It will be perceived that inasmuch as in the arrangement shown, the pivotal connections
_Witnesses_: J. D. Garfield K. I. Clemons
_Inventor_, Chas. E. Duryea by Chaprictlo Attys.
FIGURE 28.--A DRAWING AND THE FIRST PAGE of the specifications of the first patent issued to C. E. Duryea. It can be readily seen that this drawing was not made after the plan of the first vehicle.]
As the work moved nearer completion Frank realized that the final tests would have to be conducted on roads made icy by falling snows. He had considerable doubt whether the narrow iron tires would have enough traction to move the phaeton. Soon he devised an expedient for this situation, communicating to Charles on December 22 that he was "having Jack Swaine [a local blacksmith] make a couple of clutch rims so we can get over this snow and ice.... Our detachable rims referred to will be of 1/8 iron 1-3/4 wide and drawn together at one point by two screws, one on either side of felloe. It will be studded with calks in two rows."[34]
[Illustration: FIGURE 29.--MR. AND MRS. FRANK DURYEA examining vehicle in the Smithsonian Institution before restoration.]
January 18, 1894, was a day of triumph for Frank Duryea. Writing Charles about his success the next day he said, "Took out carriage again last night and gave it another test about 9 o'clock." The only difficulty he mentioned was a slight irregularity in the engine, caused by the tiny leather pad in the exhaust-valve mechanism falling out.[35] Speaking of this trip, Frank recalled in 1956:
When I got this car ready to run one night, I took it out and I had a young fellow with me; I thought I might need him to help push in case the car didn't work.... We ran from the area of the shop where it was built down on Taylor Street. We started out and ran up Worthington Street hill,[36] on top of what you might call "the Bluff" in Springfield. Then we drove along over level roads from there to the home of Mr. Markham who lived with his son-in-law, Will Bemis, and there we refilled this tank with water. [At this point he was asked if it was pretty well emptied by then.] Yes, I said in my account of it that when we got up there the water was boiling furiously. Well, no doubt it was. We refilled it and then we turned it back and drove down along the Central Street hill and along Maple, crossed into State Street, dropped down to Dwight, went west along Dwight to the vicinity where we had a shed that we could put the car in for the night. During that trip we had run, I think, just about six miles, maybe a little bit more. That was the first trip with this vehicle. It was the first trip of anything more than a few hundred yards that the car had ever made.