Nutfield Genealogy: September 2024

Wednesday, September 11, 2024

A Fire Engine in New London, New Hampshire for Weathervane Wednesday

This weathervane was photographed at the Ice House Museum in New London, New Hampshire.

The Ice House Museum in New London, New Hampshire specializes in transportation and has amazing collections of Model Ts, automobiles, bicycles, and fire engines. Over the building housing the fire engines is this very detailed, three dimensional weathervane of an old fire engine - possibly an old Amoskeag steamer built in Manchester, New Hampshire.

This weathervane contains lots of great small details, including the reins on the horses, spokes on the wheels, and the helmets on the firefighters' heads. You can appreciate the details without using binoculars or the zoom function on your phone or camera because it is on a very low building. Getting up close is more fun when you spot a great weather vane!

For the truly curious:

Ice House Museum, New London, New Hampshire: https://www.wfkicehouse.org/

Facebook page for the Ice House Museum: https://www.facebook.com/theicehousemuseum/

Last month I wrote a Weathervane Wednesday post about another weather vane from this museum. Click here to read all about this Model T automobile weather vane! https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2024/08/a-modified-model-t-weathervane-new.html

Click here to see over 500 Weathervane Wednesday posts from this blog! https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/search/label/Weathervane%20Wednesday

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To cite/link: Heather Wilkinson Rojo, "A Fire Engine in New London, New Hampshire for Weathervane Wednesday", Nutfield Genealogy, posted September 11, 2024, ( https://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2024/09/a-fire-engine-in-new-london-new.html: accessed [access date]).

Wednesday, September 4, 2024

A Penny Farthing Bicycle in New London, New Hampshire for Weathervane Wednesday

This weathervane was photographed at the Ice House museum in New London, New Hampshire

Last month I posted a Weathervane Wednesday post about a Model T automobile weather vane from the Ice House museum. Today I'm posting about this "Penny Farthing" weathervane I photographed also at the Ice House museum in New London. I almost missed this one, and saw it as I was leaving the museum!

The Ice House museum displays lots of old automobiles, fire engines, bicycles and riding toys from history. This three dimensional weathervane of a "Penny Farthing" is very appropriate! This type of bicycle was popular in the 1870s and 1880s. It was also known as a high wheel or high wheeler. It became obsolete when chain-driven gears were used in bicycles.

The funny name for this type of bicycle came from the British coins known as "penny" (one cent) and "farthing" (one quarter of a cent). Farthings were worth less, but were much bigger than pennies. They were very dangerous due to falls and the lack of shock absorption. The new chain driven bicycles were known as "safety bicycles".