In the 1930s Henry Ford was acquiring all sorts of historical
artifacts to create a great historical museum in Dearborn,
Michigan which is today known as Greenfield Village, the Henry
Ford Museum. One of the seemingly insignificant items among
his 1930 acquisitions was a bicycle that was labeled as "1871
- made in Orchard Park, New York". The source listed, "Irving
T. Thornton of Buffalo, New York".
A photo of that bicycle was included, with that information,
in a book written and published in 1981 by G. Donald Adams.
Mr. Adams is a bicycle historian and was curator of the bicycles
and more at the Henry Ford Museum for many years. In more recent
conversations with Mr. Adams, he has indicated that when Henry
Ford was starting his collections of historical antiquities
items were accumulated very fast. His then inexperienced staff
was often careless and not inclined to document the acquisitions
properly as is normally done by our museum historians and conservators
today.
Such is the background for the latest acquisition of the
Pedaling History Bicycle Museum of Orchard Park, New York.
Carl Burgwardt, co-owner with his wife Clarice, of Pedaling
History, was familiar with the bicycle that was owned and exhibited
by the Henry Ford Museum. Shortly after the book was published
Carl discussed the bicycle with Mr. Adams and found there was
little more information available about the machine and was
also informed that it was a key piece to the Henry Ford collection
and that discussions to acquire the machine would be futile.
Mr. Adams' position at the Henry Ford
Museum subsequently
changed and he was not as close to the collection as he once
was. Over the years different museum curators and directors
develop different priorities for exhibits and somehow the Orchard
Park bicycle was put on a de-acquisition list and slipped into
a 1985 auction unbeknownst to the Burgwardts. The bicycle was
sold to a dealer who shortly thereafter passed it on to another
collector. When Mr. Burgwardt heard about this he started to
trace the machine again. The Henry Ford Museum told him who
had bought it. However, the buyer would not divulge his customer's
name so the search took several years before Burgwardt again
located the machine.
In 1996, Burgwardt located the machine
and started negotiating with the owner to acquire the machine
for his Orchard Park
bicycle museum. The owner "preferred not to sell" but Burgwardt
maintained frequent communication with him. Then, in January
of 1999, during one of the season's bitterest snow and ice
storms, Burgwardt finally completed the transaction and returned
the bicycle to the museum in Orchard Park, within a mile of
where the machine was made 128 years ago.
But that is just the beginning. Burgwardt has done a lot
more in researching the Orchard Park bicycle because he feels
that this bicycle has much more history to tell.
Burgwardt produces a newspaper clipping
from Bicycling News of October 13th 1888. In an article entitled
RELICS OF THE
PAST which quotes another newspaper, the Lightning Express
of Buffalo, NY, the article tells about an exhibit at the Industrial
Trade Exposition, a huge trade fair, which took place in Buffalo
in September of 1888. The exhibit was in conjunction with the
many bicycle companies exhibiting their new model bicycles
at that trade show. (At the time, Buffalo was one of the biggest
commercial cities in the nation. The show was much like a world's
fair and exhibition.)
The article reads in part:
"No exhibit in the main building proved to be more
attractive to the 1500 wheelmen who were present at the exposition
than the array of historic bicycles, velocipedes, and tricycles
sent here from the museum of the Pope Manufacturing Company
of Boston".
Pope Manufacturing Company was the largest manufacturer
of bicycles in the world at that time. Col. Albert A. Pope
was the first to build modern bicycles in America and is
considered the founder of the bicycle industry in America.
The article goes on:
"These occupy a conspicuous place in one of the galleries
over Machinery Hall, and each is placarded with its claims
to distinction." [The article continues describing several
of the machines, but one stands out.] "The second historic
machine in the collection in point of age is a fairly well
preserved vehicle made by the Taylor Bros., of Orchard Park,
Erie County, N. Y. This was one of the first velocipedes, and
the power was applied to the hind wheel. It came into existence
1864 or 1865 and as many as a hundred people learned to ride
it successfully."
Burgwardt feels that quite possibly
this description is of the same bicycle, although it is also
possible (because at
the time in the late 1860s the velocipedes were quite a fad)
that two machines were made in Orchard Park. The design of
this particular machine, however, is quite unusual since it
steers from the hind wheel. This could well be cause of the "power
was applied" (steering power), to the hind wheel comment in
the article. No other known machine, from that period, is powered
from the hind wheel. Burgwardt thinks the 1864 or 1865 dates
in the newspaper article are incorrect [as those dates precede
the date of the first pedal velocipede patent]. Col. Pope would
have known that that date was too early [no pedal velocipedes
existed then] so it is most likely a journalistic error.
Seeking further information Burgwardt
has traced genealogy on the Taylor and Thornton names and
found that they were related.
An Orchard Park genealogist finds these are from prominent
founding families of Orchard Park. Taylor was the grandfather
of Irving T. Thornton whose name appears as the donor of the
machine to the Henry Ford Museum. This, of course, still does
not explain how the Pope Manufacturing Company came to exhibit
it in Buffalo in 1888, but that and more will be another chapter
in a search for more history of this bicycle.
The velocipede will be prominently exhibited
during regular museum hours, Monday through Saturday from 11:00
AM to 5:00
PM and Sundays from 1:30 to 5:00 PM. Until April 1st, however,
the museum is closed on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays.
The Pedaling History Bicycle Museum
is the largest exhibit of bicycling history in the world
and focuses on American Bicycle
History. Exhibiting over 300 machines and thousands of accessories,
pieces of memorabilia, ephemera, and photographs, the museum
dramatically tells of the technological and social revolution
caused by the invention, development and popularity of the
bicycle, a craze that parallels the popularity of the personal
computer today.
