Rare cast-iron horse and rider weathervane New England, circa 1870

Donald A. Pettee, Francistown, New Hampshire
Wayne Pratt, Marlboro, Massachusetts
Marjorie Schorsch, Greenwich, Connecticut, 1983

American Radiance: The Ralph Esmerian Gift to the American Folk Art Museum, p. 339, fig. 302

Rust on the surface.
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This rare cast-iron weathervane, which surmounted a barn in Francistown, New Hampshire, for a hundred years or so, highlights the diversity of weathervanes made in the nineteenth century. Perched on a galloping horse, an acrobatic Indian figure holds an oversize arrow as if it were a spear he is about to hurl. The top of the figure’s head and left hand are flared to accept two screws that fix the arrow to them, indicating that this is the weathervane's original configuration. A photograph of the weathervane while it was still installed on the barn shows the arrow in this position, not in the more customary location below the horse.

The profile of the horse is reminiscent of some copper weathervanes attributed to A.L. Jewell of Waltham, Massachusetts. This is not to suggest that it was made by Jewell but to underscore the influence of his designs on other makers. Cast iron may seem to be an unlikely material for weathervanes, given their need to turn freely in the wind. Then again, their symbolic and decorative functions have always been just as important, and, by the second half of the nineteenth century, other methods of indicating wind direction were available. Two other types of cast-iron weathervanes are known. An unidentified workshop that probably operated in New Hampshire or Maine around midcentury produced a distinctive style of horse, also known today as a "formal horse," and a rooster, both of which have cast-iron bodies and sheet-iron tails.¹ -R.S.

¹ For examples of these weathervanes, see Bishop and Coblentz, Gallery, p. 72, fig. 118, and p.34, fig. 45.