The 1893 Duryea Automobile in the Museum of History and Technology

Part 1

CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY: PAPER 34

THE 1893 DURYEA AUTOMOBILE IN THE MUSEUM OF HISTORY AND TECHNOLOGY

Don H. Berkebile

EARLY AUTOMOTIVE EXPERIENCE 5

CONSTRUCTION BEGINS 6

DESCRIPTION OF THE AUTOMOBILE 16

Don H. Berkebile THE 1893 DURYEA AUTOMOBILE In the Museum of History and Technology

During the last decade of the nineteenth century a number of American engineers and mechanics were working diligently to develop a practical self-propelled vehicle employing an internal-combustion engine as the motive force. Among these men were Charles and Frank Duryea, who began work on this type of vehicle about 1892. This carriage was operated on the streets of Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1893, where its trials were noted in the newspapers. Now preserved in the Museum of History and Technology, it is a prized exhibit in the collection of early automobiles.

It is the purpose of this paper to present some of the facts discovered during the restoration of the vehicle, to show the problems that faced its builders, and to describe their solutions. An attempt also has been made to correlate all this information with reports of the now almost legendary day-to-day experiences of the Duryeas, as published by the brothers in various booklets, and as related by Frank Duryea during two interviews, recorded on tape in 1956 and 1957, while he was visiting the Smithsonian.

THE AUTHOR: Don H. Berkebile is on the staff of the Museum of History and Technology, in the Smithsonian Institution's United States National Museum.

Of the numerous American automotive pioneers, perhaps among the best known are Charles and Frank Duryea. Beginning their work of automobile building in Springfield, Massachusetts, and after much rebuilding, they constructed their first successful vehicle in 1892 and 1893. No sooner was this finished than Frank, working alone, began work on a second vehicle having a two-cylinder engine. With this automobile, sufficient capital was attracted in 1895 to form the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in which both brothers were among the stockholders and directors. A short time after the formation of the company this second automobile was entered by the company in the Chicago Times-Herald automobile race on Thanksgiving Day, November 28, 1895, where Frank Duryea won a victory over the other five contestants--two electric automobiles and three Benz machines imported from Germany.

In the year following this victory Frank, as engineer in charge of design and construction, completed the plans begun earlier for a more powerful automobile. During 1896 the company turned out thirteen identical automobiles, the first example of mass production in American automotive history. Even while these cars were under construction Frank was planning a lighter vehicle, one of which was completed in October of 1896. This machine was driven to another victory by Frank Duryea on November 14, 1896, when he competed once again with European-built cars in the Liberty-Day Run from London to Brighton. The decision to race and demonstrate their autos abroad was the result of the company's desire to interest foreign capital, yet Frank later felt they might better have used their time and money by concentrating on building cars and selling them to the local market. Subsequently, in the fall of 1898, Frank arranged for the sale of his and Charles' interest in the company, and thereafter the brothers pursued separate careers.

Frank, in 1901, entered into a contract with the J. Stevens Arms and Tool Company, of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, which built automobiles under his supervision. This association led in 1904 to the formation of the Stevens-Duryea Company, of which Irving Page was president and Frank Duryea was vice president and chief engineer. This company produced during its 10-year existence a number of popular and well-known models, among them a light six known as the Model U, in 1907; a larger 4-cylinder called the Model X, in 1908; and a larger six, the Model Y, in 1909. In 1914 when Stevens withdrew from the company, Frank obtained control. The following year he sold the plants and machinery, liquidated the company, and, due to ill health, retired.

Charles, in the meantime, located in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he built autos under the name of the Duryea Power Company. Here, and later in Philadelphia under the name of the Duryea Motor Corporation and other corporate names, he continued for a number of years to build automobiles, vacuum cleaners and other mechanical devices. Until the time of his death in 1938, he practiced as a consulting engineer.

= Department of the Interior U.S. PATENT OFFICE, April 1, 1887 Admit Mr. Charles E. Duryea to this Office on all business days between the hours of 2 and 4 P.M. until otherwise ordered.

Countersigned, [Signature]=

Early Automotive Experience

Born in 1861 near Canton, Illinois, Charles E. Duryea had learned the trade of a mechanic following his graduation from high school, and subsequently turned his interests to bicycle repair. He and his brother James Frank, eight years younger, eventually left Illinois and moved to Washington D.C., where they were employed in the bicycle shop of H. S. Owen, one of that city's leading bicycle dealers and importers. While in Washington, Charles became a regular reader of the Patent Office Gazette, an act which undoubtedly influenced his later work with automobiles. A short time later, probably in 1889, Charles contracted with a firm in Rockaway, New Jersey, to construct bicycles for him, but their failure to make delivery as promised caused him to go to Chicopee, Massachusetts, where he contracted with the Ames Manufacturing Company to do his work. Moving there in 1890, he obtained for his brother a position as toolmaker with the Ames Company. Thus, Frank Duryea, as he was later known, also became located in Chicopee, a northern suburb of Springfield.

During the summer, 1891, Charles found the bicycle business left him some spare time, and the gasoline-powered carriages he had read of earlier came constantly into his mind in these periods of idleness. He and Frank studied several books on gasoline engines, among them one by an English writer (title and author now unknown); this described the Otto 4-stroke cycle as now used. Some engineers, however, were concerned because this engine, on the completion of the exhaust stroke, had not entirely evacuated all of the products of combustion. The Atkinson engine, patented in 1887, was one of the attempts to solve this as well as several other problems, thus creating a more efficient cycle. This engine was designed so that the exhaust stroke carried the piston all the way to the head of the engine, while the compression stroke only moved the piston far enough to sufficiently compress the mixture. The unusual linkage necessary to create these unequal strokes in the Atkinson engine made it seem impractical for a carriage engine, where compactness was desired.

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Going to Hartford, Connecticut, possibly on business relating to his bicycle work, Charles visited the Hartford Machine Screw Company where the Daimler-type engine was being produced, but after examining it he felt it was too heavy and clumsy for his purpose. Also in Hartford he talked over the problem of a satisfactory engine with C. E. Hawley, an employee of the Pope Manufacturing Company, makers of the Columbia bicycle. Hawley, searching for a way to construct an engine that would perform in a manner similar to the Atkinson, yet would have the lightness and compactness necessary for a carriage engine, suggested an idea that Charles believed had some merit. This idea, involving the use of what the Duryeas later called a "free piston," was eventually to be incorporated in their first engine.

Construction Begins

Back in Chicopee again, Charles began planning his first horseless carriage. Frank later stated that they leaned heavily on the Benz patents in their work; but while the later engine and transmission show evidence of this, only the Benz manner of placing the engine and the flywheel seem to have been employed in the original Duryea plan. Charles reversed the engine so that the flywheel was to the front, rather than to the rear as in the Benz patent, but made use of Benz' vertical crankshaft so that the flywheel rotated in a horizontal plane. Previously most engines had used vertical flywheels; Benz, believing that this practice would cause difficulty in steering a propelled carriage, explained his reason for changing this feature in his U.S. patent 385087, issued June 26, 1888:

In motors hitherto used the fly-wheels have been attached to a horizontal shaft or axle, and have thus been made to revolve in a vertical plane, since the horizontal shaft is best adapted to the transmission of power. If, however, in this case we should use a heavy rotating mass, corresponding to the power employed and revolving rapidly in a vertical plane, the power to manage the vehicle or boat would become very much lessened, as the flywheel continues to revolve in its plane. I therefore so design the apparatus that its crank shaft x has a vertical position and its fly-wheel y revolves in a horizontal plane.... By this means the vehicle is not only easily controlled, but also the greatest safety is attained against capsizing.

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