[Andy Carson]

Carl, I have learned alot too, and had fun investigating even the failed (or are they?) theories. With the number of times that people seemed to have gotten close to the d-ring design without exactly getting the current itteration, it made me curious if there was some sort of limitation (other than mental) at play. So, I did a little mathematical modeling to try to figure out if the origion or the d-ring might have been as simple as adding a strap between a square d-ring (or similar) and a jockey yoke. Here’s what I learned…

If one has a fairly heavy tongue (or implement) that exerts a downward force of 200 lbs and the horses were in d-rings, that would distribute 100 lbs to the saddle of each horse. Now, lets say the harness was adjusted so that there was 9 inches of deflection from the horizonal with this load (which seems like a decent estimate from photos). Because the load (100 lbs for each horse) is pulling laterally on a “line” running from the jockey yoke to the single tree the tension on the lines exceeds 100 lbs by quite a bit. This makes intuitive sense, think of how easy it is to push or pull a chain or cable under tension side to side by hand, even if the tension can be far more than what a human could ever exert. Now, at the angles described, if the weight on the saddle is 100 lbs, the tension on the front side straps would be 203 lbs for both, or 102 lbs for each. The tension on the rear tug (before moving) would be 193 lbs for both, or 96 lbs each. Once the horse moves forward to propel the vehichle there would be an additional force of maybe 200 lbs on average for both front and rear tugs together (or 100 lbs each). These are only average loads, though, and the horse might pull much more than this for a short time. Similarly, during braking there would be force exerted by the britchen that would add to the force on the front side straps. All together, the D-ring itself has to resist many forces trying to pull it apart in several directions. In my example, for each D-ring, there is a force of 50 lbs (200 / 2 horses / 2 rings) at 12:00 (saddle), an intermitant force of 100+ lbs with a capacity for shock loads at 2:30 (britchen), a constant force of 96 lbs plus an average load of 100+ lbs with very large capacity for high shock loads at 3:30 (rear tugs), a low irregular force at 6:00 (belly band), a constant force of 102 lbs plus an intermitant force of 100 lbs plus capacity for shock loads at 8:00 (side straps), and an average load of 100 + lbs with capacity for shock at 10:00 (front tugs). Yeah, they are all kinda small forces by post industrial standards, but they add up fast, are in all directions, and many have to be engineered to experience shock loads. I have to emphasize that during normal usage, the majority of these forces are balanced by opposite forces exerted by the harnessing arangement, so they are not forces the horse “feels”. The harness and rings experience these forces, though, and they would put substantial wear on the harness if not designed with these forces in mind.

I bet these considerations are imporant to the development of the d-ring as we know it. This can be seen in the modern d-ring harness, too. The front side straps on a d-ring are pretty beefy (esp compared to many of the straps we see historically), and the D-ring itself is a substantial piece of metal (compare to the square d). It might be that the modern d-ring arrangement wouldn’t be durable without beefing these pieces of hardware. If this is true, I think we do have to be looking for a piece of metal, not a simple ring in a trace. A square ring in a trace (as in the Betsy Ross photo) would experience less than half the total force as a d-ring attached to the same piece of equipment in the modern orientation, a substantially lower number of shock loads (no shock loads for braking or with pole movement) and all the forces would be applied in one direction. Unless that ring was really overbuilt for it’s “normal” application, it would likely fail it hooked up as a d-ring, esp is the peice of equipment had a heavy tongue. Now if the pole was light, this might not be a limitation and the square D might hold, but if the pole was light one of the major advantages of the d-ring is gone. So, I come back to the imporance of the d-ring, and by this I mean the piece of metal itself. I think that it is likely that this peice is critical for the harness to reach it’s full potential and be applied in the modern orientation. Because of this, I am starting to think that any harness that doesn’t have a d-ring (or at least some other very “beefed up” central piece of metal) shouldn’t really “count”.

[Andy Carson]

Ha! That patent is very interesting… It seems people are dancing all around the d-ring development, but have not quiet connected the dots to the patent office yet. It is possible that there were other harnessing arrangements that accomplished the same task unintentionally, and this inventer was unaware, but the patent office is supposed to check for similar inventions… Of couse this is from georgia, and they may have not known what those whily mainers were up to. 🙂

[Andy Carson]

Carl, you make a convincing argument with the square d patent and the early photo in Philly. You are right, of course, that they are not pulling a trolley here, but I am still critical of that pole attachment arrangement. I don’t see a yoke, and I would think that if the horse were asked to brake hard, they would be forces together and either thierncollars would be pulled down hard (if the pole was not flexible) or the pole would rise. Perhaps this particular harness was made for heavy hauling where it was expaected that the brakes of the wagon would provide the bulk of the braking force. If so, if someone hitched this up to a wagon without brakes, particularly in a hilly region, I bet they would rig up a different system for braking. If they attached straps off the front to a jockey yoke sidebacker style, they would make a functional d-ring. One could make a similiar argument for modifications to a Swedish harness, but I can’t find any documentation that a Swedish harness was made in American at the time, either in colonies like new sweden or in Minnesota. Either way, I see this as a special combination of circumstances that might lead to the development of the d-ring and I’m beginning to lean away from the Swedish hypothesis and towards Carl’s square d theory.

Just to summarize what I believe might be the special circumstances that may have led to d-ring develpoment by these two theories:

Swedish origin:
1. Preexisting scandanavian harness (no evidence)
2. Preexisting sidebacker type harnesses (ample evidence in new England)
3. Swedish settlers (yes, and times correspond to dates of d-ring types, but not all settlers use these)
4. Some demonstrable benefit of d-ring (some areas are hilly, possible advantages with jigger wagon or other equipment)
5. Two additional straps

Square D origin:
1. Preexisting square d harness (documented with patents and photos)
2. Preexisting sidebacker harness (again, all over new England)
3. Some demonstrable benefit of d-ring (some areas hilly, might allow mass produced harness to be used effectively, similar possible advantages with jigger wagon of other equipment)
4. One additional strap

[Andy Carson]

@Carl Russell 31883 wrote:

According to Les, most people that he has met had no idea that the D-ring harness they were using could be adjusted to bear pole weight, even men older than he who had used the harness their whole lives. I wonder if that was just a regional innovation in itself, merely taking advantage of any mechanism, square D or rounded D, to accomplish that, and may not have had anything to do with the actual design and subsequent manufacture and marketing of the D-ring harness.

If this thought is widespread, perhaps the credit for the Ah-Ha moment (or at least the Ah-Ha moment that is more critical) belongs to Les, or whoever taught Les how to adjust the harness. that would be pretty cool, but it’s hard to imagine that so many harnesses were manufactured without this critical adjustment and unique advantage known. Why would a manufacturor decide to make this particular design instead of others? I think the advantage of the d-ring is an integration of formerly separate propulsion, braking and pole/shaft holding systems. If one looks at an one of these systems in isolation, its hard to envision how even if the D-ring is superior to preexisting harness…

Also, I think the horses in front of the Betty Ross museum were pulling a trolley. You can see the tracks on the road below. I have included a photo of a trolley from the same era in Chicopee Mass. You can see a similar attachemtn to the collars, but the pole is held up by itself. Also, the horses in the photo don’t have a britchen, as the trolley provides all the brakes. It is pretty common for trolley horses to not have a britchen and I’m not sure what the horses in the Betsy Ross photo are doing with thiers. It is adjusted pretty loose, though, and I strongly suspect its not used.

Certainly Ah-Ha moments can happen anywhere at any time and they don’t all have to make sense, but I am doubtful of the the idea that the D-ring sprang from a square d-design that was so widespread that it could be found in Philadelphia. It’s hard for me to imagine that the harness spread all the way through some of the most populated areas in the united states and no one said “ah-ha’ until it got 15 miles away from a swedish colony in northeastern maine and 2 miles from the canadian border, where the “ah-ha” seems to have happened almost immediately. I am still going with a combination of a Swedish harness and a sidebacker. Regurdless of who was the first to try the combo, I still think it takes alot of skill and thought to have recognised and prefected the harness out of the multitudes of possibilities, though, and that’s why I am curious to figure out who first manufactured this harness in large numbers.

[Andy Carson]

In some ways who, where, and when we give “credit” for the invention of the the d-ring harness depends on what you want to define a d-ring to be. In other words, how close to the modern design does the harness in question have to be to be called a true d-ring. I think the critical and unique advantages of the d-ring is the attachment of the yoke, traces, saddle, britching, and front tugs to a central ring. This unique property could be accomplished by a round ring, the current d-ring, or probably even a square rings. Because of this, I was not focusing on the shape of the ring, but instead on arrangment of the various straps. I can see the value of looking for the appearance of the d-ring itself, though. I think the appearance of the d-ring means that the harnessmaker understood the unique advantages of the harness and knew it was valuable enough to make new hardware for. If a swedish immigrant hitched a traditional scandanavian harness to a wagon set up for a Boston sidebacker (and inadvertantly created a functional d-ring) do we give them credit for inventing the harness??? Or do we give credit to whoever recognized the advantage of this arrangement and manufactured it???

By the way, if the d-ring was a result of hitching a scandanavian harness to a piece of equipment set up for a side backer, then perhaps the more western Swedish settlement did not developed this adaptation because belly backers dominated in the west. It true, this could explain a new England origin in areas and times associated with Swedish immigration. It still doesn’t display if there was an understanding of the advantages, though, I think we would need either a true d-ring (as Carl seems to be looking for) or possibly some history and rationalle for why the prison decided on manufactoring this particular design.

[Andy Carson]

I had thumbed through the national harness review a bit earlier. Fascinating in the detail that is in it. I saw a section where they even listed harness makers in different regions of the country and have updates as to where they moved or if the retired, etc. I also saw ads for horse related items, such as pneumatic knee braces, that seem weird and wonderful. In all this detail, the missing d-ring really seems to stick out…

Getting back to this supposed Swedish connection. I think this makes sense in general, and it could even explain how the harness “spread” from one area to another. Perhaps it didn’t actaully spread, but the appearances in maine and vt correspond to the times that swedes settled in these areas. I read that there was an effort made by then gov Dillingham to attract swedes to Vermont in the 1890’s. Maybe they brought a harmessmaker with them too? The only thing that bugs me about this theory is I don’t have a good reason why a similar harness would not have developed in places like Minnesota that where chuck full of Swedes… I thought that maybe these immigration events where later, perhaps after mass produced harnesses flooded the market, but some settlements in wisconsin and illinios predated new Sweden. Perhaps the terrain in these areas encouraged the formation of Mega farms and this piece of heritage was lost? That might be a good explanation for why we don’t see d-rings or d-ring type harnesses today, but why can’t I find any old photos of these swedish/d-ring types in Minnesota???

[Andy Carson]

I found this photo of a D-ring harness (and this one looks like looks “normal”) in pittsford mills vermont. The website lets you zoom in and get a really good look. It’s dated 1907-1915. So what? I think this means the D-ring (or at least early versions) travelled from Maine to Vt prior to mass production in the prison… How was it spread without mass production or advertizing???

http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/extensions/zoomify.php?ls=10896&sequence=000&set_seq=91&imageSet=1327092361-4f19d2892750c&AddRel=

[Andy Carson]

I found this photo of prison made brooms being hauled from the prison in thomaston, maine, to the train station in 1915. Not a D-ring… The driver is in a uniform of some sort, which makes me think he works at the prison. I would think that the prison would use it’s own equipment (and harnesses) to do this hauling and the drivers seems to confirm this. This makes me think the design had not made it to the prison in maine for mass production until after 1915.

http://www.mainememory.net/artifact/26662/enlarge

[Andy Carson]

sorry I missed the previous description of the photo. I looked up that the railroad extended it’s line up to new Sweden/Stockholm in 1899 in response to the growing population and goods coming out of the area. So, I bet alot of those people in the picture are from the new Sweden area. Speaking of new Sweden, I read in the link below that the historical society purchased the Lars Noak(sson) blacksmith shop (circa 1900) and show it by appointment. Maybe there is a tell-tale d-ring sitting in that shop…

http://www.maineswedishcolony.info/mscinc/mscinc.html

[Andy Carson]

Sure looks like a d-ring to me. Such an early photo seems like a big clue to me. I looked at a map and see that Ft Fairfield is about 15 miles from new Sweden and less than two miles to new Brunswick. I bet swedes growing potatos in new sweden would haul them to ft fairfield for shipping out on the railroad. Perhaps the d-ring (or early versions) was in this area first, then arrived in other parts of new England a couple decades later through some other mechanism. Any other clues outside of the portion of the photo that might indicate why the streets are so crowded? It looks like a cooler time of the year (fall?) and the wagons are empty (already unloaded?). Maybe everyone was unloading some good or farm products of some sort, but there are a few old guys standing around showing off thier pocket watches or holding what looks like a clipboard and looking important. I’m not sure they would be the ones to go to town to move tonnage by hand, but maybe they had an automated way to unload wagons… the guy in the back by the poles looks like he’s got his hand on a bag of something. It might be grain, but it looks kinda small. It they were hauling grain in, they had to be local. Any chance this was this an event that might have brought people from further away? I can’t quite make out the sign on the building, but it looks like “wampum c…” it’s probably not important, but I was just curious… if we know everyone in the photo is local, it’s an even bigger clue.

[Andy Carson]

It’s hard to know the exact year the d-ring began, but at most of the times we are discussing, it seems the d-ring coexisted for a long while as a minority with side backer (and other) harnesses in new England. It seems the d-ring was not patented and not advertized (or at least not advertized early on). This would seem to indicate to me that the d-ring was a modification to existing harnesses. Inventers and engineers would want some return on thier investment. Carl makes a good point, though, that the modifications to a side backer harness would have to be extensive to get to a d-ring, and it is probably unlikely. What if, however, the “base” harness was not a side backer? What if the “base” harness was a swedish harness??? If you look at the third picture in the link below, you could find some suprizing similarities between the Swedish harness and the d-ring. Some of John Plowdens logging equipment also illustrates the similarities between the Swedish harness and the d-ring. I think that if you had a swedish harness and needed to hitch to a piece of equipment meant for a side backer harness, you may have little choice but to attach a line between the d-ring (if that’s what you call it) on the Swedish harness and yoke for the sidebacker and another line from the d-ring to the single tree. Do that and you have a d-ring. There was a swedish colony in new Sweden Maine in aroostook county in potato country. It looks like some potato harvesting and planting equipment would be tongue heavy, which might make a d-ring precurser catch on. The sloven wagon would also be especially well suited to lift heavy barrels of potatoes. Maybe this could explain a link between sloven wagons and d-rings, even if there is no specific advantage of the d-ring for this type of wagon. I wonder if anyone has some old photos of harnesses in or around new Sweden. Mitch?

http://www.theequinest.com/breeds/north-swedish/

Here’s a link to another photo of a swedish harness from Simon’s website. You can tell that any type of yoke or other connection to a pole that would provide braking would have to be connected to the ring if you weren’t using solid poles to provide braking. Easy to imagine this getting modified, but did a swedish type harness make it to new England? If a smallist emigrant population was keeping this local, it could explain some coexistance and the lack of advertising, but it doesn’t explain how the d-ring got distubuted throughout new england later.

http://www.celtichorselogging.com/?Harness

[Andy Carson]

thanks mike. That there aren’t any d-ring type harnesses in NB, even amung experienced harness makers and teamsters, pretty much blows my theory about the d-ring being linked somehow to a sloven or similar underslung wagon as in Carl’s photo… I am happy that the harness seems to appear around 1900. I think the people were very serious about horse power at the time and the d-ring is probably a response to a specific problem. Interesting thing is that there were lots of horse related inventions at the time, many of them quite creative and advertised aggressively. The taber wagon is a good example of this as you can still Google up the taber diagrams. I haven’t seen any historical ads for the d-ring, though. Interesting, ESP at a time when horses and harnesses were so important. Maybe the origional makers or designers thought of the d-ring as a specific solution to a specific problem, and might not have wide appeal. If this is the case, we might get a clue by looking at old (as old as possible) photos of horses in d-rings. Are they hauling similar things? I think this is a mystery that we can solve, or at least come up with a likely explanation.

[Andy Carson]

Mike, yes, pictures would be great, as I am mostly curious about how the front axle was attached to the wagon and how the pole was attached to the front axle on these early designs. I was suprized to read about how common these sloven wagons were, as I had never seen anything like them before, but they may have been common enough to cause a new type of harness to be developed. Later designs (like the taber) seem to forcus on “beefing up” or “bracing” the king pin type arrangement on the front axle and alter the geometry of how the pole is attached. I conclude that there is an intrinsic weakness in the origional design in this location. I think it is logical to conclude that there was some weakness in the origional pole attachment geometry as well, since this is also changed. The link I put in above mentions “front axle tilt” as a issue with the sloven design, but I don’t exactly what this means and don’t know if this would be solved by a different kingpin arrangment, a different pole arrangment, or both. How these designs might be addressed by a different harness is pretty speculative without some photos, diagrams, or descriptions of the origional sloven design. I looked at the taber design and have had a hard time coming up with a rational explaination as to why that wouldn’t work very well with a western style harness. Also, in old photos of the taber design, it seems some people use non-d-ring harnesses.

[Andy Carson]

Did the users of the sled wagon use a d-ring or d-ring precurser in 1850? That would predate the underslung wagon (from what I’ve read) and it would blow my theory. Trying to think of regionally unique tools or situations and think about how a d-ring might have addressed problems unique to these tools or situations. Just guessing really.

[Andy Carson]

I am working on a theory that the d-ring (or early versions of the d-ring) are somehow associated with this type of underslung wagon. These types of wagons were called sloven wagons, or taber wagon as in the attached article. The main reason I think the two might be associated is that these underslung wagons were developed in new Brunswick and Maine in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which in a general way might correspond to a the time and place of the d-ring. That’s a big guess, but I thought I would float the idea. It looks like there are many designs for these underslung wagons, but at least one design (perhaps the origional design) attaches the front axle to the bed through heavy guage eyebolts (see the yellow wagon in the link below). They don’t illustrate how the pole is attached to the front axle but based on the shaft attachment which you can see in the third photo, I suspect it’s a solid attachment. That type of connection would provide lift to the pole, and could explain why it looks so light in carls photo and in photo number two in the link below, where I can’t really tell what is holding up the pole. With an eyebolt attaching the front axle to the bed and a simple fixed pole, pulling or braking would force the pole up or down somewha because of the wagon acting on the eyebolts. Perhaps early d-rings where an adaptation to keep the pole from swinging up and down or at least redistibute downward forces onto the saddle??? It should be noted that later designs of the underslung wagons, like the taber wagon, use different technology and/or beefy braced kingpins that seem less likely to cause this sort of front axle tilting. Carl’s photo though, shows the old style sloven-types where still in use many years after the invention of the improved versions. Again, I am not sure if these are linked to the d-ring, but it’s interesting to think about.
http://forum.scalemodelhorsedrawnvehicle.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1215

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