Two Wooden Horses Come to Life

 

I never thought that two wooden horses discovered in a museum in Chantilly, France, could set in motion such a flood of Pennsylvania memories. Thanks to two carousel horses, hand-carved at the beginning of the 20^th century in Philadelphia, I embarked upon an extraordinary journey back and forth across the Atlantic, with significant stops in Germantown, Reading, Hershey, and Port Carbon.

The museum I was visiting is the Musée du Cheval, created in 1982 and dedicated to horses. It occupies the “Grandes Ecuries,” the Great Stables of the seventh Prince of Condé, grandson of King Louis XIV. An avid hunter, he commissioned architect Jean Aubert to construct a home for his 240 hunting horses. The result was a masterpiece of 18^th century art and architecture, an equestrian palace that, in 2019, celebrated its 300 birthday. 

Today the Grandes Ecuries, part of the Domaine de Chantilly, which includes a vast wooded park and a turreted chateau surrounded by water, are home to horses that perform for the public and live in spacious, well-tended boxes, where visitors can admire them. 

The wing of the museum dedicated to equestrian arts and crafts is off to the side, in the carriage barns, and many visitors pass it by. Its collections include the tools and equipment of horsemanship, and works of art such as 6^th century Chinese terra cotta horses and stone mosaic tiles representing horse and rider executing complex figures of dressage.

There are also the two wooden horses acquired by the museum at the time of its renovation in 2013. And here is where things get interesting.

Those horses were made by two Philadelphia master craftsmen. The elder, Gustav Dentzel (1846-1909), was the teacher and also a father figure for the younger, Daniel C. Muller (1872-1952). Dentzel was born in Prussia, and when he immigrated to the United States in 1864, he may have brought the first carousel to North America. Daniel C. Muller began his training with Dentzel. He also studied sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. These two men created some of the most prized carousel horses in the world. 

Daniel C. Muller at work

In the Germantown sector of Philadelphia, D. C. Muller founded his own carousel company in 1903. His horses were anatomically realistic, dramatic, fanciful in detail. He was an artist, which is why his creations are so valued today; but working slowly, he could not keep up with the competition. In 1914, his company shut down and he went to work for another Germantown carousel maker, the Philadelphia Toboggan Company founded in 1904 by Henry Auchy and Chester Albright. The horses he sculpted for PTC, as the company became known, are among its finest. As a child at Hershey Park, I surely rode on one.

 

The Hershey Park carousel in 1950

In 1991, PTC changed its name to Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters Inc. Today company headquarters are in Hatfield, PA. In the 20^th century, PTC created 87 wooden carousels, approximately 35 still in operation today.    

As the company’s name suggests, it also creates rollercoasters. In the last century, it manufactured 147 wooden coasters, 82 of them still running. I’m ready to bet many readers have been to Knoebel’s Grove. How many of you have taken the Phoenix? It is a product of PTC. The man who designed it, Herbert Paul Schmeck, was born in Reading in 1890. Between 1923 and 1955, one year before his death, Schmeck designed 84 coasters for PTC.

His first, “the Wild Cat,” went to Hershey Park. Schmeck, who became a master of coaster design, began at PTC as a carpenter. He had no formal training as an engineer, but he learned to read blueprints and create one of the most thrilling rides in any amusement park, where passenger safety is paramount.

The original "Wild Cat" at Hershey Park

Knoebel’s Phoenix, before arriving at the park in 1985, had already had a long life as “The Rocket” at Playland Park in San Antonio, Texas, where it was first mounted in 1947. As the original blueprint was no longer in existence at the time of its transfer, each board had to be numbered, and those numbers served to put the coaster back together again. Think about that the next time you’re being cranked to the top of the Phoenix, about to rise from your seat and go screaming down the other side!

Milton S. Hershey’s last purchase for his amusement park was for “the Comet,” another Schmeck creation. Hershey purchased it in 1945. The Comet is still providing thrills today. 

When I was a little girl, my father held me tight while we careened down a steep flume and plunged headlong into the churning waters of the Old Mill at Hershey. That ride was also built by PTC. In 1963, it name was changed to “Lost River.” In 1973, it was replaced by the “Coal Cracker,” for once, not manufactured by PTC.

An aerial view of the Old Mill next to the Comet circa 1960

After all this talk of rollercoasters, I must make another French connection. The very first rollercoaster ever was inaugurated in Paris on April 13, 1817. It was called the “Promenade aérienne,” the air-walk. Passengers had to walk up steps to sit on a bench and then ride down a 600-foot ramp at 40mph. 

The world's very first roller coaster in 1817 in Paris, France

These many ups and downs make me eager for my most beloved ride, the most regal in any amusement park, and here I’m finally returning to the merry-go-round. 

Those two wooden horses in Chantilly are cousins, once removed to another continent, to those of the merry-go-round in Hershey Park, manufactured by PTC, where Daniel C. Muller worked while it was being crafted. It arrived in Hershey in 1945, but had already been providing rides in other parks since 1919. I remember when it was located next to Hershey’s Spring Creek. In the evening, looking out at the dark water, clinging to the rose-bedecked mane of my mount, I felt like Maid Marion riding with Robin Hood through Nottingham Forest.      

From Chantilly to Germantown to Hershey and finally, to a park once just outside Port Carbon. When my mother drove on route 209 through East Norwegian Township, she would reminisce about Dream City, also known as Schuylkill Park. In the 1930’s, she went there to her very first dances. I remember the decaying dance hall. She also rode “Dips,” a PTC coaster built in 1922, removed in 1937.  

Those two wooden horses, like Pegasus, have transported me through time and space to a treasure-trove of PA memories.

A French Lesson in Words and Pictures

It took a long time, but it finally happened. My sisters Susan and Jane, along with my niece Leah, came to visit me. In my little Peugeot 108 we drove all over the region, we took trains into Paris, visited the town of Saint-Denis and its basilica near the university where I used to teach. We walked in the forest, rooted through junk and treasures at the Paris flea market and, closer to home, at a warehouse of bric and broc, bric-a-brac, run by Emmaüs, the French equivalent of the Salvation Army.

And at a long oak table, each evening we sat for hours to talk, eat and drink, the highpoint of each day. In fact, no matter what we did, food accompanied us, an integral part of all our activities.

At the Parisian flea market, located just outside northern Paris along the beltway dividing the city from its suburbs, we sought refuge from the heat and crowds at a corner café. There we indulged (we were on vacation after all) in traditional café food eaten sur le pouce, literally “on the thumb,” on the run. When there’s so much to do and see there’s no time for a three-course meal!

That’s why we ordered a “jambon-beurre,” a “saucisson-beurre-cornichons,” even a “rillettes-beurre,” in each case a sandwich composed of half of a crispy fresh baguette slashed down the middle, slathered with butter and then filled with a thick slice of ham (jambon), or rounds of dried sausage (saucisson) accompanied by sliced gherkins (cornichons); or pulled pork smothered in goose fat (rillettes). Umm-good! And who’s worrying about cholesterol?

The French are regimented eaters. They eat at fixed hours each day and have a hard time understanding those who step outside the boundaries. We breakfasted late: fresh baguette or country loaves with thick flavorful crusts and moist “innards” composed of a mix of flours, rye (seigle), whole-wheat (blé complet) or spelt (épeautre). Add to that homemade apple jelly, pear and cherry jams, honey from Provence, fresh coffee, a whole crate of peaches from a friend’s tree, you’ll understand why we often got off to a late start.

 

And that often meant, in mid-afternoon, when traditional French restaurants are closed, we were ready for a snack! Luckily, some bakeries bake their own pizzas and even offer outside tables to sit down; brasseries serve simple meals all day (for example, a galette—a crepe make from buckwheat flour, served with ham, cheese and a fried egg on top), or we could just grab some cheese, a baguette, some peaches and home-grown tomatoes, a feast fit for a queen.

The French are good at food, from the simplest ingredients to the refinement of an official banquet at Elysée Palace, where the French president lives. We experienced both the simplest pleasures and the refinements of French cuisine. On the simple end, the pleasure of eating an egg purchased at a local market a few hours after it was snatched from the nest. My sisters might elect bread and butter as two of the simplest and best ingredients produced by the French. Every day we went to the local boulangerie and bought our baguettes not only fresh but warm.

As for refinement, we devoted much eating time to the subtleties of French patisserie. Not far from my home, there is a bakery with an excellent pastry chef. In that area, expertise and refinement can often be measured by the quality of the standards of French pastry: the simple éclair (how light is the puff pastry, can the filling be all at once light, creamy and scrumptiously delicious?), a tarte au citron or aux framboises, lemon or raspberry tarts (the taste of the fruit, the shortbread crust); a flan, “plain,” chocolate, coconut or pistachio, creamy, eggy and rich in flavor.

Every evening we had a dégustation, a comparative tasting. Among much oohing and aahing, we registered flavors and nuances, determining our favorites and determined to go back to the bakery for more.

My sisters and niece are good cooks and I can hold my own, so mostly we ate at home, but on my sister Jane’s birthday we went out to celebrate at a restaurant with a terrace overlooking the banks of the Oise River. There our dégustation included some dishes we did not make at home, gravlax that melted in the mouth, foie gras, goat’s cheese baked with honey, dorade fish from the Mediterranean, fresh-water perch (filet de sandre), filet mignon of pork, duck (magret de canard), entrecôte, much like a Delmonico steak.

We had dessert too. I indulged (we did a lot of indulging) in profiteroles, puff pastry filled with vanilla ice cream and smothered in hot chocolate sauce.

We all had desert but that did not prevent us from going home for more: pastries with champagne, the grand finale of our celebrations.

Some evenings we cooked up a storm. Some, we simply took advantage of French bounty, fresh green beans and tomatoes from my garden, delicious melon served with prosciutto or in a salad with feta and smoked salmon, cheese and charcuterie trays, and the ever-present baguette, all washed down with rouge, blanc or rosé wine. 

To sum up, we had a great time. To conclude the French lesson, I’ll add a few more words and leave the reader with an open-ended question.

Surely, my sisters, my niece and I participated in French gastronomie: the art of eating well. My question consists in this: were we gourmets, gourmands or goinfres?

At its earliest appearance in the French language in the 14^th century, a gourmet was a wine merchant, someone who knew how to appreciate fine wines. The word evolved to include those who know how to appreciate the quality and refinement of a meal.

During that same 14^th century, the word gourmand entered the language as someone who eats avidly, going for the finest cuts. Today a gourmand likes good food and knows how to appreciate a good meal.

Finally there is the goinfre, a sloppy, greedy eater, a word once associated with debauchery…

In French, the letter G and good eating go together. Now readers, here is my question: which of these “g-words” would you pin on my sisters and me?