Chapter VII of Percy Maxim’s memoir Horseless Carriage Days recounts Maxim’s role in the pioneering of the automobile, particularly:
pioneer days between the years 1893 and 1901, when a ride out into the country in a horseless carriage was an adventure; when that temperamental machine, the gasoline engine, was being tamed; when there were no good roads, no road signs, no road maps, no filling stations; when gasoline had to be purchased either in paint shops before dark or in drug stores; when there were no registration plates, no operator’s licenses, no protection against wind, rain, and cold; and when every horse on the road stood upon his hind legs and made a scene. (Maxim 1937, xi)
The events of this chapter take place in 1897 during Maxim’s employment at the Pope Company, which had hired him as an engineer developing the motor-car. When Maxim was first hired by the Pope Company, he was determined to perfect his gasoline-engine-powered tricycle. Between 1895 and 1897, Maxim had been instructed to develop an electric carriage rather than a gasoline-powered carriage, but had determined that the electric carriage would not be a reliable means of transportation. In 1897, Maxim develops the Mark VII, a gasoline-engine tricycle, and successfully drives it from Hartford to Springfield (which Maxim claims is the first Connecticut machine to get out of its own state under its own power). The two journeys recounted below come after the successful Springfield trip.
from Horseless Carriage Days
by Hiram Percy Maxim
CHAPTER VII
PIONEERING: TO FARMINGTON AND TO SAYBROOK
It was not long after this that I was invited out to the Eames’ country place in Farmington to dinner. One of Mrs. Eames’ sisters, Miss Julia Hamilton, was visiting her at the time. I asked Lieutenant Eames how he was going out. The distance was about eight miles. He replied that he was going out on the trolley and that I had better join him.
I shall never forget that moment. I was considering asking him to go out on Mark VII. It was the first time I had dared even contemplate using a gasoline-machine for regular transportation purposes. It would not be safe to use the electric carriage, as the roads were hilly and soft and there would be grave doubts about getting back before the storage batteries became exhausted. Out and back would be sixteen miles. This distance might be all right for the electric on city streets; but on soft country roads and hills it would not do at all. Furthermore, I knew I should have to give Miss Hamilton a ride. This would add to the mileage. No–the electric was outclassed in this service. The gasoline-machine was the only thing that would do the job. If it would hold together it would get us out to Farmington and back. So, plucking up enough courage to take the chance, I made the counter suggestion that Lieutenant Eames join me on the tricycle.
Eames looked hard at me for a moment; then he welcomed the idea with open arms. It appealed to him just as it had to me because it presented an opportunity to use our new product for practical purposes. It opened up a new chapter.
I had a couple of office chairs fastened to the tricycle platform because Lieutenant Eames ought not to be expected to sit on the tool-box lid. And Mrs. Eames and Miss Hamilton must surely have something better. The miserable little bicycle head lamp was filled with kerosene because I would be returning alone and probably late at night. Lobdell and I tightened up and greased everything and at five o’clock we sailed out of the yard as the factory hands were going home. Lieutenant Eames looked very fierce and considerably concerned, sitting on the flimsy office chair, very much out in front and with little or nothing to hold on to. He had announced generally that he and Maxim were going out to Farmington on the Mark VII, so our start was an auspicious occasion.
The little engine worked wonderfully. We overtook and passed the trolley with all the other Farmington commuters on it, Lieutenant Eames waving madly and bellowing felicitations to his acquaintances. We romped along the hard road to West Hartford, jouncing over the bumps and holes and making a merry clatter. West Hartford was considered quite a long way off in those days.
Beyond West Hartford on the Farmington road, we entered the hinterland. The road was the conventional winding dirt road of the country. I had a delicate job negotiating the sandy portions of this road because of the tendency of the right-hand drive to “crab.” I did not want to emphasize this crabbing tendency to Lieutenant Eames, and it required several clever bits of driving to keep the machines on its straight course. I managed to get through all right, although on some of the quick side dodges Eames narrowly escaped being pitched bodily off his perch on the office chair. We pulled into “Underledge,” his summer place, away ahead of time, with all hands present or accounted for. I was tremendously pleased. Nothing had let go and we had covered the eight miles in quicker time than the trolley made it. Furthermore, the electric carriage would have been getting along toward its last legs at this point, but we on the gasoline-machine could go on with as much vigor as when we started.
At dinner we talked of nothing else. Eames and I were staunch advocates of the gasoline-engine. Although steam and storage batteries provided a more quiet, docile, and reliable motive power, we firmly believed the gasoline-engine had qualities which would beat both steam and electricity in the end. Eames held forth at length to the ladies, who probably comprehended just exactly nothing at all of what he was driving at. Notwithstanding, we had a delightful dinner.
After dinner, just as it was turning dusk, I suggested that we all take a bit of a ride around the village. Mrs. Eames flatly declined, saying that no power on earth would tempt her to get on board such a juggernaut. We persuaded her sister, however, who was willing to venture so that she might be able to say she had had her first ride in a horseless carriage.
I was not altogether happy over the outlook after we had overcome Miss Hamilton’s objections. The Eames house was at the top of a steep hill and there were no brakes of any sort on Mark VII. The hill extended down to the main thoroughfare, which was at the very bottom of the grade. With no brakes I wondered if I were going to be able to make the turn into this main thoroughfare. Somehow I must hold the speed of the machine down.
As we boarded the tricycle and Miss Hamilton looked at the steep hill, she hesitated. The hill was many times steeper than she had realized. But she was a good sport and took her seat in one of the chairs, albeit a little gingerly. Lieutenant Eames took the other chair. Everything being ready, I spun the engine over. It burst into speed, as a gasoline-engine will when it is first started with a wide-open throttle, and Miss Hamilton thought the thing had exploded. She made to leave as hastily as possible, but Eames restrained her, shouting–so as to be heard over the roar–that this was merely starting the engine. She reluctantly resumed her seat, casting doubtful glances behind. Miss Hamilton had not known that gasoline-engines have to be started before the vehicle can start. Neither had she known that a gasoline-carriage shook so violently and clattered so noisily.
I had made up my mind that once I had the machine started I would immediately shut off the gas, which would prevent the engine from delivering any power. Then, by leaving the clutch in, I would compel the tricycle to drive the engine. I hoped this would act as a brake. I intended also to keep the machine in the softest part of the road. Between these expedients I thought I had a chance of getting down the hill safely.
I had serious misgivings as we started. It was a very steep hill. I recalled being catapulted over the front of the old tricycle in Lynn, and I could not regard with equanimity the possibility of catapulting Miss Hamilton and Lieutenant Eames. I started very slowly, determined not to permit the speed to get beyond a slow walk. I shut off the gas and made for the side of the road where it was soft and sandy and hard going. To my immense relief the engine offered such a drag that the speed of the tricycle was quite reasonable. In fact it was too slow in some places. All I had to do to speed up a bit was to ease off on the clutch. As we approached the junction at the main thoroughfare I was able to get the speed down to where one could have safely stepped off the machine. Once around the corner I heaved a deep sigh of relief, for now I was safe. With a light heart I opened the gas valve wide and the engine caught hold like a little bulldog.
It was a gay ride. Miss Hamilton shed hairpins as I had never seen hairpins shed before. We ran around the village, the lady rapidly falling to pieces, after which we climbed the hill back home. When we arrived Miss Hamilton had the appearance of having been passed through a threshing-machine. She had to completely rebuild herself. However, the trip was voted a huge success. I was enormously relieved. The nervous strain had been no light one.
Late that evening I started back to Hartford alone. It was a lovely summer night, I knew the road, and as I bowled along in the dark I thought of the bicycle ride from Salem to Lynn. Here was a dream come true. I had to shut my ears to the noise and the vibration, for in my dream my machine was swift and silent. This Mark VII tricycle was neither. But it would run, and that was the main thing. Everything held together and I did not have to dismount once all the way back to Hartford. All the horses had gone to bed. When I finally shut the throttle in the factory yard I was a pleased young man, for I had completed my first wholly successful bit of transportation on a gasoline-engine-driven vehicle.
Thus far our road runs had been limited to relatively short trips out from Hartford. The nearest to any real pioneering into the remote districts had been to Springfield, which was reached through country that was not really remote. Neither was it pioneering, since the Duryea brothers had already made the journey in their machine. Moreover, the towns were near together and they also were near enough to Hartford to be thoroughly familiar to most bicycle riders. I wanted to get out into the real remote places.
The Mark VII tricycle was a pretty good machine by this time and I believed it was able to take us anywhere. Where it could not climb we could push it, and when little parts broke we could fix them. With this in the back of my mind I began thinking where I could go which would be within the limits of a Saturday afternoon and a Sunday week-end. I figured that by starting promptly at noon on Saturday, and by stretching everything to the limit, I would have until eight o’clock on Monday morning. This would mean two nights on the road. Four or five hours’ sleep each night would suffice. This would take ten hours out of the forty-four between Saturday noon and eight o’clock Monday morning. This would leave thirty-four for running. If I averaged four miles an hour for thirty-four hours it would mean 136 miles. Making allowances for frightened horses, repairing the machine, meals, sight-seeing, and unforeseen delays of one kind or another, about 100 miles was the limit which it was reasonable to attempt. This meant 50 miles out and 50 miles back. I conferred with the helpful Mr. Lobdell, whereupon he slapped his leg vigorously and announced that he knew exactly the place to go: “The Pease House at Saybrook Point–just about fifty miles.”
I had thought of Saybrook Point myself. It was down at the mouth of the Connecticut River where the latter flows into Long Island Sound, the last place one could go before jumping off into the sea. This sounded remote and in addition it would take us through the fascinating little river towns. The distance down and back was exactly what we wanted; and if nothing broke, we might ferry across the Connecticut at Saybrook to Lyme, and return through the unfrequented and almost unknown hill country on the east side of the river. There was no railroad over there and it was whispered that things were as they had been a century ago.
It must be explained that in the ‘nineties the Pease House at Saybrook Point was a place about which men spoke with bated breath and uplifted eyes. It was a Mecca for yachtsmen. It was operated by its founder, Mr. Pease himself, a middle-aged man with a reserved demeanor, suggesting a sad experience with many varieties of human beings. I have noticed that policemen, street-car conductors, and ticket-sellers in railroad stations acquire this reserved demeanor after a few years’ experience. Evidently there is something about meeting all sorts of people which develops this manner.
The “Valley Branch” of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad had a terminal at Saybrook Point. This terminal, which included a roundhouse, was located close to the steamboat dock. The last train from Hartford, or “down the valley” as it was called then, put up at Saybrook Point for the night; and the engineers, firemen, conductors, and brakemen all boarded at the Pease House. Everybody knew everybody else and called one another by first names. Guests all sat at a long table, yachtsmen, railroad men, and the rest. It was democratic, friendly, forthright, intimate, and altogether delightful. Everything about the dining-room was adjusted to a brakeman’s appetite.
We started from Hartford on Saturday noon in August, 1897–Lobdell, Herbert W. Alden, and I. A kitchen chair had been fastened to the floor of the tricycle on the left side. The tool-box on the right side provided the other seat. With Alden on the kitchen chair and Lobdell on the lid of the tool-box, I steered south through Wethersfield, sand, Middletown, more sand, and Higginum (where there was a hill to be climbed which seemed as steep as a flight of stairs) to Haddam. So bad were the roads and so interrupted was our progress that evening was upon us when we pulled into Haddam. Obviously our arrival in Saybrook would be at a late hour. Lobdell, with his mind on the Pease House supper, implored us to postpone eating and to hurry on. All hands were pretty well tired out, but we acceded to the eloquent Lobdell’s pleadings and went on.
Below Haddam the sand became worse, the road more narrow and less traveled, and the houses few and far between. I certainly was getting the remote country I had longed for. The engine had been overheating, and by now the cylinder head was an evil red most of the time–quite visible after dark. I hated to think about the poor little exhaust valve, which must have been at a bright red heat. We had to stop very frequently along this difficult stretch, putting in fresh gasoline and quantities of oil. After a long time we reached the junction of the roads in the village of Centerbrook. It was then late at night; no hope for the Pease House supper! All of us were dog tired by this time, Alden being particularly silent. There was the same country store at the junction that is there today, and we bought some crackers and cheese and ate them while we rested.
After half an hour’s rest, which Lobdell consumed in attempting to fix the kerosene-oil headlight and bemoaning the loss of his Pease House supper, we resumed our trek. I noticed with a sinking heart that the engine was not pulling as well as it had been. No wonder; the poor thing had been running red hot for several hours. A modern gasoline-engine would have given up the ghost hours before. I suspected badly burned piston rings and exhaust valve. There was nothing that we could do about it, so we went on . After what seemed hours of slow progress in a deep wilderness, we reached Saybrook railroad crossing, about three miles from Saybrook Point. By this time our power had fallen off to a fraction of what it should have been; it was just barely able to carry us along on a level road. We had to get off and push whenever the road became at all sandy. Finally, about two-thirty in the morning, we pulled up in front of the Pease House. We were all in and able to think of but one thing, which was crawling into a bed.I berthed the machine in a carriage-shed while Lobdell hunted up a watchman, who, after much cross-examination, showed us to rooms.
Our time for the trip had been about thirteen hours. This journey is made today in an hour and a half!
Next morning we were the center of attention. Everybody had heard about our exploit and somehow knew that we had limped in sadly crippled. One individual appeared to extract the most exquisite pleasure in explaining to me that there was no future for my machine, for if it had burned out its engine in a single trip from Hartford to Saybrook, what possible use would such a machine be! I did not venture to attempt to broaden his point of view, as I had more pressing duties, among which was how I was to get the machine and my crew back to Hartford by Monday morning.
This was a poser. We had taken the cylinder head off the engine and found that the exhaust valve was a total wreck–burned beyond recognition. No one would have suspected that it had been the exhaust valve of a gasoline-engine. The cylinder had scored, which is not a happy thing to happen to a cylinder, the piston had worn itself down so that it actually was loose in the cylinder, and what had kept the engine running at all seemed a mystery. That it had brought us in the previous night was eloquent evidence of the abilities of the hot tube ignition. If it can be kept hot, a hot tube will ignite, “come hell or high water,” as Lobdell put it, which is not the case with electric ignition. There was absolutely no use thinking about running the machine back to Hartford, so I decided to ship it back by boat. As for ourselves, Lobdell arranged for a boatman named Harry Sellew to take us up the river to Hartford that night on his steamboat.
The only photograph I have of this historic trip is shown in Fig. 11, which was taken while we were enjoying Sunday afternoon at Fenwick on Long Island Sound, within walking distance of Saybrook Point. First on the right is Harry Sellew whose kindly coöperation secured us our passage up the river. Mr. Sellew is still a Connecticut River pilot. Next is Lobdell. Next is Herbert W. Alden, at that time my assistant, now chairman of the board of the Timken Roller Bearing Company of Detroit. Last is myself as I appeared nearly forty years ago. I am taking the picture by means of a rubber bulb and a rubber tube which leads to the shutter of the camera, which in turn was set up on a tripod in the water.
The steamboat left at sundown. We sat up and told stories until we could no longer see the river banks; then we turned in. Turning in consisted of lying down on the after deck, a hard wood floor. I fell into a profound sleep almost immediately, being entirely unconscious until about two o’clock in the morning when I was suddenly aroused by a violent shock, the screaming of the steamboat’s whistle, and a lot of excited shouting. Confused by all this hubbub and suddenly awakened from a profound sleep, I had the impression that the boiler had exploded. Alden and Lobdell were also awakened at the same moment and all three of us scrambled to our feet. I saw a sailboat, which we had picked up somewhere during the night and were towing, sheer off just in time to avoid a bad collision. It was all very confusing and sinister there in the dark, and it required some time for me to gather my wits and grasp what had happened. It gradually was made clear that our steamboat had run aground near the town of Gildersleeve, and that the whistling and shouting had been directed at the helmsman of the sailboat we were towing. Had the latter not sheered off he would have rammed our stern and probably stove in his own bow. He had been asleep, but the whistling and the shouting had awakened him and he had grasped the situation in time to pull his helm over.
After much talking and shouting back and forth it was decided that the boat-owners would wait until daylight before doing anything about getting the steamboat afloat. When this was decided, Alden, Lobdell, and I went into executive session. We had to be back on our jobs at eight o’clock in the morning. It no doubt would take until ten or eleven o’clock to work the steamboat into deep water. The thing for us to do was to ask to be put ashore at daylight in a rowboat. We would then walk across the fields to the highway, where in due time a trolley from Middletown to Hartford should come along. We carried out this plan and at the opening of the office Monday morning all three of us were on time, albeit considerably raddled. I had done my first bit of long-distance motor pioneering.
This extensive road-running–and much more which it would be wearisome to recount in detail–resulted in the development of a very rugged and able package-carrier. They were built in quantity at the Hartford Cycle works, which was in the old Board of Trade Building which is now a part of the Underwood Typewriter plant on Capitol Avenue. At one time a regular package-delivery service was maintained by an organization which made use of a fleet of these Mark VII tricycles. But the idea was ahead of its time and the enterprise did not make money. The same fate befell the electric cab service which was installed on a large scale in New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, and Chicago. They were ahead of their time also. Many years had to roll around for something to “ripen” in the public mind before the motor-cab, the motor-delivery-wagon, and the motor-truck became acceptable on a general scale.
Convincing the public that the motor-driven vehicle was reliable was not all of the problem. The magnitude of the investment entered into it. The public had to have time to enlarge their ideas on expenditures. Our first Columbia electric carriages sold for $3,000 each. People used to argue with me and laugh at this grotesque price. They said a first-class horse and buggy could be purchased for $400. It would do everything the electric carriage could do. Why spend $3,000 for a motor-buggy when $400 would buy a horse and buggy? I was told it was nothing less than feeble-mindedness to expect anything to come of the horseless-carriage movement.
In the package delivery by motor the attitude was the same and it forced us to organize a company of our own which would buy and operate the tricycles and deliver packages on contract. No merchant could be induced to buy and operate a gasoline-tricycle himself. When it came to delivery wagons and trucks it was the same. No business house would buy a motor-wagon or a motor-truck at $2,500 to $5,000 when the horse-drawn equivalent could be bought for $500 to $1,500. Arguing that the motor-vehicle would do more work in a day was a waste of breath. The magnitude of the investment overshadowed everything. The cab business was the same. We had to organize our own cab-operating companies in the various cities.
This is all being repeated in the case of the airplane today. The airplane is over thirty years old at this writing. It is only recently that the public have come to accept it as a regular means of transportation. Until recently the airplane-operating companies were in most cases subsidiaries of the airplane-manufacturing companies. Very few airplanes are purchased and operated by the private individual. If history repeats itself, as it has a way of doing, it is but a question of time when the use of the airplane will exceed the most visionary expectations of today, just as the use of the motor-vehicle came to exceed our most visionary expectations. I was the most optimistic of the optimists in 1897, but even I never dreamed motor-cabs, motor-wagons, motor-trucks, motor-buses, and private motor-cars would be used in the millions, as they are today.
The text is from the 1962 Dover Publications edition. Permission pending.
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