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Coasting Down the Hill

by Anonymous

Frosty is the morning;
But the sun is bright,
Flooding all the landscape
With its golden light.
Hark the sounds of laughter
And the voices shrill!
See the happy children
Coasting down the hill.

There are Tom and Charley,
And their sister Nell;
There are John and Willie,
Kate and Isabel,—
Eyes with pleasure beaming,
Cheeks with health aglow;
Bless the merry children,
Trudging through the snow!

Now I hear them shouting,
"Ready! Clear the track!"
Down the slope they're rushing,
Now they're trotting back.
Full of fun and frolic,
Thus they come and go.
Coasting down the hillside,
Trudging through the snow.

Did You Know?

The activity most commonly referred to as "sledding" today was called "coasting" by the Victorians of the 1800s.

Question:

When was the iconic Flexible Flyer sled invented?

In 1888, on his 3rd attempt to create an affordable, steerable sled with metal runners, Samuel Leeds Allen produced a working prototype of the now famous Flexible Flyer sled. The next year, 1889, U.S. Patent No. 408,681 was issued for the sled. It became America's first steerable, mass-marketed sled.

Allen's primary motivation for developing the sled was to come up with a marketable product that could provide work for his factory workers during the summer months (a season when demand for the agricultural implements he normally produced lagged).

 Answer

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