The Charlatan

   Edward Joel Pennington was born in Indiana in 1858. His mechanical abilities were apparent at a young age and by the time he was 13 he was working as an apprentice building wood working machinery. As an adult, he was well known as an inventor and as a promoter of his inventions. He also gained a worldwide reputation as a con man and scam artist who reportedly swindled millions from his investors. Despite his grandiose and fraudulent claims, he unknowingly had a tremendous impact on the future of motorcycling. 

  Among E. J. Pennington's many patents were innovations involving engines, airships, automobiles, and yes, motorcycles. He was a convincing promoter and was quite good at garnering financial backing for his various endeavors. In the early 1890s, like many other inventors of the day, Pennington was working on a design for a motor driven bicycle. He completed and demonstrated a prototype in Milwaukee Wisconsin in 1895.

  Pennington's motorcycle (some say that he coined the phrase, though as we've seen, many were using the term and we'll most likely never know who was the first) was crude, but still an impressive achievement in some ways. It was a simple bicycle frame, modified to fit an engine aft of the rear tire. The engine cylinders were horizontal, parallel to the ground with a rod directly connected to the rear axle, effectively using the rear wheel as a flywheel much like the Hildebrand and Wolfmüller design we've already looked at.

Also like the H&W machine, Pennington used rubber pneumatic tires, but of a much larger "balloon tire" style design to give a smoother ride, supposedly also of his invention. Also like the H&W, his engines had no cooling fins. Apparently, some employed water cooling jackets and, depending upon the size of the engine, others had no need for them. His engines also used a "low tension" electrical ignition system, which often failed to work at all. He used absolutely no type of carburetor, but instead used a crude fuel dripping mechanism, which Pennington actually proclaimed was the reason that his engines had no need for additional cooling. In his own words...

"All fluids take up a vast amount of heat in the change of vapour, and as my engine has no carburettor, but vapourises the charge directly in the cylinder, the fluid in vapourising absorbs the heat the cylinder walls have derived from the last explosion, and thus keeps the heat of the cylinders at a comparatively low point. The charge is exploded only when the effective stroke crank angle is 45 degrees, and previous to the delivery of the igniting spark to the charge, a mingling current of electricity is put through the air and gas in the cylinder, and by virtue of this non-igniting current delivered to the mixture, the heat absorption power or capacity, one or both, of gas in the cylinder is so incredibly augmented that the cylinder temperature can be, and actually is, so greatly lowered that the walls of the cylinders are kept cool to within convenient working limits."

Regardless of his claims, his engine reportedly overheated and seized after running for a short time. And about that "mingling current of electricity", well, at least he was imaginative. 

  Reported speeds for the machine vary greatly. Pennington claimed that it could do a mile in 58 seconds, which would put its speed at a whopping 62 mph (99.77 km/h). Reporters had varying estimates of 35 and 40 mph, with at least one reporter doubting it would run at all. Pennington's machine could supposedly sail through the air for 65 ft, at 57 mph, jumping over rivers.

The day's version of leaping tall buildings in a single bound, as it were. 

  An article of the day described it a little less enthusiastically... 

"The machine work on the Pennington motors is not of a high grade; it cannot possibly rank beyond fair ordinary machine shop practice in any particular; there is nothing modern and nothing 'special' in the way of tools in the shops where these motors were built…"

  Pennington claimed that his engines would run on common paraffin (the stuff candles are made from). To prove it, he demonstrated and tested the fuel with a densimeter. For the demonstration, he switched fuels, using a highly volatile refinement of petroleum... To test it,  he used a falsely calibrated densimeter. You might say that the deck was slightly rigged in his favor.

  Pennington must have been one hell of a salesman. His claims and demonstrations gathered investors. He produced a couple other prototypes, but none that were successful. After gathering financial backing for his enterprise, he sold his patents to the Great Horseless Carriage Company Limited of England, in 1896, for the sum of £100,000. He packed his things and left the country to pursue ventures in England. No motorcycles were produced and none of his investors saw a return on their investments. 

  In 1902, Pennington returned to America and tried to cash in on the blossoming motorcycle industry through an attempt to collect on the use of his patents. Unfortunately, by this time, nobody was fooled. He died in Springfield Massachusetts in the midst of a lawsuit against the Hendee Mfg. Co. for a claimed copyright infringement with their Indian motorcycle. 

  But, despite his bumbling and swindling, E. J. Pennington had one lasting impact on the future of motorcycling. It was completely by chance, or maybe it was fate, but his demonstration of his "motorcycle" in Milwaukee Wisconsin in 1895 had a far reaching influence. He rode his machine down Grand Avenue, just one city block over from the boyhood homes of two 14 year old life long friends. It proved to have a lasting impact on William Harley and Arthur Davidson, who never forgot the thrilling possibilities of what could be accomplished with a little ingenuity and imagination. By the early 1900s they were hard at work trying to perfect their own motorcycle, a goal that they would not only accomplish, but would grow into one of the most successful motorcycle companies of all time.