“A plush robe in every
buggy” – Thomas Goodall
It may be too soon to admit, but the hot weather and
humidity have the museum staff thinking of cooler days. A recent donation to
the Lynchburg Museum has inspired thoughts of horse-drawn sleighs, buggies, and
carriages. These Victorian-era modes of
transportation are often romanticized during the winter season but imagine what
it must have been like, trying to keep warm in a Model T, fording creeks and
mud during the cold months. A family would have needed several layers of warm
blankets.
A Chase & Company brand carriage robe (also
called a “lap robe”) was donated to the Lynchburg Museum by Robert & Agnes
Trent of Lynchburg. Mrs. Trent remembers taking a Model-T from Greenville to
Midway, North Carolina with her parents, on a route that did involve crossing a
creek. The ride was neither smooth nor temperature controlled and there is a
very good chance they would have been bundled up under heavy blankets if the
weather was chilly.
The Chase robe would have been a luxurious but
utilitarian accessory. The blankets were manufactured by Sanford Mills, in
Sanford, Maine by Thomas Goodall. They are characterized by plush mohair
(angora), bright colors of the Chase brand, and ornamental borders stenciled on
the front of the blanket rather than woven into it. The standard size is 48” by
60.”
The Museum’s carriage robe is of three attentive
dogs on a small bed, two of which still have their trademark glass eyes. The
robe is in remarkable condition and the ornate stenciled green borders are
still sharp and bright. Under all of the dyed decorative images, the woven
pattern is brown and beige mohair and rather plain. The Trents displayed the
carriage robe on their wall as one would a tapestry or a quilt, and it is grand
enough to be a work of art.
The robe was originally thought to be from the
mid-1920s, but, according to Harland Eastman, President of the
Sanford-Springvale Historical Society in Sanford, Maine, the animal motif dates
the carriage robe to as early as the 1880s. The Historical Society has the
largest collection of Chase carriage robes and Eastman has said he has yet to
see the same design twice, though many were sold.
