Digitized Newsletters Series

Each Friday this summer, the Putnam History Museum is excited to share an assortment of articles from our collection of newly digitized newsletters. These newsletters are a fantastic local history resource, assembled by dedicated museum volunteers, local historians, and community members. These articles are not only useful historic narratives, but also provide us with a glimpse of the important historic talking points of the era in which they were written, commemorating anniversaries, important dates and people, and community events.  

A special thank you to our team of PHM Summer Interns for transcribing these articles!
“Memories of My Life as a Small Boy,” Fall 1994

These memories by Thomas Scott Fillebrown are particularly appropriate in connection with the current “Cars in the County” exhibit. Mr. Fillebrown, who lived in Cold Spring at the turn of the century, was the son of Dr. John P. Fillebrown and grandson of Dr. William Young, both of whom were doctors at the West Point Foundry.
Marguerite Walker Rogers, from Garrison, in an open touring car, circa 1910. PHP0818. PHM Collection.
There were no automobiles when I was a small boy. I expect that I was 10 or 11 years old when the first automobile appeared in Cold Spring. It was an electric and could go about 10 miles an hour on the level. I had my first automobile ride when its owner, a retired Army officer, lent it to our church fair and for ten cents his chauffeur drove customers around the block. The next car to appear was a gasoline-mothered car called an “Orient Buckboard”. It was just an ordinary buckboard with a motor hung on the rear axle, something like attaching an outboard motor to a boat. It made a tremendous noise and frightened all the horses, and could go as fast as 25 miles an hour. It had one drawback and that was that it had no reverse so that if its owner wanted to back around he had to get out and push it.
Of course there were more automobiles in the cities by this time and every now and then a strange car would come puffing and chugging through the village to be greeted by shouts of “get a horse”, which was considered such a good joke in those days. Around the year 1900 a man named Glidden conceived the idea of having road touring tests for automobiles and these were known as “Glidden Tours”. One of the first of these tours was from New York to Albany, a distance of about 150 miles, and Cold Spring was on the route. Of course everyone turned out to see the cars go by.
I don't know how many cars started but by the time Cold Spring was reached about 50 miles from New York a great many had broken down or given up. After they left the vicinity of New York City there were only dirt and gravel roads with plenty of mud and some bad hills. These cars looked just as extraordinary to us then as they would to you today. There were all shapes and sizes. I remember one in particular that had three wheels with a handle to steer by instead of a steering wheel. The people who drove those cars were real pioneers and I expect that the automobile and tire manufactures learned a lot from these tours.
I was 19 when our family bought our first automobile. It was a Maxwell, a make of car now long forgotten. My father, my brother and I and the man through which the car was purchased (and whose blacksmith shop was changing into a garage) went down to White Plains to get it. The Maxwell Co. supplied a man who drove us back to Cold Spring and stayed for several days to show us how to run it.     
   
The car had two cylinders and they were horizontal and opposite each other. You started it with a crank, as self-starters had not yet been invented. It had no windshield and the steering wheel, gear shift, and the hand brake were on the right-hand side. The body was just like a carriage with no doors. It had a carriage top that could be put up in bad weather as well as side curtains. The side lamps, which corresponded to parking lights, were kerosene carriage lamps and there was a similar kerosene lamp for a tail light.
95 years ago Maxwell ran this ad in the January 22 Issue of Country Gentleman. Cars of this era came without bumpers. Image courtesy of Don O'Brien.
Postcard. Courtesy of Alden Jewell.
The headlights were acetylene gas. There was a small brass tank on the left running board which contained a garish white chemical. When we went out at night, which was not often, water was added which caused the gas to form and after waiting a bit for the gas to reach the headlights you lit them with a match.

It was a tricky business as the gas was explosive. There was a large tool box attached to the right running board and more tools stored under the seats. Believe me, they were needed. If there was anything that didn't happen to that car in the three years the family owned it, I don't know what it could have been. Remember, in those days if you had a breakdown on the reload you couldn’t call up a garage or go to a gas station for help. You had to make temporary repairs on the spot yourself.
 Maxwell Model 24-4 Touring 1913.
Image courtesy of Lglswe, via Creative Commons.
The spare tire, that is the outer casing or “shoe”, was attached to the back of the car while inner tubes were kept under one of the seats. Today when you change a tire the spare is already inflated and attached to the rim. That was not the case at the time I am writing about. These early cars were equipped with what were called “clincher” tires. The tire rim was attached to the axles so when you changed a tire you first had to pry the flat tire off the rim, then put an inner tube in the spare tire, fit the spare to the rim and force it into place and finally inflate it with a hand pump.
Unfortunately, this had to be done often for any trip of 25 miles or more you had to count on at least one flat tire. At the time the best tire you could buy would not last more than three or four thousand miles. Perhaps you think from what I have said that riding in one of these old automobiles was a hard-ship. But on the contrary, we had a perfectly splendid time!
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