In Which My Dearest Makes a Wheelbarrow.

It's a lovely spring day and my husband's thoughts turn lightly towards ....woodworking. Yesterday was his last day for his current class in grad school, and the freedom and warm air intoxicated him.  He has wanted to make a period wheelbarrow for a while now.  His incentive was attending some National reenactments where we had to haul our belongings in and out of the campsite without being able to bring our car down to the site.  He has brought a modern dolly along at times, but he kept thinking about how he could leave this at the site and use it to haul things, such as firewood.   He doesn't complain too much about my projects, so I am more than happy to support him in his.

It took him a while to source his materials and draft his design.  The wheel was the most important component, because it would be too difficult for him to make his own wheel.  He found an appropriate one at an Amish supply store.  The handles are standard wooden wheelbarrow handles.

Let's take a look at some period wheelbarrows.

This image,  Verdict of the People by  George Caleb Bingham, ca.1854-55, shows a man with a wheelbarrow in the left-hand corner.  The image is owned by the State Historical Society of Missouri [SHS Art Collection, 2005.001].  They did some lovely work isolating the figure: 


Another image from the Library of Congress showing a different variation of a period wheelbarrow


Sherman's troops removing ammunition from Fort McAllister in wheelbarrows.

Digital ID: (digital file from original neg.) cwpb 03159 http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cwpb.03159




The illustration is from Games and Sports, by Donald Walker, published 1837 by Thomas Hurst, London



Morris Island, South Carolina. Headquarters of field officer of the trenches. Second parallel  
 July or Aug 1863                         Library of Congress LC-B8156- 14 [P&P] 

A close up of the solider with the wheelbarrow

Evidently blindfolded races with wheelbarrows were favorite entertainments
Aldace F. Walker, Captain, Co. C, 11th Vermont Infantry, in a letter to his father, December 28, 1862:
"We had quite a time Christmas Day. A Holiday - and some twelve dollars in prizes were distributed for wrestling, running, jumping and climbing. We had a good deal of fun over a blindfold wheelbarrow race by the 1st Sergeants, and a greased pole. The officers ran a race - the one who touched a fence last, to treat - and the fast ones put in, and the slow ones did not touch the fence at all, so that the joke came on a 2nd Lt. who was not in the secret."    http://vermontcivilwar.org/research/christmas.php

In The History of the of the 104th Pennsylvania Regiment from August 22, 1861, to September 30th, 1864, by W. W. H. Davis, Davis discusses the celebrations held on the Fourth of July after the Penninsular campagin.  Confederate prisoners were allowed to celebrate the 4th of July.   " The afternoon was devoted to amusements, among which were embraced a wheelbarrow race, a bag race, followed by a chase after a well-greased and well-shaved pig."  p 159

An image of soldiers engaging in a blindfolded wheelbarrow race
"Soldiers participating in a wheelbarrow race. Thanksgiving festivities at Fort Pulaski, Ga., Thursday, November 27th, 1862. While the loyal citizens of the North were eating their turkeys the Federal soldiers in the South were also celebrating their Thanksgiving. We illustrate the amusement indulged in at Fort Pulaski, Ga. The grand attraction of the day, however, was th fete given by the officers of the Forty-eighth Regiment, New York Volunteers, Colonel Barton, and Company G, Third Rhode Island Regiment."— Frank Leslie, 1896
Frank Leslie Famous Leaders and Battle Scenes of the Civil War (New York, NY: Mrs. Frank Leslie, 1896
Here his wheelbarrow is in its current state.  My husband used pine for the bed of his wagon project, gluing and clamping the pieces together to make it large enough. Next will be a finish coat, most likely of paint.   

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