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There was considerable commotion over automobile building in the United States before the turn of the 20th Century. It was created by George Selden of Rochester, N.Y. Selden claimed he had constructed a self-propelling machine in the 1880's. He asked for patents at the time, but could not get them since his vehicles did not move under their own power. In November, 1895, after other Americans had put automobiles on the market, Selden renewed his request for a patent, insisting that the working model he had for display then was the same one he had perfected in the 1880's and that he was entitled to patent rights dating from the 1880's.

Selden sought recourse at law. The suit was bitterly contested, the defense being that his machines, prior to 1895, would not work and that, therefore, no one manufacturing an automobile before that time was infringing on Selden's rights. Selden lost the suit, during the progress of which considerable "evidence" was produced by amateur historians that automobiles had been made and put into use in ancient times. Some of the more fantastic and facetious "historians" almost planted an automobile in the Garden of Eden.

While Selden was making claims to perfecting the first automobile, the Duryea brothersCharles and Frank-of Philadelphia declared they had pioneered in the field. They manufactured cars over 50 years ago, and the speed of their machines gave considerable fame to the Duryea name as automobile builders. In-fact, the Duryea was perhaps the best known of the early automobiles in the United States. However, the field quickly became filled with rivals, and most of them prospered for a while despite the fact that Selden was carrying on his court battle.

Arthur Pound, in his book "The Turning Wheel," gave credit to the Duryeas for building the "first successfully operated American automobile," fixing 1892 as the year and Springfield, Mass., as the place. When the argument as to who was the creator of the automobile in the United States was resumed some years ago, after The New York Times had printed a picture of the Selden car, classifying it as "the pioneer vehicle," Pound wrote to The Times:

"The Selden picture is not truthful. The vehicle shown was Selden's first, but it was not made until 1905-6. It was (intent) to prove that the famous Selden patent, issued in November, 1895, described an operative thing. Many attempts to run it (the Selden car of 1895) were made before court witnesses, and the longest run of all was about one-fourth of a mile. The court ruled that `to say Selden solved a great problem, and is entitled to the status of a pioneer, is without foundation.'

"The automobile idea was well described by Homer in the Iliad, Book XVIII. F. Verbiest, a Belgian missionary in China, built the firstknown self-propeller in 1665 and ran it. Oliver Evans seems to have been the first to sell his product. He ran it on Philadelphia streets in 1805. Samuel Morey of Oxford, N.H., was first to make a real liquid-fuel engine. He drove a boat with it and wrote of his intent to fit it to a carriage.

"Drake, who built a liquid-fuel engine as early as 1842 and showed one in New York in 1855, advocated them for `locomotive use.' W.M. Storm in 1851 so fully set forth the facts about such engines that he surely must have had experience before getting his patent. Brayton began work on such engines in 1852 and continued for forty years. He continually advocated such engines for road vehicles and licensed Joshua Rose and A.R. Shattuck in January, 1876, to use them on road vehicles. That year Selden saw Brayton's engines at the Centennial and doubtless talked with Brayton. He tried to improve, but failed. He applied for a patent in 1879 and kept it alive until late in 1895.

"A Duryea patent was issued nearly five months earlier and America's first automobile race was won by a Duryea vehicle in 1895."
Complicating the situation a trifle more, The Times printed a letter from Elisha Flagg of New York City at the same time it reproduced Pound's communication, in which Flagg stated:

"It was in the year of 1864 that a friend of my mother, who was living with her family at Auburndale, a suburb of Boston, drove a horseless carriage from Boston, a matter of 14 miles as I recall the distance, to our home in the former place. I was then a lad of 9 years, yet I distinctly remember his arrival, his coming up the road, seeing little puffs of steam vapor jetting out from the back of a regular carriage, called a box buggy.

"When he came to a stop I was simply astonished to see no horse. The shafts had been removed and there did not seem to be much mechanism. No doubt there was a tank for water, with the addition of what was needed in automotive mechanism. I, however, recall the whip socket-no whip but in its place a bunch of flowers!

"Every one familiar with the history of the automobile knows that horseless carriages were
developed as far back as 1760 or '80. One American, named James, produced a workable one with a tubular boiler for steam propulsion; all of which helps to confirm my contention that Selden was far from being the first to drive a horseless carriage."

"Dudgeon's Steam Wagon," better known as the "Red Devil" because it frightened horses, and sketches of which were generally distributed throughout the United States, is another contraption that enters into the confusing situation.

Richard Dudgeon built this steam-driven vehicle in 1865 and it is reported to have appeared on the streets of New York in 1866. It also was driven over Long Island roads. Wood was used to provide the fires that created the steam. In appearance, the car looked much like a tractor of today-except it had a sizable smokestack. It could seat 12 persons. It had a publicized speed of 30 miles an hour, but when tested in 1903 it could do only 10, which might have been its maximum in the 1860's.

The road races on Long Island, originated about 1904, became increasingly dangerous. Cars often went out of control and killed or injured not merely the drivers, but also many of the onlookers. There was a violent protest against the continuation of such races, and they were abandoned about 1908. Since some drivers still had a craving for speed and thousands of Americans found a great thrill in watching the contests, work was started in 1909 on the first of America's speedways-and the greatest-which is the Indianapolis Speedway of today.