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H2Onut
01-04-2003, 04:23 PM
Here, where I grew up:

There may be more outboards per person on Grosse Ile than anywhere in America, but surprisingly few people know that it was invented here. Island resident Cameron Waterman successfully tested his invention on the ice-filled Detroit River in February, 1905. He formed the Waterman Marine Motor Company and eventually manufactured and sold up to 1,000 a year. The Waterman family had moved to Grosse Ile in 1879. Cameron's father was a wealthy gentleman farmer whose property extended along West River Road on both sides of Horsemill. Cameron's brother, Ira, undoubtedly assisted with testing and marketing the motor. The sons preferred city life, however, and the family moved back to Detroit.

Sue Ashley, a Historical Society board member and Museum volunteer wrote this account of one of the most important inventions of all time.

Ever since I can remember (and even before), my father owned a boat with an outboard motor. I was `driving' it from the time I was three years old and spent many fun-filled days fishing, water-skiing, joy riding. We always owned Evinrude motors because my father found them to be very dependable and he always admired Ole Evinrude whom he thought had invented the outboard engine.

While browsing through a gift shop in Frankfort, Michigan, we came across Jeffrey Rodengen's 1993 book: Evinrude, Johnson, and the Legend of OMC and purchased it for my father. In this book we found credit given to another inventor:

If Ole Evinrude had ever seen an outboard motor before he assembled his first, more than likely it was a product of another inventor, Cameron B. Waterman. As Waterman said: In the winter of 1905, with chunks of ice, we drove a boat across the river with our motor. Then we knew it would work…In 1906 we made 25 of these motors and sold 24. In 1907 we sold 3000 and about the same number in 1908. Then in 1909 when the Evinrude Motor hit the market, our sales doubled, because that convinced people that we had a practicable machine and not a silly gadget.

While visiting the Grosse Ile Historical Museum, I learned of Cameron Waterman's first outboard engine. When I started working at the Museum, I read through the Waterman file, fascinated by the series of accidents leading to this invention that brought so much pleasure to my childhood years; even today, we own a boat with an Evinrude engine propelling it.

Cameron Waterman's own account of accidental discovery: In February 1902, I ordered a motorcycle that was delivered months later; I rode it until late fall. In September 1903, I removed the engine and hung it over the back of a desk chair in my room to clean and overhaul it. It was a four cycle, air-cooled motor that weighed about 20 pounds. It occurred to me that I could hang it on the transom of a rowboat, attach a propeller to it, and drive a boat. If I hinge the engine to the back of the boat, it could be used to steer as well as propel it. Then in my mind, I provided it with a tiller and mounted a gasoline tank (idea from an oil lamp base) near the tiller to make the whole a self-sufficient unit.

One final idea was to allow the engine to tilt up to a horizontal position to protect it in the absence of a keel or skeg.

All of these features were made into a series of sketches…and provided the bulk of information for the patent application that I filed in 1905. After graduating from law school I worked for a firm that specialized in patents. When I showed my sketches, they asked me, "Have you made one yet?"

I took my drawings to a machine shop in Detroit to a friend who agreed to build it if I would get the motor cycle engine. I wrote to Glenn Curtiss and got a three-horsepower, four-cycle engine.

In February 1905, we took our working model to Grosse Ile in the Detroit River and attached it to a 15ft. steel rowboat. Although the river was full of ice cakes, the try-out was a complete success except for the fact that once a piece of ice got caught between the chain and sprocket causing the chain to run off the sprocket. We rowed ashore to replace the chain. That day someone in our party called it an "outboard motor."

We formed the Waterman Marine Motor Company, built several experimental models and then 25 models to see how they would sell. By 1907-08 we built 800-1000 models per year. Our motto: "Make a motorboat of any boat in 5 minutes." We sold our business in 1917, as there were 8 firms in the business.

In the Dossin Marine Museum on Belle Isle is that original model we launched at Grosse Ile…or part of it. The motor and shaft. Other parts are missing.

In 1906, the Waterman "Porto" appeared the product of a Detroit Company, and still a favorite among Michigan Collectors. Waterman Marine Motor Company was set up and owned by Detroit Attorney C.B. Waterman. The Porto was a two-horsepower gas powered motor _ first to be given the name outboard and first to be mass-produced. The Waterman displayed characteristics of the modern outboard including a drive shaft vertical to the water's surface, also water-cooled. Made of cast iron, it weighed too much and vibrated excessively and could be lethal when placed on a boat that was too lightweight. Without a mechanical starting device, one had to manually turn the flywheel with a wooden handled crank, once started the wooden crank was dangerous if knuckles were in the way as it rotated rapidly; with no neutral gear, when the engine started the boat took off! Even at 3 to 4 mphs, it took some skill to leave a busy dock.

When asked why his 1907 patent hadn't protected him against competition, Mr. Waterman explained:

I never had a basic patent because I couldn't get one, and neither could anyone else. That was because way back in 1883, a fellow whose name I forgot stuck a small steam boiler on the back of a boat, used a propeller, and was given a U.S. patent on what he called an outboard motor. It never worked and never was produced but the issuance of that patent prevented anyone else from getting full protection.

Waterman said (in1950) the Detroit Post Office still carries his Fort Street office as the forwarding address of the Waterman Marine Motor Co. I've only had two letters in the last several years, he said. One was from Panama and the other from Alaska. One asked for a new cylinder casting and the other for a new crankshaft _ for Porto motors I made away back in the early years of the century, so I guess at least two may still be running.

The Kiekhaefer Co., Manufacturer of Mercury Motors, invited Waterman to be their guest at the New York Boat Show in 1950, honoring him as the inventor of the first outboard.

The Johnson Motor Company took over the Waterman and in 1972, celebrating their 50th anniversary, sent out a call for any of the original Watermans _ of the first ten manufactured, four were located, two in running condition, one still being used. Until the 1920's the outboard was used by loggers, commercial and sport fishing, in New England, used for lobstering and all across the country by yacht tenders.

Ole Evinrude of Milwaukee Wisconsin, in 1909, as the story goes: his best girl, Bess Cary, whom he later married, liked ice cream cones and Ole had to row her across a five mile lake on hot summer days. He vowed he would invent an outboard motor and did.

In an article in the New York Herald Tribune, January 1950, Red Smith stated: There is no evidence that the Evinrude People, who have since, propelled innumerable craft over uncounted nautical miles, ever subscribed to this tale (about Bess Cary's passion for ice cream) in its entirety. They have only claimed that Ole developed the first outboard for mass production.

Mr. Waterman's personal attitude toward ice cream and related products… is not known. His position with regard to rowing is clear; he thinks it stinks and always did, which is why, he says, he invented the outboard motor.

woodco
01-04-2003, 09:22 PM
Thats cool Nut ....... Did ya notice his last name ????

dragonwolfe
01-04-2003, 09:47 PM
At least I do here. Thanks H20nut makes for some very interesting reading.:D

Mark75H
01-05-2003, 10:25 AM
Peter Hunn's "Old Outboard Book" is a very good source of historical information on outboards. I recommend both the second and third editions. There are 2 pages of motors between this motor and the Waterman:

Backfire
01-05-2003, 12:23 PM
Have you ever seen a 1905 Harley Davidson?
Backfire ;)

Ron V
01-06-2003, 11:13 AM
The Antique Outboard Motor Club begins its span of coverage beginning with the year 1866. This was when the first outboard-type device was reported to have been designed. But as far as I know it was a hand-powered device. The 1896 American is about as early as has good documentation that I'm aware of, but very few were made. The Waterman was the first production motor. The phrase "First In Outboards" by Evinrude is a marketing play.....they were the first to be mass marketed, not the first production motor.

25XS
01-06-2003, 08:10 PM
Business historians and and authors of books about antique outboards alike credit American Motors 1896 outboard motor as the first United States outboard motor manufacturer and there is no resistance to this fact amoung the most informed researchers.

My source for the following information is predominantly, "The Pictorial History of Outboard Motors", by W.J. Webb & Robert W. Carrick.

In 1866, Thomas Reece of Philadelphia patented a "man powered" screw propeller with bevel gears, a vertical driveshaft, propeller and propshaft that is basically the same arrangement used today. No record of any manufacture or sale has ever been found for Reece's invention & patent.

That is the really first recorded occurance of a United States application for an outboard motor, but the Russions were truly first with an electric motor driven 28ft boat propelled about 3mph back in 1838 Now THAT is old...

As is still true with any new technology or new application of technology, there were several more versions of Thomas Reece's patented screw propeller after it hit the patent books With various forms of power (including "man power" like Reece's original) a whole bunch of "one off" outboard motors were made.

It was in 1896 that the American Motors Company of Long Island City, New York started manufacturing their "portable boat motor with reversible propeller". It was a version of their stationary gas engine used to provide power to various implements and machines. The 4-stroke gas motor had a single horizontal cylinder, vertical crank & drive shafts bevel gears and horizontal propshaft just like much of Thomas Reece's original patent and very similar to many present day outboards. American Motors was incorporated in April of 1862 and lasted 64 years until dissolved in April of 1924. The manufactured only 25 outboards but stationary engines for other (land) applications was their specialty.

Funny thing... It was a 4-stroke. Very "forward thinking" there, don't you think? Today, I believe the only 4-stroke outboard motor manufactured IN the United States is the new Briggs&Stratton air cooled outboard.

Kind regards,

Tom Brockmeyer