Arrow Locomotor

Arrow Locomotor from Adolph Moesch 
Another early Buffalo automobile, not sure if this one ever got off the drawing board. From 384 Broadway.

Our guy Henry Bird is the real deal. He’s far more historically significant than I first thought when we stumbled across him. Not only did he build Buffalo’s first horseless carriage, he patented it! I’ve included his patent. In a nutshell, he’s driving around Buffalo in his patented automobile a few months after Henry Ford was driving through Detroit. Good stuff and more to research here .

Source:  1895 Horseless Age 
Picture and brief article on Henry Bird building his third (auto) wagon. The term “automobile” wasn’t mainstream yet.  

Cadillac Motor Co.

This is an absolutely remarkable advertisement for a number of reasons. Cadillac started in late 1902, built from the ashes of the Henry Ford Company. The first cars were the Model A and sold for $750. They were single cylinder 6.5 HP. 

To see a dealership ad with owners' actual cars was unheard of in 1903. To see multiple cars in one location - Buffalo nonetheless - is amazing! For Cadillac aficionados and early brass car enthusiasts this advertisement is unprecedented. We have the owners names to link them to the cars. Great stuff!

The date is somewhat significant as Ford automobiles were just beginning to arrive at the dealerships, only about 20 or so had been delivered nationwide wide at this point. Buffalo had received two Fords at this point with orders for many others. Cadillac was having none of it and letting the public know which was the better $750 car and the battle began, briefly.

Conrad Motor Carriage Co.

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Screenshot from Google books, 1903 Motor World.
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See also: E. & B. Holmes Machinery Co., 59 Chicago St.

Ford Motor Co. - W. C. Jaynes

Long before Wellington Jaynes sold cars he was in the electrical business.  

From the back of his shop he ran a bicycle business that grew so large he had to acquire store frontage for that. He became the largest bicycle dealer in Buffalo and sponsored bicycle races bringing in top talent like Tom Cooper. Jaynes knew another bicycle dealer and race promoter out of Detroit named William Metzger. 

In October of 1901, Jaynes left the bicycle business and bought the Locomobile dealership in Buffalo. A few months later Jaynes would become a Curved Dash Oldsmobile dealer in the Spring of 1902.  

With the help of his friend William Metzger they would put on the first Buffalo Auto Show in 1903.  

What is striking about this piece is that the advertising letterhead makes it clear that Jaynes was also a telephone and time clock dealer as well.

This is a very brief summary of the important role that Buffalo played in the automotive world at the turn of the last century. No, I’m not talking about Pierce Arrow or Thomas, but about the  men who probably did as much for the industry, but are long forgotten by history. 

The first Ford automobile sold in New York State was sold in Buffalo, NY on July 23, 1903, by W.C. Jaynes Automobile Co. on Main Street. Not only was this the first Ford sold in NY,  it was (tied with Ohio ) the first dealer-sold Ford in America, and it went to Dr. Charles Welch of Welch’s Grape Juice. This is wholly appropriate as both Henry Ford and Dr. Welch were non-drinkers.
   
There is so much beyond this, such as Wellington C. Jaynes who was Buffalo's largest bicycle dealer and became Buffalo's largest automobile dealer and went on to become the first president of the National Automobile Dealers Association ( N.A.D.A.),  the people behind those nice little yellow automobile price guides

Wellington C. Jaynes went to Detroit early in the week of May 1903 and visited Henry Ford ( and the Dodge Bros.) and presumably drove the prototype that had just been completed, and ordered 25 cars. 

The advertisement above collaborates the June 4th, 1903 letter from John Anderson to his father asking to borrow $5,000 to invest in Ford Motor Co. stock, the purchase of 50 shares. Mr Anderson was one of the twelve original stockholders of Ford and the original legal counsel, thus having access to Ford's contracts and business model. 

He told his father in the letter "that a dealer from Buffalo" had ordered 25 cars in an effort to convince him to invest, which he did. Oh, and that investment of $5,000 ? Turned into about $14M in eleven years when Ford bought him out. 

So, why did Ford Motor Co. "forget" Wellington C. Jaynes and his significant contributions to Ford, after all he did sell 14 of the first 100 Ford automobiles made? Jaynes had the first dealership Ford sale to Dr. Charles E. Welch on July 23rd, 1903. Jaynes and Henry Ford participated on the first Buffalo to Hamburg automobile tour on July 25th, 1903. Yet the W.C. Jaynes Automobile Co. and later Supply Co. would be forgotten largely to the passage of time. The answer lies buried, literally, in Rochester and can be summed up in one word: "Selden". 

Mr. George B. Selden was the patent attorney from Rochester who held the patent for the gasoline automobile. Still says today on his headstone "Inventor of the Gasoline Automobile" so it must be true...or not. The patent was the basis for the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, ALAM, who collected royalties on every member car produced such as Thomas, Cadillac, Buick, Oldsmobile, Packard and so forth. 

They did not collect from Henry Ford as he didn't believe the patent had any validity. An 8-year legal battle ensued with Ford eventually winning in 1911. When we look closer we find that Wellington C. Jaynes had switched sides, he was not only  friends with E.R. Thomas, Mr. Pierce, but fellow Buffalo Auto Club members and Buffalo Auto Dealers Association. Pierce and Thomas served on the ALAM Board and selling the "enemies" unlicensed brand was unthinkable. 

When Jaynes Automobile sold out and began selling automobile parts in 1906 he expanded into Rochester, NY where he joined the Rochester Automobile Dealers Association ( RADA). At the 1909 Rochester Auto show we can find both Jaynes and Selden selling their respective automobile products. The two store's could be found just 6 blocks apart in downtown Rochester. This lack of loyalty was apparently unforgivable in the eyes of Ford Motor Co. and so after both Henry Ford and Wellington C Jaynes had passed, a decade earlier, there was no one to correct the story of how and who was Ford Motor Company's REAL first dealership.