“You low-down, dirty, shiftless skunk” is a hostile accusation I remember from old movies and comic books. So upon first hearing of the Low-Down Wagon, I thought it was a derogatory description. Not so. Several Earlville residents gave me the real lowdown.
The Low-Down Wagon has its floor down low, close to the ground, between the wheels. Regular wagons have their floors at the level of the axles or higher. Drivers of regular wagons have to climb up to get aboard and step, or leap, down to get off, no big deal for ordinary usage. However, for door-to-door delivery, such as for a milkman, this could be a strenuous, and even forbidding, way to earn a living. The knees would be the first to go.
Earlville native, John Reese Parsons (1856-1950) invented the Low-Down Wagon and patented it in 1887. In 1889, Edson (Edison?) Woodworth and DeForest A. Wilcox fabricated the first commercial Low-Down Wagon. Wilcox was the owner of the grist and saw mill built by William Felt in 1839. He partnered with Parsons and in 1891 began selling wagons.
The Parsons Low-Down Wagon Works was sold to J.D. Mires in 1907. In 1908 a steam driven dynamo was installed to produce electricity for the village. In 1932 part of the building caught fire. The Wagon Works went out of business shortly before World War II, according to Roy Gallinger in his 1965 book, “Oxcarts Along The Chenango”, page 154. In the mid 1950s, the building and grounds were used by Howard Close as a Massey-Harris tractor dealership. In 1957-58 John Ritter turned it into a dance hall and skating rink.
All that is left today are parts of the stone foundation and the remains of its water power system. Vegetation now hides most of it and its picturesque repose belies its once vigorous role in revolutionizing the milk and bakery delivery businesses. The ruins are just outside the Village of Earlville on the north side of West Main Street.
Earlville was called Madison Forks around 1924. Earlville is a peculiar village, one part is in the Town of Sherburne in Chenango County and the other in the Town of Hamilton in Madison County, divided by East and West Main Street. On the western fringe, are the towns of Smyrna and Lebanon.
In the photo are Lee and Elaine Mason, the current owners of the Wagon Works property. They are showing me the stone foundation walls. Behind them are the mill race and the scant relics of the power housing. The Masons reside across the street in Smyrna and the Wagon Works is in Lebanon. Elaine remembers skating here in 1959. Later the rink closed. Exactly when eludes me. The superstructure of the building was demolished in the 1980s. Fortunately, the foundation was left as a souvenir for the rest of us.
This building, which is roughly 50 feet square, reveals its grist mill origin. The mill race and power housing are still visible. The Wagon Works actually started across the street in a long wooden building, which was demolished, probably around 1940. The Masons’ house is behind where this long building once stood. Lee grew up in the house next door, which alas, has also been demolished.
About a stone’s throw to the west of the Wagon Works is the Chenango River. West of the river is the former New York, Ontario & Western Railway (O&W) depot, where Low-Down Wagons were shipped on flatcars all over the continent. Earlville was once the thriving crossroads of northern Chenango County, with three railroads. At the depot was the southern terminus of the Syracuse & Chenango Valley Railroad, connecting the O&W with Cazenovia. About a mile and a quarter to the east, beyond the village limits, was the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, now the New York, Susquehanna & Western Railroad.
The lowdown on the Low-Down Wagon Works is in the undated (but 1957 or later) booklet by Maynard H. Mires, “’Low-Down’, the Story of a Wagon”, and in the 2003 book by Rose Wellman, “The Story of Early Earlville and The Low-Down Wagon.” Several newspaper articles by John R. Parsons are on file in the Earlville library. A real Low-Down Wagon is on display in the Quincy Square Museum at 23 East Main Street in the Village of Earlville. It was recently acquired from the Shelburne Museum in Vermont.