From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The one-horse shay is a
light, covered, two-wheeled carriage for two persons, drawn by a
single horse. It is the American adaptation, originating in
Union, Maine, of the French chaise, and is also known as a
whisky as its owners tended to whisk about doing errands. The
body is chairlike in shape and has one seat for passengers
positioned above the axle, which is hung by leather braces from
wooden springs connected to the shafts. It is colloquially known
as a one-hoss shay. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. memorialized the
shay in his light poem "The Deacon's Masterpiece or The
Wonderful One-Hoss Shay". The fictional deacon built this
wonderful one horse shay so it wouldn't break down. He built it
from the very best of materials so that each part was as strong
as every other part. In Holmes' humorous, yet "logical", twist,
the shay endures for a hundred years to the day (actually to the
moment of the 100th year of the Lisbon Earthquake--to the
precise hour of the earthquake shoc