Here’s a bit of background for those who aren’t up on their car history: Automobiles were a European invention, with the Benz motorcar debuting in 1886. The first gas-powered “motor wagon” in the U.S. was built in 1892-93 by Charles and J. Frank Duryea in Springfield, Massachusetts. Eager to rev up interest in the new industry, the Chicago Times-Herald sponsored the nation’s first auto race on Thanksgiving Day, 1895.
The following year, John Brisben Walker, publisher of The Cosmopolitan magazine, decided to sponsor his own race. Walker lived in Tarrytown, and his publication had offices in the neo-classical revival style Cosmopolitan Building in Irvington—later known as the Trent Building. Unlike its later incarnation as a progressive women’s magazine (today’s Cosmo), in the 1890s The Cosmopolitan was a family magazine that included fiction by such notable authors as Theodore Dreiser, Jack London, and Edith Wharton.
Walker’s race was scheduled for “Decoration Day,” or Memorial Day, 1896. The cars were slated to assemble at New York’s City Hall and proceed to Kingsbridge in The Bronx, where drivers would fill their water tanks and judges would check the cars. Then, the actual contest would begin, traveling up Broadway through Yonkers, Hastings-on-Hudson, and Dobbs Ferry. Drivers were supposed to continue to the Cosmopolitan Building, then make a turn and end the race at the long-defunct Ardsley Casino, within the still-existing Ardsley Country Club. Umpires accompanied the drivers to make sure things were on the up and up.
About 30 vehicles registered, but only six showed up, according to Scientific American. Four were Duryea cars: Duryea No. 1 was driven by Charles Duryea; his brother Frank drove Duryea No. 2; and Duryea No. 4 was driven by businessman Henry Wells. Some reports say Duryea No. 3 was driven by E.B. Meekins, others name the driver as Herbert Lytle, one of the great racecar drivers of the time. These autos had high, buggy-type wheels, a lever instead of a steering wheel, and no doors.
Of the two other cars, one was a Roger auto imported from France and driven by T.W. Brander. The other was a do-it-yourself model commissioned by Dr. Carlos Booth, an Ohio physician who’d had problems with his horse while making house calls; it was driven by W. Lee Crouch, who had built its engine. Doctors were among the first to embrace the new contraptions.
The drivers maneuvered adeptly around streetcars and pedestrians, but around 125th street in Manhattan, Wells collided with a bicyclist.
Scientific American and the magazine The Horseless Age published eyewitness accounts. Although cars were supposed to “parade” slowly from City Hall to Kingsbridge, some started picking up speed immediately. The drivers maneuvered adeptly around streetcars and pedestrians, but around 125th Street in Manhattan, Wells collided with a bicyclist. He was arrested and kicked out of the race.
Judges inspected the remaining cars at Kingsbridge, and the real race took place between 2 p.m. and 2:30 p.m. The route was fairly level from Kingsbridge to Yonkers, but then, according to The Horseless Age, “The Peabody Hill in Yonkers [probably on North Broadway] … proved a stumbling block to some.” Frank Duryea passed easily over the hill, but his brother Charles was not as lucky. “The water tank leaked, the belt became wet and stretched and gave trouble the entire route.”
Throughout the race, riders on horseback cleared the way for the newfangled vehicles, and spectators craned their necks to see them, according to a report by the Hastings Historical Society. When coasting downhill, some of the cars reached unheard-of speeds of 25 to 30 mph.
At the Ardsley Country Club, drivers met the judges again—the best known of whom was millionaire John Jacob Astor. Since part of the driveway inside the club was an incline made of “broken stone,” the cars had to be pushed uphill to the reviewing stand.
Frank Duryea won the race at about 3:15 p.m., with his brother following closely behind at 3:30 p.m. The Roger carriage clocked in around 3:40 p.m., Scientific American reported. The remaining Duryea wagon, which sprung a leak in Manhattan, and the good doctor’s vehicle, which suffered several technical maladies, reached the finish line later.
As the winner, Frank Duryea was asked to lead the others back to Manhattan. Trying to avoid the gravel driveway, he detoured over a “newly seeded lawn,” but it turned out to be too soft for the cars; the drivers had to push them for a while, according to Carriages Without Horses: J. Frank Duryea and the Birth of the American Auto Industry by Richard P. Scharchburg.
Still, both of the Duryea brothers were able to reach City Hall that evening. But the other Duryea-sponsored vehicle lost a wheel in Yonkers, the Roger car was stalled overnight in Dobbs Ferry, and the “sparking apparatus got out of order” on Dr. Booth’s car, which had to be towed.
In an editorial that accompanied its article on the race, The Horseless Age decried the race’s potentially dangerous nature, saying, “The common road is not the proper place for such exhibitions, especially in populous centers.” Four months later, the country’s first auto race on a dedicated racetrack was held in Rhode Island.
Related: A Boutique Tennis and Pickleball Club to Open in Yonkers
