Horatio's Drive

Motor, Sep 2003 by Nash, Tom

When MOTOR began publishing in 1903, only about 12,000 motor-driven cars were in existence, and there were only some 150 miles of paved roadway, all within city limits. Only 5% of the remaining 2.3 million miles of roadways were "improved" with gravel beds. America was still mostly a vast continent of small towns, connected by paths across privately owned property. These unmarked byways had no signs to help travelers navigate, as they were usually only traversed by locals, who needed no directions.

Yet in that year, 100 years ago, a 31-year-old physician from Burlington, Vermont, dared to become the first person to make a motor car trip across America. Spurred on by a $50 wager, Dr. Horatio Jackson spent more than $8000 to win the bet. Accompanied by Segall Crocker, a bicycle mechanic who came in handy during numerous breakdowns, and Bud, a goggle-wearing bull-dog, Jackson drove his two-cylinder Winton (one of 850 made that year) from San Francisco to New York in 63 days, beating the wager limit of 90 days. During the journey, entire towns stopped daily activity so inhabitants could see a "horseless buggy" in person, the first such sight for all but a very few.

Jackson's exploits are chronicled in Horatio's Drive, a book by Duncan Dayton, based on photos and letters from Jackson to his wife. To experience Jackson's cross-country drive, watch "Horatio's Drive," a documentary by Ken Burns, scheduled for Oct. 6 on PBS.