He says that its use was
abandoned in the English army on account of the permanent injury to the
health of the culprit who endured it. At least one death is known in
America, in colonial times, on Long Island, from riding the wooden
horse. It was, of course, meted out as a punishment in the American
provinces both in the royal troops and in the local train bands.

A Maine soldier, one Richard Gibson, in 1670, was "complayned of for his
dangerous and churtonous caridge to his commander and mallplying of
oaths." He was sentenced to be laid neck and heels together at the head
of his company for two hours, or to ride the "Wooden-Hourse" at the head
of the company the next training-day at Kittery.

In 1661, a Salem soldier, for some military misdemeanor, was sentenced
to "ride the wooden horse," and in Revolutionary days it was a favorite
punishment in the Continental army. In the order-book kept by Rev. John
Pitman during his military service on the Hudson, are frequent entries
of sentences both for soldiers and suspected spies, to "ride the woodin
horse," or, as it was sometimes called, "the timber mare." It was
probably from the many hours of each sentence a modification of the
cruel punishment of the seventeenth century.

It was most interesting to me to find, under the firm signature of our
familiar Revolutionary hero, Paul Revere, as "Preseding Officer," the
report of a Court-martial upon two Continental soldiers for playing
cards on the Sabbath day in September, 1776; and to know that, as
expressed by Paul Revere, "the Court are of the Oppinion that Thomas
Cleverly ride the Wooden Horse for a Quarter of an hower with a muskett
on each foot, and that Caleb Southward Cleans the Streets of the Camp,"
which shows that the patriot, could temper justice with both tender
mercy and tidy prudence.

The wooden horse was employed some times as a civil punishment. Horse
thieves were thus fitly punished. In New Haven, in January, 1787, a case
happened:

"Last Tuesday one James Brown, a transient person, was brought to the
bar of the County Court on a complaint for horse-stealing--being put to
plead--plead guilty, and on Thursday received the sentence of the Court,
that he shall be confined to the Goal in this County 8 weeks, to be
whipped the first Day 15 stripes on the naked Body, and set an hour on
the wooden horse, and on the first Monday each following Month be
whipped ten stripes and set one hour each time on the wooden