| Gottfried Schloemer | |
|---|---|
1892 sketch |
|
| Born | August 25, 1842[1] near Cologne |
| Died | November 24, 1921 (aged 79)[2][3] Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| Occupation | cooper |
| Spouse | Mary Elisabeth Schmid |
| Children | 3 boys, 3 girls |
Gottfried Schloemer or Godfrey Schloemer (1842–1921) was a coopersmith, mechanic and inventor who lived on the south side of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US.[4][5] His principal claim to fame rests on the "motor wagon" that he built there in 1889, which some have hailed as the first workable gasoline-engine automobile ever built in the United States,[6][7] four years ahead of Charles and Frank Duryea, who are most often identified with this achievement.[8]
At the time of his death certain local reports even claimed him as the designer and maker of the first gasoline-powered automobile in the world,[9][10][11] although that honor is usually given to the German Karl Benz in 1885.[8]
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Schloemer was born near Cologne on the Rhine river August 25, 1842.[1] He immigrated to America from Prussia with his family when he was 3 years old in May 1845.[1] According to the National Archives he arrived in New York port on the ship Harriett on July 1, 1845.[12] They then traveled to Milwaukee and arrived there in June 1846 and bought some farm land on Beloit Road.[1] Schloemer was raised on this farm and when he became an adult he moved out of state and took up jobs in the copper mines of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.[1]
Schloemer later moved back to Milwaukee and lived at 545 Fourth Avenue.[1] He then worked for the Toepfer brothers out of a red brick building as a cooper in their machine shop on National Ave in Milwaukee. There with Frank Toepfer he made the first gas-fueled automobile.[4][5][13]
Schloemer's family line was from Germany according to the 1880 United States Federal Census. Schloemer himself as well as his wife and her parents were born in Prussia. He was married to a neighborhood girl 3 years his senior, Mary Elisabeth Schmid, on May 30, 1867.[1] She normally went by the name Elizabeth and was born about 1839, according to the United States Federal Census. Their children were
As of 1892 John, the eldest son, is the only one of the children that has moved out of the Schloemer's home. John has a good reputation as a piano-tuner working for a well known music man of Milwaukee named George Gerber whose business is on National Avenue.[1]
Schloemer's medical history shows he suffered from a hernia for two years starting in the summer of 1890. A doctor friend that had moved back to Milwaukee in 1892 cured him in about 5 weeks.[1]
Schloemer, according to a later testimony of his, said that in 1880 he conceived the idea of a "motor wagon" (a.k.a. "gas buggy", "auto wagon") with an attached gasoline engine to make it self-propelling. He was in the cooperage business at the Toepfer blacksmith shop on National Avenue in Milwaukee at that time. Schloemer went about having a single-cylinder motor made according to his design by the Sintz Gas Engine Company of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Sintz made the engines used later by Charles Brady King and others for their first automobile.[14]
The Sintz engine that was specifically designed and ordered by Schloemer was 3.5 inches by 3.5 inches. It was installed in the "motor wagon" that was made in 1889 by Schloemer. He first drove the motorized wagon on the streets of Milwaukee in 1890.[13]
Schloemer believed in the commercial value of the idea of his "motor wagon" and went about marketing his car. He went about getting capitalists to invest in his invention in later part of the 1880s without much luck. Finally he obtained two wealthy Milwaukee men to invest in his self-propelled "motor wagon" in 1889. They set plans by 1892 to manufacture the car in a large quantities, however the national financial panic of 1893 put a halt on their plans and the investors backed out.[14]
Schloemer had to improvise on his "motor wagon" for an igniting system to fire the fuel, since at that time there was no such thing as a spark plug. He used a home-made make-and-break sparking mechanism consisting of two points of steel striking together causing a "spark" to ignite the gasoline fumes in the cylinder.[15]
Schloemer designed in 1892 and patented a carburetor, which was known as the Gottfried Schloemer carburetor. He used kerosene lamp wicks in the center of it to get the gasoline from the gas tank into the cylinder of the motor to be ignited.[13]
Schloemer also tells in a later testimony that when he drove his "motor wagon" down the streets of downtown Milwaukee for the first time he remembers he went down West Water Street and stopped at Spiegel's Drug Store to purchase some items. When he came out of the store there was a large crowd around the automobile and found it necessary to ask a policeman to clear a passageway for him to leave. Once he started the motor, the very loud noise scared the people that gathered and they immediately scattered.[13]
Schloemer's first version of a horseless carriage was a "rocking seat automobile" where a person bounced up and down on the seat to cause a mechanical rocking operation that drove a crank that drove the rear wheels. This operated the "automobile" for only a block and a half before it failed. From there he added his specially designed Sintz motor in 1889 and in 1890 was driving the self-propelled automobile on the streets of Milwaukee.[13][16]
Schloemer drove his car in a floral parade in 1895, the first automobile ever to do this. He was the only automobile in the parade. He also led the first automobile parade that was ever held on the streets of Milwaukee. There were seven automobiles in the car parade.[17]
There is a debate even to this day as to who should get the credit for making the first practical workable gasoline-powered automobile.[18] Karl Benz is a claimant to the world's first self-propelled velocipede with a three-wheeled motorwagon in Germany in 1885. Some that take the claim of making the first gas-fueled car in America are Henry Nadig and Charles H. Black. Popular credit usually goes to the Duryea Brothers for the first commercially manufactured gasoline powered "horseless carriage" in the U.S. with the introduction of the "Ladies Phaeton" motor wagon model in 1893.[19] Henry Ford is credited with the idea of the modern day assembly line production of cars.
Schloemer had a farm which was known as the Shumacher farm on Beloit Road in Greenfield, Wisconsin. Since he lost his investors for his new motorized vehicle he was discouraged and discontinued working on it. He stored it in a building there on the farm for many years since he didn't have the finances to produce the car in quantity. He later sold the "motor wagon" to Fay L. Cusick, a car dealer of West Allis. Cusick later sold it to friends of the Milwaukee Public Museum who donated it to the museum.[4][20][21][22] It is still there to this day and touted as "the first practical gasoline-powered auto in the nation."[23] Frederic Haskin of the Arizonia Republic reports that this vehicle is probably the oldest American automobile in existence.[24]
Abbe Gavois of Renneville (Somme) France, whose hometown was in Paris in 1921, owned the oldest gasoline-driven car in Europe at the time. He sent Cusick a letter congratulating him on owning the world's oldest gasoline driven car. Gavois sent Cusick a photograph of his European automobile. On the dash of his car was inscribed the date 1891, leaving the Schloemer automobile the first gasoline-powered automobile existing since it was built in 1889.[13]
Schloemer was not satisfied with the current method of plowing the farm fields so went about conceiving, with his son Andrew, a self-powered tractor to improve the situation. The new Schloemer tractor they patented was made with two plows, one on each end of the tractor. The back plow was lowered into the ground when going across the field to plow the dirt over. When the tractor reached the end of the field the plow was raised by a lever. Then the tractor was lined up into the next row without turning it around. The other plow on the opposite end of the tractor was lowered by a lever and the plowing commenced going back across the field. This procedure continued for plowing the complete field without once turning the tractor around. The Schloemer non-turning gasoline tractor was made in 1896, and has been claimed as the first gasoline tractor ever made, although John Froelich of Iowa's 1892 machine is also credited with this achievement.[25] The production of Schloemer's tractor was held up because of financial problems.[13]
Schloemer is buried at St. Matthias Cemetery in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin.
A tombstone there reveals his birth date and death date.