but it provides an experience that is as safe as it is fun. Thanks to Dean and the tree crew, we’ve been able to provide wagon rides for folks now for a quarter century, most of that time using draft mules.
The reason we traded the mules for percherons has to do with authenticity. A decision was made by an Ad Hoc History Committee chaired by Park District Trustee, Jim Cummings, to focus Sommer Park’s historic zone on pre-Civil War life in Central Illinois. We soon discovered that mules in this part of Illinois were unusual, but percherons were the draft horse of choice.
As a driver, although I got a kick out of working with mules all those years (just kidding), switching to draft horses has been quite the experience. The only way to describe it is, it’s like after having driven “normal” cars for years, you’re suddenly driving a Rolls Royce.
What’s particularly gratifying to me, however, is the looks on the kids’ and parents’ faces when they walk up and stand by these incredible horses. The word, awesome, is overused these days, but it truly applies to this team. It’s one thing to read about draft horses, or to see photographs, or videos. It’s quite another thing to experience them first hand. In fact, that’s the appeal of living history. With the proper research and close attention to detail, you can bring bygone days (at least some aspects) back to life, in a meaningful and personal way.
Recreation is what people do in our parks. This includes a wide array of fun activities from swimming to Frisbee golf. But the word also implies re-creating something. For example, at the Nature Center you can experience or gain an authentic sense of place by immersion in forest or restored native prairie. At Sommer Park we are in the middle of a project in which Park District staff and volunteers are re-creating a way of life typical of Central Illinois in the 1850’s. The goal is to provide an experience of history, not just information. Or, in this case, learning through the draft… horse, that is.
There’s a lot of inertia on a fully leaded wagon with over 25 people on board. When stopped, it resists going. Both horses have to lunge into the harness at the same time to break the inertia and get the thing under way. If one horse starts out while the other one just stands there, it’s pretty likely that not much will happen. Just a bunch of jostling, while you go nowhere.
There’s a little bit of a trick to getting some horses to start together. Each needs just the right touch or voice command. Both horses need to step out at the same time when there’s a load. At the sound of “gitt-up,” I encourage only the left horse with a light tap of the buggy whip and they step forward into the harness as one. Once the wagon is under way, it’s easy to keep going.
The horse on the right is a self starter and will work his heart out for you. The only challenge is to make sure he doesn’t over do it.
When there’s a large crowd, we’ve offered a choice between a horse drawn hayride and one pulled by tractor. There’s no comparison. The vast majority chooses the horses.
It’s hard to imagine how one could do living history without horses. They are an integral part of our past. There’s something about them that draws us in. They’ve undoubtedly influenced us through history as much as we’ve influenced them. I sometimes wonder who domesticated whom.
“To many, the words love, hope, and dreams are synonymous with horses.”
~Oliver Wendell Holmes
“God forbid that I should go to any heaven in which there are no horses.”
~Robert Browning
“My treasures do not clink together or glitter; They gleam in the sun and neigh in the night.” -Arabian Proverb