", "Col. Nelson Jackson: The Man Who Spent $8,000 to Win a $50 Bet" Martin Sheridan. The automobile with Jackson and Crocker, crossing the continent, which left here Thursday was badly smashed up twelve miles east of this city on a smooth road while running twenty five miles an hour. African American History Curatorial Collective. The public's perception of this newfangled conveyance took a deep public relations dive on Sept. 13, 1899, when Henry H. Bliss stepped off a streetcar in Manhattan and was flattened by an electric-powered taxicab, becoming the first automobile fatality in the country. Horatio Nelson Jackson (March 25, 1872 - January 14, 1955) was an American physician and automobile pioneer. With 146 illustrations and 1 map Read more Print length 192 pages Language English Horatio Nelson Jackson departed San Francisco onMay 23rd, 1903 for what was to become Americas first ever road trip and all because of a 50 dollar bet made just 5 days prior. In 1903 there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire nation and most people had never seen a "horseless buggy" - but that did not stop Horatio Nelson Jackson, a 31-year-old Vermont doctor, who impulsively bet $50 that he could drive his 20-horsepower automobile from San Francisco to New York City. It was one of the few original parts never replaced during the entire journey. Or sometimes I just need to, Read More The Right Word Peter Roget and His ThesaurusContinue, If youve never heard of Snowflake Bentley, then Ive got a treat for you! "I wanted paw and maw and my husband to see you," she said. I am not much of a hand to write love letters: you didnt give me a chance for much practice, but you know dear how I feel. His wife, though supportive of the trip, opted for a much easier train ride home to Vermont. This first successful cross-country road trip sealed the American love affair with the ultimate symbol of freedom the automobile. What part of history will come to life when we see it with our own eyes? The possibilities of the open road What natural wonder will we see today? But still, troubles continued to plague Horatio and Jackson. Jackson was unable to buy a new tire, but purchased some used inner tubes. ), additional tanks to hold extra oil and gasoline for emergencies. York City. When the tires failed to materialize, however, they continued on after a three-day wait. Long-distance road trips and other publicity stunts helped establish the automobile in Americans consciousness long before cars became commonplace. In 1903, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson single handedly silenced a conversation taking place at the San Francisco University Club. "Which way to Marysville?" Horatio's Drive: America's First Road Trip is a 2003 documentary film directed by Ken Burns and written by Dayton Duncan. We focus on Mountain and Action Sports, Travel, Recreation, and the inspirational personalities that make up the New North American Western Lifestyle. The automobile was about to transform American life. Making matters worse, these trails were generally considered informaland werent typically mapped with any senseof care or accuracy. He then hired a partner/mechanic, Samuel Crocker, who was a successful bicycle racer to accompany him on his journey east. Horatio Nelson Jackson (March 25, 1872 - January 14, 1955) was an American automobile pioneer. 2023 Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). They often Upon reaching the threshold of Jackson's garage, the Vermont's drive chain snapped. When the Winton needed repairs, they telegraphed the factory for parts and awaited delivery by railroad. Horatio Nelson Jackson, a physician and automobile pioneer, and Sewall Crocker arrive in New York on July 26, 1903, completing the first continental crossing by car, a journey prompted by a. Automobiles were in their infancy: The first American car had been produced only 10. "Ocean to Ocean in an Automobile Car," Stephen Sears, Bud grew so accustomed to his riding goggles that "he would not begin the day's drive without them. Horatio Nelson Jackson departed San Francisco on May 23rd, 1903 for what was to become America's first ever road trip - and all because of a 50 dollar bet made just 5 days prior. Horatio's letter to Bertha | May 31, 1903 . Packard and Oldsmobile had for several months been meticulously planning similar trips with expert drivers and mechanics, support crews and modified cars when Jackson simply loaded up the Winton and split. Be inspired! A former U.S. Forest Service firefighter, he has traveled extensively and covered a wide variety of issues during his career, including the Beijing Olympics, Hurricane Katrina, illegal American tourism in Cuba and a 40-day cross country car trip commemorating the history of automobile travel in America. Really, it was just a matter of time before the car took over the roads. [13], Jackson's military awards included the Distinguished Service Cross, the Legion of Honour, and the Croix de Guerre. Jackson and S.K. H. Nelson Jackson (Vermont physician) In the spring of 1903, at a time when many people thought that the automotive industry had no future and that cars were merely an invention aimed at fun, Jackson accepted a $50 bet to prove that it was possible to drive a car from San Francisco to New York City. Horatio's Journey Marker marker is listed in this topic list: Roads & Vehicles. I had to know more! Between 12th and 14th Streets The Indians especially never tired of gazing at the machine. Horatio Nelson Jackson died on January 14, 1955, at the age of 82. The first family road trip was in 1908. Peter Kesling, 71, an orthodontist and antique auto museum owner from La Porte, Ind., has a good idea of what might be in store Tuesday when he climbs aboard his own 1903 Winton and starts out to duplicate the historic feat. Subsequently, their mileage took a sharp increase andtheir rate of trail damage sharply decreased. Following the railroad would also make it easier to access supplies along the way. He also writes about the cannabis industry, outdoor adventure, Native American issues and the culture of the West. Jackson's trip started in a hastily purchased Winton that he named the "Vermont" four days after he made the bet. We shall now try & make a record trip. Horatio's Drive is a co-production of Florentine Films and WETA. This is a carousel. The running time to Alturas was five and a half days; about 125 miles per day, without accident or incident worthy of mention. The Lincoln Highway was the first transcontinental motor route, created in 1913. Get set for an adventure that marked a new era in America! In 1909, Alice Huyler Ramsey, of Hackensack, New Jersey, became the first woman to drive across the United States. We took that road for miles and then it came to a dead end at an isolated farmhouse. [12] While attached to the 313th Infantry, 79th Division as a surgeon, Jackson was wounded near Montfaucon during the MeuseArgonne Offensive. On July 12, the two men and the dog arrived in Nebraska where they found themselves back on paved roads. (2) A team of horses rescued the car from being swallowed by quicksand. Horatio Jackson's Winton in the Smithsonian, 5. The way the streets of Lakeview were lined with people Tuesday afternoon, one would think a circus was coming to town, or a 4th of July procession was about to pass. Dr. Jackson left his practice after a diagnosis of tuberculosis. Kesling's entourage will roughly follow the route taken by Jackson through the Sacramento Valley, past Mount Shasta into Alturas, through Oregon and then swinging eastward toward the Rockies. Many days of travel are lost as they sit waiting for repair parts to arrive via train or stagecoach. So Bud is now with us.We stopped at Nampa and had lunch at the Dewey Hotel. The rough and tumble wagon trails which they followed, combined with the noisiness of their Winton, rendered them unable to tell when they would lose valuable items off the back of the car. Horatio Nelson Jackson was a physician from Vermont who married Bertha Wells, the daughter of the richest man in Vermont. On June 9, outside of Vale, Oregon, the Vermont ran out of oil. All Rights Reserved. They left from New York and traveled so slowly that a one-armed bicyclist who started 10 days after them passed them before they made it to Syracuse at which point they abandoned the attempt. I go from here to Buffalo.I am tired & got to get up early in the morning & [I am] damn anxious to get you in my arms. He was active in several businesses, including a granite manufacturing company owned by his brother Hollister. No sooner than Jackson had finished the repair however, that they then suffered a gasoline leak which wasted all their available fuel. All Rights Reserved. This added several hundred miles to their route but they hoped to avoid the problems that Alexander Winton had faced in the desert sands of Nevada. "Discovering their loss, Jackson and Crocker determined that living off the countryside or starving was less to be feared than a return trip," wrote Jackson's friend Ralph Nading Hill in his book "The Mad Doctor's Drive. At first they lost their cookware, but while still in California, Jackson also lost his glasses. 42 38.862 N, 111 42.124 W. Marker is near Soda Springs, Idaho, in Caribou County. Reaching Alturas, California, Jackson and Crocker stopped to wait for the tires. Theres also a book which I grabbed on my very next visit to the library. Captions: (left) Horatio Nelson Jackson (driving), Sewall K. Crocker (right), and Bud in the "Vermont. The trip,. [1] He married Bertha Richardson Wells, the daughter of William Wells, a Medal of Honor recipient and one of the richest men in Vermont as a partner in Wells, Richardson & Co., manufacturer of Paine's Celery Compound, a popular patent medicine. Its subject is the first cross-country automobile journey in the United States, which occurred during the summer of 1903. The fateful bet was made during a club room discussion on May 19, 1903, when Jackson and his wife were on a stopover in San Francisco after they had traveled to Mexico and Alaska looking at potential mining investments. The film features many old songs, framed by a popular number from 1914 called "He'd Have to Get Under Get Out and Get Under (to Fix Up His Automobile)". It has been an awful long time to us and I shall be mighty glad when we are on the way again and unless another serious accident happens we ought to be able to make good time across these plainsWell, tomorrow is our anniversary & I wish I could be with you. If Im laughing, even at myself, then Im not crying, right? A series of American university professors of history provided background information. Contractor Welland assisted the party back to Archer and they are now coming to Cheyenne to remain till repairs can be made. Just 4 days after declaring his intentions, he had found a car and a chauffeur. The Jackson-Crocker trip excited people across the nation. They were facing a daunting task. Contents 1 Early life and medical career 2 Cross-country drive 2.1 Wager and preparation 2.2 Journey 3 Later life Sign up to get updates about the film and future projects from Ken Burns and Florentine Films. Ill admit, I hadnt given it much thought myself despite my own epic road trip history. Press Clipping from Horatio Nelson Jacksons road trip across America. Having no mechanical experience, Jackson convinced a young mechanic and chauffeur, Sewall K. Crocker, to serve as his travel companion, mechanic, and backup driver. From there on, they were able to use a few paved roads, and their trip was much easier. The first effort to cross the country in 1899 ended inauspiciously for the car. Got onto the right road again and reached Orchid at eleven oclock. This historical marker was erected by America's Byways. The trip had to be called off after a one-armed bicyclist made up a 10- day head start from New York and passed the hapless car before it reached Syracuse. This is a bad start for our first eleven days out. The machine drove up in front of the Hotel Lakeview and stopped.The Chauffeur inquired for a blacksmith shop, having had a mishap coming over the rough roads. Sponsored by the National American Woman Suffrage Association, the trip began and ended in New Please give my best love to your mother & tell [my] father & mother that I love them as much as ever. she drove a Maxwell touring car from New York to San Francisco in 59 days. At Hailey, Idaho, Crocker wired the Winton Company for more parts. Jackson and Crocker replaced it with the only spare they had, which by the way, happened to be the only right-sized spare tire they could find before they left. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. Crocker of Seattle, both of whom are at the Palace ready for the journey. Then the caption about the first ever cross-country road trip sealed the deal. - Behind Every Day, rubber mackintoshes for themselves and the car (remember no roof, no windshield! Early life and medical career [ edit] At 30 mph, "Horatio Nelson Jackson didn't have to worry about someone going 75 mph on the highway and running him over," said author Dayton Duncan, who wrote and co-produced the documentary and companion book "Horacio's Drive," with Burns. touring car, named it Vermont, and headed east. In 1903, H. Nelson Jackson and Sewall K. Crocker completed the first motor trip across the United States in this car, which Jackson named for his home state. The finishing dash over the plains to the East Coast was as much a struggle with the "buffalo wallows" as it was with the car, but in the end Jackson was not to be denied. Youre going to love it here. Jackson, who was 31 in 1903, was undaunted by these conspicuous failures. Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window), Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window), A Sky Full of Adventure at the Balloon Museum, The Right Word Peter Roget and His Thesaurus, Mosquitos - What are they good for? An automobile trip across the continent that will be watched with a great deal of interest will start from this city this morning. Between 1909 and 1975, Ramsey drove across the country Jackson was seated in a gentleman's club when he overheard a discussion at another table about the impracticability of automobiles. When Im writing something, I want to use the perfect word to get my meaning across. Horatio's Drive is the first chapter in our nation's great romance with the road. Dr. Nelson has provided the very latest kind of gasoline machine, large and commodious and 20-horsepower. Proper roads were so few and far between at this point, that there were no maps. One hundred years ago, on May 23, 1903, an eccentric doctor from Vermont named Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car, hoping to become the first . Doctors were outnumbered by blacksmiths and most Americans rarely traveled than twelve miles from home because that was the distance a horse-and-wagon could cover to take them out and back home again in a single day. Im Sheila - a wife, mom to 3, and favorite human of a slightly-neurotic dog. In 1903, Horatio Nelson Jackson, a doctor from Vermont, was in San Francisco with his wife when he made a bet. Interested in having your company's ad featured on Basin & Range Magazine? [17][18], In 1944, Jackson gave his Winton, the Vermont, to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., where it is preserved.[6]. Hi! Director Ken Burns Writer Dayton Duncan Stars Keith David (voice) Tom Hanks (voice) Adam Arkin (voice) Darling SwipesOn our arrival here [I] was much surprised to find a man from the factory with a letter congratulating me and stating that they were willing to place men along the line with supplies at their expense.I have informed them that we have made the trip so far without their assistance & thought that perhaps [we] two greenhorns could do the rest of it. In Cheyenne, Wyoming, the trio took a short break as they waited for more money to come through the wire, and repaired yet another mechanical failure, this time to the wheel bearings. Bud became an efficient watchman and was left in front seat at all stops to guard the car and equipment. used a block and tackle to pull the car out of mudholes. On the first night of the journey they discovered that the side lanterns were too dim. Sidebar ads are available in 125 x 125 and 480 x 60 sizes, in bi-monthly or six month intervals. I am always amazed by the hot air balloon gondolas on display, seeing how small they are while reading, Read More A Sky Full of Adventure at the Balloon MuseumContinue, I dont know what it is about windmills, but whenever I see one of the old classic designs out on the prairie, I just want to stop and take a picture. Even before roads stretched across the nation, well-publicized cross-country automobile trips advertised car manufacturers, promoted political causes, and proved (Hollister Jackson was serving as Lieutenant Governor of Vermont when he died in the Great Vermont Flood of 1927. Its not until they reach Iowa that they finally begin to travel at a decent unimpeded speed, averaging nearly 150 miles per day. ", Bud, wrote Jackson, was "the one member of (our) trio who used no profanity on the entire trip.". Find local businesses, view maps and get driving directions in Google Maps. Copyright20062023,Somerightsreserved. . To commemorate Jackson and Crocker's trip, a rerun of the approximate route in a similar 1903 vintage car will start in San Francisco on June 17 and finish the same day as the original 1903 drive, in New York City on July 26. The canine was quickly fitted with a pair of goggles and, from then on, got second billing only to the "whizz wagon," as one newspaper called the "Vermont. Postcard from the mid-1920s of a scene near Pocatello, Idaho before the road was officially named U.S. Highway 30.; (map on right) Route of Horatio's journey, arriving in Soda Springs June 16, 1903. They were also given a 108-mile (174km) misdirection by a woman so that she could send them to the spot where her family could see an automobile.[6]. [1] Another brother, Hollister Jackson, served as Lieutenant governor of Vermont. more than 30 times. I explained to them that the next stop was twelve miles away and that if they would help us out I would take their baggage in for them. (1) 'Bud,' a stray American bulldog, joined the journey. After 63 days on the road, the expedition reached New York. I feel more confident that I can make New YorkWe are causing a great sensation along the road it is the first machine that has ever gone over these mountains. He is a mighty good man.I am fine and the only trouble is I miss you so.Nelson, We met a red-haired young woman riding along on a white horse. A map of Horatio's route and his 63-day itinerary The Gear After removing the backseat to make room for more gear, they packed the following items to begin the long journey: sleeping bags cooking gear rubber mackintoshes for themselves and the car (remember - no roof, no windshield!) "Fifty dollars says I can drive a car to New York." This was quite a boast for a man without a car or mechanical knowledge. Driving Directions to Omaha, NE including road conditions, live traffic updates, and reviews of local businesses along the way. 5 at three this afternoon, but a message this noon from the train agent says that he has nothing, so it is another day. The state of Vermont was so alarmed that it passed a law requiring every auto to be preceded down the street with a person waving a red flag. In the spring and summer of 1903, Jackson and his mechanic, Sewall Crocker, drove this 1903 Winton touring car from San Francisco to New York City. She extracted the Maxwell from washouts and mudholes with block and tackle, a jack, even fence rails under the wheels. Thanks! Following the war, he became one of the founders of theAmerican Legion, and twice ran forGovernor of Vermont. Have you ever wondered about the first cross-country road trip? Steve Perkins, Executive Director of the Vermont Historical Society, gives us a little background, before launching into the fascinating story of Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson. Last summer I received a letter that had been carried by the Pony Express. We had no trouble in crossing railroad bridges With practice, bumping over bridge ties is no great task. All Rights Reserved. A broken mud guard and a sprung front axle alone attested the hard knocks it had had on its long journey. Here they prepare to light the acetylene gas headlamps. completed the first transcontinental automobile trip, from San Francisco to New York, in 63 days, 12 hours and 30 minutes. My sense of humor gets me through life. I want to celebrate here by getting my new parts. Horatio Jackson's Winton in the Smithsonian. Mr. Murdock did all the driving and even drove for more than twelve hours on a few days, just to cover more distance (just like me on my road trips!). My darling Swipes,Just a line to say that I am still alive Our things arrived this morning & we held divine services in the Blacksmith shop. California to New York. There had to be an easier way to win a $50 bet.