Hitching oxen to a wagon

[Anonymous]

I just bought a high wheel wooden wagon for my oxen to pull. I want to hitch them properly. I’d like to run a chain down the tongue, from yoke to wagon. My concern is in connecting the chain to the wagon. there are two rings, one on each spindle to hook the evener chains for a team of horses. These chains would pull the axle around on a turn rather than putting all the force on the tongue. I’m not using an evener with oxen, so how do I hook both ends of the axle to a single chain? Do I make a “Y” in the chain? Wooden axle, wooden tongue.

[Tim Harrigan]

Mark, a picture would help. I think you want to pull directly on the tongue. If you pull on a Y chain on rough ground you will really ge a lot of see-sawing of the cart from side-to-side.

[Droverone]

Pull the pin out of the evener, remove the evener, replace the pin, hook the chain to the yoke, and then back to the evener pin, or use a “t” pin in then end of he tongue.

[Droverone]

And most importantly, make sure there is a stop at the end of the tongue so that the tongue does not slide thru the other ring and the wagon boots the team in the backside, repeatedly, in rapid succession as they run off and you try to stop them…….

[Anonymous]

Tim, I thought I’d get more leverage, turning the axle, in mud or snow, if I could somehow pull from the eyelets on the axle spindles. I put a new tongue on and I’d like to make it last.

Droverone, your right, It has a stop and I drilled a hole for a pin. The evener is not on it, but yes there is a eye bolt there, behind the evener pin to hook a chain to. By the way , that was a good description of what happens without the stop 🙂 . You must have watched that happen somewhere.

[Anonymous]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-L8q1Z2ZUm2s/UGjEsU0CHiI/AAAAAAAAAQI/8djGFt6SJaw/s253/Tongue%2Band%2Bhitch.JPG
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aWNDiAXy7o8/UGjEGd8k_TI/AAAAAAAAAP8/yDo6u58omsU/s253/Right%2Bspindle.JPG

[Tim Harrigan]

That looks pretty solid to me. Are you going to be carrying heavy loads over rough ground? Give it a go and if it looks like it will be a problem then try some alternatives.

[Droverone]

20 years ago I witnessed what happened with a pair of poinies that had a ring slip off the end of the yoke, allowing the pole to drop. Not only did the wagon boot them the yoke kept slapping them while they ran around a race track at a county fairgrounds. I quit using wooden neck yokes with pressed ends with rings, after I saw this happen because the wood had dried in the summer heat and the ring and all it’s attachments slipped right off like a hammer head off a handle.

[Anonymous]

Yes, the wagon is solid. It’s one of the few that wasn’t left outside as a lawn ornament. I’d like to haul firewood, I’ll have to go easy and see what the limits are.

[Author]

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