Glimpse or Yesteryear
By Jacquie Foote So, we know that between 4500 B.C. and 3300 B.C. a conveyance we would recognize as a cart was developed. It had…
By Jacquie Foote
So, we know that between 4500 B.C. and 3300 B.C. a conveyance we would recognize as a cart was developed.
It had solid wooden wheels and axles. It was small and could be pulled by a horse.
Pictures of these vehicles appeared on pottery in Sumeria, Eastern Europe and India at about the same time, archeologically speaking.
An improvement, the spoked wheel, was developed and, again, it happened in many diverse places at nearly the same time (give or take a millennium or two). The Assyrians and people of the Caucuses used spoked-wheeled war chariots starting around 1500 B.C., as did the Egyptians, the people of Northwestern India and the Celtic peoples the Celts making further improvement by placing an iron rim around the wheel (about 1000 B.C.) to cut down on wear. (The first tire?)
The next significant improvement is said to be the invention of the tension spoke by G. F. Fisher in 1802. (Near the beginning of the time of the coming of the settlers to Geauga.) The final great improvement the rubber tire ?was still almost a hundred years away.
It is interesting that the early civilizations of the Western Hemisphere never made use of the wheel for transportation, although some of them made their children toys that had small wheels. It is believed that the reason they didnt have full-sized wheeled vehicles was that they did not have domesticated draft animals (the horse was not introduced to the Americas until the early 1500s) and they also did not have extensive road systems. (In fact, the lack of developed roads prevented wide usage of the wheel for transportation in less developed parts of the world well into the 20th century.)
However, it is unlikely that the Indians the pioneers met in the Geauga lands had never seen wheeled vehicles before. They were mostly from the Iroquois Nation and hailed from the part of the country we now call New York, which means they had knowledge of how the settlers in that area lived.
Of course, the wagons and carts of early Geauga were nowhere near those we know today. Those wheels, for example, there simply was not a wood hard enough to keep those wooden wheels from wearing out in fairly short order.
Metal strips were nailed to the rims of the wheels for better wear. And it helped with the wear, but not the comfort of the ride. Geauga was well settled before the rubber tire came into being.
Rubber was not always as useful as it is today. Early rubber did not hold shape well and it would be sticky in hot weather and become inflexible in the cold.
Charles Goodyear was credited with the discovery of the vulcanization process in 1839, although the patent wasnt issued until 1844. Vulcanization is the process of heating rubber with sulfur. This transforms sticky raw rubber to a firm pliable material that would make rubber a perfect material for tires.
The story of Charles Goodyear is a sad one, though. It seems he dedicated his entire life to making rubber a better material, but he never profited from his work and died bankrupt. Forty years later, a rubber company would honor his work by using his name for their new tire company.
Fairly soon after the discovery of vulcanization, tires were made out of solid rubber. These tires were strong, absorbed shocks and resisted cuts and abrasions. But they also were very heavy, considered hard on roads and did not provide a smooth ride. Eventually, legislation would be enacted that discouraged their use. Happily, pneumatic tires were there to save the day!
For information on the events at the Geauga County Historical Society’s Burton Century Village Museum, call 440-834-1492 or visit geaugahistorical.org.
