Part 1

DEEDS BARN and the SELF-STARTER

Deeds Barn is symbolic of one of the most important developments in the automotive field. It was here that the modern ignition system for automobiles and the self-starter were born and the foundation laid for one of Dayton’s most important industries. The barn itself and one of the 1912 Cadillac cars, first to be commercially equipped with a self-starter, represent this important invention. Also included in the barn are several other exhibits which should be of interest to any visitor and most certainly to every Daytonian.

The Story of the Self-Starter

These photos were taken about the time the Delco firm was incorporated.

In industrial production, as in so many other activities, large oaks from little acorns grow. The cash register and the electric self-starter are instances in point. The first factory of The National Cash Register Company under the presidency of John H. Patterson, was a room in the Callahan Power Building, forty feet wide and eighty feet long, with thirteen people on the payroll. From it emerged a business on which the sun never sets.

More humble in environment was the invention of the self-starter which had its birth in a barn. Almost before a decade passed, it had made the use of the automobile universal. Such were the beginnings of two enterprises which, to a degree greater than any others, enhanced the industrial prestige and prosperity of Dayton. Each contributed a chapter to the romance of American Industry.

Dayton people, and for that matter, a considerable portion of the outside world, are familiar with the story of John H. Patterson’s industrial genius that made his name synonymous with cash register production and distribution. They are not so well acquainted with the origin of the self-starter and particularly the historic barn in which it was created. A replica of that barn stands today in Carillon Park.

The Drama of the Barn, as it may well be called, evolved about two men—Edward A. Deeds and Charles F. Kettering. Both were born and reared on the farm, that rugged nursery in which so many of our national leaders were nurtured; both worked their way through college; both began their careers near the bottom of the ladder at The National Cash Register Company. Their business alma mater served them well.

Fate must have decreed that Deeds and Kettering should meet. In 1904 Deeds was Superintendent at the NCR. Electrically minded since his boyhood on the farm, he had an unwavering confidence in the application of electricity to industry. At that time the cash register was operated by turning a crank. Deeds conceived the idea of putting a motor on the machines to supersede the crank. He designed and built the first motor to be employed for this use. This is an important link in the Deeds-Kettering story, because it brought the two men together.

Deeds was absorbed in many responsibilities at the NCR and could not devote the necessary time to the perfection of the motor. He wanted a bright young electrical engineer to whom the electrification project could be entrusted. He asked Alfred D. Cole, his old professor of physics at Denison University, to suggest a likely candidate. Cole, who had joined the faculty of Ohio State University, suggested Kettering, his star student, who was about to graduate. Deeds wrote to Kettering, offering him a position at $50 a week and the offer was accepted, not, however, without some qualms on Kettering’s part.

When Kettering took over his job in the Inventions Division at the NCR it was to mean more than a brilliant contribution to the development of the National cash register. It marked the beginning of a kinship with Deeds that was to make inventive history. The reason for this kinship did not rest solely on the fact that they were both electrically minded. Also important was the fact that they embodied certain opposites of talent and temperament which so often make for success.

In 1904, when Deeds and Kettering met, the gasoline-propelled vehicle, despite jests, jokes and jeers, was becoming a practical reality. Great inventors like Thomas A. Edison and Charles P. Steinmetz, however, insisted that it was doomed to failure, contending that electricity was the one and only effective motive force for the horseless carriage. Deeds believed otherwise. He saw the internal combustion engine as the driving power of the future. He had been so impressed with the gasoline automobile that for a time he had an ambition to go into its production. Unable to do this, he decided to “put something”, as he expressed it, on motor cars. This ambition pointed the way to what became the electric ignition, lighting, and starting system.

In order to put that “something” on a car it was necessary to have a car. Here is where the famous barn first entered the picture. Deeds lived at 319 Central Avenue in Dayton. Back of the house was a barn which housed a horse and phaeton. Deeds could easily have purchased an automobile had he wished. A purchased car, however, would not serve the purpose that clamored for action. That “something” could only be placed on an automobile that he literally knew from the ground up. With the aid of Fred Schmitt, an expert machinist, he built and assembled a car which was named “Suburban Sixty.” All the work on it was done in the barn. Deeds put a two-speed axle on the barn product but found that it did not function satisfactorily. He therefore substituted an auxiliary transmission which did work.

Deeds now had a car and the germ of an idea. Once more, absorption in responsibilities at the NCR prevented him from devoting sufficient time to the development of the idea. As he pondered over what to do, he recalled an experience that he had while building the Shredded Wheat plant at Niagara Falls. In order to obtain some equipment for a miniature electric railway which was to be installed in the factory restaurant, he was obliged to deal with two men who operated a small manufacturing firm in Providence. These men sat in an unpretentious office with a desk between them and operated on a fifty-fifty basis. One ran the factory; the other looked after business details.

Deeds and Kettering had often talked of the great things they were going to do. On one occasion when they sat on a red couch in the living room of the Deeds residence, Deeds spoke of the two small Providence manufacturers and their simple plan of ownership and operation. The inspiration came to him: “Why can’t we do the same thing?”

That “something” on a motor car still clamored for development. Vaguely, Deeds saw it as an electric ignition system that would emancipate motorists from one of the tribulations of the early automobile era. The “Suburban Sixty” was equipped with an Atwater-Kent single spark battery ignition. It was efficient but complicated and expensive. Deeds envisaged improved ignition as another electrical possibility.

Kettering, whose very life was keyed to electricity, had been thinking along the same line. Deeds had tremendous confidence in Kettering, born of appreciation of his great gifts which had already registered a solid achievement at the NCR. He had perfected the motor for the cash register and had worked miracles on various machines. In Kettering, Deeds found a heaven-sent associate, animated by the same ideal of purpose as his own and one who could share his dreams and aspirations. When Deeds told Kettering of his ideas, he found a willing listener. On the suggestion that they combine their efforts, the lean, angular inventor needed no urging. He put out his hand, stained by chemicals, and answered:

“That suits me. We’ll shake on it.”

There and then the Deeds-Kettering partnership came into being, unsigned but sealed by mutual faith and cemented by loyal friendship. The informal alliance was fated for an accomplishment that not only opened up new inventive horizons but contributed to the standardizing of automobile production and operation.

The first objective was a workshop. “Suburban Sixty” had been built in the Deeds barn. Deeds now turned the barn over to the project. The barn became a laboratory in which ideas flashed and sometimes clashed back and forth in almost dazzling succession.

Before the curtain rises on the Drama of the Barn let us envisage the principal actors as they stood on the threshold of the great adventure. No two men could have presented a greater physical contrast. Deeds was ruddy, keen-eyed, broad of shoulder; Kettering was tall, spare, and spectacled. Deeds was the engineer by instinct and training with a flair for finance and organization. Behind him already lay considerable experience as an industrial executive. Thus he became the wise counsellor and negotiator. Kettering was the technical expert with a genius for invention. To scientific imagination he brought a rare insight into mechanism. Deeds had once said, in discussing the development of the electric ignition, lighting, and starting system, “Men must hunt in pairs.” For the enterprise now to be initiated, the ideal “pair” existed. The two men represented an unbeatable combination.

Kettering started work in the barn in the summer of 1908. The equipment was already installed because Deeds had assembled it for the production of “Suburban Sixty.” It consisted of a milling machine, a drill press, an engine lathe, a tool grinder, a forge, one ten-horsepower motor, an oscillograph, a long bench, and small tools. All the machinery was concentrated in the hayloft while the “Suburban Sixty,” the first guinea pig, rested on the lower floor. Because the equipment was in the old hayloft, Kettering was dubbed the “hayloft inventor.” Connecting the two floors was a narrow, winding stairway on which Kettering dashed up and down a hundred times a day.

In the early period of the project Kettering and Deeds could work only on weekends, nights, and holidays because they were both employed at the NCR. In 1909 Kettering realized that if the undertaking was to get anywhere, it would be necessary for him to devote all his time to it. He therefore resigned as Chief Inventor and set up shop in the barn, which was practically his domicile for the next two years.

During Kettering’s years at the NCR factory, his chief assistant had been William A. Chryst, who had risen from office boy to a position of high skill and responsibility. He became an enthusiastic ally of the project. Soon he made a third to the duet that plugged away in the barn, working as a volunteer.

During the period of incubation of ignition, the first link in the electrification system for the automobile, Deeds largely financed the operation. Kettering’s wants were simple. Deeds and Chryst had their posts at the NCR. Nevertheless it was hard financial sledding for everybody concerned. There were many times when the outlook was bleak and the barn treasury low.

Chryst was the first recruit of the group of men who came to be known as the “Barn Gang.” Next came William Anderson. As months passed they were joined by Zerbe Bradford, William Mooney, John Reece, Ralph Todd, Harvey I. Phillips, John Lipes, Albert Koffer, John Sheats, Robert Demaree, and W. G. Johns. These men formed the nucleus of what later became the Delco organization.

Back in Denison, Professor Cole had often said to Deeds: “The storage battery will come into its own.” He transmitted his faith to Deeds who found an enthusiastic supporter in Kettering. An electric ignition system stirred their imagination. It was to be part of that “something” that Deeds longed to put on a car.

The need of a new and effective ignition system was imperative. For years motorists had struggled with the magneto apparatus which was a prize producer of headaches and backaches. On a magneto it was not possible to run slow in high gear in heavy city traffic without risk of stalling which, when it did occur, meant hopping out of the car and cranking up. To crank a car on a magneto when the dry batteries on the auxiliary system had run down, demanded a considerable amount of endurance. It prevented the women motorists from driving alone.

The system that created many of these complications was equipped with a magneto and an auxiliary vibrating coil dry battery. The basic trouble was that it produced an insufficient amount of current. Hence the frequent stalling. What Kettering did in that long ordeal in the barn was to change from a vibrating system to a single spark which conserved the battery and produced ample electric power for ignition. The vibrators, which demanded endless tinkering every time a car was taken out for use, vanished from the spark coils. Kettering’s dictum was: “No spark outside the cylinder but a good one inside.” To prove the efficiency of the electric ignition system, Deeds, accompanied by Mrs. Deeds, drove to New York and back on one set of dry batteries, which were still not exhausted when the car arrived back in Dayton.

With the electric ignition complete, the big question was to whom it should be submitted. It was not a difficult problem once the motor manufacturing field was surveyed. At the head of the list of producers was Henry M. Leland, whose name had become synonymous with Cadillac. “Uncle Henry,” as Leland was affectionately known, was the Grand Old Man of the automobile industry. It was a tradition in the business that “if you can satisfy ‘Uncle Henry’ you can meet the highest and most exacting requirements.” He was an engineer of international reputation and the Cadillac was the apple of his eye.

As was the case with every other automobile manufacturer, Leland was fed up with the magneto ignition. When the barn product was brought to his attention he was interested. Chief Engineer Sweet of the Cadillac Company came to Dayton to investigate. Deeds and Kettering met him at the railway station and took him for a ride in Kettering’s Cadillac roadster which was equipped with the new electric ignition. They covered miles of Dayton streets and more miles of rough country roads adjacent. Then they landed Sweet safely at the station. When they tried to start up the car after his departure, the system stalled. A wire had broken in cooling off and fell apart. If the system had broken down while Sweet was aboard the car, events might have turned out differently.

When an ignition set was sent to Detroit, Leland shared Sweet’s favorable impression. Negotiations for a contract now began by correspondence. The great day came when Mr. and Mrs. Deeds and Kettering went to Detroit for the signing of the contract. Leland was immensely taken with the two eager, earnest young men who walked into his office that autumn day in 1909. The deal was threshed out in a discussion that lasted for some hours. Then a contract was signed for 5,000 ignition sets.

Now developed something of a dilemma. Deeds and Kettering had no firm name, in fact no formal business association at all. The contract therefore was made out in Deeds’ name. Deeds and Kettering started off from the Cadillac plant in a borrowed car. Soon after they got under way it was discovered that the precious contract was in Kettering’s pocket. Taking it out he said, “I don’t want the danged thing. You keep it.” With this he handed it over to Deeds. Soon he left the car and Deeds proceeded to the home of an old friend where Mrs. Deeds was anxiously awaiting the outcome of the negotiations. In his full and fruitful life Deeds was to know many precious hours. But no moment was sweeter than when he handed the contract to his devoted companion of the years with the words, “It’s signed.”

The Cadillac contract presented another problem for Deeds and Kettering because they had no plant. Their original idea in uniting for the barn project was to develop what Kettering called an “idea hatchery.” Production had never been considered. The problem was soon solved. While working during vacations for the Star Telephone Company of Ashland, Ohio, Kettering had had some dealings with the Kellogg Switch-Board and Supply Company of Chicago. He got in touch with them and they agreed to manufacture the sets.

Deeds and Kettering now had a contract, a commercial product, and a firm to make it. The next step was to organize a corporation with a striking name. Deeds suggested The Dayton Laboratories and Engineering Company. When Kettering asked Chryst what he thought of it, he got this reply:

“Not so good. Why don’t you change the words around and call it The Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company?” This time Kettering was unimpressed. But Chryst’s suggestion prevailed and the company was incorporated July 22, 1909. Remembering the experience of the two small Providence manufacturers, Deeds projected the company on a fifty-fifty basis with a capital stock of $150,000, two-thirds of which was common stock. The shares were equally divided between the two men. Each was a joint owner with the other in all contracts and patents. Deeds became President and Kettering Vice President. With incorporation, a modest office was opened in the United Brethren Building on Main Street with a staff consisting of one man who was clerk, bookkeeper, secretary, and general factotum.

Chryst had succeeded Kettering in the NCR Inventions Division, but spent every moment of his spare time at the barn. He was immensely proud of his choice of the company name. As he worked about the barn he began to refer to it as “Delco.” Soon Deeds, Kettering and the rest of the “Barn Gang” took it up. In this way the name that became a household word came into being.

Then trouble broke. Soon after the first ignition sets had been delivered to Cadillac, Kettering received a telegram from Leland saying that the controlling relays, the heart of the ignition system, were sticking. “Come at once” was Leland’s command. Kettering was certain that the specifications given to the Kellogg Company were accurate. He went to Detroit, tried out the system, and sure enough the controlling relays stuck. Leland had announced that the new ignition system would be placed on his 1910 car. He prided himself on the integrity of his word. It was up to the “hayloft wizard” to make good.

Kettering put the relays in his bag and took the midnight train back to Dayton. The next twenty-four hours would be crucial for Delco. As sleep evaded him he reached into his bag, got out one of the relays, and began to feel the pole pieces and the armature. Then, in the darkness of his upper berth, he discovered what was wrong. The Kellogg people had made the pole pieces a trifle rounded instead of perfectly flat. Kettering went straight to the barn from the railway station, machined the pole pieces down, and returned to Detroit on the next train with one source of trouble ended. Another anxiety developed when there was coil trouble. Again Kettering dashed to Detroit and worked a miracle.

The spark ignition, with the slogan, “Nothing on the dashboard but the switch,” went on the 1910 Cadillac and operated to the satisfaction of every user. A new cycle of the Motor Age dawned. Delco was launched.

A trouble far more serious than mechanical anxieties now developed. In his almost vicious assault on the barn problems, Kettering strained his eyesight. It augmented a weakness that had started in his college days when he burned the midnight oil. For a time it was feared that his vision would be permanently impaired. Despite this handicap he stuck resolutely to the job.

When the ignition contract was signed with Cadillac there were 308,930 automobiles and 6,030 trucks in the United States. These totals represented a tremendous advance from the day when it was a debated question as to whether the horseless carriage would be propelled by steam, electricity, or gasoline. Gasoline had won out and the internal combustion engine came into its own.

Although the automobile had “arrived” it still labored under a serious handicap. It was necessary to crank a car by hand in order to start it. Often it was a back-breaking and sometimes an arm-breaking operation. The crank still made the motor car something of a butt for cartoonists and jokesters.

Once more, Leland stepped into the Delco picture. Like every other automobile manufacturer, he had a grievance against the crank. One day he picked up his friend, Carter, while driving to the Cadillac plant. On the Belle Isle bridge the car stalled. Carter got out to crank it; the engine kicked back and broke his arm.

Leland sent for Kettering and told him of the Carter mishap. Then he said:

“The crank is vicious, turbulent and unruly. I am breaking arms all over the country and it’s got to stop. In the past six months six of my workmen have fractured their arms while cranking cars. What can be done?”

Kettering replied:

“I believe that it would not be difficult to crank a car by electricity.”

Always alert for improvement and never hesitating to do pioneering, Leland said:

“If you can provide an electric starter, I will put it on my 1912 car.”

There was nothing particularly new about the self-starter as such. There were starters that operated by a coiled spring, and starters that used gas or compressed air. None of them, however, had come into anything like wide and satisfactory use. Electricity had turned the trick for ignition; Kettering was certain it could repeat the performance for a self-starter.

Kettering returned to Dayton and on the same train with him went a new Cadillac engine. Both were in the barn before day dawned. Deeds appeared to lend a hand. They rousted out an implement maker, got him to send over sprocket wheels and chains, and rigged a temporary set-up with motor and storage batteries. Now came the great question, “Can we do it electrically? Will it turn the engine over?” The “Barn Gang” worked all day, Deeds calm and imperturbable; Kettering with his customary dynamic energy. Late in the afternoon Kettering said, “I wonder if the danged thing will work,” to which Deeds replied, “We’ll soon find out.”