GASOLINE TESTS on MODEL 'T' FORD by H.A. Cragin, 1923

At various intervals, I've been the recipient of Cragin family memorabilia, photographs and tantalizing paper and other ephemera. There's a small spirit level that's probably 100 years old, along with my father's Boy Scout compass (I truly can't imagine him in the Boy Scouts for long, and I would love to know the circumstances of his membership, but the compass was definitely his). Some objects disappeared. I remember as a child finding and marveling at a small multi-barred pin celebrating five years of perfect attendance in Sunday School at the Unitarian Church in Leominster. It was the most unlikely object my father ever owned. 

Lately, a slim volume surfaced during my rummaging. Bound in green vinyl, the cover is an old lick'em style rectangular label that reads: 

GASOLINE TESTS

on MODEL 'T' FORD

by H.A. Cragin

WPI—1923

The first page, which is a carbon tissue elaborates: 

Road Tests of a Ford Automobile

A Thesis

Submitted to the Faculty 

of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute

for the Degree of Bachelor of Science

in 

Mechanical Engineering

by Howard A. Cragin and Donald McAllister

June 1, 1923

Howard A(lger) Cragin was my grandfather. I am grateful to have dozens of notes and letters from my grandmother, Bertha Beth Church Cragin, but this is the first evidence of my grandfather's writing I have ever seen. And it's actually a really great problem: 

“Introduction:

Much is said regarding the fuel consumption of Fords, but no one seems to know at what speed a Ford should be run to get the most miles per gallon. Some people have said to drive between twenty five and thirty miles per hour while others have said between twenty and twenty five miles per hour but there has been no definite speed set to get the best mileage.” 

Back then, Popular Mechanics was being published, and anyone with a smidge of mechanical aptitude could work on their own car (unlike today). I like the dismissive “some people” and the declaration of the thesis which amounts to: How cheaply can you run a Ford? (That's not the only thesis, as you'll see). 

"As far as we know there had been no published data on the matter, and since we had a Ford which was at our disposal and wished to know what the most economical speed was, we decided to take it for a thesis subject. Since nearly one-half of the automobiles in the United States are Fords, a great saving in gasoline would result if they were driven at the most economical speed.” 

I love it! It's Green before Green! And that's amazing that nearly one-half the automobiles are Fords – I would have thought, in these post-war years, that Tin Lizzies cornered the market. 

To continue: “Of course this is more than one can expect to ever happen, but if there had been some published data on such a subject and it was kept before the public's eye, there are many who would try to drive at that speed. The matter of gasoline consumption is getting to be a foremost question at the present time as it has been estimated that with the present use and increase, we have only enough gasoline to last for from fifteen to twenty years, after which some substitute will have to be used.” 

Don't you love it? The sky was already falling, and people had just gotten a radio into their homes. They could toast their bread, but they had to shovel coal into the furnace to stay warm at night. And my grandfather was musing about when the horseless carriage would need a horse again.

“After we had started work on this thesis subject a suggestion was made to us that we also try to find out if oil could be tested by putting a certain amount in the crank case and using a gallon of gasoline, thus seeing with which oil the car went the farthest. This was kind of a novel method of testing oil, but when it was thought over we figured that the oil which made the car run the easiest would be the oil having the best lubricating properties for that particular type of work, thus better mileage. If the oil which showed up the best in these result were used there would not only be the saving in gasoline, but there would also be less friction in the engine tending to wear out parts.”  

This is another simple proposition, and I love the use of the word “crank case,” which I still hear. Howard's son, my father Donald was a bit of a car snob and during my childhood always had a Morgan sports car he was repairing. These cars were built by hand and were champions at various rallies through the decades, including LeMans. In the photobooks my father kept that preceded my arrival in 1960 there are a number of square, brittle snaps of rallies in New Hampshire with lovingly scrawled  notations about the cars. My dad routinely used the words crank case, gear box, glove box, and windscreen, also “boot” (for the trunk behind the car, versus the storage space in front of a VW, a 1957 model of which was also in our barn, parked forlornly on cinderblocks, growing ever dustier. This VW eventually went to LA, where it was lovingly restored by my relatives). 

But I digress. Howard's thesis must continue! “The best place to have made these tests would have been on a track, where there would have been no hills and the wind resistance would have equallised itself while changing direction in going around the track. We tried to obtain the track at the exposition grounds in Worester, but were unsuccessful, so a road had to be used.”

Here, I must interject again to say WOWIE WOW!!!! They wanted to drive their tin lizzie REALLY FAST around a track and no one would let them do that!! How disappointing!! But wait --- there's a solution. 

“We overcame the difficulties of hills by making the tests all over the same road, and for one set of results all in the same direction with the same driver. This would make a set of comparative results, but of course would not be the true mileage per gallon at the speed which we were running a would have been found on a level track. 

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The problem was to determine on ordinary roads the most ecomnomical speed of a Ford automobile, and to determine whether oil could be tested by the difference in the mileage per gallon of gasoline, using a gallon of different oil in the crank-case for each test, also using the same kind and grade of gasoline. 

DESCRIPTION OF APPARATUS

The automobile used in these tests was an ordinary 1917 Ford roadster with nothing but standard equipment. The carburator was a Holley, as furnished with Fords at that time. 

The gasoline to be used during a test was carried in two one gallon tanks mounted on the dash as shown in this photograph. A copper tube led from the bottom of each of these in which was a petcock so that gasoline could be drawn from either or both tanks at once. The two tubes cme together a short distance below in a Y-connection from where it went to the carburetor. Each tank contained a float which was attached to a piece of wire, that went up thru the top of the can, therefore giving us an idea of the amount of gasoline left in the tank.” 

Readers: There is no way a carbon of a photostat from nearly a century ago  is going to have the crispness we want of this TOTALLY HORRIFYING UNSAFE SET-UP. Suffice it to say, having the tanks between driver and engine didn't seem to obstruct the view through the windscreen. 

“A Stewart speedometer was also mounted on the dash to determine the speed at which we were running.” (this means a speedometer probably wasn't part of the basic equipment of a 1917 Ford roadster). Before making any tests this speedometer was calibrated so that we know our true mileage and true speed. A description of the calibration of this instrument will be given later.”

He goes on to describe how they carried EVEN MORE GAS in a can in the car and that two kinds of oils were purchased: Mobiloil “E” and Crew Levick. (Gee, where can ya get some Crew Levick for the crank case these days??) “Neither of these were obtained from a salesman, but were bought in the city from a retailer so that no special oil would be given us in order to give extra good results.” (I love this – this means that the two lads either assumed that their experiment was widely known to the public, or, more likely, that they chatted about their plan while buying their oil). 

“It was desired by the man who suggested the oil testing that we take temperature readings of the water in the radiator before starting a run and try to have the temperature very nearly the same at the beginning of each test. An ordinary thermometer was used for this.” 

The thesis describes the selection of the test site: “a road in East Brookfild that is made of cement and is pradctically level and absolutely straight for over a mile. We went out to this road equipped with a one hundred foot steel tape, selected a prominent marker then measured off a mile. The mile happened to end where there was another marker.” 

They then started cruising at speeds “ranging from ten to 35 miles per hour and obtained a calibration curve which came out when plotted, as a straight line.. . . Two sets of these runs were made and the results averaged.

They guessed the most economical speed of a Ford would be found between 25 and 30 miles an hour, and then made further “runs” on a state road between Worcester and Fitchburg, by Leominster (I'm thinking this might be 140, but could be wrong). They had some troubles with some tests, like a piece of wood getting into the gasoline and going through to the carburetor. They changed roads and selected one recently “tarred and sanded” so high speeds weren't possible. 

The remainder of the thesis is charts and graphs on what the actual miles per gallon were. I am in awe of my grandfather's expertise (and that of his partner). He also plotted what the carburetor settings were, and what weight of oil was used. I thought about typing all this up – and I may well in the future – but I went online to see what a 1917 Model T looked like and . . . 

I fell in love. I once owned a 1964 Volvo which I drove in LA for my time there. Bakelite dashboard, radium green illuminators, rich smell of mold in the horse-hair seats. It was LOUD and a car that was cool to drive except when you were stuck in traffic because that little box got hot. 

But a 1917 Model T is adorable. With its crank in the front, and it's squeeze-style gear shifter, plus the in-your-face windscreen (which I believe you can take down), this is the next car I want. They seem to go for around $10 grand, although my experience with vintage cars and owners motivated to sell is that a fist full of hundreds is usually convincing enough. 

Anyway, back to the ...

CONCLUSION

This thesis really did bring out some results as to the most economical speed of a Ford automobile. We did not expect to get such a variation in the mileage per gallon as is seen from the curves at twenty and at 30 miles per hour. The ordinary way for a man to run a Ford when he wants fuel economy is to adjust the carburetor all the time. In this way wonderful results have been obtained. We did not do this because we wanted to get the results as an ordinary man would drive who never thought about the carburetor. To do this we adjusted it before making a set of runs and left it that way without touching it even for starting. It would have been interesting to determine the direction of th curves beyond the limits which we set, but this is beyond our power as we had to comply with traffic conditions and could not use an excessive speed. If any one takes this subject for a thesis again, we recommend that he try to obtain the use of the Narragansett Speedway in Providence. That has been used for thesis before and would bring results much more accurate than we obtained. 

The main object of our oil testing was to see if such a method would show results. As we have stated previuosly, we obtained results which showed a difference for different oils and they are consistent. It would be quite a problem to carry this along further and to see to what extent this method might be relied upon. This method does not determine whether an oil will stand up under running conditions, but it does determine what oil is the best for the first hundred miles. Oil is usually used in a car for from five hundred to one thousand miles. Therefore, to really learn about an oil by this method, we should take two samples, one new sample and one which has actually seen service in an automobile crank-case. If an oil was then shown to be better by these tests we should make some standard test for lubricating qualities to see if the oil thus determined to be the best is the one which would really cause the least friction and wear on the engine parts, as that is the main object of lubrication. 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The writers wish to acknowledge the assistance and advice offered by Prof. C.A. Read. 

I went onto the WPI web site and was happy to see there are a variety of female professors in the sciences. But no information on Prof. C.A. Read. 

This entry is in honor of my brother Harold Jonathan Krikor Cragin's birthday! Happy birthday Hal!

Addendum: 

Margaret Anderson, archivist at WPI wrote a friend whom I'd alerted that "Carleton A. Read was appointed Professor of Steam Engineering at WPI in 1908.  He was born in 1868 and graduated from MIT in 1891.  He was an instructor at MIT until 1899, then was a Prof. of Mechanical Engineering at New Hampshire State College until he came to WPI.

The article in the Journal upon his retirement in 1933 does not say a great deal more about his work at WPI, but does say “On July 1 he concluded an uninterrupted period of twenty-five years as professor of steam engineering.  During most of that period he has also been superintendent of heating and power for the college plant.”

There is also mention of his doing research on smoke."

This sounds like a man I'd like to study with. The fact that he encouraged two students to do a project as hands-on as the Gasoline Test definitely speaks well to his character -- also, that the thesis got more complicated (involving the oil, and changing the carburetor speed) as they went along. Cragin and Wilkins Sheet Metal Company in Leominter specialized in making boilers and pipe fittings. This is a side of my family that I really knew very little about. Until two years ago, when I was elected to the Fitchburg School Committee. I am chair of the Building Needs Subcommittee so I have seen every mechanical room in our district and also heard people speak knowledgeably about replacing "two Smith 450s with a Smith 128" and have a mental/fiscal picture of what that means. I never knew my grandfather but I would LOVE to talk to him about boilers now! And to Prof. Read about smoke....

The sayings of Chairman Donald

My father was Donald Howard Cragin (1931-1996). He was a newsman who also held various political jobs on the state and federal level. Always colorful, highly memorable, he was a font of commentary, collected and invented. Among his observations:   

People will tell you more about themselves the first time you meet them than they will at any subsequent meeting. (This in my experience -- as a newspaper person and advisor -- is always, always true. I seldom say much about myself when I meet someone because I can usually tell they're brimming over with that desire to sharrrrrrrre).

When you send a photograph to a newspaper, always send a horizontal rather than a vertical. That way, you get two columns instead of one. (Said to family friend Nat Segaloff, back when they met. Nat was a publicist for Columbia Pictures I think, and my dad covered film for the Boston Herald Traveler. Nat wrote this to me after my father died).

You need two people to trim a tree. One to cut the branches, the other to evaluate how it's going. (I've never cut tree branches because there was always someone more eager to use the saw, but this makes sense).

People never look up. (Said on numerous walking trips around Boston, where he spent the last 20 years of his life. He was always pointing out cornices and roof detail, and second-story businesses).

Don't bury the lede. (Yeah, not original, but he said this to me a lot on the rare times I'd let him look at my drafts. I learned.)

If you take ice cubes, empty the entire tray and refill it. This was religiously observed and the assumption is always that you are going to use all the ice cubes. I remember the old aluminum metal tray with the pull-back lever that (eventually) loosened the cubes with a lot of ice chips. My father was not an ice-chips-in-the-beverage person. Actually, he preferred his scotch unwatered, and a stack of cubes in the tumbler for G&T (always in season the moment the temps went about 40 degrees). Anyway, I remember early on in my marriage dutifully refilling the ice tray at my in-laws and my mother-in-law thanking me profusely for my thoughtfulness and my automatic response: my father drilled it into us that you refill the tray. 

Two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. (As someone who trafficked in information he took great delight in giving "teasers" to green Boston Globe reporters after he got his job as Public Information Officer for the Registry of Motor Vehicles.)  My father was, and is, the 

only person I know who loved going to the registry. We all had low-number plates on our cars and it was a sad day when my aunt Jean moved to New Hampshire and surrendered 7K3. I would have taken it except that the plates on the two cars in this household both end in RX, which is also cool. I know my father would have agreed. Besides, my mother still has 92286.

my dad would have hated this plate....

Cragin longevity

My friend Wes Eichenwald wrote that he liked these pages, which was fun, and then sent different links. I poked around one of them and found this:
http://www.ancestry.com/facts/cragin-life-expectancy.ashx

Are Cragins longer lived than others? My grandmother Bertha "Beth" Church Cragin certainly was. She lived at North Hill in Natick from the month the cement dried until her 99th year. Always correct, always in a skirt and hose, perfectly mannered, she set a great example for me and my Cragin Cousins as someone who was tough as nails and smooth as silk. I miss her a lot and learned a lot about grace under pressure from her example. And I'm very glad I have so many cards and letters (one advantage of leaving home young). She had a great way of referring to "that darling old lady" across the elegant dining room, well into her 90s. I started seeing people 20 years younger than my grandmother as older than my grandmother and Grammiebeth was highly skilled at identifying those with more years than herself -- always in a truly warm and admiring way. I remember her at 98 talking about "that sweet old one" over there, who'd just celebrated 100 years.

Okay, my grandmother was born a Church and her mother and father were Scottish (though from Lancashire, I think they'd moved to work in the mills). So she's a Cragin because she married one, but she still counts in the longevity sweepstakes.

On the other hand, there's the example of my great-grandfather Alger Cragin, who began Cragin and Wilkins Sheet Metal in Leominster in 1901 (I think). He died young, and the story was he fell out of an apple tree and broke his neck on the stone wall below.

Another tragic story, although equally foreign to our modern sensibilities (as is the death of Alfred who spent way too much time fooling with gun powder). This may seem exotic to you because if you've gone apple picking anytime in the past 20 years you'd be hardpressed to even climb an apple tree, let alone fall out of one. Modern trees have been grafted into low gangliated fruit-bearing branches. Those old-fashioned apple ladders, that taper near the top, are truly antique. No, if Alger was picking apples today, he'd just walk around the tree.

"Under the Snow" by Josephine Eaton Cragin

I thought about waiting until winter to run this, but decided to keep the Josephine information consistent. Here's a poem that appeared in the June Godley Cragin book.

"Under the Snow"

Over the snow fields, piled so high,
Spring-like cloudlets are drifting by;
Under the snow-fields far below,
Where the elves and the fairies come and go,
Wonderful things are being planned
None but the fairies can understand,
Far down below
Under the snow.

Slumbering, slumbering, under the snow,
tiny grass-roots are lying low
How can they tell so wrapped in death,
It is almost time for the south wind's breath?
How do they know, in the brown earth deep,
When to wake from their wintry sleep?
How do they know,
Under the snow?

Silvery, musical, mountain rill,
Once so restless, but now so still,
Bound by the ruthless Ice-kings chains,
Longing, waiting for April rains;
Crystal brook! It will wake ere long --
Wake to the thrill of the bluebird's song,
Murmuring low
Under the snow.

Hasten, sunshine, and balmiest breeze
Pity the plaint of the leafless trees;
Quicken the mystical life below,
Till leaf buds burst and maples glow,
And the willows don their drab and gray,
Mute little Quakers in sober array,
Oh, the life below,
Under the snow.

* * *
I actually liked this better once I typed this out. She's reliant on that Longfellowesque rhythm that was so popular and keeps the pace clip-clopping along. In her day, a good blizzard would definitely isolate people so her fancies (from fairies to grass roots) are definitely romantic. The poetry of James Whitcomb Riley (who lived in Westminster, the adjoining community to where she lived in Fitchburg) also had a seasonal bias.

Now I wonder if she was personally acquainted with Caroline Mason Atherton, the best known poet of Fitchburg? I know from reading back (I mean, wa-a-ay back issues of the Sentinel -- like 1864-1900 about 10 years ago) that locally-produced poetry was always part of tha publication, but was there some gathering place or occasion that the folks who wrote verse got together? I think of Emily Dickinson, hovering in her room. Though well-to-do, there was plenty of housework that fell on her shoulders and I always thought that some of the quickness of her verse had everything to do with stolen moments and frequent interruptions.

From the pages of the Proceedings of the Fitchburg Historical Society, "The Verse Writers of Fitchburg"

A little bit of online investigation turns up a cache of Josephine E. Cragin information. I have put my archivist partner, Mr. Liberryman onto tracking down other Josephine poems. She evidently cranked them out for The Congregationalist. And we found that in the 19th century, publications entitled "The Congregationalist" are about as common as whale-bone corsets. So it might be a while until we have more Josephine verse, although I did find another poem in the Godley Cragin compendium. This is from "Proceedings" . (read at a meeting of the Society, October 17, 1898)

Another Fitchburg writer, "who in the love of Nature holds communion with her visible forms," is Mrs. Josephine E. Cragin. The hills, the mountains, the woods, the flowers and trees, all furnish inspiring themes for her verse and song.

Mrs. Cragin, daughter of Thomas S. and Martha (Downe) Eaton, was born April 7, 1845, in West Fitch- burg, in the house where she now resides, and where she has always lived except the ten years following her marriage in 1875, during which time she resided in Royalston. Her sons are the sixth generation which has lived in the same house, now about 110 years old. From the grammar school in Fitchburg, Mrs. Cragin went to the academy in Henniker, N. H., in which place her uncle, Rev. J. M. R. Eaton, was for many years pastor.

Many of her poems have from time to time been published in the Fitchburg Sentinel, and some have been copied in other papers, notably the Congregationalist. Her salutation to Wachusett, entitled "To My Mountain," is a poem of six stanzas, three of which will show her appreciation of its never-failing inspiration:

As morn by morn, when the stars grow pale,

I turn to my window to greet the day,
I hail thee, monarch of all the vale,

Touched with the Orient's earliest ray;
Proudly uplifted, thy kingly crest,
Emblem of safety and strength and rest.

When summer twilight shadows throng,

And the pines loom dark on the eastern hill;

In the lingering daylight the sparrows' song
Gives place to the call of the whip-poor-will;

Then I almost fancy I hear the breeze

That circles among thy swaying trees.

And when sometimes the mists hang low,

And thy faintest outline I cannot trace,
Thou wert never nearer than now, I know;

Steadfast and sure thine abiding place,
A lesson of trust thou teachest me;—
I believe, though I may not always see.

Other poems, severally entitled "The Birches," "The Golden Rod," "To a Willow," "My Riches," "Under"the Snow," "Yellow Foxglove," and "My Pines," all are rhythmical and show a keen appreciation of the beautiful in nature.
* * *
Alfred would have died three years before this was published, but it's good to know Josephine had the solace of faith. Will continue this soon...

Alfred Cragin, Killed by the Explosion of a Cannon

Every fourth of July, I think about Cragin Cousin Alfred. I found news of his death on a July, 1895 front page of the (Fitchburg, Mass.) Sentinel years ago when researching Eleanor Norcross. My copy is totally gray, so here's a transcription (by the way, this gets quite graphic and gory):
"Alfred, the 13-years-old son of Mr. and Mrs. C.W. Cragin, met with a frightful death at his home on Franklin road, West Fitchburg, Thursday afternoon, by the explosion of a cannon. All the morning the young fellow had been celebrating with the cannon which was simply an axle box from an old wagon wheel, with one end plugged up."

Okay, me again. You have to applaud the lad for having that Cragin farmer-mechanic ability to adapt a tool. But celebrating all morning? Let's continue...

Shortly after 2 o'clock in the afternoon, the boy took the cannon just across the road from the house and placed it, loaded, on a stone. In lighting the fuse a spark dropped in the powder and a frightful explosion followed. His two brothers were witnesses of the scene from the doorway of the house, and running over found him lying with his forehead crushed in and his brains oozing out of the wound. It was a terrible sight and the effects on the young lad's mother, who rushed to the spot immediately can well be imagined. Dr. Pierson was summoned at once and found a gash three and one half inches long and over an inch wide on the left side of the forehead. The lower jaw was broken and the mouth and tongue were badly cut by the flying pieces. It was apparent at once that death was only a matter of a few hours and he was unconscious til he died at 6:30 pm. The mother is nearly heart-broken over the blow and has the sympathy of the entire community. Alfred was one of the brightest pupils in the eighth grade of the Ashburnham Street school, and was universally loved by teachers and pupils."

This totally kills me ever ytime. Aside from the part about Alfred playing with gunpowder, I wonder what his brothers were thinking? Ralph would have been 20 and Ray 17. Where were they when he was fooling around? I'm assuming they lived on a farm (Franklin Road still is quite rural, despite recent construction of gigantic condovillages). So the boys would have been out in the fields? Or, because it was the 4th, perhaps they were all taking the day off.

I looked up Alfred in the genealogy, and I'll look at a city directory to see where on Franklin Road the house can be found (we live not far from this neighborhood, oddly enough). The brothers who survived were Ralph and Ray. Ralph became a chef and Ray became a railroad postal clerk, running from Syracuse to New York. But Alfred's mother was an interesting character and my next entry will probably be about Mary Josephine Eaton Cragin who, it turns out, was a poet! But my heart goes out to her still, to have lost two children (another son died in infancy).

Cragin Cousins

Growing up in North Worcester County, I remember my father, Donald H. Cragin was passionately interested in anyone named Cragin, and scoured the archives of various newspapers he wrote for. I have a heap of the old xerographic copies of pages from the Boston Herald Traveler and other defunct newspapers describing Cragins who were cops and criminals, politicos and poets, even the third person in the triangle that sparked the free-love Oneida community back in the 1840s.

I think his interest was ignited by his own father's late-in-life fascination with Cragin antecedents. Howard A. Cragin compiled some genealogical information from Scotland but I don't think he lived long enough to read June Godley Cragin's enormous and encompassing Cragin tome that arrived at our house sometimes in the 60s.

The Cragins were originally from Scotland, a place called Craggan, which means "rock." (Still trying to figure out how this may have encouraged my decision to major in geology). The original Cragin, John was captured as (in all likelihood) a teenage soldier fighting for the Royalist side. He was packed on a boat, the John and Sarah, shipped to the new world around 1680. The drama of his story is that he was ailing while on board -- and not just seasickness: small pox. "In those days, the cure for that was getting shipped -- overboard," my father gleefully explained, adding that family legend had it that Sarah Dawes (an ancestor of Richard Dawes, who was one of Paul Revere's colleagues, and the one who actually made it to Lexington) nursed him to health, and saved him from a watery grave. John the first worked off his indenture at the Saugus Iron Works, had one son, and promptly died.

There are many, many other Cragins, and I'm sending a link to all people named Cragin so that they can post or read as desired. I'm looking forward to writing about:
19th century entomologist Isabelle Sophronia Cragin
19th century Wheaton Female Seminary Instructress Mary Jane Cragin (who got a dorm named after her)
20th century bassplayer Hal Cragin (my brother)
Daniel Cragin, manufacturer of perfectly-shaped wooden boxes (the factory's still cranking out these "peck measures" in Southern NH)
Plus the Cragin who was presented a shotgun by, I believe, the government of Paraguay. This hangs over a window here, and is aimed towards Boston. Nothing against Boston, mind you.

I changed the address of this because I have found that my branch of the family is connected to so many others that we are constantly saying, "is this first cousin twice removed? Second cousin? Or are we third cousins yet... "