ricgrass: December 2015

One Christmas morn back in the 1960’s, when I was a youngster, I woke up to find a sled under the tree. Not just any sled, but an iconic Flexible Flyer. I recall that I couldn’t wait for the next snow and prepared for it by attaching some rope to the holes on the end of the steering handle and putting a little candle wax on the soon to be rusted runners. South Jersey is generally a flat coastal plane and hills are scarce and were usually crowded with other sledders. It got its first tryout on the slopes of what was left of the clay pits at an old brickyard near my home. As I sped down that hill, I never realized that my ride got its start some 75 years earlier just a few miles away. It would another 50 years before I made the connection

This was stamped on the bottom of a vintage sled I acquired recently. Who was S. L. Allen?

In 1861, 19 year old Samuel Leeds Allen moved from Philadelphia to Westfield, NJ, now known as Cinnaminson, in western Burlington County. . With a strict Quaker upbringing, he was prepared for a life of hard work on the family’s “Ivystone” farm, so much so that he sold his prized pair of skates because he thought he would have no time for recreational pursuits.

The Ivystone Farmhouse - Built 1755

He had some very impressive lineage. His father was a direct descendant of Nathanial Allen, who in 1681 was among the first colonist sent by William Penn to found the city of Philadelphia. His mother was a Leeds, and her ancestors arrived here even earlier in 1677 and eventually settled in Leed’s Point along the South Jersey coast. This in fact was the same Leeds family who’s Almanac, anti-Quaker and occult writings gave rise to myth of the Jersey Devil.


1682 - William Penn lands in Philadelphia at the Blue Anchor Tavern, which once stood at Front & Dock Street. Nathaniel Allen was there to greet him.

In 1866 He married Sarah Roberts, the daughter of a well-to-do, Moorestown, NJ Quaker family. The Roberts were also descendants of the early settlers of South Jersey arriving on the first ships sent by William Penn. Sarah’s parents built the original Chalfonte Hotel in Atlantic City. As a newlywed Samuel wanted to make his own mark in the world. He realized the farming life wasn’t for him and looked for an alternative.


Sam Allen's in-laws built and operated the Chalfonte House in Atlantic City. It was eventually sold to the Leed's family (Sam's mother's relatives of Jersey Devil fame) It was rebuilt and enlarged and became one of the grandest hotels in the history of that city. Demolished in 1980 and it is now a parking lot for Resorts Casino

Even at a young age Samuel was a tinkerer, always trying to invent and improve on things. This continued on the farm and within a few years he built a crude wheeled seed and fertilizer spreader out of some washtubs and by 1868 he patented the idea and began manufacturing them at a shop on the farm. He called it the Planet Hand Drill, because he thought it resembled the planet Saturn. At first he sold them to South Jersey farmers, but soon advertising them in farm journals and gained a wider market. Before long he was traveling up and down the east coast, selling his invention. The business took off, he quit farming and he improved on the tool and kept inventing more. He was one of the first to print and distribute a mail order catalog to sell his products. His products were sold under the tradename “Planet Jr”. In his lifetime he held 300 patents. By 1877 he had his first factory and office in Philadelphia. A fire in 1881 partially destroyed it, but Sam had orders to fill and within a short time found another building on Catherine St in South Philly and moved on.

Early Ads For Agricultural Implements

S.L. Allen Co Catalog

As it turned out he did have time for recreation, and his favorite was “coasting” or as we call it today, sledding. He was able to construct a hill and a coaster run on the edge of the fields at the Ivystone farm. Steel runner sleds were a new innovation and of course Sam wanted to improve on it. One of the big problem with the sleds of the day was they were difficult to steer. You would have to sled in contoured tracks or runs and the inability to steer often led to spills and collisions. With his expertise in making steel farm implements, he began to invent improvements to sleds and did succeed in making steerable ones. The first ones were expensive to make and complicated and thus not marketable. He never really gave up on the idea though and kept trying to improve on it. His children recall that their father would spend hours grooming, icing and repairing the sledding hill on their farm and frequently provided sleds for them to try out and then sought their opinions on his latest innovations.

Early American Coasting with Non - Steerable Sleds

Meanwhile, the farm tool business was flourishing to the point where he needed a larger factory. He chose a site in North Philadelphia and started construction of a huge facility. There was a problem though. Farm tools were only made in the winter and spring, and during the summer and fall production was mostly idle due to lack of demand. Many employees were laid off and some of the good ones did not return. In order to make his new factory economically feasible, he needed to find a product that could be made in the summer and sold in the winter.

1890 - The New S.L Allen & Co Factory at 5th & Glenwood Ave, Philadelphia

Sam already had an idea but had to improve on it to make it marketable. He went back to his Cinnaminson shop and came up with a sled made with thin steel runners that could be flexed at the front with a center pivot. The first prototypes were tested on his sledding hill at the family farm on Pomona Rd and manufactured at his factory on Catherine St in South Philly. From the beginning, Sam called his steerable sleds the “Flexible Flyers” but only decorated it with flowers, not with the name.

Early Allen Steerable Sled - Pre Flexible Flyer Trademark

At first they did not sell very well, but Sam never gave up. His employees at first resisted the idea of making and selling them as it would cut into the factory workers time off in the summer and the salesmen had no experience selling to department stores.

The Original Patent for Allen's sled with "steering accomplished by a lateral bending of the runners"

The sled was patented on August 13, 1889 at about the time S.L Allen & Co moved into their new factory at 5^th & Glenwood Ave in Philly. Some of that factory still stands. He continued to make them there even though some of his managers were still trying to convince him to sell the patent and get out of the sled business. But Mr. Allen knew he had developed a revolutionary innovation that would change the sport of sledding. He also knew that a new product might take several years to catch on. In the early years of production, much money was invested in advertising and in fact his sled line operated at a loss.

Sam Allen's Residence, Farm and Shop off Pomona Rd - 1870's Maps

The Ivystone Farmhouse as it looks today

The Former Carriage House & Shop on the Allen Farm - The Birthplace of the Flexible Flyer

In the end Sam’s Quaker persistence paid off. Things were changing in America. People were working less hours and had more time for recreation. Government was putting more emphasis on physical fitness and outdoor activities. Bicycling, skating, golf, tennis, camping, city and national parks, and outdoor sports were becoming increasingly popular. Church leaders recognized that religion could no longer arbitrarily condemn all play and offered “sanctified amusement and recreation” as alternatives to undesirable play.

The time was now right for the Flexible Flyer and a few of the largest retail department store of that era recognized it. The John Wanamaker store in Philadelphia placed a large order and not to be outdone R.H Macy in New York soon followed. It was around this time that the name was trademarked and a logo that included the name with ribbons and an eagle were added to the sled. Mass production at Allen's modern factory made sleds affordable to most families, In the beginning the cheaper models could be bought for as low as $1.50 each and for many decades afterwards you could get one for under $10. They made perfect Christmas presents at the beginning of the snow season. They were extremely popular and sold at the rate of 10,000 a day around the holidays.

The Allen family became very wealthy, in the beginning from selling farms tools, not sleds. But what they are remembered for is the invention of one of the most iconic toys ever made. They decided to move away from their Ivystone Farm began looking for some property to build a larger home. Ivystone still stands and in the 1950’s it was owned by the Ross’s. They were in the restaurant/hotel business and named their new establishment in nearby Pennsauken “The Ivystone Inn” after their home.

"The only sled a girl can properly control"

In 1894 the Allens built a castle-like residence on E Main St in Moorestown, NJ. Just across the street is Stokes Hill, fittingly enough one of the most noted sledding hills in South Jersey. The local legend is that the Flexible Flyer was invented there and first coasted on Stokes Hill – not true! But some of earlier models were tested there! Plus many of the early advertisements show hills and homes that are likely patterned after Allen’s Moorestown neighborhood. (btw – the Allen castle was eventually sold to Eldridge R Johnson, the inventor of the Victor Talking Machine [ RCA Victrola ] and since 1946 has been the Lutheran Home in Moorestown).

Stokes Hill, Moorestown, NJ

Samuel Allen died in 1918 and only saw the beginnings of his sled’s success. In the following decades the demand for his sled was so great that his factory expanded several times its original size. In 1968, after 100 years, the Allen family started to see their sales go downhill (pun intended) and sold their business. Today the trademark has ended up with Allen’s chief sled competitor, the Paris Manufacturing Co, now known as Paricon. The wooden, steel railed Flexible Flyers are still made (in China), but they are now just a small fractions of the sled market.