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Traveling at ease

This vehicle is known from almost every western. It was used not only by settlers but also by missionaries and the Herrnhut missionaries Heckewälder and Zeisberger most probably also travelled in a covered wagon on their way to the wild West. This oxcart is a small wooden model owned by the Ethnological Museum in Herrnhut. Starting with the so-called Conestoga Wagon – named after the valley in Pennsylvania where it was first built – the development during the first half of the 19th century led to the creation of the prairie schooner, a covered wagon pulled by oxen or horses that was indispensable for the exploration and colonisation of the Middle and Far West before the age of the railways.