| Our family always said that this was a family heirloom. My Great-Grandfather, John W. Nofsker was born in the year 1828. His parents, John Jacob and Margaret Nofsker, supposedly purchased this iron pull toy for their newborn son. The fact of the matter is that this toy was made by the Wilkins Toy Company in 1890 ~ too late to have been a toy for John Wilks Nofsker, who would have been sixty-two years old at the time the toy was made. What is more probably is that the toy was bought by John Wilks and Margaret Nofsker for their son, Henry Martin Cleveland Nofsker, born in 1887, when he was three years old. It still would be a family heirloom, just a generation newer than previously thought.
The toy still retains some of its original paint and all the original parts. The back seat, and the driver are unattached pieces; the back seat probably was made to come out if the child wanted to pretend hauling other things. |
