In advance of the summer coaching exhibition guest curated by Paul Miller (Rhode Island Coaches/ In the Eye of Thomas Eakins & Contemporaries, opening May 16) select period images from HARPER’S WEEKLY and elsewhere have been purchased for the Library’s image collections, with some, like the two above, to be used as part of the gallery presentation.
From an initial outing on September 1, 1884 onwards, Newport meets of the Coaching Club of America became a highlight of the season’s social and sporting schedule. HARPER’s WEEKLY was quick to take note and dispatch commissioned artists to relay the pageantry to a wider audience.
Chief amongst these artists, for his mastery of both horse anatomy and social detail, was German-born, New York-based Max Francis Klepper (1861-1907). In Klepper’s rendering of “THE START FROM NARRAGANSETT AVENUE”, a line of American and English-made park drag and road coaches with beautifully groomed and matched horse teams, are drawn up along the south side of the Avenue in parade formation awaiting the noon start. The coaches would then depart, keeping a distance of one coach length apart, along a pre-assigned route to a rustic destination. On arrival, drags and coaches would unload, one at a time, at a designated picnic ground; the horse teams were then changed out with a fresh team and positioned for return, generally by around 3:30. Popular Aquidneck Island destinations for these excursions included Belmont Farm, later known as Oakland Farm under Vanderbilt ownership, Ward McAllister’s Bayside Farm, The Glen, Gray Craig, and Bateman’s Hotel at Brenton Point, Newport,
In THE START WITH A FRESH TEAM, Klepper depicts an outing’s return to Newport from Gray Craig with a female driver or “whip” at the reins of a “four-in-hand” coach (holding the reins directing the four horses in one hand). Accomplished female whips were not unusual in the Gilded Age, there existed a number of Ladies Four-in-Hand Clubs to facilitate training.
All passengers rode outside atop the coach with the elevated right front seat being for the owner-driver, and the flanking box seat reserved for a spouse or distinguished guest. Four to six passengers might occupy facing middle benches and the rear rumble seat was reserved for two liveried grooms. Traditionally the whip wore a black silk top hat and cutaway coat, passengers wore fashionable attire with hats.
Coaching returned to Newport after an over thirty year absence in 1968 with the support of coaching enthusiasts Chauncey Stillman, John Seabrook, James and Gay Robinson, John Pemberton, and under the sponsorship of the Preservation Society of Newport County.
