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Feature Article
Horatio's Drive by Dayton Duncan In 1903 America's first cross-country car trip was an off-road adventure America's first transcontinental road trip began on a whim, a simple yet passionate desire to drive a car from one coast to the other. In other words, it started more or less like many road trips today. And even though it occurred 100 years ago under daunting conditions, this pathbreaking journey established an equation that still applies: Car plus distant horizon equals unforgettable adventure. It was 1903, only a dozen years since the first horseless carriage debuted in the United States, a time when most people still considered the automobile a rich man's toy, destined for short drives within big cities. The American Automobile Association was a mere infant celebrating its first birthday. The Lincoln Highway—the first attempt to make a decent road across the country—was 10 years into the future. Total car registration: 33,000. Total number of paved miles in the entire nation: 150. Total number of gas stations: zero (although gasoline was available in general stores in most towns for farm machinery, stoves and pumps.) And so, on the evening of May 19 in San Francisco's exclusive University Club, when the discussion turned to the automobile's future, virtually everyone agreed that cars would never replace the railroad and the horse. Everyone, that is, except Horatio Nelson Jackson. Jackson was a wealthy physician from Vermont, 31 years old, and an irrepressible optimist who, in his own words, had "succumbed completely to a primary enthusiasm for the newfangled horseless buggy." He impulsively bet $50 that he could drive a car from San Francisco to New York City in less than three months. Within the next four days Jackson paid $3,000 (the average yearly wage at the time was $500) for a slightly used 1903 Winton touring car, spent hundreds of dollars more on equipment and hired a young mechanic named Sewall K. Crocker to accompany him on his improbable quest. They rattled out of San Francisco on May 23. Jackson's letters to his wife, Bertha, detailed his first week on the road. Day One: A flat tire in the first 15 miles. They replaced it with the only spare they had and motored on. The two-cylinder, 20-horsepower Winton, which Jackson nicknamed the Vermont, was capable of speeds up to 30 miles per hour. Bad roads, however, usually prevented them from going even half that speed. Five hours on the road, 83 miles covered. Day Two: Complaints over an expensive hotel ($2). A spark igniter malfunctioned, requiring an hour to fix. Nearly 120 miles in six-and-a-half hours. Day Three: During the bumpy ride, the cooking gear bounced off the piles of equipment in the rear and no one noticed until it was too late. At a lonely intersection, a young woman deliberately pointed Jackson down a dusty path that dead-ended miles later at an isolated farmhouse, whose inhabitants pointed him back where he had started. When he met up with the young woman again, she sweetly explained: "I wanted pa and ma and my husband to see you. They've never seen an automobile." (This, I believe, may be the moment in history when male motorists began their stubborn reluctance to stop and ask directions.) Six-and-a-half hours, 91 miles, not counting the dead end. Day Four: Troubles again with the spark igniter and another delay. News that the roads through the Sierra Nevada Mountains were impassable detoured them toward a pass in the Cascades. Six hours, 114 miles. Day Five: Rock-strewn roads punctured their tires; they patched the inner tubes and reinflated them by hand pump. To cross unbridged streams, they put the car into high gear and drove at top speed. But they got stuck in the middle of one stream and had to wade to shore and use a block and tackle to drag the car out. Less than 70 miles in 12 hours. Day Six: They took a wrong turn and lost 20 miles; a bridge was down and they lost 14 more. More tire problems. Then the line feeding oil to the cylinders got clogged. When Crocker crawled underneath the car to reopen it, two gallons of oil spilled onto him before he could stop it. 10 hours, 72 miles. Day Seven: Some of the tires were now so riddled with holes and leaky patches that Crocker and Jackson simply wrapped them with rope to keep going. They finally emerged from the mountains and reached the town of Alturas, Calif., where Jackson decided to wait for supplies he had ordered by telegraph from San Francisco. The supplies arrived days later by stagecoach. Seven hours, 52 miles. The pattern of the first week repeated itself across the continent. Once, the batteries failed in the deserts of southeast Oregon and a passing cowboy used his lariat to tow the car to the nearest ranch. Another day the car ran out of gas, forcing Crocker to walk 26 miles to the closest town-and back-for a few gallons of fuel. And even then, merchants occasionally gouged the travelers for necessary supplies (gas was about 37 cents per gallon at the time; in some places they had to pay more than a dollar). Throughout it all, Jackson retained his remarkably good humor. Part of it surely sprang from his inherent optimism. "The worst of it is over," he would confidently write to his wife after each unexpected setback—and then the next, and the next. But he also was enjoying the sheer adventure of it all, filled with pleasurable experiences that offset the aggravations—moments like soaking in a hot spring along the road, eating a home-cooked meal in exchange for a ride in what some cowboys called the "go-like-hell machine," and watching the grand panorama of the land unfold from the front of an open-seated car. Jackson also clearly loved the buzz he created in the small western towns where the Vermont was the first automobile to drive down Main Street. Crowds, alerted by telegraph messages sent from the previous town, thronged to see what one newspaper called "one of the wonders of the century." Schools let out so children could witness the event. Reporters hung on his every word. One eager journalist recorded: "Dr. Jackson said last night that if anyone figured on making the trip, he would advise them to figure out their expenses and multiply same by 20." Adding to the public relations frenzy that grew steadily as Jackson moved eastward was the expedition's third companion, who joined in Caldwell, Idaho: a young bulldog named Bud. Quickly learning to brace himself for every bump and turn, Bud rode in the front, and when his eyes became inflamed from the alkali dust, Jackson put goggles on the dog's head to protect them. "Bud soon became an enthusiast for motoring," Jackson bragged in one report, adding that the pup was "the one member of [our] trio who used no profanity on the entire trip." By the time they pulled into New York City on July 26—sixty-three-and-a-half days after leaving San Francisco—they were a national sensation. Newspapers everywhere told and retold Jackson's story, sometimes embellishing details, including one report that claimed the Vermont had floated across rivers, using its revolving wheels as propellers. On his journey, Jackson had lost 20 pounds, used 800 gallons of gasoline and spent $8,000—to win a $50 bet. But he'd had the time of his life and along the way established a tradition of road trips that millions of Americans would follow. Actually, he established more than one tradition. Shortly after his triumphant return to his hometown, the local newspaper carried this report: "October 3rd, 1903. Dr. H. N. Jackson, first man to cross the continent in an automobile, was arrested in Burlington, Vermont, and fined [five dollars, plus court costs] for driving the machine more than six miles an hour." Dayton Duncan is the author of Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip (Knopf, July 2003). He is also the writer and producer of the Ken Burns documentary film of the same name, which airs on PBS stations on October 6. View the day-by-day itinerary of Horatio's drive, an interesting 1903 forecast of the auto's potential and a list of resources used to prepare this article. |
