Spencer Heath Archive

Item 1696

Carbon of a letter from Heath at 312 Halesworth Street, Santa Ana CA, to John B. Rae, 437 West 11th Street, Claremont, California

October 2, 1961

Dear Dr. Rae:

     I have just finished reading your volume, American Automobile Manufacturers, and am making this belated acknowledgement and expression of my appreciation. I myself participated in a great deal that your volume covers, although only in a small way and mostly on the sidelines. In early 1900, I became associated in Chicago with one of the relatively short-lived pioneer companies, the Hartley Motor Company, as draftsman and designer. Late in the year, this company removed to the then unused factory of the Singer Sewing Machine Company in Elgin, Illinois, taking me with them. There we built six steam runabouts, which were fairly successful except that the peculiar style of boiler used would not generate enough steam. This deficiency, together with some bad money management, brought the Hartley Motor Company to an end late in 1901. My own efforts to reorganize it locally did not succeed.

     My further relation to the automobile was only indirect, through membership in the Society of Automotive Engineers, which came about as a result of being a member of the Aero Club of America which it took in. However, my only work relating to automobiles was as a member of the Standards Committee of the S.A.E. through World War I.

     It was a great pleasure to know you and Mrs. Rae during my year’s visit at Harvey Mudd, and I shall hope to see you in Claremont again after my return from the East this fall.

Cordially yours,