As the work moved nearer completion Frank realized that the final tests would have to be conducted on roads made icy by falling snows. He had considerable doubt whether the narrow iron tires would have enough traction to move the phaeton. Soon he devised an expedient for this situation, communicating to Charles on December 22 that he was "having Jack Swaine [34]
Figure 29.—Mr. and Mrs. Frank Duryea examining vehicle in
the Smithsonian Institution before restoration.
January 18, 1894, was a day of triumph for Frank Duryea. Writing Charles about his success the next day he said, "Took out carriage again last night and gave it another test about 9 o'clock." The only difficulty he mentioned was a slight irregularity in the engine, caused by the tiny leather pad in the exhaust-valve mechanism falling out.[35] Speaking of this trip, Frank recalled in 1956:
When I got this car ready to run one night, I took it out and I had a young fellow with me; I thought I might need him to help push in case the car didn't work.... We ran from the area of the shop where it was built down on Taylor Street. We started out and ran up Worthington Street hill,[36] on top of what you might call "the Bluff" in Springfield. Then we drove along over level roads from there to the home of Mr. Markham who lived with his son-in-law, Will Bemis, and there we refilled this tank with water. [At this point he was asked if it was pretty well emptied by then.] Yes, I said in my account of it that when we got up there the water was boiling furiously. Well, no doubt it was. We refilled it and then we turned it back and drove down along the Central Street hill and along Maple, crossed into State Street, dropped down to Dwight, went west along Dwight to the vicinity where we had a shed that we could put the car in for the night. During that trip we had run, I think, just about six miles, maybe a little bit more. That was the first trip with this vehicle. It was the first trip of anything more than a few hundred yards that the car had ever made.
Now Frank could give demonstration rides with the motor carriage, hoping to encourage more investors to back future work. Cautious Mr. Markham finally got his ride, though Frank had to assure him that the engine of the brakeless vehicle would hold them back on any hill they would descend. The carriage on which he had spent so many hours was to see little use after that. Its total mileage is probably less than a hundred miles. Little additional work is known to have been performed on the carriage after January 1894; there is, however, a letter[37] Frank sent his brother on January 19 which tells of contemplated muffler improvements. Another message was dispatched to Charles on March 22, mentioning the good performance of the phaeton on Harrison Avenue hill.[38] This was possibly the last run of the machine, for no further references have been discovered.
Frank spent the months of February and March in preparing drawings, some of which accompanied their first patent application,[39] while others were to be used in the construction of an improved, 2-cylinder carriage. Work on the new machine started in April. The old phaeton, in the absence of used-car lots, was put into storage in the Bemis barn.[40] Later, on the formation of the Duryea Motor Wagon Company in 1895, it was removed to the barn of D. A. Reed, treasurer of the company.[41] There it remained until 1920, when it was obtained by Inglis M. Uppercu and presented to the U.S. National Museum.