Rural Heritage June/July 2025

A pristine Governess Cart, usually pulled by a pony.

acquiring a range of horse-drawn vehicles – sometimes at auction and sometimes directly from their owners – and spent a lot of time in his workshop bringing them back to life. The workshop used to be in the basement of the furniture store, but eventually that space was needed for store inventory; so Dale now has a dedicated workshop building. His goal is to have the vehicles looking as much like they would have been in their prime. He is mostly self-taught and carefully documents each of these restorations in photographs. In the museum, some of these photographs showing various stages of repair are on display with most of the vehicles. Dale strives to keep as much original material as possible. In fact, some vehicles have the original leather upholstery! He has made some substitutions during the course of this work. For instance, he uses oak for frames. Some of the Draft Horse Club members do a bit of restoration work and were eager to find out where he sources some of his materials.

Dale says that the Mennonite communities in southwestern Ontario are a valuable resource, especially for wheels, wheel parts and for putting new rubber or iron on the wheels. They also repair buggy tops. Paint in original colors can be obtained there. It was mentioned that hub caps were hard to find, and one must be certain to remember that they come threaded differently for right-side and left side wheels. He and his family do the painting, and one of his granddaughters does the majority of the pinstriping. One of the most charming aspects of the museum is the care with which each of the vehicles has been decorated. Every one of them has something special – a pair of driving gloves on the seat, a child’s doll dressed in old-fashioned clothing, a bouquet of artificial flowers. It gives the vehicles a homey feeling, as though they were well-loved. Many of the vehicles, such as the Doctor’s Buggy (also known as a Phaeton), and the McLaughlin Carriage were in common use

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