Roller skating, one of America’s primary mass participant sports, has traveled a long and sometimes hard road since the day two centuries ago when an anonymous Dutchman first attempted to transfer skating from ice to ground. The Netherlands ice-skating enthusiast, who could scarcely wait for the canals to freeze over each winter, nailed some large wooden spools to wood strips which he attached to his shoes, and went bumping along his merry way. Apparently his crude attempts at “ground skating” were not too successful, for nothing more was heard of a substitute for ice skating until mid-eighteenth century.

Then an ingenious Belgian mechanic and musical instrument maker, named Joseph Merlin, devised a pair of skates which ran on small metallic wheels. In London, where he had moved to become director of several museums, he fascinated the local gentry at a Soho Square party with his skates. However, he could neither turn nor stop his forward progress on skates and dashed himself against a huge mirror at a fashionable masquer­ade party while skating and playing the violin. According to a contempo­rary account, “He impelled himself against a mirror of more than £500 value (approximately $1,300 at today’s exchange rate), dashed it to atoms, broke his instrument to pieces, and wounded himself most severely.

To read more, go to the Roller Skating Tips website by clicking on this link.