Title
Weekly News November 26, 2007Description
A Guest House at Intervale: This may be of some interest to antique car collectors of long standing. The second Glidden Tour revival in late September, 1947, went through New England from Hartford, CT, to Newport, RI, via New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Portsmouth, NH, and Boston. It was the first “Glidden” in which my father and I participated, and we drove the newly-restored Stanley Models 71 and 735. It was a new touring adventure for both of us, as it was for most of the tour participants.
Our passengers were Clyde E. Simmons (1880-1979) of Washington, DC, and Ralph P. Willis (1882-1981) of Penns Grove, NJ. As you can see, both lived to be 99. Simmons was interested in steamers and later owned at least two Model 740’s and half interest in a Doble. Willis was an old trapshooting friend. Roy Benge (see the News of 10/22/07) went with us for two days, coming home on the train from Hartford, the starting point of the tour itself. Although Roy and I started out in the 735 and the other 3 in the 71, the cold weather soon reversed things so that my father and Willis were in the 735 and Simmons and I in the 71, and so it remained for most of the tour and for the trip home from Newport. The cold weather stayed with us as well.
The New England Inn at Intervale, just southeast of the Presidential Range of the White Mountains, was tour headquarters for the three nights we were there. The Inn was small, however, and some tour members stayed at guest houses and small boarding houses within a few miles of the central location. We stayed at a guest house that had about six rooms of varying sizes. The four in our party stayed in one large room with 4 beds. Rod Blood of suburban Boston, the hobby’s best-known early Packard collector, stayed in a small single room. Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Clymer of Los Angeles, he the publisher of those great early Automobile Scrapbooks, had a room. George Monreau and Jimmy Kyle, both ex-employees of the Stanley Motor Carriage Company, had another room. Blood had a 1912 seven-passenger Packard Six touring, and Monreau, who was with the tour for a couple of days, had his 1913 Model 65 Stanley named McGee. In the evening, we sat around the fire and exchanged stories. What a great experience for a 23-year-old who liked Stanleys and antique cars in general! It was almost like Longfellow’s “Tales of a Wayside Inn”.
I remember particularly Floyd Clymer telling us of becoming an automobile dealer in 1906 at the age of 11. His father was a doctor in Berthoud, CO, and although Floyd never sold Stanleys, he rode many times in the Mountain Wagons from Loveland to Estes Park, and said F. O. Stanley befriended him on several occasions. George Monreau, still working for Fred Marriott at the time, and Jimmy Kyle told of the final years they worked at the Stanley factory.
On one of the days at Intervale, we drove to the Mount Washington Motor Road and parked at the bottom while time trials were in progress on the mountain. “Cannonball” Baker, working for Nash Motors in 1947, was trying for record time on the 8-mile ascent in a stock car. As I recall, his time was something like 25 minutes. F. E. Stanley went up the mountain road in 1905 in just over 22 minutes! Following our stay at Intervale, we drove to the tour’s end at Newport, RI, and then home. We had made 1200 miles with each car and had had no trouble.
Our last public weekend of the year is behind us, and it was a very good one. Although the weather was bright, breezy, and cold, 355 paid on Friday and 373 on Saturday, and we grossed over $7,000. There were 37 extra-special volunteers working each day, and their efforts paid off in a very professional and successful event. Thank you, one and all, for making these events so popular with our visiting public. Some of this translates into new members and meaningful contributions, all so necessary for a growing organization. Thanks, too, for those who helped get ready, even if you were not here on Nov. 23 and 24. Rob and Chevonne Robison, chairs of the event, are to be congratulated on another job extremely well done.
As we prepare for winter, we plan to better organize our work projects and to have refresher classes to implement a new qualifying system for those who operate mechanical equipment. New volunteers wanting to qualify in several areas will have the opportunity to do so through special lectures, one-on-one instruction, and written material and videos. If you are in this category, please ask how you can participate.
We hope to have Alexis I. duPont, from whom we bought the 1901 Mobile steamer, spending an evening or a Saturday afternoon showing us and telling us more about the operation of this early car that he owned for 60 years. It will give us a practical head start on its restoration to running condition. We also plan to modify the railroad turntable to make it easier to operate. We need to move the existing tracks in the shop basement so we can build a third track for storage of our new “Diesel” locomotive, due here quite soon now. We have the work on the Stanley Museum’s Model 70 well under way, and this will continue for several weeks The burner is almost finished for the Model CX, and a new burner pan will be completed for the Model 735. Bill Schwoebel and I have asked Steve Bryce to help us organize and implement some of this work, especially as it pertains to Stanley cars, and he has made a great start in determining what work each car will require in the foreseeable future.
Look for the fall edition of our Auburn Heights Herald in a few days. Rob Robison, Editor, Bob Reilly, Bill Schwoebel, and Mike May put in a lot of time and expertise in making this the publication that it is. And don’t forget to let the Robisons know if you can attend their third annual holiday party, this time on Saturday, December 8, starting at 5:00 P.M., to which ALL MEMBERS of FAHP are invited! They want you to come but they must know by the end of this week. Please phone (302) 239-4096, or E-mail: robscads@comcast.net Thank you, one and all. Tom
