'This is not in the way of business or advertising at all.  After seventeen years of effort and conviction of its utility, I have learned that it is not fashionable, or that people are not ready for it.'

'Without any patent about it, it will go all day on any good wagon road, carrying ten people at 14 miles an hour, with 70 pounds of steam, the pump on the fire door open, if desired.  One barrel of anthracite coal is required to run at this speed for four hours.  It weighs 3,700 pounds with water and fire to run one hour.  It will go 20 miles in an hour on a good road.  It is perfectly manageable in the most crowded streets.'

Dudgeon Story- continued

    (Ludlam is an old Long Island name in the Oyster Bay area.)

Well, on Friday, 27 Sep 2002, I had the extreme pleasure of visiting said establishment as the guest of proprietor Allen Haight and the Marketing Director, Jim Radcliffe.  For a machinery and mechanism junkie such as I, this was a visit to heaven!  People up there wallow around in 4½-ton objects and gizmos that lift thousands of tons and such all day, and they get PAID for such pleasure!  This goes beyond the purview of a page on a steam auto, so I added it to my Science and Technology page.

Our local historian also stated that our same Richard Dudgeon invented the hydraulic jack; now that I thought I'd have to look into!  The great English engineer of the mid-19th Century, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, built a set of the largest hydraulic rams ever (at the time) to launch my favorite ship of all time, his "Great Eastern", the ship that he started in 1854 and which was too big to launch in 1857 and finally made it to the water in 1858 [see my Naval and Maritime page].  Of course, we now know the steam Dudgeon was the same man who was the hydraulic jack (not Jack) Dudgeon.

The present-day Dudgeon firm now has a History page on which they state {slightly edited} "Richard Dudgeon, Inc. was founded in 1850 in New York City.  In 1851, Dudgeon was granted a patent for a 'portable hydraulic press', a jack that proved vastly superior to screw jacks used at the time."  Well, that sure seems to tally and the firm sure sounds like "our" Richard's!  They now acknowledge their heritage; posting both the painting and the stamp^@ images.

    [Oh, my!  That unprovenanced stamp image sure looks amazingly like my photo, above!]

Richard Dudgeon, the man, was an inveterate tinkerer and natural engineer who also developed the hydraulic jack in 1849 and formed the firm bearing his name in 1850.  Dudgeon was originally at Columbia and Broome Streets in Manhattan (NY), moving to 789 Bergen Street in Brooklyn ca. 1859 (after building the first steamer).  On Richard's death, the firm passed to his grandson, Archibald Dudgeon (William's son, Helen Dudgeon Lee's brother).  In 1970, he moved the firm to Bedford-Stuyvesant and then to Connecticut and from 1972 to1991 it was located in the old Yale & Towne industrial complex in Stamford.  Allen Haight bought the firm from Archie in 1976 and Archie passed away in 1978.  Dudgeon descendants are still stockholders.  Al Haight moved Dudgeon to 1565 Railroad Avenue in Bridgeport ca. 1999.

On 27 Sep 2002, at the invitation of Al and James R. (Jim) Radcliffe, his Marketing Director, I visited the plant, which I found on the first floor front of an ancient factory building facing north on the old New Haven main line; Amtrackers and Metro North zoomed back and forth constantly.  The big trains really shake the ground and the building looks as if it were in danger of imminent collapse, but the front, where Dudgeon is located, is eminently solid, as you can see from these photos of the east wall:

(That perspective came out rather odd-looking!)

(27 Sep 02 photos by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)

That inconspicuous front door hides a wealth of information, know-how, and the most amazing old, new, and reconditioned tools and hardware a mechanical engineer, technologist, or tool buff could wish!  Even the jumble of ancient test rigs in the parking lot are in workable order and can be quickly rehabbed and sent out for use.  Dudgeon sells and leases all sorts of hydraulic jacks, presses, and load cells, they design and sell complete jacking systems, and they also distribute SPX Powerteam and Enerpac products (you know, the SMALL stuff you don't sweat!).

Al was kind enough to take down a photo of an old Dudgeon steam press and allow me to photograph it; unfortunately, the lighting was not as good as I thought and the digital must have focused on a reflection instead of the image itself, so you can only see a blurry copy here (sorry):

(27 Sep 02 photo by and © 2002 S. Berliner, III - all rights reserved)

I really should warn those with a serious interest in the Dudgeon automobile that there are many links out there to one Edward Dudgeon, who was in the U. S. Navy from 1942 through 1945, and who testified about the alleged disappearance of the destroyer USS Eldridge, DE 173, from Philadelphia harbor, due to mysterious devices brought on board under extreme security precautions, and the alleged disappearance of two sailors from a nearby tavern!  New reference link (23 Oct 00).  Oh yeah!  Herr Gauss would turn over in his grave!

Waterman and Gibson had the Dudgeon on display at the Larz Anderson Auto Museum (The Museum of Transportation) in Brookline (Boston area), Massachusetts, at one time [I visited the museum on 15 Apr 2004 and it is a gem!].

Anent this last, on 11 Dec 2006, a kind soul, Tom Jennings, sent me a link to the Modern Motor Car for May, 1950, Page 18, on his site, where I found this story:

"Antique Auto Show, Boston, April 15 to 23 -

Oldest vehicle in the show was the Dudgeon, a steam-driven outfit more related to traction engines than to cars, which was built in 1866.  The passengers sit on flat watertanks arranged lengthwise of the vehicle and rest their feet on the boiler!  The two steam cylinders act directly on the rear axle, and the wheels are of solid cedar with iron tires.  The famous 1896 Duryea was rhe only other pre-1900 exhibit.

1866 Dudgeon  \   /  G. H. Waterman and
1896 Duryea   /   \  K. H. Gibson, E. Greenwich, R. I."