Phaeton (carriage) The Keystone Cops drove phaetons, either Model Ts or Model As. In Frances Burney's novel, "Evelina" (1778), young gentlemen race their phaetons on the public highways of Clifton, near Bristol, not without incident. In Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice", Mr Collins says of Lady Catherine De Bourgh's daughter, "she is perfectly amiable, and often condescends to drive by my humble abode in her little phaeton and ponies." In Anne Brontë's "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (1848), Mr. Huntingdon drives a "light phaeton" that comes "bowling merrily up the lawn" (Ch. 18). The sporty character of the carriage reflects Huntingdon's devil-may-care
Herdic Phaeton Company added from East Capitol and 11th Street to 15th and T NW in 1883. Other lines were added in downtown in 1886 along I Street, K Street and 13th Streets NW. The electric streetcar, however, was too much for the company to compete with and when its principal stockholder died in 1896 it ceased operations. Photo of a Herdic Omnibus and gingerbread waiting station at Lafayette Square in 1891. Two of the company's waiting stations, nicknamed "herdics", still exist on the Capitol grounds near the East Front. Herdic Phaeton Company The Herdic Phaeton Company was a late 19th Century horse