Automobile Biographies: An Account of the Lives and the Work of Those Who Have Been Identified with the Invention and Development of Self-Propelled Vehicles on the Common RoadsWeeks, Lyman Horace
History
Automobile Biographies: An Account of the Lives and the Work of Those Who Have Been Identified with the Invention and Development of Self-Propelled Vehicles on the Common Roads
Weeks, Lyman Horace
Automobiles -- History
Ravel, of France, planned in 1868 a steam vehicle, and about 1870
completed the construction of one at the barracks at Saint-Owen. Then came
the declaration of war with Prussia, and the barracks, being within the
zone of fortification, the vehicle was lost or destroyed. There is no
certainty that it was ever unearthed after peace was declared.
L. T. PYOTT
Before 1876, a motor vehicle was invented by L. T. Pyott, who was then a
foreman with the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia. The carriage,
which could carry seven persons at the rate of twenty miles an hour, cost
about two thousand two hundred dollars, and weighed nearly two tons. It
was shown at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, but was
not allowed to run on the streets.
A. RICHTER
An engineer and mechanician of Neider-Bielan, Oberlaneitz, Germany,
Richter secured in 1877 a patent for a vehicle that was propelled by a
motor consisting of a stack or battery of elliptic springs horizontally
disposed, which were compressed by a charge of powerful powder exploded in
what was practically a cannon. The subsequent expansion transmitted the
driving effort to the wheels by a rack of gears. The success of this
vehicle is not generally known.
RAFFARD
In 1881, Raffard, a French engineer, made a tricycle and a tram-car that
is said to have been the first electric automobile which ran
satisfactorily.
CHARLES JEANTEAUD
It is claimed for Jeanteaud that he built a four-wheeled electric vehicle
about 1881, which was changed in 1887 by the addition of an Immisch motor.
In 1890 he constructed a three-wheeled steam vehicle for five persons,
having the advice and interest of Archdeacon. In June, 1895, at the
Paris-Bordeaux race, he entered an electric automobile and established
battery relays every twenty-five kilometers, but without success so far as
speed was involved in comparison with the gasoline cars. In 1897 he
constructed a gasoline phaeton, but his subsequent work has been primarily
confined to the electric.
SYLVESTER HAYWOOD ROPER
As early as 1850, Sylvester Haywood Roper, of Roxbury, Mass., began
experimenting with steam for street-vehicle propulsion. In 1882, when he
was seventy-three years of age, he fitted a Columbia bicycle with a
miniature engine, and with this he could run seventy miles on one charge
of fuel. His bicycle weighed one hundred and sixty-five pounds. He
engaged in many track events and his record for three runs of one-third
of a mile each, was forty-two, thirty-nine and thirty-seven seconds.
COPELAND
A tandem tricycle with a vertical boiler and a two-cylinder vertical
engine was built by Copeland, of Philadelphia, in 1882. Kerosene was used
to fire the boiler. It is said that over two hundred of these machines
were built.
G. BOUTON
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