Nicholas Joseph Cugnot

The pioneer inventor of the steam locomotive, invented a new gun, with which the cavalry were equipped.

Nicholas Joseph Cugnot born at Void, Lorraine, France, September 25, 1725.
Nicholas Joseph Cugnot 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 Due 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.

W. H. Church

The pioneer inventor of carriages.

A physician of Birmingham, England, Dr. W. H. Church gave many years to the study of steam locomotion. Several patents were secured by him between 1832 and 1835, and in the latter year a common road carriage, built according to his plans, was brought out.

The Church vehicle had a framework of united iron plates or bars, bolted on each side of the woodwork to obtain strength. Well trussed and braced, this framework enclosed a space between a hind and fore body of the carriage, and of the same height as the latter, and contained the engine, boiler, and other machinery. The boiler consisted of a series of vertical tubes, placed side by side, through each of which a pipe passed, and was secured at the bottom of the boiler tube; the interior pipe constituted the flue, which first passed in through a boiler tube, and was then bent like a syphon, and passed down another until it reached as low or lower than the bottom of the fireplace, whence it passed off into a general flue in communication with an exhausting apparatus. Two fans were employed, one to blow in air, and the other to draw it out ; they were worked by straps from the crank shaft. The wheels of the carriage were constructed with the view to rendering them elastic, to a certain degree, in two different ways : First, the felloes were made of several successive layers of broad wooden hoops, covered with a thin iron tire, having lateral straps to bind the hoops together; second, these binding straps were connected by hinge joints to a kind of flat steel springs, somewhat curved, which formed the spokes of the wheels.

These spring spokes were intended to obviate the necessity, in a great measure, of the ordinary springs, and the elasticity of the periphery was designed so that the yielding of the circle should prevent the wheel from turning without propelling.

Church also proposed, in addition to spring felloes, spring spokes, and the ordinary springs, to employ air springs, and for that purpose provided two or more cylinders, made fast to the body of the carriage, in a vertical position, closed at top, and furnished with a piston, with packing similar to the cap-leather packing of the hydraulic press. This piston was kept covered with oil, to preserve it in good order, and a piston rod connected it with the supporting frame of the carriage. Motion was communicated by two oscillating steam cylinders suspended on the steam and exhaust pipes over the crank shaft. The crank shaft and driving-wheel axle were connected by means of chains passing about pitched pulleys.

To introduce the Church coach, the London and Birmingham Steam Carriage Company was organized. The first carriage built for the company was an imposing vehicle, something like a big circus van, elaborately ornamented and with a large spheroid wheel in front. It carried about forty passengers on top, in omnibus fashion, and the driver sat on a raised seat near the roof. A fair rate of speed was maintained, fifteen miles on the level, but the boiler was damaged, and horses hauled the engine back to the factory. Other carriages were subsequently brought out, but they all failed to meet the requirements of travel on the rough roads that existed at that time in England.

Walter P. Chrysler

Walter P. Chrysler became one of the best-known production men in this country.

One sweltering forenoon in August, 1906, a man stood in the doorway of the shops of the Chicago Great Western Railroad. As he watched, the noon whistle blew and the men began to file out. In their anxiety to reach the open air they jostled against one another and crowded the forward line impatiently.

As they trickled out through the doorways the man followed them. He watched them moving off in groups, some of them aimlessly, others taking a more direct route. Many of them were men whose hair was streaked with grey good mechanics, all of them. He thought of the rows of little brick houses where they lived, two families in a house. Nice, respectable little homes, clean as a pin, most of them; but was that all life had to offer?

At that time he was superintendent of motive power of the road. He had come up in nine years from those very shops. At thirty-three he was the youngest man who had ever held a position of that importance. He had won it through sheer driving power of will, an almost uncanny mechanical ability, and that marvelous capacity for turning out work which still makes him one of the wonders in the automotive industry.

As he crossed the yard he took a swift account of his abilities. He knew he had qualities which he had never used. One of them was a certain interest in finance. It irked him to see inefficient management, shortsighted policies, waste and ineffective effort. He had vision, but he was often handicapped in using it, for his work lay largely along the mechanical side; he gloried in responsibility, but he was at the top of his particular heap. Regardless of ability, he felt he had reached a place where promotion was impossible, for one of the inflexible laws of railroading is that a mechanical man never reaches the executive’s chair.

Suddenly he came to a stop right in the middle of the yard. In that instant he sensed the difficulty. He was on the wrong side of the desk. Instead of repairing cars and running trains, he wanted to build and sell. It was not enough to do other people’s bidding; he wanted to use his own judgment and foresight. It was the turning point in Walter P. Chrysler’s career. From that moment he determined to blaze his own trail.

This story is important because it gives a swift picture of Chrysler’s uncanny ability to get at the heart of things. When it came to him that he was on the wrong track for big advancement he did not hesitate to give up the position which had been the result of nine years of unremitting labor and start again in the shops of a new company where he could build under competitive conditions.

The American Locomotive Company’s Pittsburgh works was in need of a works manager and Chrysler asked for the job, feeling that by utilizing his knowledge of the mechanical side and at the same time developing his genius for management and finance, he could not only hold the job but make it a stepping stone on the upward trail. He got it and went to work with a will. He soon found that he could use all his knowledge of shop practice and that in addition he would secure just what he had sought for, the opportunity to figure comparative and competitive costs. Within two years he had made such a study of nonproductive effort, waste, and the value of increased individual output that the shop was being run at a big profit, and he was asked to become general manager of the company.

But all this time his mind had been racing far ahead of his actual accomplishment. While he was still superintendent of the Great Western Railroad he had become interested in the automobile. At first the appeal was purely mechanical, but later his clear vision saw in it a magnificent opportunity.

“As I visualized its future», Chrysler said in telling me about it, “it far outran railway development, which in a sense had reached its zenith, because the automobile provided flexible, economical, individual transportation which could be utilized for either business or pleasure. It knew no limits except a right-of-way, it was bounded by no greater restrictions than individual effort and will. To me it was the transportation of the future and as such I wanted to be a part of it. That was where I saw opportunity”.

It so happened that about this time Charles W. Nash had succeeded W. C. Durant as head of General Motors. It was the same Nash who had moved up from the Buick company, which he had been so successful in building up. Bankers are always on the lookout for live men to head the organizations for which they are assuming the financial responsibility, and the banking fraternity was following closely Chrysler’s achievements at Pittsburgh.

The upshot of it was that he was called to head Buick production under Mr. Nash and such was his genius for organization and accomplishment that the Buick product became one of the most talked-of cars in the automobile field. Into this constructive effort for his company Chrysler put all that was best of him, body and soul. Day and night he worked with a power possible only to a man of his remarkable vigor. He scoured the country for experts to add to his already notable staff. He worked with them through endless sessions to perfect even the smallest details that went into the make-up of the Buick car. He devised new tests for metals, enforced greater exactness in trying out the engines, changed the old wooden body to a neat steel body of simpler and more elegant design, and, incidentally, raised the production of Buick cars from about forty to close to 600 a day within a period of eight years, in addition to supervising and building an enormous new plant. When he left the company its net profits were in excess of $48,000,000 a year.

All this energy and interest had for its foundation a simple incident of the days when he was still with the Great Western Railroad. Those were the early days of the automobile show, and the cars were still objects of curiosity, especially to expert mechanicians. This interest drew Chrysler and he went to the Chicago show with no other intention than to make a study of the mechanical side of the cars.

One of the outstanding features of the show was a huge white car upholstered with unusual elegance in bright red leather. From the moment he entered the show that particular car held Chrysler’s attention. It held every one’s, for that matter, for it came pretty near being the king pin about which the show revolved. He listened to the purr of its engines, he studied it forward, aft, and amidships. He went home at night and dreamed about it, and then came back to the show in the morning to examine it again.

Chrysler had saved up $700. He had a wife and two children. His salary was not large and his prospects were in no way remarkable. The price of the car was $5,000. He borrowed $4,300, and bought it. To talk of the incident still stirs him.

“When my wife heard about it it nearly broke up the family», he said, “for we were doing without many things in those days, but there was some urge within me which made me buy that car. When I got it home I promptly took it to pieces, and I think that in the three years it was in my possession I pulled it to pieces altogether about forty times”.

From that time on Chrysler was obsessed with the idea of building automobiles, and through all his construction work at the American Locomotive Company that thought was always dormant in the back of his mind. It was really the foundation of his entrance into the automobile field.

When Chrysler left General Motors in 1920, he was president of Buick and first vice-president of General Motors. In the few years of his connection with that company he had become one of the best-known production men in this country. He left them to take over the job of helping to put the Willys-Overland company back on its feet.

In the great shake-down which followed in the wake of the armistice, many of the companies had suffered, and the Willys-Overland was one of them. It was over manned, was carrying enormous inventories which it could not reduce, and its heavy commitments were burying the company under an investment which it could not swing. When Chrysler first came on the scene the company’s bank loans totaled $46,000,000. Within a short time they had been reduced to $18,000,000. It was done by accepting the daily quotas until the makers of parts had absorbed their own high-priced material, and in the meantime he built up the distribution of Overland cars until the agents had been relieved of their overstock and were once more on their feet.

Right in the middle of this nerve-racking job came the call to the aid of the Maxwell-Chalmers company, at that time in serious difficulties. Its indebtedness to banks amounted to $18,000,000. It also owed creditors $14,000,000. It was said to be within twenty-four hours of bankruptcy, and conditions were so serious that settlement would have been at approximately 20 cents on the dollar. Information given Mr. Chrysler was that the company had 26,000 cars scattered all over the country, many of them still in transit. They were being held on sidings, in freight cars, and other places of storage. Notes receivable to the amount of $10,000,000 which required liquidation were being held against these cars. Worst of all, the company’s product had been discredited, and he would have to face, not alone the company’s indebtedness, but its reinstatement to a position of confidence in the public eye and in the automobile world.

It is indicative of Chrysler’s disposition that all these difficulties only whetted his eagerness. Not only did he accept the proposition, but he got right to work. It meant two jobs instead of one, each of them bigger than the ordinary man would want to tackle, but that was the very thing which caught his interest.

One of the outstanding accomplishments of 1924 was the rapid success of the Chrysler Six, for the Chrysler Company during its first twelve months did a larger gross business than any other company during its first year. And at the same time the Maxwell company had one of the best years in its history.

The credit for this enormous advance should be placed where it belongs on Chrysler’s shoulders.

“What is the secret of your ability to make going concerns out of these bankrupt companies?” I asked Mr. Chrysler.

“The first thing I do when I start to look into the affairs of a failing company is to study the personnel of the organization and the individuality of the men. I am concerned first of all with executives, because if their principles are not right it is useless to look for results from the men. When I have measured up in my own mind the capacity of the executives, I get out into the operation of the plant and watch the men. I look around to see how many of them are standing still and how many of them are moving around the plant. Highly paid workmen should be busy with accomplishment, not useless motion. If there is a lot of movement I know the plant is being badly operated.
I do not believe in idle machines or idle men. Outside of the idle investment involved, it is bad policy. If a man is working next to an idle machine it not only has a bad effect on him mentally, but he takes less care of his own machine because he thinks he has a ready substitute. I believe in keeping people out of temptation, for many of them cannot resist it.
I have the floor space measured and estimate the amount of its productive capacity and then check up to see whether it is overcrowded or is running under its capacity, also whether the plant is overmanned. If it is over manned and we are over-producing, I reduce the force arbitrarily». (Chrysler has often been criticized for his drastic reduction methods. He says that if expenses are too high they must be cut and cut immediately. There is no use letting them run on another minute.) “I proceed to get the organization into shape by cutting out every unnecessary expense and wasteful practice the minute I discover it. Some forms of non-productive effort are necessary in every organization, because all forms of service are not productive in themselves, even though they contribute to the general plan; but to allow wasteful practices to continue after they have been analyzed and proved wasteful is to sap the energy of your organization at its source”.

At one time while Mr. Chrysler was with Buick, money was wanted for a larger sheet metal plant. Mr. Chrysler investigated and gave orders that the “trackers” should come to work at 8 instead of 7, that they should work during the noon hour when the plant was clear, and should also work an hour later than the rest of the force. During the noon hour and the last hour of the day the plant was cleared of finished products and raw materials put in their place. That meant that when the men came to work in the morning and after lunch they found raw materials awaiting them. The result of the order was that no new building was needed and the production of the plant was speeded up without the expenditure of a single cent. That is typical of the way in which Chrysler works. When all is explained it seems very simple.
“The majority of men pay too much attention to the way stations and not enough to the terminals”, Chrysler said in speaking of meeting difficulties. “When railroad engineers come to a mountain they do not always go through it; sometimes it is best to go around it. Success comes through a judicious expenditure of energy. Sometimes it takes less to go around, and serves the same purpose. Men should look forward, and progress stops when they refuse to listen to other people’s opinions, although they should make their own decisions. I never want to get to the place where I so dominate the job that no one under me dares to make suggestions”.

It is interesting to note right here that every so often ten or fifteen of the biggest dealers in Chrysler’s cars are called to the factory to offer new suggestions as to the output and distribution. And he listens to what they have to say, adopting all feasible measures.

Like all big and successful executives Chrysler has a wonderful ability to judge men.

“I gauge them through my intuition and experience», he replied in answer to my question as to how he did it. “Then, too, these cuts in the organization give me a big opportunity to learn something about my man power. I find out how much fight the men have in them and learn a lot about their individual force. By cutting to the quick I get rapid contacts and am able to measure up my men’s resourcefulness under emergency conditions without delay”.

Chrysler’s great strength has always been his ability to cut costs. When he goes into a new organization he first establishes the volume of business and then decides on the amount of the financial quota. He works entirely on a budget system. Every office and department is budgeted and is operated strictly on that basis. All sheets carry in detail from month to month a statement of all productive and non-productive labor in that department.

“We then have our statisticians set up the amount necessary for administrative purposes”, said Mr. Chrysler, “which is based on a conservative quota. The items cover the capacity of the plant, productive labor, non-productive labor, productive materials, nonproductive materials, all fixed charges, depreciations, sales administration, and executive administration. These are all counted in on the cost per car.
Next we estimate our inventory turnover per year and our turnover of sight drafts from shipping the cars, so that we can see the rapidity of cash returns. They average about fifteen days. Cash requirements for credits and operating expenses are also carefully figured. Retail sales are followed closely, and production is increased or decreased in proportion to sales.
We pay the strictest attention to each individual territory by counties, even analyzing our situation to the extent of determining what the dealer and we ourselves lose in profit on a territory when it fails to sell its quota. We estimate this both for ourselves and for the dealer, to see what each one of us has lost and, when necessary, we send out men to help the dealers check their records”.

Confronted with the necessity of disposing of over production in quick order, Chrysler has developed some remarkable distribution principles. Jumping from operating to sales, he is quick to measure them and see whether they are equal to plant capacity, but he goes on record as unalterably opposed to loading up his dealers in order to move over-production.

“To force on your dealers more cars than they can sell is not only poor business, but also not constructive selling», he says. “Our agents all carry less than thirty days’ stock, except where shipments might be delayed in reaching them, as for example on the Pacific Coast. We do not feel that it is fair to our dealers to let them tie up their money in large stocks, but we do expect them to merchandise up to our quota standards. We look after them closely and try to help them make the quick turnover we feel to be one of the big points of our business.
All territories are operated on a quota basis, the quotas being set at the home office. We base the establishment of the quota on the actual volume of automobile sales of all makes in the past in that territory, and then figure our percentage to the total sales. Quotas are often unfair, for they are not set on actual conditions. Past sales are a reality and you are not unfair to a man when you ask him to sell a share of what is being sold. We feel this system is just, because if general business in a given territory falls off we are not expecting unreasonable things of our representatives. Often an injustice is very apparent to the men, whereas the organization is perfectly ignorant that it is expecting any more of them than it should. Where sales fall off in a given territory we send our sales expert there immediately and he gives the dealer the benefit of his expert advice”.

I have told you of Chrysler, the executive, but his human side is no less interesting. He is a driving power, a beautifully balanced, smoothly running engine, but his dynamic energy is not restricted to his business, and as he has risen in power he has never lost the human touch.

Once, at an important conference in San Francisco, when time was precious as gold, there came a clamor at the door and out of it a brogue so thick you could have cut it with a knife. It was an old chum of Chrysler’s who had worked side by side with him on an engine in the early days. Did Chrysler go out to see him? He did. And he made an appointment to have lunch with him the next day.

Mr. Chrysler early in 1926 financed an expedition to the African jungle for the purpose of bagging a hundred or more live specimens of rare wild animals for the National Zoo at Washington.

Chrysler’s personal story is one of absorbing interest. He started as a wiper of locomotives, at five cents an hour; within sixteen years he was building them. At seventeen he entered the Union Pacific shops as a machinist’s apprentice and lived on what he made, which was 7 1/2 cents an hour. Whenever somebody wanted a man willing to do a hot, dirty job, they called Chrysler; he never side-stepped, and he always made good.

Roy D. Chapin

Roy D. Chapin was a chairman of the Hudson Motor Car Company.

In the early days of 1901 when the foreshortened Oldsmobile was still an object of wonder and envy, a young college lad slipped away from Ann Arbor in mid-semester and took the train for Detroit. Once there he lost no time making his way out to the Olds plant, and shortly he was speeding down the road with one of their engineers at the furious rate of fifteen miles an hour.

It was an exciting trip. He felt almost as if he were flying, and when they finally came to a stop he had both feet braced against the dashboard and was clinging to the seat. With the thrill of speed there came an enormous sense of what this new motive power was going to mean in the world of transportation.

At that moment Roy Dikeman Chapin, chairman of the Hudson Motor Car Company, chose his career. This was the coming industry. Into it he would throw every bit of energy nature had given him. He hurried into the office of Mr. Olds, who had formerly manufactured gas engines in the town of Lansing, Michigan, where Chapin was born. The factory was then just finishing its experiments and getting ready to turn out the little four and one-half horsepower, curved-dash Oldsmobile.

“I want a job in your plant», he said, his voice tense with excitement. “Can I get it?”

Mr. Olds looked at the excited boy and smiled.

“Sit down, Roy», he said kindly, “and let us talk it over».

The upshot of it was that Olds told him he was just leaving for California and would take the matter up with him when he came back, but Chapin was still insistent.

“That’s a long time to wait, Mr. Olds», he persisted, “and I want to begin now. I don’t care what you offer me so long as I can barely live on it. I just want to be near that car”.

More to satisfy his impetuosity than because he thought he would accept it, Mr. Olds offered him a position as demonstrator at $35 a month.

It was more than Chapin had hoped for. It meant that he would be obliged to drive that car, and, equally important, ride in it.

Nine years later that same boy was heading a company of his own which made the record first-year output of the industry at the time, with a production of 4,000 Hudson cars. It is a company which was so ably organized, so sanely managed that it has never known a setback. In 1916 it put out 26,000 of its new Super-six cars and became the largest maker of fine cars in the world. Eight years later its output ran ahead of 700 cars a day.

But in the interval there was work and plenty of it. Even young Chapin did not come into his own without all the harrowing discouragements and the hours of exhausting labor that pave the road to success.

The first few weeks sped by with amazing rapidity. He spent hours in the factory. He was at the shops early, working on some of the small parts so that he could make minor repairs. This was his first idea. Later, as his vision encompassed the limitless field he had almost unconsciously stepped into, he determined to go at it from the bottom. His whole nature rebelled at half-way measures.

He did not merely want to drive the car, he wanted to make it, and he wanted to improve it, to put it where it would do all the things his imagination told him it could do if it were brought to a higher state of perfection. As soon as he had mastered one of the machine tools in the shops he passed on to another. He was not satisfied until he could run them all, and before long he was deep in a study of the car’s mechanical construction.

But just as he was getting to a position where his knowledge could be used to good account the factory burned down, and for a time it looked as if he would be out of a job. But the Olds Motor Works decided to rebuild, and at the same time plans were put under way for a wider distribution of the car.

Among other sales projects it was decided to start a direct-by-mail campaign which would require the use of a new and somewhat elaborate catalog. Here was Chapin’s opportunity, for he was an expert photographer. In those days catalogs were not so highly illustrated as they are now. He determined to make the Olds booklet a star number.

In a corner of the reconstructed plant he built himself a dark room which was a model of convenience and utility. Here he worked without regard to hours. Finally the work was completed, and while the sales campaign was under way Chapin went back into the shops, where he proved so expert that he was appointed a tester, assisting John Maxwell, who later built the Maxwell car.

That these were indeed early days is shown by a little anecdote told me by Mr. Chapin.

“One day one of the Olds engineers and I were returning from a visit to the Wilson Body plant», said Chapin”. When we were about a mile away the steering spring broke. We worked with the thing for a while without result and then we lifted the little car around in the road and guided it back again by kicking the front wheels, my companion having assured me that in a little shop adjoining the body plant was a very clever mechanician and inventor who could fix us up.
-I was willing to be shown, but will confess that I did not feel much enthusiasm when I saw his shop, which was nothing more than a lean-to. We went in and found a slender, blue-overalled man who came out to see what was wrong with our car. As soon as he went to work I saw that he was an expert mechanician, and his interest in what he was doing was compelling.
-He bolted a plate on our broken spring and before long he had us on our way.
-As we left the shop my companion waved a farewell and called out:
-”Much obliged to you, Henry.”
-Today that mechanician is the richest man in the world.
-It was Henry Ford”.

The following summer Ford came over to the Olds plant to see how things were getting along. He was then experimenting with a heavy, phaeton type of car, and it was some time later before he built a lighter model.

Young as he is, Chapin covers in his contacts a complete directory of the automobile industry. Back in the days when the Olds plant burned, Olds was obliged for a while to purchase his materials outside. Part of his motor supplies came from Henry M. Leland, who, in the following year, headed the Cadillac company. Leland had a little shop and made beveled gears. Those were the days, too, when the Dodge brothers first made their start. At the time, they had a small machine shop down town in Detroit. Olds needed transmission gears, and started them in this line. The upholstering on the first Olds car was done by B. F. Everitt, later of Everitt-Metzger-Flanders and now president of the Rickenbacker company.

It was about this time, in the Fall of 1901, that the second auto show was to open in New York. Chapin was chosen to drive the new model of the Oldsmobile from Detroit to New York on the open road. It was the longest trip that had ever been attempted in this country with a motor car. The previous year a Winton car had been driven to the show from Cleveland, and the feat had attracted a great deal of attention.

Since there were no service stations in those days, the car had a huge box containing extra parts, bolted to the rear. The body was entirely open, and the cold was extreme. The roads, too, in many places were almost impassable. Entering Syracuse, Chapin drove along the Erie Canal tow path, bumping over the tow ropes and frightening the mules. Perhaps this experience with bad roads gave him his vision for the betterment of all American highways.

Progress was so slow that he got behind his schedule and became alarmed. Often he started out before daylight, finding it none too comfortable sliding in and out of ruts in the half-light on standard two and one-half inch single-tube tires. His first serious accident occurred when he hit a big bump at the bottom of a hill, bending an axle and losing the big box of parts. A new axle was shipped to him at Hudson, New York, where he worked well into the night installing it.

Finally, covered with dirt, grease, and the general stains of travel he reached New York City and started down Fifth Avenue to meet the Olds officials, who had preceded him by train. On the Avenue he came across one of the first motor cars he had seen since leaving Detroit, and it attracted his immediate attention. The street was slippery and the wheels of the car ahead wove in and out so strangely that he burst out laughing at the sight. At that moment some one stepped in front of his car and he hastily jammed on the brakes. The Oldsmobile turned completely around, hit the curb and broke several of the spokes in one of the wire wheels. It was a lucky escape for he was only a mile from the end of his long journey, which he completed with greater caution.

What he saw and heard at the auto show stimulated his already lively imagination. He saw movement quickened, distribution increased, transportation costs lowered, remote sections developed, all by means of this new motive power with which he was working. Distance was in a measure annihilated. Transportation was the big issue of commerce. In one way and another it was the vital factor in almost every essential of living.

More than ever he saw the big opportunities ahead for men who had the vision and initiative to grasp them. It is said that the biggest and brainiest men in the country are gathered together in automobile centers. Certain it is that the automobile industry more than any other requires vision, daring, and a quick grasp of new ideas. It has no precedents, is restricted by no hide-bound principles. Men who succeed in it must be creators, originators of new styles, new methods, new plans for mass production at minimum cost. The plants themselves, where output is large, are the acme of efficiency in construction and handling. Competition, the very soul of better output, lets no manufacturer lag along with out-of-date methods. In one way and another the automobile industry has done more than any other to put America on the map as a big producer, and to quicken her commercial activity.

With all these new ideas in his head, Chapin did not consider himself too valuable for ordinary duties, but went right back into the factory at Detroit. By this time his ability was being recognized and he was placed in charge of the repair department, now more appropriately named service department.

“What we considered an efficient service department in those days would be called a joke today”, said Mr. Chapin. “I don’t think anything would give you a better idea of the utter unreliability of the motor car at that time than the remark made by one of our owners during this very trying development period.
-Not only were we one of the first of the car manufacturers, but we were among the first to use slogans. Fred L. Smith, who was then general manager of the Olds Company and whose friendly interest and counsel was of great value to me in those early days, was the inventor of most of these slogans. One of the best of them (so we thought) was:
-“Nothing to watch but the road.”
-But it had not been out long before we heard from one of our owners.
-“The idea is good”, he said. “But I get darned tired of watching the same piece of road.”

Chapin’s duties in the service department put him in close touch with owners of cars. He was sent all over the country and he began to develop a strong selling angle. He was quick, obliging, knew what he was talking about, and soon attracted considerable attention. At twenty-four he was made sales manager, doubtless the youngest in the industry. The Olds company at that time was the largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world.

” That statement sounds much bigger than it really was», said Mr. Chapin with a laugh. ” Sales science was not so necessary in those days as a man who had confidence in the future of the car. A boy of that age who is obsessed with one idea, as I was, is bound to awaken enthusiasm, because real honest-to-goodness enthusiasm is always contagious. I did not know a thing about territorial research; sales resistance, under that name, was an unknown quantity; and statistics in the motor car field did not exist. We were pioneering, purely and simply. The world was our field, every man a prospect, and my faith in the future of the motor car never wavered for an instant. When I sold a car I sold it with the honest conviction that I was doing the buyer a favor in helping him to take his place in a big forward movement.
-However, I think I realized some of my shortcomings. At that period the National Cash Register Company had the most aggressive sales organization in industry, so I made many trips to Dayton to study their methods. Out of this experience I wrote the first sales manual used in the automobile business.
-Shortly after I went into the sales field, Howard E. Coffin was made chief engineer of the plant. It was a great step ahead for the Olds. Coffin and I were great friends and worked together very closely. From the first Coffin had a wonderful grasp of both engineering and design. Whenever he worked out something new we talked it over together both from the engineering and the sales standpoint. It helped me enormously from the sales end, and I in turn gave him any suggestions which came in to me from the selling side. Between the two of us we managed to keep pretty closely in touch with everything that was going on in the motor field”.

What Mr. Chapin did not tell me, but what I learned from outside sources was that these two brilliant young men were considered, even in those days, leading lights in the automobile field. They were untiring workers. This, together with their youthful enthusiasm and a vision remarkable in those early days, marked them as future leaders in the industry.

While sales manager, Chapin had a call from a man living in Elmira, New York, who wanted to handle the Elmira agency. Later this same man, although only an agent, saved the Overland company from going into the hands of a receiver by raising enough money to keep them afloat until he could help them refinance the company.

His name was John Willys.

But, meanwhile, Chapin and Coffin had plans up their sleeves for an organization of their own. With a company under their own management they would have free scope for both production and design. Coffin was a clever engineer and brilliant in design; Chapin was a wonderfully good salesman and an able financier.

Having made up his mind that they would go into business together, Chapin resigned from his position with Olds and went to California for a vacation and to interest capital in this project. Those who had money to invest were more or less afraid of such a radical venture as the automobile business, yet he was making headway when he met E. R. Thomas of Buffalo, known as the builder of the “Thomas Flyer». They talked the proposition over at length and completed arrangements to start a plant in Detroit, building a car similar to the Olds.

Chapin was twenty-six when with Thomas, Howard E. Coffin, F. O. Bezner, and J. J. Brady, he organized the Thomas-Detroit Company. They started in a little match factory which belonged to Louis Mendelssohn. Later, Mendelssohn furnished the money to back the Fisher Body Company and became its first financial head.

The original investment in the Thomas-Detroit amounted to $150,000, all of which was put up in cash. Chapin and his associates raised half of their subscriptions personally, and the balance was furnished by local banks which loaned it to them on blueprints and their reputation. From the first, Detroit banks supported and encouraged the automobile industry, and to their farsighted loans and wise counsel is due much of the success of the young financiers who asked their aid.

Among those who helped them was Alexander McPherson, president of the Old Detroit National, a canny old Scotsman who had a real ambition to see the boys succeed. He backed Chapin and the rest of his crowd from the very first, even as far back as 1906. Five years later Chapin became a director of the bank.

By this time Chapin had an acquaintance which was of the greatest value in the introduction of a new car. He knew the dealers all over the country. He had traveled extensively and understood requirements in different localities. The Olds had been the money maker among the cars, and the dealers of the country were keenly interested in what the new organization was going to turn out. By the time it began producing Thomas-Detroit cars the dealers were lined up and the output for the first year, 506 cars, was sold before it left the shipping department. Today, the Hudson plant turns out more cars every day than this entire first-year output.

A keen analysis of markets showed them that there was a demand for a lower priced car. To build it they must produce in quantity. The Thomas-Detroit was selling at $2,750, and there were no low-priced four-cylinder motor vehicles.

At this time (1907) Chapin, Coffin, Bezner, and Brady owned one-third of the stock of the ThomasDetroit Company. They persuaded Thomas to sell a block of stock to Hugh Chalmers, changed the name to Chalmers-Detroit, and brought out the four-cylinder Chalmers-Detroit 30 at $1,500. An immediate success was scored and great plant expansion was undertaken. They decided an even smaller car might be a money maker. A subsidiary company was formed and a college mate of Coffin, Roscoe B. Jackson, was put in charge of development. Previous to this he had been factory manager of the Olds Motor Works and he was then general manager of the Thomas Motor Company in Buffalo. Today he is president of the Hudson company.

Jackson threw himself wholeheartedly into the plan, for the company was still in the process of formation when he took hold. J. L. Hudson, capitalist, well known in Detroit and a relative of Jackson, became interested and was asked to take the presidency of the company. For him the car was named.

In financing the Hudson barely enough money was put in for development about $20,000. A canvass among dealers proved that the car had such possibilities that it was found easy to sell the output in advance, and the company was largely financed by this means. And ever since then expansion has been financed entirely out of earnings.

After the Hudson got its stride the Chapin and Chalmers groups decided to separate their interests. This put Chapin, Bezner, and Coffin in Hudson control; J. L. Hudson became chairman of the board, and Chapin assumed the presidency.

One of the most important features of Hudson development has been the teamwork. Whenever a man showed special ability the company made stock arrangements with him. A certain amount of stock was set aside in his name and the dividends were credited against it until it was paid for. Under this plan most of the executives have fortunes of their own and stability of management has been secured.

Few men, either East or West, have attained in so few years the standing which has been accorded to Roy D. Chapin. As chairman of the board of the Hudson Motor Car Company, he devotes much of his time to public interests. From the very first he realized that the development of the rural sections of America was largely dependent on the condition of the highways, and he made a special study of road conditions in this country and abroad, attaining such a reputation as an authority that as soon as we entered the war he was called to Washington to head the Highways Transport Committee of the Council of National Defense. This committee was entrusted with the war-time energizing of highway transportation and began a development which has had a far-reaching effect on the entire problem of highway traffic. Since the war he has been connected with most of the broad movements which have had for their aim the making of our roads a medium for the quick and economical transport of men and goods.

In aeronautics, Mr. Chapin is not only an active enthusiast but has aided materially in its national development. He is probably one of the most expert private photographers in this country, and not only does wonderful portraits and beautiful landscapes, but is also an experienced operator with a moving picture camera. He is vice-president and a director in the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce, and is one of its most active workers. He was one of the organizers and is vice-president of the Lincoln Highway Association. As a member of the semi-governmental Highway Education Board, he is one of the leaders in educational work pertaining to highway engineering and highway transport.

But in all his successes and in spite of his large outside interests his loyalty to Detroit has been an outstanding factor, and he has always been identified with many of its prominent business enterprises. For years he has been a director in the First National Bank, which succeeded the Old Detroit National; he is vice-president of the Detroit Symphony Society, director of the Detroit Community Fund, and has taken an active part in all progressive local movements. From the first he has believed in Detroit, not merely as a great manufacturing center, but as a leader in civic enterprises.

Not only from the business but from the personal side, life has been to him a well-rounded success. Ten years ago he married a charming Southern girl, who shares with him every interest of his busy life, and his residence at Grosse Pointe Farms is the center of a happy family life.

Roy Chapin is still so young that one stands aghast to remember all he has accomplished; but he had already arrived when most men of his years were still struggling in the ranks. Throughout his career he has always ranked as the youngest executive of his class in the automobile industry.

Edmund Cartwright

Noted investogator of propelling land-carriages by steam.

Born at Marnham, Nottinghamshire, England, April 24, 1743.
Died at Hastings, October 30, 1823.

Cartwright was educated at Oxford and secured a living in the English church. He devoted himself to the ministry and to literature until 1784, when he became interested in machinery and in the following year invented the power loom. He took out other patents and also gave some attention to devising a mechanical carriage propelled by man power. In 1822, he made a vehicle that was moved by a pair of treadles and cranks worked by the driver.

Even the steam engine engaged his attention. Some improvements which he proposed in it are recorded in works on mechanics. While residing at Eltham, in Lincolnshire, he used frequently to tell his son that, if he lived to be a man, he would see both ships and land-carriages impelled by steam. At that early period he constructed a model of a steam engine attached to a barge, which he explained, about the year 1793, to Robert Fulton. It appears that even in his old age, only a year before his death, he was actively engaged in endeavoring to contrive a plan of propelling land-carriages by steam.

W. O. Carrett

Noted investogator of carriage with real self-moving fire engine.

In 1860, George Salt, of Saltshire, England, employed W. O. Carrett, of the firm of Carrett, Marshall & Co., proprietors of the Gun Foundry at Leeds, to design and build a steam pleasure carriage for him. The carriage was first shown and exhibited at the Royal Show held in Leeds, 1861, and likewise at the London Exhibition, 1862. It had two steam cylinders, six inches in diameter and w^ith eight-inch stroke. The boiler was of the locomotive multitubular type, two feet six inches in diameter, and five feet three inches long. It had a working pressure of one hundred and fifty pounds per square inch, the test pressure being three hundred pounds. The locomotive was mounted upon two driving wheels, each four feet in diameter, made of steel, and a leading wheel was three feet in diameter. Seats were provided for nine persons, including the steerer and the fireman. The traveling speed was fifteen miles an hour; and the weight of the carriage, fully loaded, was five tons. Motion was communicated from the crank shaft to the driving axle through spur gearing. The English magazine, Engineering, in an article in June, 1866, said: “This steam carriage, made by Carrett, Marshall & Co., was probably the most remarkable locomotive ever made. True, it did little good for itself as a steam carriage, and its owner at last made a present of it much as an Eastern prince might send a friend a white elephant to that enthusiastic amateur, Mr. Frederick Hodges, who christened it the Fly-by-Night, and who did fly, and no mistake, through the Kentish villages when most honest people were in their beds. Its enterprising owner was repeatedly pulled up and fined, and to this day his exploits are remembered against him.” Hodges ran the engine eight hundred miles; he had six summonses in six weeks, and one was for running the engine thirty miles an hour. It was afterwards altered to resemble a fire engine and the passengers were equipped like firemen, wearing brass helmets. The device did not deceive the police, and finally the carriage was made over into a real self-moving fire engine.

Noted Investogator of steam carriage.

Born at Dalkeith, Scotland, May 26, 1777.
Died at Camborne, Cornwall, England, October 5, 1857.

The eldest son of Robert Brunton, a watch and clock maker, William Brunton studied mechanics first in his father’s shop and then in England, under the guidance of his grandfather, who was a colliery viewer. When he was thirteen years of age, in 1790, he began work in the fitting shops of the New Lanark cotton mills of David Dale and Richard Arkwright. Remaining in that establishment for six years he then went to the Boulton & Watt shops, at Soho, where he was gradually promoted, until he finally became the foreman and superintendent of engine manufacturing.

In 1813, he went to the Jessop’s Butterley Works, but remained there only three years, when he became a partner and mechanical manager of the Eagle Foundry, at Birmingham, a connection that he maintained for ten years. From 1825 to 1835, he was engaged in the practice of civil engineering in London. In the last-mentioned year, he became a share owner in the Cam Avon tin works in Glamorganshire, Wales, where he superintended the erection of copper-smelting furnaces and rolling mills. He was also connected with the Maesteg Works in the same county and a brewery at neath. Through the failure of these enterprises he lost the savings of his lifetime and was never again engaged actively in business. He invented many ingenious modes of reducing and manufacturing metals; made some of the original engines used on the Humber and the Trent and also some of the earliest that were seen on the Mersey, including those four vessels first operated on the Liverpool ferries in 1814. He also invented the calciner that was put in use in the tin mines at Cornwall and the silver ore works in Mexico.

Like nearly all the other engineers of his day, Brunton planned a steam carriage. This was built when he was at the Butterley Works, in 1813, and was called “the mechanical traveler.” Although a peculiar machine it worked with some degree of success, at a gradient of one in thirty-six, all the winter of 1814, at the Newbottle Colliery. The machine was a steam horse rather than a steam carriage. It consisted of a curious combination of levers, the action of which nearly resembled that of the legs of a man in walking, with feet alternately made to press against the ground of the road or railway, and in such a manner as to adapt themselves to the various inclinations or inequalities of the surface. The feet were of various forms, the great object being to prevent them from injuring the road, and to* obtain a firm footing, so that no jerks should take place at the return of the stroke, when the action of the engine came upon them; for this purpose they were made broad, with short spikes to lay hold of the ground. The boiler was a cylinder of wrought iron, five feet six inches long, three feet in diameter, and of such strength as to be capable of sustaining a pressure of upwards of four hundred pounds per square inch. The working cylinder was six inches in diameter, and the piston had a stroke of twenty-four inches; the step of the feet was twenty-six inches, and the whole machine, including water, weighed about forty-five hundredweight. In 1815, the engine of this carriage exploded and killed thirteen persons.

Noted investogator of various mechanical devices.

An ingenious and practical engineer, Bouton made various mechanical devices, but it is claimed that from a clever toy came the associations which have resulted in the now famous firm, DeDion-Bouton, with which he is connected. It is said Compte DeDion saw this toy and on asking for the maker, met Bouton. Thus came the partnership, in 1882, with Bouton and Trepardoux. Bouton made a steam tricycle in 1884, containing the remarkable light and efficient boiler of his invention, which for years remained the most important contribution of the firm to this art. In 1885 a quadricycle was made, and the success attending the runs made with this, in which Merrelle co-operated, was such as to bring forth the personal ideas of DeDion in so strong a manner that Trepardoux and Merrelle severed their connections with the firm. The real beginning of the work of this firm was in 1884, and the several years following saw the production of numerous steam machines, including phaetons, dog carts, and a variety of other types.

Even as late as 1897 heavy steam chars-banes were made by them, and that year also saw their well-known thirty-five-passenger, six- wheeled coach, Pauline, on the streets of Paris a vehicle which cost over twenty-six thousand francs, and had a thirty-five horse-power steam tractor. This vehicle had been preceded by a somewhat similar one constructed in 1893 on the old idea of a mechanical horse attached to an ordinary ‘bus body from which the front wheels had been removed.

In 1895, DeDion-Bouton produced their first liquid hydro-carbon engine vehicle a tricycle with aircooled motor and dry-battery ignition, which is so well known to everyone in the industry today. These were manufactured in large numbers, and were followed by larger gasoline vehicles into which they introduced their engine, namely, a vertical position. In 1899, their three-passenger, four-wheeled vehicle, and in 1900 a six-passenger vehicle, made good reputations. Since then their large factory at Putaux, France, well known under the name of DeDion-Bouton et Cie, has been continually crowded with work on vehicles, and with the manufacture of their motors which are still sold independently to other makers in France, as well as in other countries. In fact the manufacture of engines and parts might be said to be now their main work.

The pioneer inventor of a steam carriage.

In April, 1873, Amedee Bollee, of Le Mans, France, the noted French engineer, filed a patent for a steam road vehicle and two years later he built the steam stage that he named Obeissante. Toward the end oi that year this stage was run in and about Paris, where it created something of a sensation. It was even chronicled in the songs of the day and was made a topic of amusement at the variety theatres. This steam omnibus made twenty-eight kilometers in an hour. It is claimed to have been the first creation of the man to whose family much credit is due for the modern French automobile.

Between 1873 and 1875, Bollee made several carriages. In 1876, he worked with Dalifol and made a tram-car that would carry fifty passengers. This vehicle was put into the steam omnibus service in Rouen. Two years later he made another steam omnibus that he called La Mancelle. This vehicle, in June of that year, was run from Paris to Vienna and developed a speed on level roads of twenty-two miles an hour. In Vienna this vehicle was the subject of much talk and was largely caricatured.

In 1880, Bollee built another omnibus, La Nouvelle. This vehicle was entered in the Paris-Bordeaux competition in 1895, and was the only steam carriage that covered the course in that race. Bollee has been a conspicuous exponent of the steam carriage in France from the time he commenced as far back as 1873. The vehicles that he has built were in many instances pioneers in their class, and have been exceedingly serviceable and successful. They have made the name of Bollee notable.

The pioneer inventor of the first real steam carriage constructed in the United States.

Born in Sutton, Mass., June 24, 1788.
Died, April 1 6, 1864.

Blanchard received a common school education, and before he had entered his teens his mechanical genius began to show itself. At thirteen years of age he invented a machine for paring apples, and shortly after, a machine for making tacks. His great work was the invention of a machine for turning out articles of irregular form from wood and metals. His lathes for this purpose were put in operation by the United States Government in the armories at Harper’s Ferry, Va., and Springfield, Mass.

Becoming interested in the subject of steam propulsion he made, in 1826, a steamboat that was successfully tried on the Connecticut River, running from Hartford, Conn., to Springfield, Mass. Afterward, he built a boat of larger size, that drew eighteen inches of water, and ran this up the Connecticut River, from Springfield, Mass., to Vermont. He also built other boats for use on the Alleghany River.

The subjects of railroads and locomotive power on land interested him for a short time, and in 1825, after he had completed his engagement with the United States armories; he built, at Springfield, Mass., a carriage driven by steam for use on the common road. This was the first real steam carriage constructed in this country, the Philadelphia machine of Evans being but a rude affair, although it involved the essential principles of steam propulsion. The Blanchard carriage was perfectly age able, could turn corners and go backwards and forwards with all the readiness of a well-trained horse, and on ascending a hill the power could be increased. Its performance on the highway was altogether satisfactory, and a patent was issued to its inventor.

Blanchard endeavored to secure support to build a railroad in Massachusetts, and the joint committee on roads and canals of the Massachusetts Legislature, in January, 1826, endorsed the model of his railway and steam carriage, and recommended them “to all the friends of internal improvements.” Notwithstanding this report, capitalists viewed the project as visionary, and Blanchard met with no greater success when he subsequently applied to the Legislature of New York. Giving up his plans he thenceforward devoted his attention to the subject of steam navigation.

Blanchard was a prolific inventor, having taken out no less than thirty or forty patents for as many different inventions. He did not reap great benefit from his labors, for many of his inventions scarcely paid the cost of getting them up, while others were appropriated without payment to him, or even giving him credit. His machine for turning irregular forms was his most notable work, and even of that, others sought to defraud him. To defend himself he was forced to go to the courts and even to Congress, before he succeeded in establishing his rights. After the success of this machine he made other improvements in the manufacture of arms, constructing thirteen different machines that were operated in the government armories.