MR. CURTISS AND HIS MARVELOUS MOTORCYCLES

Glenn H. Curtiss Museum presents

MR. CURTISS AND HIS MARVELOUS MOTORCYCLES

by Richard L. Leisenring, Jr. Curator, Glenn H. Curtiss Museum

Young Glenn Hammond Curtiss, a native of Hammondsport, NY, first got his thirst for speed while temporarily living in Rochester, NY, and working as a Western Union bicycle messenger in the mid-1890s. Returning to Hammondsport in 1896, he quickly became a champion racer for a local team caught up in the bicycle craze of the era. Curtiss’s life moved quickly on many levels. By 1899, at the age of 20, he was married to a local girl, Lena Neff, and was a new business owner with his first bicycle shop and his own brand of bicycles known as The Hercules. He would open a second shop in Bath, NY, the following year.

However, a new era of transportation was simultaneously starting that would dramatically change his life—The Age of Motorcycles. Always looking ahead with his eye on speed, Curtiss began experimenting on his own motorcycle design with the help of his wife’s uncle, Frank Neff, in the summer of 1900. That October, they publicly announced their one-cylinder machine was about ready for road testing. Using stock engine castings purchased from E. R. Thomas Motor Co. in Buffalo, New York, the first design proved underpowered. More experimentation continued through 1901, with the second machine too heavy and overpowered. Frustrated over the outcome, this prompted Curtiss to design, with the help of his friend Charles Kirkham, a light-weight, high-powered, one-cylinder 2.5hp engine, utilizing ball bearings in the casing, which could attain 40 mph.

In the spring of 1902, his third machine—a tandem— proved extremely successful, which he promptly sold. Encouraged by a number of inquiries, his first sale, and an order from a New Jersey customer, Curtiss went public that July. Forming the G. H. Curtiss Manufacturing Co. and opening a third shop in Corning, New York, he offered for sale not only a complete motorcycle, but also the engine separately under The Hercules name. This success and need to get back into competitive sports prompted Glenn to try his hand at racing motorcycles. His first endeavor on a one-cylinder Hercules took place in Brooklyn, New York, on September 1st, winning a third-place medal and second-place Splitdorf Cup for two races and garnering notice of the racing community.

Seen here is Frank Neff (in 1900) on Curtiss’s second experimental cycle with large, heavy engine. While a poor quality image, it is believed to be the only documentation of their early experiments.

Glenn posed on V-twin used in 1903 races and in 1904 at Ormond Beach

1903 would find Curtiss totally absorbed in the motorcycle industry and racing after dropping bicycles and his retail shop completely. Issuing his first catalog, exhibiting at the New York Auto Show, and extensive advertising soon brought in orders from as far away as California and New Zealand, with twenty cycles and an unknown number of engines being shipped in the first five months, forcing an addition to the G. H. Curtiss Mfg. Co. plant behind his home. He immediately set about making major improvements to the cycle and frame. As a result of what Glenn considered a poor showing in his first racing event, he set out to make a more powerful engine. Glenn’s new creation, the V-Twin—or 2-cylinder—5 hp engine (the first of its kind in America), which powered his new Hercules made its debut in New York City at the New York Motorcycle Club Riverdale Hill Climb on May 30th, easily taking first place out of 20 entrants. Heading directly from there to Yonkers, Glenn took first place medals for both the one-mile and fivemile races at the Empire City race track, thereby vindicating himself for his poor placing the year before. To Glenn’s embarrassment, he was hailed as a hero with a parade and presented a cut glass bowl by the community on his return.

Glenn’s V-Twin immediately became the focus of the industry with other companies looking to add his engines to their cycles or develop their own. For a timeline reference, Indian publically offered their first in 1906 and Harley-Davidson in 1909. Demand for his engines increased, with another new mode of transportation, aeronautics, taking a big interest. Builders of lighter-than-air balloons, known as dirigibles, looked to Curtiss for help. By the end of 1903, Glenn was not only reengineering his single-cylinder and V-Twin for these aeronauts, but also creating the first American V-4 engine for this new sport.

In January of 1904, Curtiss headed to Ormond Beach, Florida, by train with his V-Twin Hercules to enter the newly formed speed trials there. Undaunted

by the competition, Glenn won the mile race in 59 seconds and the 10-mile race in 8 minutes 54 seconds, breaking all previous American records. He would next revisit the New York Hill Climb that May. Finding his 5 hp V-Twin barred by the new 3.5hp limit, he took second place with a one-cylinder Hercules machine while hampered with fuel mixture problems. While continuing to race, Curtiss again expanded the manufacturing plant to meet the increased demand for his products. That November, Thomas S. Baldwin, a celebrity aeronaut, would show up in Hammondsport to meet Curtiss and award him a medal which his engine won at the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. Baldwin used a Curtiss V-Twin powered dirigible to fly the first powered balloon flight and win the St. Louis Exposition competition. A significant change also came that year: after finding another company held the rights to the brand name Hercules, all models afterward were now branded Curtiss. By 1905, Curtiss was spending much of his time traveling to shows, exhibitions, and races. More trophies, awards, and new speed records increased the demand for his machines and engines which brought about more expansions of the plant, an increase in the work force, as well as additions to the product line.

Hammondsport quickly became the center of American aviation experimentation, and by 1906, a variety of inventors sought Curtiss’s help with their designs, looking for the perfect engine. Thomas Scott Baldwin would move his dirigible company to Hammondsport at the same time another balloonist, Charles Oliver Jones, arrived to work with Curtiss as he wanted an engine like no other. For Jones, Glenn designed the first V-8 engine. At this time Leonard “Tank” Waters, a childhood friend of Glenn’s relocated his company, the Motorcycle Equipment Company (MECO originally known as MESCO), from Buffalo to Hammondsport to be connected to the Curtiss Co., using the facilities to produce the Erie Motorcycle and the MESCO/MECO brand motorcycle kits.

Lena Curtiss and Leonard “Tank” Waters on 1906 Curtiss V-Twin with side car.

The interior of the Curtiss shop around 1906. In the image above, Curtiss can be seen to the far left.

To ensure the V-8’s power, Glenn mounted it on a modified motorcycle frame and took it to the Speed Trials in Ormond Beach, Florida, in January of 1907. There he set a world land speed record of 136.4 miles per hour earning him the title of “The Fastest Man on Earth” as well as becoming a world media sensation. It should be noted, this record stood as a motorcycle speed record until 1930. He also set records on his single cylinder and V-Twin cycles. Glenn soon found himself personally spending more time running the business and acting as an engine man for Baldwin and others. He would build the first private dirigible hanger in the U.S. in Hammondsport to accommodate these aeronauts. Curtiss eventually stopped motorcycle racing, allowing others to represent him. Engine production was at an alltime high having received a contract from the War Department for V-Twins as generator motors. It is estimated the company produced between 500 and 600 motorcycle and aeronautical engines that year. Later that November, he would set his first aeronautic record by staying aloft in a motorized Baldwin dirigible for four hours while demonstrating the durability of his engine to the U. S. Army in order to help obtain a contract with them. With all of the publicity focused on Curtiss, Alexander Graham Bell sought out Glenn that May to supply an engine for a flying machine of Bell’s design. Bell soon enticed him to join the newly formed Aerial Experiment Association in late 1907. The flying bug now had hold of Glenn and as they say, “The rest is history.” Soon Glenn set the first publicly announced, officially witnessed, heavier-than-air flight in America on July 4th, 1908, in an aircraft of his design. In 1909 he sold his first aeroplane and won the first International Air Meet in Rheims, France, followed by the first long distance air flight from Albany to New York City in 1910. This was Glenn H. Curtiss’s transition from wheels to wings.

But what of the motorcycle production? From 1907 to 1909, the Curtiss Motorcycle was still extremely popular with riders and agencies all across the U.S. While concentrating more on aeronautical engines, the G. H. Curtiss Mfg. Co. was offering five models including the new, short lived, threecylinder motorcycle in the 1909 catalog. This year the company was reorganized under the new name Herring-Curtiss Company. A pioneer aeronaut, Augustus Herring, joined Curtiss as a partner with an emphasis on “development and manufacture of aeroplanes,” promising the public that in no way would it affect the Curtiss brand motorcycle manufacture. And in fact the newly formed company issued their own Herring-Curtiss motorcycle catalog for 1910. At the same year, Glenn formed another company, the Marvel Motorcycle Company with his childhood friend “Tank” Waters at the head. New buildings to house the Marvel and MECO enterprises (the Erie motorcycle was discontinued at this time) were erected adjacent to the Curtiss Co. and a new one-cylinder engine was designed for the Marvel.

Curtiss on the V-8 before setting the speed record of 136.4 mph

Sadly, 1910 heralded the demise of the Curtiss Motorcycle. The Curtiss-Herring partnership soured and soon dissolved with “little chance for the Curtiss plant being opened as a motorcycle factory” according to one news report. The production of motorcycles and engines on a smaller scale was transferred to the Marvel plant to keep the Curtiss brand name alive and meet existing orders.

1911 saw many changes at the manufacturing facilities in Hammondsport. The Curtiss Aeroplane Company was formed in April and the Curtiss Motor Company a few months later to occupy the existing plant. The new unincorporated Curtiss Motorcycle Company which appeared in May was merged with the Marvel company by December. In the meantime, the 1911 model Marvel and Curtiss motorcycles appeared on the market as one-cylinder machines, the V-Twin being completely discontinued. Sales soon diminished ,and in 1912, due in part to the lack of variety and stiff competition in the growing industry, it would be the last year motorcycle and motorcycle engine production of any kind would take place in Hammondsport. The major emphasis was now fully on aviation in the village. The Curtiss and the Marvel were no longer offered.

Leonard “Tank” Waters would continue operation of the Motorcycle Equipment Company in Hammondsport through 1928 strictly as an accessory supply company. And while there was a HarleyDavidson dealership in the village for a short time in the 1920s and 30s, any connection the village had to the motorcycle industry ceased to exist in its entirety.

While Glenn H. Curtiss and Hammondsport are famous for their major influence in aviation history, it should be noted that when it comes to the motorcycle industry their influence is just as great. For the short 10 years from 1902 to 1912, Curtiss and representatives set world speed records, won countless races and inspired other companies to move on to bigger and better accomplishments. Five brands were produced here: the Hercules, the Curtiss, the Erie, the MESCO/ MECO and the Marvel. Curtiss engines were supplied to several companies to power their brands including the Harry Geer Co. of St. Louis, MO, who even went as far as the purchase and resale of complete 1904 Hercules V-Twin models under their own brand name Green Egg. No doubt, had Glenn H. Curtiss kept his interest in motorcycles on an equal par with his aircraft, several famous brands might not be where they are today.