"flying horses"

[George Thompson]

This doesn't appear in the OED.



        Exercise with flying Horses, *In the Court of Mr. Ambroise,
Fire-worker, No. 297 Mulberry street*, WILL be opened every day, Sundays
excepted; those who wish to enjoy this innocent amusement may gratify
themselves at the small rate of one quarter of a dollar per quadrille.
Private companies, who wish to enjoy this exercise and bespeak the machine
for certain hours, will please to give notice thereof at the above place.

        N. B.  From eight to ten o'clock double price on account of the
lights.

        Claypoole's American Daily Advertiser, (Philadelphia), June 11,
1796, p. 2, col. ?.

        [a house listed for sale; described as "situated in Bowery lane, 2
doors below the flying horses, above Bayard street"]

        *Daily Advertiser*, April 6, 1799, p. 3, col. ?

        [David Hervey, Zachariah Sickels and Jacob Hallock indicted for
illegible; they kept "a certain unlawful and dangerous engine or machine
called flying horse", on May 1, 1801 and after.  Henry Willetts of 33
Cheapside street, 7th Ward, complains that they have] a large building in
[Cheapside] street [where] they have [illegible] what they call flying
horses.  [This attracts] bad men and women boys and girls black and white
every night in the week Sundays excepted.

        New York County District Attorney Indictment Papers, 1st folder of
June 5, 1801.

        [text of a law prohibiting "any licensed Inn or Tavern keeper, or
Grocer" from keeping "any Flying Horse . . . , or Whirligig, or Roundabout,
or other similar machinery or device for public amusement. . . .  $50 fine]

        New-York National Advocate, June 16, 1825, p. 2, col. 5;

        On August 15, 1825, . . . the Common Council . . . granted a permit
to John Sears to "establish a covered circus for a Flying Horse
Establishment.  . . . a petition by P. Paquet was at the same time
withdrawn, indicating that his Flying Horses, perhaps exhibited earlier, may
have run into trouble with the police.

        Frederick Fried, *A Pictorial History of the Carousel*, Vestal, N.
Y.: Vestal Press, 1982, p. 51.



        Presumably these were all some sort of Whirligig, or Roundabout, or
Merry-go-round, &c.; though perhaps some sort of a back-and-forth swing?
Calling a session on the contraption a "quadrille" is curious, too.


        The proprietors of the "Elysian Fields" at Hoboken installed a
roller-coaster like contraption in the shape of a rail road, that being the
latest technological marvel in the 1830s.  There were those who thought that
the most amusing aspect of the Hoboken affair was that people would pay
money to push themselves and others around the track -- evidently it was a
form of healthful exercise, too.

        "Mr. Van Buskirk, keeper of the Hotel, at Hoboken, has constructed a
double circular railway under the shade on his grounds adjoining, for
exercise, and the amusement of visiters to that pleasant spot.  Two light
pleasure cars are provided, running on iron wheels, 3 feet in diameter, with
stuffed cushions, and neatly finished, each capable of accommodating two
persons.  The motion is produced by the riders, who turn a hand-wheel by a
windlass, and the motion is rapid and pleasant.  The circuit, which is 687
feet, is frequently made in 4 minutes.  Caution is necessary in not standing
too near."

        New-York Daily Advertiser, July 29, 1831, p. 2, col. 3

         "the larger children who amuse themselves on the circular rail
road, by first paying their passage, and then working hard to accomplish it"


        Evening Star, June 16, 1836, p. 2, col. 3


GAT


--
George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ.
Pr., 1998, but nothing much since then.

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