/ 



*/:: 



Figure 3. — Admittance card of C. E. Duryea to the U.S. 

 Patent Office, 1887. (Gift of Rhea Duryea Johnson.) 



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 auto- 

 mobiles, vacuum cleaners and other mechanical 

 devices. Until the time of his death in 1938, he 

 practiced as a consulting engineer. 



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, 3 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- 



2 G. R. Doyle, The World's Automobiles (London: Temple 

 Press Limited, 1959), p. 67. 



3 Recorded interview with Frank Duryea in the U.S. National 

 Museum, November 9, 1956. 



Figure 4. — Charles E. Duryea, about 1894, 

 as drawn by George Giguere from a photo- 

 graph. (Smithsonian photo 48335-A.) 



PAPER 34: THE 1893 DURYEA AUTOMOBILE 



