A MODE OF ATTACH- ING HORSES TO CARRIAGES AND ALL OTHER FOUR-WHEELED CARRIAGES
Year: 1815

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, GEORGE.
MORTON, of Covent Garden, in the County of Middlesex, Gentleman, send
greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of His United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Fourteenth day of
November, in the fifty-sixth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the
said George Morton, my exors, adññiors, and assigns, His especial licence, full
power, sole privilege and authority, that I, the said George Morton, my
exors, admiors, and assigns, during the term of years therein mentioned, should
and lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales,
and the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, my Invention of "A MODE OF ATTACH-
ING HORSES TO CARRIAGES AND ALL OTHER FOUR-WHEELED CARRIAGES;" in which
said Letters Patent there is contained a proviso that if I, the said George
Morton, shall not particularly describe and ascertain the nature of my said
Invention, and in what manner the same is to be performed, by an instrument
in writing under my hand and seal, and cause the same to be inrolled in His
Majesty's High Court of Chancery within six calendar months next and imme-
diately after the date of the said Letters Patent, that then the said Letters
Patent, and all liberties and advantages whatsoever hereby granted, shall
utterly cease, determine, and become void, as in and by the same, relation
being thereunto had, will more fully and at large appear.

page_text: NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance with the said proviso, 1, the said
George Morton, do hereby declare that the nature of my said Invention, and
the manner in which the same is to be performed; are particularly described
and ascertained in the manner following, that is to say:-
The term carriages, as first used in the said Patent, is meant to refer to and
to include every sort and description of waggons, carts, barrows, sledges, and all
other means and contrivances hitherto used with wheels or without wheels for
sustaining and removing loads .or weighty substances, and likewise every sort
and description-of-coaches, chariots, chaises, and other machines and vehicles
with wheels and without wheels, which have been hitherto used for persons to
travel in, or to ride in or upon. The originality of the Invention for which
this Patent is granted consists in reversing to a certain degree what has
hitherto been the practice in respect of working or removing loads or weighty
substances by means of carriages as aforesaid; and in cases where animal
power is to be used, instead of placing all the animal power before the load,
my plan is, in most instances, to place a certain proportion of it in shafts
behind the carriages, and in some instances, namely, when the portion of the
upper part of a load overhangs behind and above the head of the animal or
animals placed in the shafts behind, a part of the load will necessarily be
above or over part of the power or animal or animals that may be placed in
such shafts. When the animal power is to be derived from a horse or horses
or other animals of similar or nearly similar height and proportions, the said
shafts, whether for one or two such animals, are to be attached to the hind
part of the carriage, however denominated or constructed; in such manner as
to produce, by the exertions of the horse or horses, or of such other animal or
animals as may be placed within and attached to the shafts, a propelling
influence acting on the hinder part of the carriage, whether with or without
any load or burthen beyond its own weight. Hence, the Invention is distin-
There is nothing new in the
.f
guished by the name of propelling shafts.
methods of attaching the propelling shafts to the various sorts and descriptions
of carriages, used or that may be used for sustaining and removing weighty
substances, as well as for travelling and riding in and upon; but those
methods must necessarily be determined by the construction and form and
other particulars of each carriage to which they are to be attached. In a case
where the power is to consist of or to be derived from a horse or horses, the
form and size of the propelling shafts need not vary from those of the thil
horse or thil horses any other ways than may be necessary to make them
suitable to the symetry and size of the horse or horses to be placed in them.
Preparatory to affixing the propelling shafts to a four-wheel carriage a moving

page_text: bar of a proper substance, say about four inches square and somewhat shorter
than the head piece of the shafts, must be attached to the bead piece by
means of a pair of thimbles and eyes or other sort of hinges, and through the
middle of the moving bar an inch pin hole must be bored, and iron plates with
holes of the same diameter must be fixed at top and bottom to prevent the too
fast wearing of the pin hole. The iron pin which is to be passed through the
said pin hole may be denominated the shaft pin, and must be of such a length
between its head and a key hole near its lower extremity as will equal the
thickness of the earbred or hinder timber of the carriage, and that of the
moving bar also. The shaft pin being driven up to its head through the
earbred or hinder timber of the carriage will project so much below or beyond
the under part of the said earbred or timber as to admit of its being inserted
into and through the hole prepared for that purpose in the moving bar,.
which being done the passing a spring key through the key hole near the
lower extremity of the shaft pin will complete the attachment of the propelling
shaft to the carriage. When the propelling shafts for two horses are to be
so attached two shaft pins will be necessary, and they must be fixed at equal
distances from the middle of the earbred or hinder 'piece of timber of the car-
riage, and at such distance from each other as will admit of the two pair of
shafts working or moving conveniently without improperly interfering with
each other. In respect to the length of the shafts, it is; not of much conse-
quence, when only one horse is to be used, whether they are cut off a little
beyond the staple which secures the tug and brechin hooks, or extended to the
hinder part of the horse's haunches; but when two horses are employed behind
a carriage the shafts should extend beyond their haunches, and it will be
convenient to have a few inches of small chain, with a hook at the end of one
of them, fastened to each inner shaft, whereby the two horses will be checked
from occasionally separating and drawing away from each other. By means
of the collar with the tug chain,, the back chain, and the belly band, similar to
those which are used to attach the thil horse or thil horses to the front shafts,
the propelling shaft horse or horses are to be attached to the hind shafts, and
on the simultaneous movement of the team or horses which compose the
animal power by which the carriage is to be moved along, it will be found that
the horse or horses in the propelling shafts contribute very considerably more
to the forwarding of the machine than any other one, or two horses, that may
be attached to it. Various other methods of attaching the propelling shafts to
a carriage, besides that above described, will occur to many persons, and each
will adopt that which may appear to be most suitable to his particular case or

page_text: convenience. Some may prefer having a screw. at the end of the shaft pins
with a thumb nut instead of key holes and a spring key, and if the height of
the hind wheels of a four-wheel carriage or any other peculiarity in its
construction should raise it so high as to elevate the moving bar and head
piece so much as to deprive the propelling shafts of. that level which is
essential to their producing all the advantages they are calculated to yield,
the inconvenience may be removed by fixing the shaft pin or shaft pins to a
piece of timber, which may be fixed to the under part of the earbred or hind
piece of timber of the carriage. In cases where the lowness of the hind part
of a carriage is likely to produce an ill effect of the contrary description, and
t give to the propelling shaft or shafts an inclination to point downwards
instead of preserving a level direction, the peculiar construction of the carriage
will best suggest to the mechanic who may be employed on the occasion the
best means of counteracting the inconvenience by the manner of attaching the
propelling shafts to the carriage. Those who may deem it better to apply
the power more immediately to the axletree, instead of the earbred or hind
piece of timber of a carriage, may do so by means of two shafts of a sufficient
length to extend to the under part of the axletree, and to be connected by
-one bar only to be placed at a proper distance behind the hind part of the
carriage, and the body of the horse or horses must determine how far behind
that bar the tug and brechin hook staple should be placed. A joint at the
foremost extremity of each of such long shafts, to admit of their playing
upwards and downwards, must be united to an iron plate, in each of which a
bolt hole will admit of their being fastened to the axletree, but the construction
of many carriages will not allow of the adoption of this mode of attaching the
propelling shafts to them. With respect to two-wheel carriages, the same
method that is herein first described as applicable to four-wheel carriages will
be found in most cases to answer, namely, by attaching the moving bar to the
hind piece of timber of the carriage by means of a shaft pin fastened to the
earbred or hind timber, and inserted in the pin hole of the moving bar, and
secured there by a spring key, or the shaft pin may determinate with a screw
instead of a key hole, and a thumb nut may be substituted for a spring key, as
before described. Some loadings will require considerable deviations from the
more common mode of attaching the propelling shafts, of which the contents of
a hay cart, according to the present arrangement of its trusses for the London
market, exhibits a particular instance; but it requires very little ingenuity so
to dispose of the trusses that at present rest upon the hind ladder as to bring
the moving bar of the propelling shafts in convenient contact with the earbred

page_text: of the cart, and any additional weight that may be thrown upon the thil horse
by shifting that part of the load forwards may be corrected by removing the
axletree a few inches.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, the Ninth
day of May, in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and
sixteen