Worthington Street hill, 36 on top of what you might call 

 "the Bluff" in Springfield. Then we drove along over 

 level roads from there to the home of Mr. Markham who 

 lived with his son-in-law, Will Bemis, and there we 

 refilled this tank with water. [At this point he was 

 asked if it was pretty well emptied by then.] Yes, 

 I said in my account of it that when we got up there the 

 water was boiling furiously. Well, no doubt it was. We 

 refilled it and then we turned it back and drove down 

 along the Central Street hill and along Maple, crossed 

 into State Street, dropped down to Dwight, went west 

 along Dwight to the vicinity where we had a shed that 

 we could put the car in for the night. During that trip 

 we had run, I think, just about six miles, maybe a little 

 bit more. That was the first trip with this vehicle. It 

 was the first trip of anything more than a few hundred 

 yards that the car had ever made. 



Now Frank could give demonstration rides with 

 the motor carriage, hoping to encourage more in- 

 vestors to back future work. Cautious Mr. Markham 

 finally got his ride, though Frank had to assure him 

 that the engine of the brakeless vehicle would hold 

 them back on any hill they would descend. The 

 carriage on which he had spent so many hours was 

 to see little use after that. Its total mileage is proba- 

 bly less than a hundred miles. Little additional work 

 is known to have been performed on the carriage after 

 January 1894; there is, however, a letter 37 Frank sent 



36 Letter from Frank Duryea to Charles Duryea, Jan. 19, 1894, 

 says they went up hill via Summer and Armor Streets, then 

 out Walnut to Bemis' at Central Street School. 



37 The letter read: "I have designed a new muffler and we 

 will proceed to make it before long, in a day or two. Instead 

 of one shell }g-inch thick I shall put a shell }io-inch thick inside 

 another of equal thickness, but about 1 inch greater diameter 

 i.e., one chamber within another so as to cause sound to turn 

 corners to get out. Still another shell will be added if it prove 

 insufficient, making it turn about again — taking care in each 

 case to give ample room for expansion — outer one need not be 

 more than y 32 inch possibly. Will let two threaded rods with 

 nuts hold heads on both or on three cases, if the 3d be essential."' 



his brother on January 19 which tells of contemplated 

 muffler improvements. Another message was dis- 

 patched to Charles on March 22, mentioning the 

 good performance of the phaeton on Harrison 

 Avenue hill. 38 This was possibly the last run of the 

 machine, for no further references have been dis- 

 covered. 



Frank spent the months of February and March in 

 preparing drawings, some of which accompanied their 

 first patent application, 39 while others were to be 

 used in the construction of an improved, 2-cyiinder 

 carriage. Work on the new machine started in April. 

 The old phaeton, in the absence of used-car lots, 

 was put into storage in the Bemis barn. 40 Later, 

 on the formation of the Duryea Motor Wagon 

 Company in 1895, it was removed to the barn of 

 D. A. Reed, treasurer of the company. 41 There it 

 remained until 1920, when it was obtained by Inglis 

 M. Uppercu and presented to the U.S. National 

 Museum. 



39 This letter gives further proof that the car never had a brake. 

 Frank said the car came back down the hill with no brake, but 

 that the engine held the vehicle back. 



39 Duryea, op. cit. (footnote 5), p. 37. 



40 It is possible that a few parts were removed at this time to be 

 us:d on the two-cylinder car. The muffler may have been one 

 of these, and even more likely, the governor parts. Charles 

 Duryea wrote to C. W. Mitman December 27, 1921, stating 

 that his younger brother Otho and a Henry Wells had put in 

 a battery and gasoline in 1897 and started the engine. Because 

 the chains were not on the car they could not attempt to 

 operate it; but the engine ran too fast, and finally something 

 broke, probably the engine frame, found to be broken during 

 the recent restoration. Charles thought the engine ran too 

 fast because some of the governor parts were already missing. 



41 Recorded interview with Frank Duryea in the U.S. 

 National Museum, November 9, 1956. On the formation of 

 the Duryea Motor Wagon Company, Mr. Markham was 

 rewarded for his part of the venture. He had invested nearly 

 S3000 in the work, and sold out his rights in the company for 

 approximately a $2000 profit. 



For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office 

 Washington, D.C. 20402 - Price 30 cents 



