Curator's Note: The following story is an excerpt from the handwritten 1901 Summer Journal of Edward I. Horsman, Jr., age 27, the son of a prominent New York toy manufacturer. Edward spent his summers, as did many high society members, in Europe and rubbed elbows with the elite of the Old World. Edwin Lemare and Walter Alcock were both very good English friends who were prominent organists of their day. This story to me, is everyone‚s first motorcycle ride. I can‚t image how exciting it must have been for Edward having had only horse drawn transportation for comparison. This story and photo of „The daring Chauffeur and his machine„ are my favorites. I think you‚ll agree after reading the story that some things never change!
By the way I found these Journals in a trash heap and rescued them over 42 years ago while working my way through school as an elevator operator! How old school is that! These Journals are perhaps my most treasured possessions: my time machine and eyes into the past. I have transcribed the text and the nearly 450 wonderful photos which I will publish in the future.
–John Arbeeny
Friday July 5th, 1901
Edwin Lemare is a most extravagant creature. We went to his tailors, a chap in Conduit St. (“Sandilands”) who tailors for the King and court; then to his tobacconist in George St., who also purveys by Royal appointment; then to the swellest confectioner in Regent Street, and so on. Always to the most expensive place, by what has with him evidently become an instinct, apparently, at least, a necessity. By way of St. Margaret's, where we stopped for mail, we came home, dressed, packed a small grip (suitcase) and were off via Clapham Junction to Surbiton (London suburb).
Then Edwin took me to the shop where his motor-tricycle is undergoing an overhauling and reconstruction which promises to extend into eternity and to hopelessly beggar him in the mean time. This machine is another of his extravagances. It seems to need more repairing and miscellaneous attention than a steam-yacht. He bought it for a good round sum and has been altering and adding to it ever since. No new idea in motor construction appears but he seizes upon it and orders it incorporated into the luckless tricycle. The result is one of the most complicated machines I ever saw. For this tricycle, at a large expense, he has had made a “trailer”, or seat and handlebar, supported by a fourth wheel and suitable frame, so that he can take a passenger.
On this part of the affair I mounted, he took his seat, deftly manipulated the half-dozen valves and we darted down the road. The machine proved very powerful and capable of high speed, but its vibration was great and after the manner of petrol motors it gave out considerable noise. It needed only a few minutes to put the village behind us, and find us flying along the smooth roads of the open country, churning up a cloud of dust behind, and scattering in terror before us into the hedgerows the ducks and fowls. We owned the road. Farm wagons pulled to the side, and traps (passenger carts) slowed up or stopped at the road crossings, till our mad career was past. The rush of it all was exhilarating, hills were nothing to us, slopes had no terrors, we tore along and I hung on grimly as we swung around curves. We brought up sharply once that I might remove an insect from Edwin's eye (the poor bug had doubtless wanted to get out of the way, but couldn't find time) and yet once more to enable me to make a picture of the daring Chauffeur and his machine.
Everything was going most swimmingly and our spirits were highest when in mounting a long and steep hill, the motor gradually slowed its puffs and seeming to lose its power barely gained the top of the rise. Edwin was puzzled, though he didn't admit it, and we made an examination. Water was leaking form the tank (it shouldn't of course) but that couldn't be it. The petrol might be stale, or the “carburetor” wasn't the newest type quite. (There was a tubular one, recently invented, much better); or the escapement in the cylinder hadn't been entirely corrected. Anyway we had better turn about and make for home. And we did, but not for long. There suddenly was a sharp thud in the machinery and we stopped short. Another examination began and it developed that a certain tube which conveys most of the noise into a cylinder called the “silencer” had come loose. This, with the rest of the adjacent parts was almost white hot and couldn't be handled till it cooled off. So we sat down in the road and waited.
A countryman came along presently, who professed to understand motors and their repairing and we let him do most of the fussing with the tools, though Edwin directed and I occasionally advised. But the threads were gone, and the tube pronounced a bad fit anyhow, so we had to give it up finally and go home without the use of the “silencer”, the exhaust blowing out past my left leg, with the concentrated noise of a yard full of express locomotives. Such an infernal din as we made I feel sure the countryside never heard before. People left their supper tables to come out and stare, farm-hands crowded to yard gates, the dogs barked, and cattle scampered across the meadows as we pounded along. And why they didn't arrest us going though Surbiton I don't really know.
Edwin had to stop the motor and coast every time a horse came in view, and the effort and anxiety attached to doing this made a very exhausted man of him when we pulled up at the motor shop. We spent a half hour helping the expert take off the water tank and another half hour indicating the extensive repairs to be inaugurated at once; and then we turned toward the Walter Alcock's home.
A jollier meal that that supper proved I have seldom had. The night was warm and, wised by our hostess, we three men removed our coats and sat in our shirt-sleeves. This threw an atmosphere of informality over the occasion from the start, and as Lemare and Alcock fairly bubbled with wit and pleasantry and good humor, the fun rapidly grew livelier and yet livelier, to the verge finally almost of indecorum. After coffee in the garden, Alcock offered me a night ride on his motor and nothing daunted by the afternoon's experience, I assented. His machine is a “quad” (four wheeler) with the seat in front of the operator and swung close to the ground. To ride in this position I quickly found was delightful. There was almost no vibration and there was nothing to obstruct the view; furthermore the motor's noise was sufficiently remote to be forgettable. Seated here he whirled me along through the lamp-lighted streets into the cool darkness of the country. I was enjoying to the full the blind rush, the smell of mown grass, and honeysuckle and the star-lit vault overhead; when a loud report was heard and stopping, we discovered that one of the front tires had exploded! (Persons having motorcars should omit to ask me to ride with them.)
Well! We couldn't fix it for the rent would have admitted one's fist, and so as well as we might bumped home on the rim, with the tire flattened out and giving notice of its condition all the way.
Wrote two letters and to bed.
–Edward I. Horsman, Jr.
