« Mystery Automobile »

This unidentified horseless vehicle came from a cache of old photos from an old bank in Newburyport, I am told. The print was made at some later date than the original celluloid negative which is now blistered and brittle (I have not yet attempted to rehydrate or scan it).

I have been unable to determine if it is a steam or electric vehicle, but it is early and perhaps experimental; I am guessing late 19th (based on the woman's dress) or first years of the 20th century. My gut feeling is electric because I see no very good evidence of a fire box or the large radiator that was imperative with steam, but there is piping and a valve on the right side if indeed this is a small steam boiler. An early Locomobile was much smaller than this and had the engine in the rear, so I am not prepared to say it is not a steam car.

My research indicates that there were several hundred small companies that tried to build and market steam cars at this time, less than 50 were still at it in two or three years, only a handful lingered into the 1920s, so it is hardly surprising that there are very few photos of these efforts and even fewer that have reliable identification. The story of electric vehicles is similar.

The detail is not good; though it does appear to have a chain drive to at least the right rear wheel and the tiller steering has an interesting configuration that wraps around the engine (?) and has a rather narrow rack and pinion connection for such a wide front axle. This is truly a high wheel carriage that has bowed suspension in both directions to ease the ride; one look at the condition of the wet street makes you realize the advantage of sitting up high, but fenders would have been an added benefit to keep mud off of madam's coat and hat. From our safety-conscious perspective, sitting on that bench with only a handhold must have made everyone thankful that they were cornering at a (breakneck) five or ten mph.

If the woman is the inventor's wife, you have to wonder what she felt were the odds of success as she witnessed the investment of money and labor in such a newfangled enterprise; perhaps her solemn detachment expressed her belief that if he didn't get them killed riding in this contraption at least there was an even chance they would go to the poor house.