- These horses are from the 1800s, if you can believe it.

- Oh my God.

- Oh my God.

- [Pamela] The iconic Watch Hill Flying Horse Carousel rounds up a stampede of memories for Lindsay Murphy of Westerly.

- You really go fast and you feel like you're flying.

They angle out when it gets full speed.

It's almost like you feel like a daredevil when you're on it.

You know, you're leaning out and you're holding on and you're spinning around and around and you have the sun and the salt and you're, you know, you're right on a beach.

- [Pamela] Murphy grew up riding the carousel along with her identical twin sister, Holly.

It's an unusual merry-go-round because instead of going up and down, the ponies fan out like Pegasus, sailing by centrifugal force.

The cherished carousel has been a landmark in the summer colony since 1881.

What is it about the Watch Hill Flying Horse Carousel that captivates everyone?

- I think the biggest thing people can't believe when they see it for the first time is how beautiful it is.

It really is a working antique.

The horses are so old and they're, you know, wooden and everything is real.

It's pretty amazing that anyone is allowed to ride it year after year after year.

- [Pamela] These days, the rides are propelled by a simple motor, but initially, the amusement rodeo was hand cranked, and at one time, a real horse would pull it around.

The exact origin of the carousel is still a bit of a mystery.

- Well, the myth is it was left here by a traveling carnival.

That's a lovely, lovely story.

And I don't think it can be fully disputed at this time.

- All right, reach out, everyone!

- [Pamela] Extensive research is ongoing as to who lassoed the seaside attraction.

What is certain, generations wouldn't be able to mount these folk art horses and grab for the hand forged brass ring if not for Murphy's grandmother, Harriet Moore.

It was Moore who took up the charge to champion the carousel's preservation in the 1940s.

- You can see how much information she gathered.

- [Pamela] In Moore's scrapbooks kept at the Westerly Library, you can see photos of the horses in disrepair after providing thousands of rides and surviving several batterings by hurricanes.

- Back then, instead of using newspaper, they decided to dry out some seaweed and to stuff the saddles.

- [Pamela] Moore used her prominence in the community to raise funds for repairs and corral stories.

- I love reading all of them, but this one in particular is quite sweet.

- [Pamela] These are letters from people recollecting their childhood long ago.

- "I was born in 1890 in North Stonington.

As a little girl, I went with my parents by horse and surrey to Watch Hill.

I rode the old merry-go-round."

- [Pamela] Murphy says her grandmother guarded the herd like a cowboy, sourcing leather for the saddles and real horse hair for the manes and tails.

She also had strict rules.

- No wet bathing suits.

There was no sandy feet.

There was no feet allowed to touch the legs of the horses.

There was no pulling on reins.

There was no twisting of ears.

She was tough as nails.

I mean, in many ways, I laugh, I call her the Margaret Thatcher of the merry-go-round world.

- [Pamela] Moore's legacy has now come full circle, as Murphy leads the town's carousel committee.

She estimates the merry-go-round gallops through some 12,000 rides every summer.

Despite expert repairs, though, the original vintage horses only fly a few weeks a year.

(wood scraping) That's when artist and sculptor, Gary Anderson, takes the reins.

(chisel knocking) He's almost completed carving a full fleet of exact replicas that are swapped out for the bulk of the season.

His stable gives the real deal a rest, because Anderson says they were a mess when he first started working on them years ago.

- They were just so full of nails and spikes and so cracked that I couldn't just put another nail or a screw or anything, or glue it.

- What did you do?

- We did what everybody else had done, 'cause everybody else was sanding.

So we sanded and cleaned and took off all the paint, and in some spots, there was 50 layers of paint.

- [Pamela] And beneath the paint, a revelation.

- I saw that there were deep reds around the eyes and there was black around them and the nostrils were flaming and there were these wild, angry horses, and I painted 'em just the way they'd been in the very beginning, and everybody hated it (laughs) because they'd gotten used to these very friendly, little, docile, happy faced horses.

- [Pamela] Not only did the community prefer what the war horses had morphed into, Anderson also confirmed something townspeople long suspected about these rare equine treasures.

- I worked around maritime carvings, and I started looking it up and I couldn't find anything that remotely looked like a carousel horse.

And then I went to a couple museums and looked at rocking horses and I said, "Oh, yeah, that's what these are, they're rocking horses."

- [Pamela] Just like this one Anderson later purchased for his workshop.

This hobby horse was created by the same New York toy maker its believed crafted the Watch Hill Carousel.

When merry-go-rounds became all the rage, the entrepreneur started churning out models using the same parts.

- They were meant to be a rocking horse that was inside.

You know, a little kid was gonna use it, and they were never gonna be used outside.

- Which is why the horses deteriorated so fast.

The unusual stance is because the front legs are just the back ones in reverse to save the toy maker time, and the eyes are made of vintage German marbles.

If you look closely, you can see animals inside, creating the iris.

What has it been like for you to be the quartermaster of the carousel?

- 30 years of time has been spent on these little horses.

I feel like they're part of our family.

I know Beth feels that way.

She grew up with 'em, they're like brothers and sisters.

- Okay, go.

- [Pamela] And now that his daughter, Beth Anderson, is grown, she's apprenticing with her father, restoring the old steeds and grooming the new ones to ensure authenticity for the next generation.

- It's a little daunting, to be honest.

It's hard to teach what we do.

These are works of art that are getting use.

- [Pamela] She is learning the ropes of tacking, as well as taking on some unexpected assignments.

- I brush their hair, I condition their hair.

(laughs) - [Pamela] You really condition the hair?

- Oh, yeah.

It helps keep the raw hide of the manes still soft and supple.

- [Pamela] While the father-daughter team keep pace with the ponies, Murphy is also hoping her children, twins Si and Abigail, will someday continue her family's mission to preserve the flying horses.

Because... - How special is it you can spend a day at the beach, get an ice cream cone, and go ride a piece of American history?

It's something that makes Watch Hill, Watch Hill.

It's something that even with the changing of the years and all the things that are going on in the world, it's a constant.