Background
Frank was born on November 6, 1878 in Berea, Ohio, United States, the son of Frank McIntyre Stearns and Celia Ballou Stearns.
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Frank was born on November 6, 1878 in Berea, Ohio, United States, the son of Frank McIntyre Stearns and Celia Ballou Stearns.
After graduating in 1894 from the University School in Cleveland, Ohio, Stearns enrolled in the Case School of Applied Science (later Case Institute of Technology). More interested in automotive technology than in college, however, he left in 1896, after one year.
Stearns's love affair with the automobile began at an early age; supposedly a visit with his father to the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 first sparked his interest. At the age of sixteen he built a one-cylinder car. In 1898, shortly before his twentieth birthday, he organized his own manufacturing firm, the F. B. Stearns Company, to build automobiles of his design. The infant company prospered. Much of its initial capital came from Stearns's father, a successful stone-quarry owner and real estate speculator.
Stearns left the company he founded in 1918, apparently because of a dispute over engineering policies, although he continued to serve as a consultant to the firm.
During the 1920's he traveled extensively and worked on improvements of the diesel engine, a task that consumed his energy for a score of years. He made numerous modifications and ultimately obtained sixteen patents. Stearns sold a diesel engine to the Navy Department in 1935 and did research and development work for the federal government. Although apolitical and reluctant to join organizations, Stearns did support early efforts to improve conditions for motorists and their vehicles.
Until his death Stearns continued to work in his well-equipped home machine shop and often brought former employees there to aid him. Organic farming also occupied his later years. His estate, Stearnsington, in Chesterland, a Cleveland suburb, provided ample acreage for his various soil and plant experiments.
Stearns died on July 5, 1955 in Cleveland.
Frank Ballou Stearns made automotive history when his company adopted an internal combustion engine of radical design invented by Charles Y. Knight. The engine used sleeve valves rather than poppet valves, which were congenitally noisy. The F. B. Stearns Company (its automobiles were now called Stearns-Knights) continued to use the Knight engine until the firm was dissolved by the shareholders in 1929. During its thirty-one-year history the company produced more than 10, 000 cars that ranked with the nation's best.
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He was a member of the Cleveland Automobile Club.
On January 15, 1902, Stearns married Maybelle Wilson, daughter of a wealthy ship-owner and banker; they had three children. The marriage brought additional capital to the firm.
