George B. Selden

George B. Selden, born September 14, 1846 in Clarkson, New York, died January 17, 1922 in Rochester, New York, was a lawyer and inventor who was granted the first U.S. patent for an automobile. The idea of a horseless carriage was in the air during George's youth, but its practicality was uncertain. In 1859, his father, Judge Henry R. Selden, a prominent Republican attorney, moved to Rochester, New York, where George briefly attended the University of Rochester before dropping out to enlist in the Sixth U.S. Cavalry, Union Army. This was not to the liking of his father who after pulling some strings and having some earnest discussions with his son managed to have him released from duty and enrolled in Yale. George did not do well at Yale in his law studies, preferring the technical studies offered by the Sheffield Scientific Institute, but did manage to finish his course of study and pass the New York bar 1871 and joined his fathers practice.

He married shortly thereafter to Clara Drake Woodruff, by whom he had 4 children. He continued his hobby of inventing in a workshop in his father's basement, inventing a typewriter and a hoop making machine. Inspired by the mammoth internal combustion engine invented by George Brayton displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, Seldon began working on a smaller lighter version, succeeding by 1878 in producing a one cylinder 400 pound version which featured an enclosed crankshaft with the help of Rochester machinist, Frank H. Clement and his assistant William Gomm. He filed for a patent on May 8, 1879. His application included not only the engine but its use in a 4 wheeled car. He then, in a series of transparent legal maneuvers, filed a series of amendments to his application which stretched out the process resulting in a delay of 16 years before the patent, Patent 549,160, was granted on November 5, 1895, the Selden Patent.

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Shortly thereafter the fledgling American auto industry began its first efforts and George Selden, despite never actually producing a working model of an automobile, had a credible claim to have patented the automobile. In 1899 he sold his patent rights to William C. Whitney, who proposed manufacturing electric powered taxicabs as the Electric Vehicle Company, EVC, for a royalty of $15 per car with a minimum annual payment of $5,000. Whitney and Shelden then worked together to collect royalties from other budding automobile manufacturers. He was initially successful, negotiating a 1/2 of 1 percent royalty on all cars sold by the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, the ALAM. He began his own car company in Rochester under the name, Selden Motor Car Company.

However, Henry Ford, owner of the Ford Motor Company, founded in Detroit, Michigan in 1903, and four other car makers resolved to contest the patent infringement suit filed by Selden and EVC. The legal fight lasted 8 years generating a case record of 14,000 pages. The case was heavily publicized in the newspapers of the day and ended in a victory for Selden. Posting a bond of $350,000, Ford appealed and on January 10, 1911 won his case based on an argument that the engine used in automobiles was not based on George Brayton's engine, the Brayton engine which Selden had improved, but on the Otto engine.

This stunning defeat, with only 1 year left to run on the patent, destroyed Selden's income stream. He focused production of his car company on trucks, renaming his company the Selden Truck Sales Corporation. It survived in that form until 1930 when it was purchased by the Bethlehem Truck Company. Selden suffered a stroke in 1921 and died at 78 on January 17, 1922. He was buried in Rochester. It is estimated he received several hundred thousand dollars in royalties, but, of course, missed out on a potential income of millions.

Based on pages 184-199 of The Mayflower Murderer & Other Forgotten Firsts in American History, Peter F. Stevens, William Morrow, hardcover, 272 pages, ISBN 0688118186. Published simultaneously on Wikinfo.