Background
Charles Edgar Duryea was born on December 15, 1861, in Canton, Illinois, United States. He was the oldest of the five children of George Washington Duryea, a farmer of Huguenot descent, and Louisa Melvina (Turner) Duryea.
(Excerpt from The Automobile Book: A Practical Treatise on...)
Excerpt from The Automobile Book: A Practical Treatise on the Construction, Operation and Care of Motor Cars Propelled by Gasoline Engines; With Full Explanations of All the Essential Parts The london-brighton Race. - A further evidence of the superiority of the American products was given at the first event in England, held November 14th, 1896, to celebrate the repeal Of the restrictive road laws of 1844. Nearly fifty en tries including the first, second and third winners of the French racing events of that year, were present, and all were beaten by a Duryea, nearly an hour, in the distance of 52 miles from London to Brighton. This unique victory of an American automobile over the best foreign constructions stood for years as evidence of the advanced positions of American constructors. Pneumatic tires, artillery wheels, spray carburetors, electric ignition by mechanical generator, throttle control, and many modern features were first shown on those winners, and contributed to the result. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
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Charles Edgar Duryea was born on December 15, 1861, in Canton, Illinois, United States. He was the oldest of the five children of George Washington Duryea, a farmer of Huguenot descent, and Louisa Melvina (Turner) Duryea.
Duryea studied at the Gittings Seminary at La Harpe, Illinois.
Charles Duryea entered the bicycle trade, soon inventing several devices and launching his own business at Peoria, Illinois. Meanwhile, in 1886 at the Ohio state fair, he saw a gasoline engine developed by H. K. Shanck of Dayton, and while it looked "as big as a kitchen stove, " he perceived the possibility of devising a smaller motor to drive a wagon. By 1891 he had drawn plans for both a carriage and an engine, procured backing for experimental work in Springfield, Massachussets, where his bicycle was then manufactured, rented a loft, and employed his younger brother J. Frank to assist him. They constructed a car and an engine, and Charles always asserted that this vehicle was operated in the loft as early as April 1892; Frank later insisted that it was not operable, that he himself redesigned both engine and transmission while Charles was attending to his business in Peoria, and that a run made on the streets of Springfield, and reported in the Springfield Evening Union of September 22, 1893, marked the completion of the first successful car. The controversy as to the respective roles of the two brothers still persists. Charles undoubtedly set the goal, made the work possible, and drew the first plans. The dispute concerns his later supervision of activities; he claims that this continued, Frank that it lapsed almost entirely.
There is no question, however, that the Duryea car was the first successful American automobile. While earlier operation of self-propelled vehicles was claimed by several inventors, and while George B. Selden of Rochester, New York, applied for a patent on a "road wagon" in 1879, no car was built to Selden's specifications until the early 1900's, whereas the Duryea machine made an attested, publicly reported performance and went on to demonstrate its quality. It was, however, antedated by European models built by Siegfried Marcus in Austria in 1875 and by Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler separately in Germany in 1886.
By 1895 the Duryeas had an improved car, largely of Frank's design, which showed a number of modern features: a four-cycle, water-cooled motor, a clutch and gear transmission, three forward speeds and a reverse, a lever steering apparatus, and pneumatic tires. Its excellence was proved by victories in the Chicago Times-Herald race of November 28, 1895, when, driven by Frank, it bested an imported Benz; in the Cosmopolitan race of May 20, 1896; and in the London-to-Brighton race on November 14, in which it excelled a flock of European entries.
Meanwhile Charles Duryea had been elected president of the American Motor League, the first automobile association in this country, and had become the chief stockholder in the Duryea Motor Wagon Company of Springfield. The new corporation made the first sale of an American-built automobile in February 1896 and produced thirteen cars in that year, but because of internal difficulties Charles and Frank both left it in 1898, and it soon failed.
Frank later developed the Stevens-Duryea (1903-1914), while Charles organized the Duryea Power Company of Reading, Pennsylvania, and manufactured a three-cylinder car until 1914. He also established himself as an authority on the automobile, contributing articles to both technical and popular periodicals and appearing as an expert witness in the celebrated Selden Patent Case.
After 1914 Charles Duryea confined his activities to editing, advisory work, and writing. He was the author of The Handbook of the Automobile, a text for the Armour School of Correspondence (1906), and, in collaboration with James E. Homans, The Automobile Book (1916), a guide for car users.
He died of a heart attack in Philadelphia and was buried in the Ivy Hill Cemetery there.
(Excerpt from The Automobile Book: A Practical Treatise on...)
Duryea had a pleasant manner, a keen sense of humor, and an interest in various causes, including the League of Nations, the index dollar, prohibition, and simplified spelling.
Married in 1884 at Wyoming, Illinois, to Rachel Steer, he was the father of Rhea Edna, Grace Louise, and Merle Junius Duryea.