Though much time has passed, baby carriages of today  share much in common with the ones in Victorian England, the design of architect William Kent. He would come to be known better in England for his landscape gardens, built for the Third Duke of Devonshire, but he also came up with a design for a way to transport the Duke’s children in comfort — with springs — as well as in style — with a dragon design. At the same time, he freed up the need for human intervention to move the pram, attaching a harness so that it could be pulled by an animal. Without many changes, that was how the baby carriage came to the States.

On this day, October 27, in 1829 a patent for a “perambulator” was granted in Massachusetts. Not much is known about the man who filed the patent, but records show that even an improved 1835 version did not gain much interest from buyers.

Not until about the mid 1850s did baby carriages start to spark interest. Charles Burton, an English lithographer who emigrated to the U.S. turned more than a few heads on the New York boardwalk with his homemade three-wheeled chair with a long handle for easier pushing. The Whitney company was soon selling wooden carriages with collapsible tops on both sides of the pond. Even Queen Victoria helped herself to a few.