A diorama (three-dimensional miniature scene) calls for talents of designer, sculptor, inventor, carpenter, mechanic and painter to make in miniature and perspective the people, their tools and their setting. This diorama pictures the Cedarville factory of the Henney Carriage Works, with John Henney talking to a silk-hatted customer, who is examining a finished buggy, the one he built for John Addams. In the background, a workman at the spoke machine is fitting spokes into a wheel axle. In the foreground at one side, another worker is at the forge. His red shirt and forked leather apron mark him as a blacksmith, and he is heating a piece of iron clamped in his tongs, and holds a hammer ready to work the hot metal. A quenching tub stands by the forge, and beside it is the tire bending machine. A strip of metal running through its wheels takes on a circular shape. The paint shop is on the other side of the factory, with painted wheels resting against a bench. Overhead, other wheels, unpainted, are suspended from the rafters. Along the walls are ranked the carpenter's tools: planes, hammers, squares, mallets, chisels and saws. All of these took some contriving and some of the blacksmith's and carpenter's skills.

The overalls, red shirt and leather apron, as well as the silk hat, look like fabrics, but are not. Neither are the leather buggy top, seat and dashboard the work of an upholsterer. Instead, they were molded by the sculptor, Mrs. Blackwood, as she made the small figures in molding clay, each on a metal armature, gave them their costumes, baked them in a kiln, and then painted them. The building which housed the scene depicted by this diorama still stands in Cedarville at the corner of West Cherry and North Mill Streets--three blocks west of State Route 26.

This diorama was commissioned by Mrs. Mary Henney Smithe and Mrs. Robert M. White, both of Freeport, daughters of John W. Henney Sr., founder of the Henney Carriage Works.

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The Company

Jacob Henney came to Stephenson County first in the spring of 1848, bringing his family by team and wagon, since there was as yet no railroad. He did not like the country and returned to Pennsylvania that same fall. The Henneys were carriage makers in the East, among the first in the United States to introduce machinery into the manufacture of vehicles. In 1854 he brought his family back to Freeport by railroad and established a carriage repair shop in Cedarville, remaining there the rest of his life.

John W. Henney, his son, was a boy of 12 when the family returned to stay. He learned the woodworker's trade, and carriage building and painting in his father's shop. He worked in several cities in the Midwest before becoming superintendent of the Wiley Carriage Shop in Kansas City. In 1868 he returned to Cedarville and took over the family shop, forerunner of the large business he was to develop over the years. He equipped it with the steam power and modern machinery, and the Henney vehicles soon established their reputation.

In 1879 he reorganized the business as John W. Henney & Company and moved it to Freeport where there were railroad shipping facilities. The first Freeport plant was at South Chicago Avenue and West Jackson Street. John W. Henney, Jr. became superintendent of the plant in 1912, when he was 29. Mr. Henney's nephew, John Henney Smithe, recalled when the first plant was torn down to make way for a new building to fill the east half of the block between Chicago, Jackson, Van Buren and Spring Streets.

The Henney Buggy Company was liquidated before the United States entered World War I and the building was sold to the Moline Plow Company, who enlarged the building to cover the rest of the block. 

The Moline Plow Company planned to make automobiles.  Since the hand work in auto manufacturing at that was very similar to the work involved in carriage frames and upholstery, they retained most of the employees.  The Moline Plow Company manufactured the Stephens motor car in Freeport from 1916 to 1924.

John W. Henney, Jr. went back into business as the John W. Henney Co. in 1917, building truck bodies in the Maurer building on the railroad and the river bank. He also used the old Lena Casket Company building nearby (in East Freeport) to make walnut gun stocks for the government.

When the Moline Plow Company liquidated the Stephens car operations in 1924, the Henney Company moved back into the building. The name of the business was changed to the Henney Motor Company in 1927 and its business was making motor hearses and later, ambulances.  Again, most of the employees were retained.  

John W. Henney, Jr. sold out in 1928 before the stock market crash. He bought back in later and in 1931 was again head of the company, continuing until 1946, the year of his death. The company continued in business under other ownership from 1946 until it ceased operation in 1954. The business was closed out the following year.

Over the years many of Freeport's most skilled craftsmen and much executive talent were developed in the Henney Buggy and the Henney Motor Companies.

For More Information

The Stephenson County Historical Society and the Silver Creek Museum, both in Freeport, contain displays on the Henney companies.

In the 1940s Mrs. John Henney Senior wrote a short history of her memories coming west and helping her husband work in the buggy shop in the early days.  Only five copies of her memories were known to be printed, however it has been transcribed in Primary Sources, published by the Stephenson County Historical Society.  The book is available in our research room during regular open hours and is also available in our Gift Shop.

The 1896 book Illustrated Freeport contains histories of Freeport's leading industries at the time, including a few pages on the Henney Buggy Company.  The book was recently reprinted and is available in our research room during regular open hours or can be purchased in our Gift Shop.

John W. Henney, Jr.'s country estate, Highpoint, is now open as a bed and breakfast.  For more information visit www.highpointbedandbreakfast.com or call (815) 233-0233.