Automobile Biographies

Progress in France and America

England was still shackled; but in France many were inspired to change from steam to the hydro-carbon engine. About 1890 we find several French manufacturers procuring engines, or the right to manufacture the small explosive engines developed by the Germans, and promptly adapting them to their vehicle construction, already well developed for steam propulsion. Panhard & Levassor; Bouton, with his backer, DeDion; Bollèe, now Leon, the nephew; Delahaye and Peugeot, were among the earliest Frenchmen to appreciate the commercial possibilities of the new type. Then the large manufacturers, already experienced in other lines, and particularly in cycle manufacture, entered the field in 1893, 1894 and 1895; among them such old concerns as DeDetrich, manufacturers for one hundred and more years, grasped the opportunity. America was not idle, and while road conditions in this country militated largely against the early attempts in the industry, the efforts of the Duryeas and of Haynes, and various other experimenters, who have since retired, were heard from. It was difficult, however, with the obstacles then existing in America, for these early workers to secure encouragement, and progress was slow, just as the endeavors of Selden and some of the early steam vehicle people had received nothing but discouragement at the hands of those whom they endeavored to lead to the success of large manufacturing undertakings.

However, the Times-Herald race, in Chicago, near the close of 1895, brought forth a large number of inventors and several starters, including electric, steam and gasoline vehicles, and the showing was such as to practically satisfy the doubting that these were the beginning of the industry in this country.

The English Revival

Abroad, the leaders in the automobile movement organized the now historic races from Paris in different directions. With the runs of 1894, 1895 and 1896, and in each successive year thereafter, and with the road and other conditions improved, the industry rapidly developed. England also was at last reached. The restraints that had existed there for more than half a century could no more be endured. The burden was finally thrown off, for which great credit is due to Sir David Salomon, and the offensive Locomotive Act was at last repealed in August, 1896. The subsequent Locomotive Act which came into effect November 14, 1896, marked a red-letter day in motoring history for England, and was justly celebrated by a procession of vehicles from London to Brighton. Salomon had previously organized an exhibition in England, and had imported a French car, and as a prominent member of scientific and technical societies, in which he presented many papers on the subject, had done, possibly, more than any other individual to influence public sentiment and to secure this new enactment. English manufacturers were not entirely unprepared for the change, and a great wave of interest and activity swept the country. Naturally this was followed by a reaction, but since then a counter-reaction has set in, resulting in the present grand development of that class of manufacturing in the British Isles.

The small steam vehicle of Whitney, and his contemporaries, the Stanleys in the United States, then came to the fore. Under energetic promotion thousands of small vehicles of that type were manufactured and put into use. These, in no small measure, became to the public at large the convincing object lesson of the practicability and possibilities of the small automobile for every-day use.

Modern Conditions

The Paris show of 1900 revealed a great forward step in the development of constructions, and the offer immediately thereafter of the James Gordon Bennett trophy of international racing gave to the automobile industry such an impetus as has seldom been the good fortune of any other art to receive. To-day the automobile has reached that stage of perfection where the question is no longer whether or not the vehicle will carry you to a certain place and back. Now it is only a question of the speed, absence of vibration, and sweetness of running the engine, absence of all noise, and other details of refinement. Vehicles are now of the Pullman type, luxurious to the extent of prices ranging into the thirties of thousands of dollars, while on the other hand, thousands of small vehicles, costing between five hundred and one thousand dollars, are annually made and sold.

The steam machine, after being practically succeeded by the gasoline, was again improved by the flash boiler. The main development of this new power was carried on by Serpollet, of France, and later, by Rollin T. White, in the United States, both whom have become most able competitors of manufacturers of machines of other classes.

The Industry To-Day

The beginning of 1905 finds us with the annual shows, which have been consecutive for many years, while the census of vehicles now in use, or made in the last ten years, will aggregate several hundred thousand. The annual production is estimated as probably approximating one hundred thousand in a few of the principal countries. The value of the electrical vehicle, particularly as the town vehicle for anything except speeding, is now well established, and reports from Paris as well as New York indicate the lack of facilities of factories in this line for producing these carriages as rapidly as demanded. Heavy ’buses and individual vehicles alike are also popular.

PIONEER INVENTORS

Nicholas Joseph Cugnot,

William Murdock,

Oliver Evans,

William Symington,

Nathan Read,

Richard Trevithick,

David Gordon,

W. H. James,

Goldsworthy Gurney,

Thomas Blanchard,

M. Johnson,

Walter Hancock,

W. T. James,

Francis Maceroni,

Richard Roberts,

J. Scott Russell,

W. H. Church,

Etienne Lenoir,

Amédèe Bollèe,

George B. Selden,

Siegfried Marcus,

Carl Benz,

Gottlieb Daimler,

M. Levassor,

Leon Serpollet.

Nicholas Joseph Cugnot

Born at Void, Lorraine, France, September 25, 1725. Died in Paris, October 2, 1804.

Concerning the early life of Cugnot, little is known. He was educated for the engineering service of the French army, and gained distinction as a military and mechanical engineer. He also served as a military engineer in Germany. Soon afterward he entered the service of Prince Charles of Lorraine, and for a time resided at Brussels, where he gave lessons in the military art. He did not return to his native land until 1763, and then invented a new gun, with which the cavalry were equipped.

This brought him to the attention of the Compte de Saxe, and under the patronage of that nobleman, he constructed in 1765 his first locomotive. This was a small wagon. On its first run it carried four persons, and traveled at the rate of two and a quarter miles an hour. The boiler, however, being too small, the carriage could go only for fifteen or twenty minutes before the steam was exhausted, and it was necessary to stop the engine for nearly the same time, to enable the boiler to raise the steam to the maximum pressure, before it could proceed on its journey. This machine was a disappointment, in consequence of the inefficiency of the feed pumps. It has been stated that while in Brussels he had made a smaller vehicle, which, if so, was soon after 1760.

Several small accidents happened during the trial, for the machine could not be completely controlled, but it was considered on the whole to be fairly successful and worthy of further attention. The suggestion was made that provided it could be made more powerful, and its mechanism improved, it might be used to drag cannon into the field instead of using horses for that purpose. Consequently, Cugnot was ordered by the Duc de Choiseul, Minister of War, to proceed with the construction of an improved and more powerful machine. This vehicle, which was finished in 1770, cost twenty thousand livres. It was in two parts, a wagon and an engine. The wagon was carried on two wheels and had a seat for the steersman; the engine and boiler were supported on a single driving-wheel in front of the wagon. The two parts were united by a movable pin. A toothed quadrant, fixed on the framing of the fore part, was actuated by spur gearing on the upright steersman’s shaft in close proximity to the seat, by means of which the conductor could cause the carriage to turn in either direction, at an angle of from fifteen to twenty degrees. In front was a round copper boiler, having a furnace inside, two small chimneys, two single-acting brass cylinders communicating with the boiler by the steam pipe, and other machinery. On each side of the driving-wheel, ratchet wheels were fixed, and as one of the pistons descended, the piston-rod drew a crank, the pawl of which, working into the ratchet-wheel, caused the driving-wheel to make a quarter of a revolution. By gearing, the same movement placed the piston on the other side in a position for making a stroke, and turned the four-way cock, so as to open the second cylinder to the steam and the first cylinder to the atmosphere. The second piston then descended, causing the leading wheel to make another quarter of a revolution, and restoring the first piston to its original position. In order to run the vehicle backwards, the pawl was made to act on the upper side, changing the position of the spring which pressed upon it; then, when the engine was started, the pawl caused the driving-wheel to turn a quarter of a revolution in the opposite direction with every stroke of the piston.

This machine was first tried in 1770 in the presence of a distinguished assembly, that included the Duc de Choiseul; General Gribeauval, First Inspector-General of Artillery; the Compte de Saxe, and others. Subsequently, other trials of it were made, with satisfactory results generally. The heavy over-balancing weight of the engine and boiler in front rendered it difficult to control. On one of its trips it ran into a wall in turning a corner and was partly wrecked. Further experiments with it were abandoned, and in 1800 it was deposited in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metier, Paris, where it still remains.

At a later period of his life, having lost his means of support, Cugnot’s public services were considered to entitle him to a reward from the State. Louis Fifteenth gave him a pension of six hundred livres, but the French Revolution coming on, he was deprived even of that pittance, and he lived in abject misery in Brussels. His carriage was then in the arsenal, and a revolutionary committee, during the reign of terror, tried to take it out and reduce it to scrap, but was driven off. When Napoleon came to the throne, he restored the pension and increased it to one thousand livres. In addition to his inventions, Cugnot wrote several works on military art and fortification.

William Murdock

Born in Bellow Mill, near Old Cumnock, Ayrshire, Scotland, August 21, 1754. Died at Sycamore Hill, November 15, 1839.

Murdock was the son of John Murdoch, a millwright. He was modestly educated, and brought up to his father’s trade, helping to build and put up mill machinery. A curious production of the father and son, at this period, was a wooden horse, worked by mechanical power, on which young Murdock traveled about the country. When he was twenty-three years of age he entered the employment of the famous engineering firm of Boulton & Watt, at Soho, and there remained throughout his active life.

Watt recognized in him a valuable assistant, and his services were jealously regarded. On his part he devoted himself unreservedly to the interests of his employers. In 1777 he was sent to Cornwall to look after the pumps and engines set up by the firm in the mines, and for a long period he lived at Redruth. For some five years after 1800 he was engineer and superintendent at the Soho foundry. While living at Redruth, in 1792, he began a series of experiments on the illuminating properties of the gases of coal, wood, peat, and other substances, and in 1799 put up a gas-making apparatus at Soho. In 1803 he fitted the Soho factory with a gas-lighting system. Other inventions that are credited to him are models for an oscillating engine and a rotary engine, a method of making steam pipes, an apparatus for utilizing the force of compressed air, and a steam gun.

His early training and all his surroundings naturally and inevitably interested Murdock in the subject of steam locomotion, and before 1784 he began to experiment on these lines. That he made definite progress is shown in a letter that Thomas Wilson, agent in Cornwall of Boulton & Watt, wrote to his employers in August, 1786, saying, “William Murdock desires me to inform you that he has made a small engine of three-quarter-inch diameter and one and one-half inch stroke, that he has applied to a small carriage, which answers amazingly.” He had made and run this model in 1784, and it is still in existence, and in the possession of the Messrs. Richard and George Tangye, England.

This model was on the high-pressure principle, and ran on three wheels, the single front one for steering. The vertical boiler, nearly over the rear axle, was heated by a spirit-lamp, and the machine stood only a little more than a foot high. The axle was cranked in the middle and turned by a rod connected to a beam moved up and down by the piston-rod projecting from the top of the cylinder. Yet it developed considerable speed. It is interesting to note that the use of the crank for converting the reciprocating motion of the steam engine into rotary was patented by Pickard in 1780, and Murdock’s was probably its first application to self-propelled carriages.

The first experiment with this little engine was made in Murdock’s house at Redruth, when the locomotive successfully hauled a wagon round the room, the single wheel, placed in front of the engine, fixed in such a position as to enable it to run round a circle.

Dr. Smiles, in his work on inventors, tells an amusing story concerning this machine. He says: “Another experiment was made out of doors, on which occasion, small though the engine was, it fairly outran the speed of its inventor. One night, after returning from his duties at the mine at Redruth, Murdock went with his model locomotive to the avenue leading to the church, about a mile from the town. The walk was narrow, straight and level. Having lit the lamp, the water soon boiled, and off started the engine with the inventor after it. Shortly after he heard distant shouts of terror. It was too dark to perceive objects, but he found, on following up the machine, that the cries had proceeded from the worthy vicar, who, while going along the walk, had met the hissing and fiery little monster, which he declared he took to be the Evil One in propria persona!”

But Murdock was too useful a man to Boulton & Watt to be allowed to have free rein, and his inclination toward steam locomotion invention was apparently curbed, though it would appear Watt thought the roads of that time an insurmountable obstacle to the development of road vehicles, and wanted Murdock to devote his time to mechanical matters more ripe for success. Boulton, writing to Watt from Truro, in September, 1796, tells how he met Murdock on his way to London to get a patent on a new model, and how he persuaded him to turn back. This model was for a steam carriage that was afterward shown as able to travel freely around a room with a light load of shovel, poker and tongs upon it. His was probably the first high-pressure steam-engine vehicle run in England. Though only a small model, it did its proportionate work well.

Watt continued to oppose Murdock’s scheme, but on one occasion suggested that he should be allowed an advance of five hundred dollars to enable him to prosecute his experiments, and if he succeeded within a year in making an engine capable of drawing a post chaise, carrying two passengers and the driver, at four miles an hour, it was suggested that he should be taken as partner into the locomotive business, for which Boulton and Watt were to provide the necessary capital. This proposition was never carried out. Again, in 1786, Watt said: “I wish William could be brought to do as we do, to mind the business in hand, and let such as Symington and Sadler throw away their time and money in hunting shadows.” Murdock continued to speculate about steam locomotion on common roads, but never carried his ideas further. He retired from the employment of Boulton & Watt in 1830, and practically retired from all work at the same time.

Murdock seems to have had a very clear idea of the possibilities of steam propulsion on the common roads. Had circumstances permitted he might well have been expected to have solved the problem in 1796 quite as completely as his successors did in 1835. But he was a quarter of a century ahead of the time. Even the moderate public interest that existed later on had not manifested itself at all in his day and the condition of the English highways offered almost insuperable obstacles to steam vehicular travel. Personally his lack of self-assertiveness and his feeling of dependence upon Boulton and Watt also held him back. So he remained simply one of the pioneer investigators pointing the way for others.

Oliver Evans

Born in 1755 or 1756, in Newport, Del. Died in Philadelphia, April 21, 1819.

Little has been preserved respecting the early history of Oliver Evans, who has been aptly styled “The Watt of America.” His parents were farming people, and he had only an ordinary common-school education. At the age of fourteen he was apprenticed to a wheelwright or wagonmaker, and continued his meager education by studying at night time by the light that he made by burning chips and shavings in the fireplace.

While yet an apprentice his attention was turned to the subject of propelling land carriages without animal power. But the lack of definite knowledge in regard to steam power compelled him to abandon his plans, although his experiments were continued for a long time. Soon after attaining his majority he was engaged in making card-teeth by hand, and in connection therewith developed several labor-saving improvements. He also invented improvements in the construction of machinery of flour mills that effected a complete revolution in the manufacture of flour. These improvements consisted of the elevator, the conveyor, the hopper-boy, the drill and the descender, which various machines were applied in different mills so as to perform mechanically every necessary movement of the grain and meal from one part of the mill to the other, causing a saving of fully one-half in the labor of mill attendance and manufacturing the flour better. These improvements were not accepted by the mill owners at the outset, and Evans spent many discouraging years before he could finally persuade the manufacturers of the utility of his inventions. In the end, however, he lived to see his inventions generally introduced, and he profited largely thereby.

In the year 1786, Evans petitioned the Legislature of Pennsylvania for the exclusive right to use his improvements in flour mills and steam carriages in that State, and in the year following presented a similar petition to the Legislature of Maryland. In the former instance he was only successful so far as to obtain the privilege of the mill improvements, his representations concerning steam carriages being considered as savoring too much of insanity to deserve notice. He was more fortunate in Maryland, for, although the steam project was laughed at, yet one of his friends, a member, very judiciously observed that the grant could injure no one, for he did not think that any man in the world had thought of such a thing before, and therefore he wished the encouragement might be afforded, as there was a prospect that it would produce something useful. This kind of argument had its effect, and Evans received all that he asked for, and from that period considered himself bound in honor to the State of Maryland to produce a steam carriage, as soon as his means would allow him.

For several years succeeding the granting of his petition by the Legislature of Maryland, Evans endeavored to obtain some person of pecuniary resources to join with him in his plans; and for this purpose explained his views by drafts, and otherwise, to some of the first mechanics in the country. Although the persons addressed appeared, in several instances, to understand them, they declined any assistance from a fear of the expense and difficulty of their execution.

In the year 1800, or 1801, Evans, never having found anyone willing to contribute to the expense, or even to encourage him in his efforts, determined to construct a steam carriage at his own expense. Previous to commencing he explained his views to Robert Patterson, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Pennsylvania, and to an eminent English engineer. They both declared the principles new to them, and advised the plan as highly worthy of a fair experiment. They were the only persons who had any confidence, or afforded encouraging advice. He also communicated his plans to B. F. Latrobe, the scientist, who publicly pronounced them as chimerical, and attempted to demonstrate the absurdity of Evans’ principles in his report to the Philosophical Society of Pennsylvania on steam engines. In this he also endeavored to show the impossibility of making steamboats useful.

Evans commenced and had made considerable progress in the construction of a steam carriage, when the idea occurred to him that as his steam engine was altogether different in form, as well as in principle, from any other in use, a patent could be obtained for it, and then applied to mills more profitably than to carriages. The steam carriage was accordingly laid aside for a season of more leisure, and the construction of a small engine was commenced, with a cylinder six inches in diameter and a piston of eighteen inches stroke, for a mill to grind plaster of paris. The expense of its construction far exceeded Evans’ calculation, and before the engine was finished he found it cost him all he was worth. He had then to begin the world anew, at the age of forty-eight, with a large family to support, and that, too, with a knowledge that if the trial failed his credit would be entirely ruined, and his prospects for the remainder of life dark and gloomy. But fortune favored him, and his success was complete.

In a brief account, given by himself, of his experiments in steam, he says: “I could break and grind three hundred bushels of plaster of paris, or twelve tons, in twenty-four hours; and to show its operations more fully to the public, I applied it to saw stone, on the side of Market Street, where the driving of twelve saws in heavy frames, sawing at the rate of one hundred feet of marble in twelve hours, made a great show and excited much attention. I thought this was sufficient to convince the thousands of spectators of the utility of my discovery, but I frequently heard them inquire if the power could be applied to saw timber as well as stone, to grind grain, propel boats, etc., and though I answered in the affirmative, they still doubted. I therefore determined to apply my engine to all new uses; to introduce it and them to the public. This experiment completely tested the correctness of my principles. The power of my engine rises in a geometrical proportion, while the consumption of the fuel has only an arithmetical ratio; in such proportion that every time I added one-fourth more to the consumption of the fuel, its powers were doubled; and that twice the quantity of fuel required to drive one saw, would drive sixteen saws at least; for when I drove two saws the consumption was eight bushels of coal in twelve hours, but when twelve saws were driven, the consumption was not more than ten bushels, so that the more we resist the steam, the greater is the effect of the engine. On these principles very light but powerful engines can be made suitable for propelling boats and land carriages without the great encumbrance of their weight as mentioned in Latrobe’s demonstration.”

In the year 1840, Evans, by order of the Board of Health of Philadelphia, constructed at his works, situated a mile and a half from the water, a machine for cleaning docks. It consisted of a large flat or scow, with a steam engine of five horse-power on board, to work the machinery to raise the mud into the scows. This was considered a fine opportunity to show the public that his engine could propel both land and water conveyances. When the machine was finished, he fixed, in a rough and temporary manner, wheels with wooden axletrees, and, of course, under the influence of great friction. Although the whole weight was equal to two hundred barrels of flour, yet his small engine propelled it up Market Street and round the circle to the waterworks, where it was launched into the Schuylkill River. A paddle-wheel was then applied to its stern, and it thus moved down that river to the Delaware, a distance of sixteen miles, leaving behind all vessels that were under sail.