iron work for Mr. Dennis’ carriage shop.

Before opening his business in O'Leary, W.H. Dennis worked in the United States at the Quadhope Carriage Shop in order to earn enough money to come to O’Leary and build his house. He travelled back to O’Leary every year to work on his house - it was built in ”bits and pieces".

In the early years of business, the Dennis Carriage Shop con- structed only light wagons; but, as time went on and demand grew, Mr. Dennis was forced to expand his line of carriages. He then began building truck wagons, iaunting sleighs, wood sleighs, and pung sleighs.

The first step in constructing a sleigh was cutting the pieces of wood to the proper measurements and then joining them together. The wood was then planed and sand-papered. Each sleigh was given two or three coats of paint and then two coats of varnish. The new sleigh was then rubbed in a back and forth motion with a felt pad and pumice stone to polish it. The last step in the process was to apply the finishing coat of varnish. The carriage shop employed seven men; the blacksmith shop employed two.

Black was the most popular colour for jaunting sleighs but people had a choice of three different types, depending on who manufac- tured them, and on the type of running shaft. The Jelley sleigh was wider at the back than most and had a bent shaft. The Dennis sleighs were similar to the Jelley sleigh except they were narrower at the back. The Francis sleigh was narrow and ran on a straight shaft. The team horse wagon could haul four tons and the three team wagon could haul seven tons, but very few three-horse wagons were con- structed. A single truck wagon was sold for $40, a double truck wagon for 560.

When business began to slack off, Mr. Dennis closed his carriage shop to begin his illustrious career as a politician.

COBBLERS

In the days before mass production and automated assembly, many articles now made by machine had to be painstakingly and meticulously made by hand. With the onslaught of modern technol- ogy, many trades and occupations have disappeared or almost disap- peared. One such occupation was shoemaking.

O’Leary had many men skilled in the art of shoemaking and/or shoe repairing, but little information is available about these early tradesmen. The 1880 Atlas tells us that at the turn of the century, John Frost, the postmaster, made shoes in his home as did Thomas

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