4 BULLETIN 198, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



Square waterworks at Philadelphia. Built as a steam- operated 

 dredge to be used in the harbor, the 40,000-pound craft was mounted 

 upon axles and wheels and propelled by its engine from its place of 

 building to the water's edge, earning the present-day title of "Amer- 

 ica's first automobile." (PI. 2, a.) 



It is stated that the Johnson brothers, proprietors of an engineering 

 establishment in Philadelphia, built a 4-wheeled, 1-cylinder, steam- 

 propelled wagon in 1828. If authenticated, this vehicle would be 

 America's first full-sized automobile built for the specific purpose of 

 operating on the highway. 



It is further stated that William James, stove manufacturer of New 

 York City, built a full-sized steam carriage in 1830. Supported on 

 three wheels, it was steered by the single front one, while a 2-cylinder 

 horizontal engine drove the rear two. No relic of the machines 

 constructed by Read, Evans, the Johnsons, and James is known to 

 exist. 



During the middle part of the nineteenth century steam-operated 

 traction engines were built both in America and abroad. In a sense 

 they could be called automobiles, as they moved under their own 

 power, could be steered, and were capable of carrying passengers. 

 They were, however, designed to perform work in the fields and were 

 usually equipped with broad, cleated wheels, or tracks, and so are not 

 properly a part of the history of the automobile. Their modern 

 counterparts are the often-seen Diesel-powered tractors. 



In New York, about 1868, Richard Dudgeon built a steam-powered 

 carriage capable of carrying 10 persons. It ran on four solid wooden 

 wheels, the two rear ones connected to steam cylinders at each side of 

 the front of the horizontal boiler. Veritably a "road locomotive," it 

 differed from a rail locomotive in having its wheels unflanged and its 

 front axle pivoted for steering. This vehicle (pi. 3, a), the earliest 

 surviving self-propelled road conveyance in America, is at Belcourt 

 Museum, Newport, R. L, still in good operating condition. An earlier 

 Dudgeon steamer is said to have been built but later destroyed in the 

 Crystal Palace fire in New York City in 1858. 



In France several men constructed steam automobiles of fairly ad- 

 vanced design, chief among them being Amedee Bollee, Albert de Dion, 

 and Leon Serpollet. Bollee's first machine, completed in 1873, was 

 followed by improved models of various sizes built by his son as well 

 as himself. All were successful, and some of them attained consider- 

 able speed over the roads. 



Vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines came into the pic- 

 ture with the construction about 1863 by Jean Joseph fitienne Lenoir, a 

 French citizen born in Belgium, of a vehicle employing a l-cylinder 

 engine of the type patented by him in 1860. Lenoir wrote that the 



