|
ON MACKINAC ISLAND MORNINGS, before the dew dries on wicker porch furniture, the first sounds in the air are the clippety-clip of horse hoofs. At night, the breeze off the Straits carries that crisp rhythm through windows and into bedrooms--the island's lullaby. Other than the occasional squeak of bicycle brakes, the only sound of transportation is the beat of horses' hoofs. Horseless carriages were banned on the island back in the 1890s, and with the exception of a few emergency vehicles, there hasn't been one-legally anyhow-on the island since. Horses help set the island's famous ambiance and
perform a good deal of its grunt work. Teams pulling fine coaches carry the Grand Hotel's
guests; horse-drawn taxis pick up and deliver everyone else's guests; horses hitched to
flatbed wagons, known as drays, haul the island garbage, deliver food to island
restaurants, pick up dirty hotel linens and deliver them back, clean again. And when
islanders leave this bit of heaven for good, a horse-drawn hearse drives them to the
cemetery. Credit for this unabashed nose-thumbing at the 20th century goes to a bunch of stubborn, proud, mostly-Irish carriagemen. The first Mackinac Island carriagemen set up liveries as far back as the 1820s, when visitors to Fort Mackinae needed a way around. The carriagemen toured sightseers about the island and gradually built a road system. Nearly two centuries later, the descendants of those original carriagemen are still driving the Mackinac Island carriage industry. Their vehicle is Mackinac Island Carriage Tours, Inc., the oldest livery service in the country and the world's largest horse-and-buggy livery. The corporation owns and operates about 100 horse-drawn vehicles (carriages, taxis, drays and a hearse) and 350 horses. A list of Carriage Tour stockholders still includes the surnames of many of those first carriagemen-Gillespie, Hom, McIntyre and Chambers. At the heart of Carriage Tours Inc. is the Chambers family, whose fourth and fifth generations are now as inextricably bound to the business as their forefathers. They breed, break, train and care for the corporation's herd of hackney and Percheron horses. The family also builds and repairs the company's carriages and preserves the trade's rich history at Surrey Hill, a museum of island carriages. Perhaps the Chambers family's most important role, however, is guarding and perpetuating a defunct way of life. The chief executive officer of this dynasty is "Dr. Bill" Chambers, a laid-back veterinarian with a sense of humor as long as the Mackinac Bridge. The jokes stop, however, when it comes to the horse-and-carriage business. "This island has been invaded by everything from autos to bikes to fudge," he says. "We've been instrumental in keeping Mackinac's ambiance. We've kept it horse-drawn for six generations and we're going to keep it that way for six more, no matter what we come up against. There's no doubt in my mind." ON A MISTY summer day, Chambers picks me up at my inn in his dark-green, cream-trimmed carriage. Bill's oldest brother, Bud, built the carriage in 1950, patterning it after a mid~8th-century Brewster carriage. The trademark gun-metal green of such carriages gave rise to the term "Brewster green." At the reins is Dr. Bill's old friend Buck Sharrow, a seasoned coachmen. As we're introduced, Sharrow Looks down at me from his perch. His beefy face, set off by a sharp nose, spreads into a shy smile. As we take off in the carriage, Dr. Bill talks about putting his veterinary training to work on Carriage Tour horses, the official side of his vet business. The unofficial side is the middle-of-the-night emergency calls he's answered over the years for other island horses. It's a practice he would like to avoid, but as he says, "What are you gonna do?" The obvious comparison to Chambers is the English author/country vet James Herriot. But that would be to misconstrue Dr. Bill's humor. It's all Irish. As the carriage moves with a steady grace past the
stately mansions that line Huron Street, Dr. Bill recounts his family's island history. He
tells it as if it happened yesterday, with pithy asides. It's a blue-blood island history
he could well boast about, but instead he says, "Yeah, that and $2.50'll buy a pack
of Kents." Nearly every ethnic group ever to make contact with Mackinac Island flows
in the Chambers' veins. "But we only admit to the Irish," Dr. Bill adds with a
hearty laugh. The Chambers' genealogical lines lead back to carriages. Dr. Bill's great-grandfather Tom Chambers was driven out of Ireland by the potato famine. He settled on Mackinac Island in 1830, and later built a frame house and stable at the corner of Market Street and Cadotte Avenue. There, he raised a family, broke and trained his fine hackney horses and built carriages. Tom's son and grandson, Dr. Bill's father, were all carriagemen. Dr. Bill's great-grandfather, E.A. Franks, was proprietor of the island's Mission Hotel during the mid-18th century and a carriageman. Franks wasn't Irish, but he had a good dose of characteristic carriageman spunk. As proof, Dr. Bill likes to tell an anecdote recorded in the city minutes in 1868. "Franks and Cable both obtained licenses to operate a horse-drawn carriage," he says. "Then there's a little note attached that reads: 'Cable paid for his.' " The insinuation here, according to Dr. Bill, is that Franks, like most carriagemen then, didn't believe in licenses and wouldn't pay for his. That free spirit reared its head again in 1896 after the first automobiles made their noisy entrances onto the island. The carriagemen got together and asked the Mackinac Village Council to ban the "dangerous horseless carriages." Dr. Bill's great grandfather and great-great-uncle signed the petition. The village council voted to forbid automobiles and the Mackinac Island State Park Commission supported the ban. Relations between the carriagemen and the park commission weren't always so smooth. Around the same time, the Corrigan who signed the request to ban autos (another ancestor of Dr. Bill's) was fined for driving his carriage in the park without a license. Corrigan fought it all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court. His appeal was denied, but on the local level he demonstrated once again that carriagemen were a group to be reckoned with. Next Page >> |
