I enjoy listening to old time radio shows from the Golden Age of Radio.  These shows, popular from the 1930s to the 1950s, provide a fun and interesting insight into life throughout America and are fun entertainment when you don’t feel like binging another season of whatever is currently the most popular show.

And, I often learn new things!  The most recent discovery came when listening to a more recently created radio show, produced by the CBS Radio Mystery Theater in 1975. The show was entitled, “Afraid to Live, Afraid to Die.” I won’t bore you with re-telling the plot, but what first interested me in the story was an expression used by one of the characters when she says that she “travelled by trap” to another location.

I don’t think I had ever heard the expression and decided to look up “to go by trap.”

Was it some sort of shortcut? A clever trick? Perhaps a dangerous route?

In fact, a trap was simply a light horse-drawn carriage. If someone in the nineteenth century said they were “going by trap,” they were telling you how they planned to travel. The term was commonly used in Britain and also appeared in America during the horse-and-carriage era.

In the nineteenth century, people often identified a journey by the type of conveyance they used. Their everyday language reflected a world powered by horses.

The trap was just one of many horse-and-carriage terms that were once commonplace.

Someone might “go by buggy,” referring to a small horse-drawn carriage commonly seen throughout rural America. Families used buggies for errands, church, visiting neighbors, and trips into town.

Others might “take a gig.” A gig was a light, often speedy two-wheeled carriage favored for short journeys. Compared to heavier wagons, a gig offered a quicker and more stylish ride.

A person heading out for leisure might simply say they were “taking a drive.” While the phrase survives today, its meaning was quite different before automobiles. A drive meant harnessing a horse and carriage and enjoying a pleasant excursion through the countryside.

Another popular expression was “to take the air.” This phrase suggested a leisurely outing intended to enjoy fresh air and scenery. Physicians often recommended such excursions for health and well-being, and a carriage ride through the countryside was considered both pleasant and restorative.

While the expressions “to go a-sleighing” or to have a “sleighing party” are pretty easy to imagine what they mean, in reality, it is a world quite removed from our modern life.  Few of us will ever attend a 21st-century sleighing party.  Yet, looking through newspapers from the nineteenth century, these sleighing parties were a big part of winter leisure life in Chester County at one time (weather permitting, of course).

These expressions remind us how closely transportation and daily life were intertwined. Before automobiles, travel required planning, animal care, and an awareness of weather and road conditions. The choice between a wagon, buggy, gig, trap, or simply traveling on horseback could affect the speed, comfort, and purpose of a journey.

A simple phrase like “going by trap” opens a small window into a world where the horse was the primary means of transportation and where people described their travels in ways that sound charmingly unfamiliar today.  So the next time you’re in Historic Sugartown’s Carriage Museum, imagine how a resident of Sugartown might have described their daily trips 150 years ago! They probably wouldn’t have been driving a car, riding SEPTA, or taking an Uber—but they just might have been going by trap.