(Smithsonian
photo 44062.)]

Frank, in 1901, entered into a contract with the J. Stevens Arms and
Tool Company, of Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, which built automobiles
under his supervision. This association led in 1904 to the formation of
the Stevens-Duryea Company, of which Irving Page was president and Frank
Duryea was vice president and chief engineer. This company produced
during its 10-year existence a number of popular and well-known models,
among them a light six known as the Model U, in 1907; a larger
4-cylinder called the Model X, in 1908; and a larger six, the Model Y,
in 1909. In 1914 when Stevens withdrew from the company, Frank obtained
control. The following year he sold the plants and machinery, liquidated
the company, and, due to ill health, retired.

Charles, in the meantime, located in Reading, Pennsylvania, where he
built autos under the name of the Duryea Power Company.[2] Here, and
later in Philadelphia under the name of the Duryea Motor Corporation and
other corporate names, he continued for a number of years to build
automobiles, vacuum cleaners and other mechanical devices. Until the
time of his death in 1938, he practiced as a consulting engineer.

= Department of the Interior
U.S. PATENT OFFICE,
April 1, 1887
Admit Mr. Charles E. Duryea
to this Office on all business days
between the hours of 2 and 4 P.M.
until otherwise ordered.

[Signature]
Chief Clerk

Countersigned,
[Signature]=

[Illustration: FIGURE 3.--ADMITTANCE CARD of C. E. Duryea to the
U.S. Patent Office, 1887. (Gift of Rhea Duryea Johnson.)]

Early Automotive Experience

Born in 1861 near Canton, Illinois, Charles E. Duryea had learned the
trade of a mechanic following his graduation from high school, and
subsequently turned his interests to bicycle repair. He and his brother
James Frank, eight years younger, eventually left Illinois and moved to
Washington D.C., where they were employed in the bicycle shop of H. S.
Owen, one of that city's leading bicycle dealers and importers. While in
Washington, Charles became a regular reader of the Patent Office
Gazette,[3] an act which undoubtedly influenced his later work with
automobiles. A short time later, probably in 1889, Charles contracted
with a firm in Rockaway, New Jersey, to construct bicycles for him, but
their failure to make delivery as promised caused him to go to Chicopee,
Massachusetts, where he contracted with the Ames Manufac