From Frisco to the Big Apple

Herbert A Merriwether rode his Reading-Standard from San Francisco to New York. It was an adventure he’d never forget.

MY JOURNEY WAS purely a pleasure jaunt, to enable me to see some of the country under agreeable conditions and, incidentally, to subject me to a few hard knocks in travelling from place to place…I left El Paso early one afternoon with San Antonio as my destination. For just 14 miles the riding was good–too good to last. The sand I now encountered was positively the limit. I would push my machine about 25 feet and then spend five minutes in getting back my breath. The wheels sank from four to six inches into the ground. It got so bad that every time I stopped I had to cut down enough brush and wire grass to make a pathway for my machine. I had eight miles of this sort of thing…I decided to try an apparently good wagon route. This proved to be another one of the ‘blind’ sort, ending after eight miles in a woodpile. I returned vowing I would never eave the railroad again…
Near Valentine my forks suddenly broke off from the head of the frame. Strapping the front wheel to the machine I managed to pull the contraption into town, much to the amusement of its denizens…After riding all the afternoon in a veritable storm of dust of dust, and having had to open countless cattle gates crossing the road, I plunged into a stream of water the depth of which I had miscalculated…The road was full of rocks, mosquito brush and cactus…Not only that, but the cold wind penetrated to the very marrow, while the brush and cactus gave me many a scratch and cut…

I had a steady pull upgrade on a roadbed built of heavy crushed granite covered with a coat of oil…I had to maintain a speed of 18mph in order not to be shaken to pieces. While making this speed and watching for the passenger train, now due any minute, I saw not more than 25 feet ahead an open box-cattle-guard. I was going far too fast to think of stopping or jumping before getting to it and imagined myself and machine a tangled mass in this pit. But, swinging my back wheel against the left rail, I simply trusted to luck that I could stay on this two-inch wooden stringer or beam upon which the rail was spiked. I managed to cross, weak and frightened…I had no sooner put my foot on the ground when the train appeared around the curve not 50 yards ahead. I barely had tome to throw my machine from between the rails and jump to one side. I was a nervous wreck and so disturbed I hardly knew what to do; but as darkness reminded me of coming night I dragged the machine back up to the tracks and started off again to go a little more than a mile when I ran over a broken bottle and cut my rear tyre. Happening to have a piece of candle with me I repaired the puncture… I saw a very good road running from the siding and I left the railroad in the hopes it would lead me to a farmhouse where I might spend the night, I soon found to my sorrow that it led away into the hills and I had to return…
The following day I pushed and carried my machine half the time and sustained no less than five punctures…Finally, more dead than alive, I reached Comstock…after an afternoon’s weary journey through driving rain the strain of it all had begun to tell on me and I arrived in Brackettville a sick man…I tried to ford streams of deep cold water, in one of which I managed to pick up a good sized nail with my rear tyre and had the pleasure of finding a puncture in a tyre covered with blue mud…I found much more mud, sand and many streams…I had to push my machine through swampland and water until I arrived in the town of Orange…I returned to the road, nothing more or less than a succession of swamps…I completely lost my way and it was only by chance that, in a dense and swampy woodland, with the rain coming down in torrents, and in a dismal, dank atmosphere, I stumbled upon a lumber camp…
I lost the trail after I had covered only two miles. Just then a terrific thunderstorm broke over me, out in the open, and with absolutely no protection against the ferocious onslaught of the elements. Pushing my machine through and over all sorts of obstacles I blindly plucked my way through the murky darkness, guided only by the flashes of lightning…”
The roads in this part of the state are built of logs and trees in deep, slippery mud, I many places the logs were missing or deep covered with mud and water. I pushed through this for five miles until I came in sight of the railroad. After a six mile journey between the tracks I ran into some new ballast, so soft that I was compelled to balance the machine on one of the rails and thus push it along. It was now growing dark and I was without a light of any kind. I estimated that I had pushed my machine for at least three miles in this manner when my front wheel slipped from the rail and, coming down upin a spike in a cross tie, caused a serious puncture. I managed to light a candle by using the spark plug and a little gasoline but just as I was ready to apply the patch to the tube the candle burned out so I had to finish the job in the dark. With no companions other than the black night, scores of owls, crocodiles and snakes I picked my way for three hours…
That night and all the following day the rain came down in torrents…During the night it began raining again, and the storm soon put a stop to my riding over the red, slippery roads and hills of that section… I returned to the railroad track but even here could make only slow progress into Brookhaven. Here I waited a day for the cessation of the storm, but the rain obstinately refused to stop coming down…My next stop was Crystal Springs where I took the wrong road, and after wasting 24 miles found it advisable to return to the railroad tracks…I struck a large piece of coal and was thrown from my machine. The forks, front rim and handle bars were in a sadly delapidated state. I spent all afternoon making repairs and was again ready to mount by dusk. But the loose coal and rocks were so plentiful that I was soon forced to walk…
At Jackson I spent the day in completing repairs to my badly dmaged forks and front rim…As I was approaching the town of Muckhill a bad fall caused the complete breakage of the left fork side of my machine. I finally managed to make repairs with wood and wire and succeeded in reaching Granada that night…At Oakland I was delayed for a few hours in replacing a broken piston ring…While approaching Senatobia I passed a team going in my direction. The horses became quite frightened but did not run away; I did all I could to help the driver. At Coldwater I was greeted by the town marshall and practically the entire population of the place, and arrested. My machine was taken away from me and brought back to Senobia. Upon my arrival there I was met by this woman’s husband and a mob of rough-and-ready rowdies, most of whom were drunk and intent upon lynching me. I demanded protection and a trial. They managed to get me into a little drug store, but as the crowd outside was growing larger and more and more determined to obtain revenge, I was sneaked out of the rear of the store and through many dark streets to the village jail. Even here I was at ease only for a few moments as the mob, learning of my escape, came running to the jail, quite determined to have me at all costs. The authorities found it necessary to lock me in a steel cell, where I had to remain for the night. In the meantime the sheriff had sworn in a number of deputies and thus obtained a strong bodyguard for me.
About noon the following day several citizens came to my rescue, and upon hearing my side of the story arranged matters so that I was taken out of the jail… You may be sure that I lost no time in getting away from that locality…