FRYEBURG — Fair-goers are being given a rare sight this week of 17 coaches, including two English-made, bow-top gypsy wagons and the pumpkin carriage that carried Cinderella to the castle for 20 years at Storyland in New Hampshire.

From the The Jupiter, the 1909 touring coach operated in Yellowstone National Park for sightseers, to the 19th-century Crawford House mountain wagon owned by White Mountain hotels to shuttle guests between the hotels and a railroad station and on journeys through the mountains, the coaches are dazzling in their detail.

Two standouts in the Fryeburg Fair wagon barn are the colorful bow-top gypsy wagons with their Dutch doors, china cabinets and chicken cage on the side.

“They preferred to be called travelers,” said Ken Wheeling, a Vermont-based author and expert on the Abbot-Downing Concord Coaches that were made in Concord, N.H., in the 19th century.

Wheeling told large groups of onlookers in the exhibit barn that one of the most valuable items on the gypsy wagons, which were built in England, are the cupid or angel lamps made of cranberry glass.

“The families will sell the carriage long before they will sell the cupid lamp,” Wheeling said.

Very few of the wagons exist because traditionally when the elder died, the carriage was burned, he said.

Wheeling said the Concord coaches have been at the Fryeburg Fair for the past eight years but this is the first time with such a large array. Most are from the horse-drawn commercial vehicle collection of Margaret and Sut Marshall of Conway, N.H.

Calling the coaches the “unsung treasures of New Hampshire,” Wheeling said many of the coaches are in museums across the nation. Although some have been rumored to sell for more than $500,000, Wheeling said the last one he saw sold at an auction went for about $50,000.

“I haven’t seen one sold in years,” Wheeling said.

The Abbot-Downing Co., which was originally launched by Lewis Downing in 1813 in Concord, was the premier maker of Concord coaches, stage wagons, heavy drays and a multitude of other styles of commercial horse-drawn vehicles. In 1827 Joseph Stevens Abbot, a coach body builder from Massachusetts, joined Downing to form the dual-named company.

The men produced a number of different vehicles, including the Yellowstone Wagon, a tourist vehicle used in the national parks, the Heavy Dray, the Overland Wagon, known to westerners as the Mud Wagon, and the Mountain Wagon, known widely as a sightseeing vehicle in the White Mountains.

The fair continues Thursday with morning shows of oxen, steer, draft horses, sheep, cows and ponies, plus a flower show at 11 a.m. The afternoon scheduled includes horse pulling, champion sheep, ram and ewe show, harness racing at 1:30 p.m., a crusted apple pie contest and the 8:30 p.m. show featuring the music of Randy Houser.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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