OUR HISTORY
History of the Carousel
In 2016 the Buffalo Heritage Carousel, Inc. purchased a wood, park style, menagerie carousel originally designed and manufactured in 1924 by the Spillman Engineering Corporation of N. Tonawanda, NY for Domenick DeAngelis of Massachusetts. Mr. DeAngelis operated it in various locations in Massachusetts until his death and then was owned by the family until the Buffalo Heritage Carousel acquired it. It was a rare opportunity to acquire a vintage, menagerie park style carousel of which less than a dozen were thought to have been made and that was owned by one family for its entire life.
The following history is summarized from an article published in the December 1988 Carousel News and Trader as told by Robert Brill, grandson of Domenick DeAngelis.
Domenick DeAngelis was born in Torre Nocce Pro Auillino, Italy in 1891. At the age of 14 he immigrated to the United States by himself, lived with his aunt and worked every day in carnivals to save his money. At the age of 18 he bought a taxi cab and worked in the city of Boston. He dreamed of owning a carnival one day and saved his money for 15 years and in 1924, at the age of 33, Domenick traveled to Spillman Engineering in N. Tonawanda, NY to commission an all wood, menagerie carousel.
The DeAngelis Carousel was originally located at Mayflower Grove in Pembroke, MA where Domenick leased the land and his dream a carnival that included a penny arcade was realized. Seven years later, in 1931, he purchased Gleneco Park in Stoughton, MA. A 35 acre park that included a pond, boat house, hotel and dance hall, all of which complemented his carousel and penny arcade.
Business went well for the next 2 years until the great depression. In 1933 Domenick exhausted his savings trying to maintain the park unitl the rainy summer of 1934 reduced attendance and further exacerbated his financial situation. He could no longer make the mortgage payments, and the family lost the park in the winter of 1934.
Domenick, described by his grandson as a shrewd businessman, did not believe in insurance and did not take too many chances. So, he did not quit and started over after he relocating his family to Roslindale, MA in 1934. He still had the pinball machines from the arcade, distributed throughout Boston and he sold Christmas trees in the winter for the next two years. In 1936 he opened a roller skating rink in Swansea, MA with an arcade, but this venture only lasted only two years, in December '38 hurricane swept everything into the ocean. After this last setback he managed to open a carousel and arcade in the Hough's Neck section of Quincy, MA in 1940, where it remained and prospered until 1952.
Upon Domenick’s death in 1952, the family continued to run the amusement park for another two years until the land the carousel occupied was taken by Eminent Domain for a new school, but his wife Antonetta DeAngelis was able to live in their house until she died.
Although the land was gone on which it stood, the carousel was saved. The carousel was stored in the house from 1952 to 1988 when the family moved it to Carousel Works in Mansfield, Ohio with hopes to restore it and relocate it to a new location. It had been in storage at Carousel Works for the past 28 years.
Buffalo Heritage Carousel, Inc. embraced this wonderful opportunity to restore and repurpose this most important carousel with a new life in its birthplace, Western New York, enabling the DeAngelis carousel's legendary story to continue at Canalside at the terminus of the Erie Canal in Buffalo, NY, and providing smiles and laughter to children and adults once again in memory of Domenick DeAngelis.