One illustrious gentleman, Croft by name, patented a machine in the United States, August 21, 1877.[4]
The Croft machine.
In the Croft machine a pair of bars held in the hands are used with which to propel by pushing against the ground, instead of using the legs as in the Johnson. By supporting the body entirely free from the roadway, Croft takes a step in advance of Johnson, but he still retains his propulsive power by means of oscillating devices having contact with the ground, and in this respect might be said to use a pair of mechanical legs. He combined a walking method with that of rolling, as was the case with Johnson and Baron Draise, but he seemed to think a mechanical extension to the arms a better medium through which to pass his energy than nature’s own devices for that purpose. Quite a number of inventors have gone astray on this question of the power of the arms in these manumotors. No doubt the arms could be made to help, but our present physical development suggests the legs as better; especially if one or the other plan is to be used alone. True, the Croft machine could use the entire body, as in the case of a man shoving a flat-boat or scow upon the water, but the inventor’s engraving does not show any such effort as necessary. What a pity that we did not have a single-track machine, propelled by the Croft process, between the time of Johnson and Lallement; how nicely it would have helped us out in our chronological development. We of the wheeling fraternity may, however, take a crumb of comfort from the fact that the two bicycles, or balancing machines, did make their appearance in respectful logical order.
In naming the Bolton, Johnson, Lallement, and Croft machines, I have not taken the trouble to ascertain whether they all were the very first machines of the kind in the art, nor would it matter whether they were or not, unless it could be shown that others were of equal prominence. We should not recognize mere vagaries as an advance in the art: the above gentlemen patented their machines, and it is therefore reasonable to suppose that they were real workers, and not simply chimerical characters flitting about in the minds of recent explorers. The famous Draisaine is worthy of mention, but our man Dennis will answer all purposes of illustration. Galvin Dalzell is now reputed to have been the first to raise himself from the ground on a single-track machine, and back as far as 1693 one Ozanam, a Frenchman, is said to have made a four-wheeled vehicle of the Bolton type, but driven by the legs.
Blanchard, about 1780, did some work in connection with the subject, and one Nicephore Niepse, we are told, made a machine of the Johnson type about the year 1815. For further information on this subject, see “Sewing-Machine and Cycle News,” in Wheelman’s Gazette, September, 1888.
In quite a recent edition of The Wheel the editor gives us a little foretaste of a book to which we look forward with interest. In it he mentions improvements by Gompertz in 1821, Mareschal, Woirin, and Leconde as having worked on cranks in 1865, and David Santon as having brought a wheel to America in 1876.
L. F. A. Reviere, of England, is said to have made the large front and small rear wheel; C. K. Bradford, of America, the rubber tire; E. A. Gilman, of England, anti-friction bearings, and A. D. Chandler, of Boston, is mentioned as an importer and rider of 1877.
[4] This is not a misprint for 1777.