Henry H. Bliss
Henry Hale Bliss (June 13, 1830 – September 14, 1899) was the first person killed by a motor vehicle accident in the United States, and the first known in the Americas.[1] On September 13, 1899 he was disembarking from a streetcar at West 74th Street and Central Park West in New York City, when an electric-powered taxicab (Automobile No. 43) struck him and crushed his head and chest. He died from his injuries the next morning.
Arthur Smith, the driver of the taxicab, was arrested and charged with manslaughter but was acquitted on the grounds that it was unintentional. The passenger, Dr. David Edson, was the son of former New York City mayor Franklin Edson.
A plaque was dedicated at the site on September 13, 1999, to commemorate this event. It reads:
- Here at West 74th Street and Central Park West, Henry H. Bliss dismounted from a streetcar and was struck and knocked unconscious by an automobile on the evening of September 13, 1899. When Mr. Bliss, a New York real estate man, died the next morning from his injuries, he became the first recorded motor vehicle fatality in the Western Hemisphere. This sign was erected to remember Mr. Bliss on the centennial of his untimely death and to promote safety on our streets and highways.
Bliss's death is often stated to have been the first recorded vehicle-related fatality in the "Western Hemisphere". However, the Western Hemisphere actually includes all land of the hemisphere west of Greenwich, and there were two earlier such deaths. Mary Ward was killed by a steam-powered car in Ireland during 1869, and Bridget Driscoll was a pedestrian, killed by a car on the grounds of the Crystal Palace, Sydenham during 1896 (Sydenham is just west of the Prime Meridian).
References
Sources
- Fatally hurt by automobile, New York Times article, September 14, 1899.