The oldest carousel in America where the horses swing on chains
The Flying Horse Carousel turns in a ten-sided wooden pavilion at the end of Bay Street in Watch Hill, the summer resort end of Westerly, Rhode Island, and it is the oldest operating carousel in the United States whose horses hang from chains. Twenty horses in two sizes swing from sweeps radiating out from the centre under the canopy, and as the ride picks up speed centrifugal force throws them outward until they seem to fly. A low picket fence keeps everyone clear of the space they sweep through.
Nobody knows quite how old it is. It is usually credited to the Charles W. F. Dare Company of New York around 1876, about the same time as the Flying Horses Carousel at Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, and both dates rest on inference. Local tradition puts it as early as 1867. Restoration work in the 1990s found that the horses, with forelegs stretched parallel to the ground as if in flight, follow a design pioneered by the New York carver Andrew Christian in the early 1860s, and even the Martha's Vineyard Preservation Trust has conceded that the Watch Hill horses may be the older. Each body is believed to be carved from a single block of wood with the legs set on separately, and the horses still have their original agate eyes.
How it came to stay is a mystery too. A travelling carnival owned it until 1879, the usual story goes, when the carnival was forced to abandon it there for reasons no one recorded. At first a horse on a rope turned it, with music from a hand-cranked organ; water power took over in 1897 and electricity about 1914. The canopy was once canvas, and the horses flew over a floor of sand. The New England Hurricane of 1938 devastated Watch Hill and badly damaged the carousel, but its horses were dug out of the dunes and put back to work; three chariots were never found. It has weathered more storms since, most recently Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
The ride is for children under 12, from June through Labor Day. Partway through, an arm with metal rings swings down for the riders on the outer horses to grab, and in the early days children were handed swords to spear them. The last ring is brass, and whoever catches it rides again for free. The non-profit Watch Hill Improvement Society looks after it, and it has been a National Historic Landmark since 1987.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
