- Today we are pleased to
introduce Jim Willaert
as part of the Wisconsin
Historical Museum's
History Sandwiched In
lecture series.
Jim Willaert is the Curator of
Interpretation and Collections
at Wade House Historic Site
in Greenbush, Wisconsin.
Wade House is one of the 12
historic sites and museums
operated by the Wisconsin
Historical Society.
Jim has worked in the history
field for more than 25 years.
Prior to Wade House,
he worked at Conner Prairie
Interactive History
Park in Indiana.
He holds a master's
degree in history
from Eastern
Illinois University.
Here today to discuss the Wesley
W Jung Carriage Collection,
please join me in
welcoming Jim Willaert.
[applause]
- Good afternoon.
Thank you all for coming.
For those of you not familiar
with us, Wesley W Jung
Carriage Museum is part of
Wade House Historic Site.
We're located in Greenbush.
For those of you not familiar
with Greenbush, we are located
exactly halfway between
Sheboygan and Fond du Lac,
which is why Mr. Wade
built a hotel there
along the stagecoach
line in the first place.
But today we're going to
focus on the Wesley W Jung
Carriage Museum, which
is in its new home.
It moved in in July of 2013.
I'll start a little bit further
back, though, than that.
Jacob Jung, the founder of what
eventually became the Jung
Carriage Company, immigrated to
the United States with his
sister, Margaretha, and his
mother, Magadalena, in 1853.
They departed Europe from
originally Baden, Germany,
but Havre, France, sailing on
the ship New York
with 172 other people.
And I don't know about you guys,
I'm really not a big fan
of long distance traveling.
So the idea of a seven-week
rough and stormy voyage across
the Atlantic that they took
really doesn't appeal to me.
But they did indeed
arrive safely
in New York in
September of 1853,
stayed around for about a month
before moving to Columbus, Ohio.
And I don't know
if any of you guys
have ever been to
Columbus, Ohio.
Not a real exciting
place at times.
And I think Jacob felt the same
way because about a year later
he moved to Sheboygan.
Didn't waste a lot of
time once he got here.
Got himself a job working
for a carriage company,
which we'll talk about
in a few moments,
and, of course, found a
girlfriend and got married.
Although I really shouldn't
say found a girlfriend.
See, Jacob had gone to church
with a young lady named
Eleanora Wilke Nack,
and on March 25, 1855,
they had their first date.
And about, the first thing
Jacob did was propose.
And he wanted to get
married tomorrow.
Well, Eleanora, being
a little more sensible
than Jacob, said no.
I'll marry you but we have
to wait until the day after
tomorrow because I've
got some baking to do.
[laughter]
But they did marry two days
after their first date.
Eventually they would
have six children.
Eleanor, or Clara; Jacob Jr;
Wilhelm, Willie;
Heinrich, Henry;
Otto; and Alfred.
Lots of nice good German names.
And this is really
not surprising
because not only did Jung
come to us from Germany
but he came to
Sheboygan for a reason.
And that reason was it was an
area that had seen a lot of
German immigration and had a
lot of skilled woodworkers
already there and available to
do what he wanted to do,
which was build carriages.
He came here with an idea,
and that idea was to
start a carriage company.
Originally he worked for
an existing company,
Brothers and Jones,
located at the corner of
Pennsylvania Avenue
and 9th Street.
By the way, this is not Brothers
and Jones, but it is located
at the corner of
Pennsylvania and 9th Street.
Brothers and Jones,
unfortunately,
was not the best
company to work for.
They couldn't really pay these
guys, and about a year later,
after working for them,
Jacob and a partner,
coworker of his by the
name of Lawrence Artmann
were able to take
over the business.
Now, we don't know what kind of
discount they got for money
owed, but we do know that they
very quickly changed the name
to Jacob Jung and
worked together
for 12 years until
Artmann's death.
Neat thing about the
company was, well,
they kind of had
a unique setting.
The corner there on
9th and Pennsylvania
had a whole bunch of buildings
on it and had a courtyard,
but only one
building was theirs.
So they built the carriages in
the building, and they used the
courtyard as a showroom and
managed to get a good enough
reputation that people
came to them directly,
not only for basic carriages
but for very specific,
personally-designed carriages.
And the business went so
well that about 20 years
after he got it, Jacob was able
to build his own building.
We just saw it here.
I actually should go back.
It's a Richardsonian
Romanesque building.
Wood frame, timber frame,
brick and stone facade,
and it's just a lovely building.
It still stands today,
if you want to go to
Sheboygan and see it.
Although today we don't
make carriages there.
We have a beauty salon,
a photographer,
a lawyer, and a bar.
Inside it was an amazing place.
It had a paint shop, a wood
shop, and a blacksmith shop.
Employed 15 to 20 men, and what
I love about this shop is that
everybody's working in kind
of tight proximity here.
I can't find my cursor,
but we have a fellow
right there in the middle.
He's putting mortises in
hubs to build wheels.
In front of him, you can
see bundles of spokes.
By this point they
were buying spokes
pre-made from somebody else.
A fellow working on trim on the
left, fellow sawing other trim
on the right, and the young man
standing in the middle, wearing
a tie, looking very important,
is a very young Wesley.
This picture, by the way,
this is the 1904.
Look at the factory,
this picture was taken
about 1912, 1913.
As I mentioned earlier,
Jung had five sons.
Every one of them worked
for the carriage company.
Everybody in the family knew how
to build vehicles, sleighs,
wagons, carriages, and built
beautiful pieces.
But everybody also
went their own way.
Wilhelm is going to work
in the painting and
decorating business.
You notice in the picture,
the building said paint
and decorating at one end?
He opened his shop
in the building
with the carriage factory.
Jacob Jr, is going to take
over the carriage business.
And Wilhelm will work
with him for a while.
Henry, he's going to work for a
while for dad as a blacksmith,
and then he will start
a shoe company.
By the way, if anybody's
interested, this pair of Jung
boots is available for sale
somewhere on the Internet.
Alfred went into the clothing
and dry good business.
He even offered
50 cent discounts
with a five-dollar purchase
if you had the coin.
Otto didn't go into business for
himself, but he constantly
worked with his brothers in
their various businesses.
But the entire family did stay
in Sheboygan for
many, many years.
Always tied to the
carriage company, no
matter what it was called,
and the name did
change over time.
Originally, it was
called Jacob Jung.
In the late 19th century,
it was renamed J&W Jung
when Jacob Jr, and
Willie took over.
And in 1901 it became what we've
come to know as the Jung
Carriage Company and stayed
in business until 1917 when,
unfortunately, like many other
carriage businesses in the
state, those pesky automobiles
reduced the demand, and instead
of going into the bicycle
or automobile business,
the brothers merely separated
and went into their
other businesses.
One of the neat things
about the Jung factory
is everything they
did was a custom job.
The paint was specific
to the buyer.
The design of the vehicle was
specific to the buyer's needs,
their business, and even
their personal height
to fit comfortably.
And they were not inexpensive.
This little carriage
you see here--
By the way, the $13.85 is
just a little repair work.
The carriage you see here
would have cost about $115
in the early 20th century,
at a time when the equivalent
vehicle in the catalogs
of their competitors in
other states cost $28.
So this was the
Cadillac of its time.
However, they sold
a lot of vehicles
that were instrumental in
the building of Sheboygan.
You can see here a column
for the bank being moved
on a flatbed carriage
made by the Jungs.
For those of you who might have
been to the Carriage Museum
in the past, you might
recognize those wheels.
They're now under
a circus wagon.
The building that we looked at,
by the way, did stay in the
family until 1926 and became a
historic landmark in 1974.
But the reason we really
remember the Jungs
was because of Jacob's
grandson, Wesley.
Wesley was born in 1899.
He grew up with the carriage
business around him.
He worked in the blacksmith
shop, the paint shop,
and the wood shop for a
while when he was a teenager
before going off to join
the army in World War I.
When he got back, he went to
school, spent some time here
at the university in Madison,
and became an accountant.
But he never lost his love
for the family business
and for vehicles.
And when he got a little bit
older and had a little bit
extra money, he started
collecting these vehicles,
restoring things that had
been made by his family.
He got so interested in it, he
became one of the founding
members of the Carriage
Society of America.
He was the treasurer, wrote
articles for their journal,
participated in carriage-driving
competitions, and really
surrounded himself with the
vehicles his family had built.
And, of course, in 1968,
he donated the collection
to the Historical Society
and founded the Wesley
Jung Historical Museum.
This is a picture, from
what I understand, of
what Wesley did best,
which was paint the
striping on vehicles.
And you'll see his work
as we go through
the rest of our talk here today.
So let's move on to
some of the vehicles.
Like all of us who have a
collection, there's that
one thing you bought that
maybe you shouldn't have.
And the next thing you know,
you've got a hundred full-size
vehicles in the barn out back,
you've spent hundreds
of dollars or thousands
of dollars fixing them,
and your wife is wanting to know
why you have all this stuff.
Well, this is the one.
It's a heavy delivery wagon.
We just refer to it as
the Herzog meat wagon.
It was owned by George and made
specifically for George Herzog,
who was a wholesaler meat dealer
a couple miles
north of Sheboygan.
The Jungs built it
for him in 1904,
and he used it for
a good 10 years
hauling whole sides of
beef around town to the
various markets.
So I would imagine that this
was pretty funny looking
when it was full.
The original cost of this guy?
A whopping $135.
And, of course, being
the early 19th century,
when we're done with something
we have another use for it.
When Mr. Herzog was done, he
sold it to somebody who used it
constantly for many years at
the State Fair as a wagon
his Belgians pulled during
the horse competitions.
Wesley, of course, being Wesley,
got a real deal on it
when he bought it.
He paid $25.
[laughter]
I have not included this
information in our program
today, but I did mention
Wesley was an accountant.
And one of the really funny
things that he liked to do
was any time he
exhibited his wagons,
on the sign he told everybody
what he had it insured for.
This wagon is very elaborate.
It has a fifth wheel allowing
the front end to turn.
Very smooth action.
It also does have a good set of
breaks on it because we do have
some hills around Sheboygan,
and, fully-loaded,
this thing is a
very heavy piece.
As I said, it's not only
the first piece he bought,
it's the first
piece he restored.
Imagine this, if you will,
close your eyes
and see the wagon in green.
Wes hated that.
So he redid it in the original
red, yellow, and black paint
scheme, and the one thing that
really caught his attention,
and he had to get this right,
was the steer head.
And this is really
important to Wesley.
Because what happens when you
go to the store to buy decals?
They're identical.
So when you put one on
both sides of the wagon,
one steer is facing forward,
the other steer is facing back.
Wesley was not going to have
a backwards-facing steer.
He spent three or four years
trying to find two decals
with the same cow that
would face forward.
He wrote letters around the
country, he called his daughter
in New York and had her go out
to all the stores that
sold decals, and she finally
found these under the counter
in a hardware store
covered with dust.
They'd been made by a company in
Bavaria called Pullman Fletcher,
shipped to the United States,
nobody wanted them apparently,
and she got them and shipped
them to us here in Wisconsin,
where Wesley, so pleased with
his decals, put them in a
waterproof container and locked
them in the safe for seven years
to make sure that
nothing happened to them
until he got around
to using them.
So you can see by this, he
put a lot of time, effort,
and money into the
restoration work he did.
And one of the things that
he was proudest of in his
collection was a bobsleigh built
by his grandfather about 1870.
It's not really that fancy.
It's a, you know,
standard wood finish.
It's got some what would today
we would call pinstriping on it,
but it's a very
lightweight vehicle
showing incredible workmanship.
That dashboard that's
bent into almost an S
is one piece of wood
that was steamed
and meticulously bent
into that shape.
I mentioned a moment ago that
this is a bobsled, and does
anyone know the difference
between a sleigh and a bobsled?
Two sets of runners.
Bobsleds have two
sets of runners,
and the front one can be turned.
A sleigh has a singe
set of runners
that are in a fixed position.
So this can go really fast
and it takes curves
much better than a
standard sleigh.
Some of the vehicles
that Wes restored
he did on a bit of a whim.
And the canopy top
surrey is probably
his biggest ode to pop culture.
This was again made by the
family company in about 1890,
and when Wes got it, he liked it
because it was a
very family piece.
This is a surrey, and a surrey
is a two- to three-seat vehicle
with a roof protect you from the
sun, and generally they tended
to be very reasonably priced so
that families could afford them.
You could run them
with one horse,
so you didn't have to own two
but you could use
two if you wanted.
And when Wesley got this one,
he restored it around the 1950s
because he was very
excited to restore this
to this particular
color combination.
Notice the fringe on the top.
The color scheme
matches the lyrics
to the song from "Oklahoma."
And I mentioned Wesley, you
know, sometimes did some things
because he liked to, you know,
show people what he'd done
and what he could do.
He not only would show you this
and tell you all about the color
scheme, but one of Wes' favorite
things to do was to show people
the album cover from the
soundtrack to "Oklahoma"
and point out the
surrey on the cover
did not match the paint
scheme to the lyrics.
So, he also loaned this one
to the local community theater
for their production
of "Oklahoma."
But its true fame comes from
a different direction.
In 1957, this restored surrey
took a trip to Spring Green and
was used as the presentation
vehicle for the Spring Green
centennial parade's
grand marshal.
And I don't know if any of you
can recognize the gentleman
in the back seat, but that
is Mr. Wright.
Wright new Wesley Jung.
He had eventually sent some
pieces to him for restoration
work and asked if he could
borrow this particular piece.
To give you an idea of how much
effort we're talking for the
time, to send a driver from
Spring Green to Sheboygan,
to Spring Green to Sheboygan
and back,
660 miles of driving
to pick this up and use
it for a short parade.
But we all know that
Mr. Wright did what
Mr. Wright wanted to do,
and he wanted this wagon.
The piece that we have
in our collection today
that was actually
owned by Mr. Wright
was this roof-seat omnibus.
I don't know if you can see it,
but there's a seat up there
on the roof.
It's got seating inside, it's
got seating on the front of the
cabin, and then, of course,
the driver who sits right
behind the brake line there.
And this is just
an amazing piece.
Omnibuses were used when
you picked up your guests
at the train station and
drove them to your resort
or drove them to your hotel.
It really wasn't something
that many people
had their own private one of,
but Mr. Wright did and he used
this particular piece to
pick up new apprentices
at the train station in Spring
Green and take them to Taliesin.
You can see the inside
very nice upholstered.
There are some kind of scary
stories of Mr. Wright's driving
that I probably should mention.
I believe the phrase that was
used by one of his apprentices
was you would see him racing
into town toward the train
station, standing in the
carriage, coattails flying
behind him, reins in hand, whip
in the other, no ticket in his
pocket, but he made it on
the train before it left.
[laughter]
And I would imagine
that seeing him standing on top
of this would have
been really funny.
It's not a short vehicle.
That driver seat is a good
seven feet off the ground.
This is one that
was probably very,
one of the very first ones
ever displayed by Mr. Jung.
It went on exhibit
in Sheboygan in 1958
under partial restoration,
and he didn't finish it
until 1968.
But at the same time that he was
showing this off, his inventory
records showed that he had nine
vehicles in his possession
that had belonged to Mr. Wright.
And what we have since found
out is that the Wright estate
sent all these vehicles to
Wesley for restoration work.
And he sent eight of
them back, unrestored
or partially restored,
and he kept this one.
And this may sound
like a familiar story
to those of you familiar
with Mr. Wright.
But apparently Mr. Wright was
known for not paying his bills.
So what we can assume is that
Wesley kept this one in payment
for the work he had done on
it and for the partial work
he had done on a governess cart.
So today this one is
in excellent shape.
Three or four of the ones that
he did have in his possession
at one point have been
returned to Taliesin
and they are still there today,
although not on exhibit.
Flipping gears a little bit,
let's go very high tech
from the very simple.
Wesley also loved
fire equipment.
And he managed to get
this one to restore it.
And this was a total mess.
Somebody had pumped the
equipment full of mud
and let it sit.
It took four months of soaking
in oil to get all the parts out.
But this is a Silsby Pumper.
It's number 863,
for those you keeping track
of where they all are.
It was built in Seneca Falls,
New York, in 1886
and served its fire company in
Berlin, Wisconsin, very well.
They used this device
until 1929.
And what's really
neat about it
is that this guy has a rotary
twin steam engine in it.
He can get that thing going.
By the way, it's restored
to full functionality.
It is so finely machined that
you can blow on the blades in
the turbine and they will spin.
But seeing it go down the road
had to be really cool because
the guy in the back is there,
he's standing in the coal box,
and he's shoveling coal in this
thing as it goes down the road.
It takes seven minutes from the
time you get the fire going
until you can start
pumping the water.
And this guy with the
water source will pump
500 to 600 gallons a
minute over 200 feet.
Just an amazing
piece of equipment.
It also was highly decorated.
But, unfortunately,
for a while firefighters
didn't really like these guys.
You know how we all feel
when we get new technology,
what's the first
thing everybody says?
I'm going to lose my job.
And it was the same thing here.
But eventually it caught on.
Like I said, they used
it for over 40 years,
so they eventually
must have liked it.
The other end of the spectrum,
though, is the hook and ladder,
which was not pulled by horses.
This device was designed
for fire departments
that were too poor
to buy a horse.
And it was pulled by firemen.
Everybody grabbed a hold
and took off running.
However, when the Jungs built
this, they did stop and think
and they put brakes on it to
make sure that it did not run
over the firemen
when going downhill.
By the way, this one is from
the Plymouth Fire Department.
Plymouth is a town about
15 miles west of Sheboygan.
One of the really challenges
of restoring this,
Wesley did all the line work
on there that you see.
He was able to build new ladders
because this thing
was a total wreck.
There was no parts left.
And he bought fire
extinguishers,
and he went out and
bought axes to go in it.
You can see where the
fire extinguishers.
You can see the ax there
sitting behind the rail.
But nobody made axes
the right size anymore.
So he took these new axes, went
down to the fire department
and made a deal with them.
If they would give him old axes
that would fit his wagon,
he would buy them these nice,
new ones, which are in
so much better shape than
anything you guys own.
So the fire department
traded him the axes.
Everybody got what they
needed from the deal,
and Wesley was able to continue
the restoration of this vehicle.
The fellow in the
picture here
is there for kind
of an odd reason.
His name is Frederick.
He also credited with building
this particular hook and ladder.
So, some records say it
was built by the Jungs,
others say it was built
by this gentleman.
And it is possible that he
worked for the Jungs,
but this is one of the
mysteries we try to solve is
where things come from and
who actually did the work.
He did build the
second hook and ladder
that the fire department
ended up owning.
And here's a picture of the
guys who had to pull it.
Our fire department, by the way,
ran out all the English-speaking
members, took all their notes
and held all their
meetings in German.
Of course, we can't discuss the
19th and early 20th century
without a milk wagon.
And Wesley restored this one.
It was built in 1905.
Unfortunately we
don't know by who.
And this is actually framed out
just like a building would be,
and then the sides are covered.
It is a completely
enclosed vehicle
to help protect the products.
Keep the heat off
them in the summer,
help keep them from
freezing in the winter.
It's even got a front window.
The reins actually go through
a hole under the window
so the driver can
see them inside.
But one of the really cool
things about this wagon and this
type of wagon is today we are
coming upon what we're calling
the first self-driving vehicles.
Well, these were self-driven.
The horses new their route so
well that when the milkman got
out to deliver the products,
butter, milk, grade A milk,
you know, all those things
that came to your home,
the horse would keep
going to the next stop.
And the driver would just
walk along behind him,
get what he needed, and finally,
and the end of the block,
he'd get back in
and actually drive.
But the horse was the brains
of the operation.
Of course, these were
a common sight
in most towns in the
early 20th century.
The Gridley Dairy of
Milwaukee eventually
became part of Borden.
This particular vehicle actually
was used to deliver milk
in Wauwatosa until 1937.
So it had a long life.
Sleighs could also be
used for delivery.
We know what winters
are like around here.
Another version of Herzog.
This one was built again
by the Jungs around 1900.
This one delivered whole
bodies and whole carcasses,
just like the last one,
only instead of to
the stores this one
went from the slaughterhouse
to Herzog's wholesale center.
Winter did not stop
the business though.
We just took off the wheel,
put on runners.
Here's a picture of another one
of his sleighs in the summer
with the wheels on it.
And you can see it's full
of sides of beef.
Now, you may notice that
this particular vehicle
was the same color as the
other Herzog one we looked at.
That wasn't a Herzog thing.
There were some very
popular color combinations
of the time period.
Yellow with black and
red was very common.
Green with yellow, red with
black, or red with yellow are
all represented in most
vehicle collections.
Of course, you'll also
find wood color,
you'll find black with yellow,
but the one thing that
I have not run across
on a consistent basis at all
is a blue vehicle,
and my guess is it
has to do with
the cost of the
blue pigment.
Keeping with our yellow
and black theme,
this is my favorite piece
in the collection.
For those of you who are into
old cars: Studebaker.
This one was made in South Bend,
Indiana, about 1900.
The same people that
ended up making the cars.
And this was used to keep the
oil and the dirt down on roads.
Usually it was a
community-owned vehicle.
This particular one was
privately-owned.
Look at the spraying gear.
This particular one took
two operators: a driver
and an oiler who
sat in the back.
He has multiple levelers
and dials there
to control the flow of
his water or his oil.
Here's kind of a good
look at one spraying.
What you can't see on here is
the big fancy A on the front.
This was owned by Louis Armour.
He used-- Danforth Lodge was
his estate in Oconomowoc.
So he used this to treat the
roads at his private compound.
I have two different
stories to tell you
about where this came from now.
The official statement is
it was donated to Mr. Jung
by a group of Sheboygan
businessmen.
The more interesting story
came from a visitor
who came through my museum
about two years ago.
He stopped me as I was walking
through and said, "You know,
"that was in my dad's garage,
and it was covered with oil.
"You couldn't see the color.
"You couldn't see the
logo or anything.
"We knew where it came from,
"but nobody wanted to think
remotely about going through
"all the effort of scrubbing
oil off something that big
"because you know how oil
doesn't come off anything."
So they called Mr. Jung
and said if you want it
and can get it out of here,
it's yours. He did.
Took it home, hit it
with a garden hose
and everything came
right off it.
And they found
Mr. Armour's logo,
or probably the
best word for it,
on the front of it, and
it turns out that this was used
at the Armour-Valentine estate
that I mentioned earlier.
This is Wisconsin, we have
to talk about beer.
The Jungs did also
make beer wagons,
but this one is
another Studebaker.
It was made originally for the
Kurth Brewery back about 1898.
And they used it for 50 years
until they ran it
into the ground.
Mr. Jung got his hands on it,
restored it for Kingsbury
in Sheboygan, who used it
through the 1950s and 1960s.
It's basically a flatbed wagon.
It just has some sides on it to
keep things from falling off.
They were very proud
of their beer.
It's fit for a king.
But they loaded this
thing down so much
they had to build it
industrial strength.
You can see how many
layers of leafs
there are in those springs.
Now, there are three
types of beer wagons:
those that haul grain, those
that haul cases of bottles,
and those that haul kegs.
This hauled cases of bottles,
which, when you fill a wagon
this big, you have some
significant weight.
So they built it to
withstand the pressure.
And it's an amazing piece.
It's still there.
It still works.
And those springs today are
still strong enough that when
we had to get up in it with a
couple of good sized guys to
move some things, springs did
not even begin to bend.
Since we're talking about vice,
Velvet tobacco was sold
in Sheboygan by Herman Schuelke,
the mayor.
Three-term mayor.
And he was very proud
of his business.
He made home deliveries:
cigars, cigarettes, tobacco.
You can't get that today.
And he had the Jungs build this
for him, and I love this piece.
That is what it looked like the
day it rolled off the line.
It has never been restored.
We are its fourth owner.
Mr. Schuelke owned it,
he gave it to his son-in-law,
who sold it to Mr. Jung,
who gave it to us.
The trim around the word
"Velvet" is gold leaf.
You can see the beveled glass.
He spent a significant
amount of money on this.
And, of course, you know,
smoking didn't have the stigma
that it did today back then,
because, you know,
we all smoked with Velvet Joe.
This I think is one of the most
amazing vehicles I've ever seen.
Everything on that is wood.
Even the curtains.
It was built by James Cunningham
& Sons & Company in 1890.
It came from Rochester,
New York.
And this one's black.
We're used to seeing that.
Black's a mourning
color for adults.
We also have another one that
I'm not going to show you today.
It's a children's hearse.
It's white.
And children's hearses were
white, representing purity.
We don't generally
exhibit that one
because it tends to freak
people out for some reason.
But if you take a close
look at the curtains,
you can see there's
pilasters on here.
I believe they're Doric columns.
Hand-carved curtains.
Some of their pieces had
carved gargoyles on them.
They were just
incredibly detailed.
And this is what
Cunningham was known for.
You can pull this
with two horses.
Four, of course,
is more impressive.
And it's often considered
that a hearse like this
was the fanciest ride most of
its occupants ever took.
By the way, these guys
are still in business.
They still make hearses,
but their big thing is
custom interiors
for your vehicle.
So, if you're on your way home
today and you're thinking
the inside of my car needs
a redo and you've got a minimum
of one million dollars, they
will talk to you, but apparently
they won't touch anything under
a one-million-dollar interior.
And that's James Cunningham
up there in the corner,
looking every bit
the hearse salesman.
Children's wagons
weren't very common,
but the Jungs did
make some of them.
This one was made for a friend
of the family about 1903,
and it has one sister, or twin,
whatever you want to call it.
The other one is blue and
it says police on it.
That was made for
Jacob's grandkids.
And Jacob did
personally make this
for some friends named Long.
The neat thing about these
wagons is that not only did they
look just like the adult ones
which made the kids happy,
but they were designed
to hook your dog to.
[laughter]
So you could actually
go out and use it. By the way,
this is the police one.
And that is decorated to look
just like the one used by
the 1st Ward police
in Sheboygan.
It's blue.
One of the few ones.
Now, I know what
you're thinking.
What if you don't have a dog?
Well, you can hook your goat
to it, you can hook your
sheep to it, or, and this
is the best of all worlds,
you can hook your turkeys to it.
[laughter]
And apparently load
it with produce.
[laughter]
I just hope this
little guy isn't planning on
going all the way to the port
in Sheboygan with this.
I love this piece.
I mean, that is just, can you
imagine hooking up the turkeys
and sending the kids
out for a ride.
Now, of course, if we're going
to go to the very small,
we should also look at
the incredibly elegant.
Road coaches, also called park
drags, were for the elite.
This particular vehicle was made
by the CP Kimball Company
in Chicago.
It comes from about 1880.
And one of the great things
about these is you could put
everybody you know on it,
go to a sporting event,
and use it as a
mobile grandstand.
And, of course, there are
records of people complaining
about these things
parking in front of them
and then they couldn't see.
It carried 16 passengers
inside and on top.
You can see the
fellow at the back.
There's a ladder there
that helps you get up.
And on top of that, it has
a pantry in the back.
This particular one came with
two zinc-lined mahogany coolers.
And a drawer or tray to put
your china, silverware,
and even wooden secured
cones for your wine glasses.
A little demonstration of how
to pack on up there at the top.
We didn't know this was there.
We were moving the vehicle one
day, doing some cleaning on it,
and decided to open
the door in the back
and all this really
cool stuff was there.
Also, I should mention
that we don't want to
leave the horses out.
There's another compartment at
the front under the driver seat
to put hay and oats
for the horses.
This is a monstrous vehicle.
It's a good eight or nine
feet to the top of it.
And you have to have
four horses to pull it.
It's what's called
a four-in-hand.
This particular one has a
little bit of a history to it.
I would assume that those
coolers saw a lot of beer in
their day because this was owned
by Captain Pabst and his family.
Well, the age of wagons
came to a close.
Horse-drawn vehicles lost their
appeal when the automobile came,
and it didn't take long.
Here in 1911, Sheboygan--
By the way, 8th Street is kind
of our main business district.
You can see one car in
the middle amid all the
horse-drawn vehicles.
It was only seven years
later that there's not
a horse in sight.
So, today, we can
remember the vehicles,
we can remember the work of
factories such as the Jungs,
and, you know, the great
work of preservation
and restoration done
by Wesley W Jung,
exhibited in the
museum of Wade House.
Thank you.
[applause]