The
Scharf
Written
January 29, 2008
In
a small town, supposedly everybody knows everything about everybody
else's business.
Nevertheless,
although I grew up in a small town where my father was a Chevrolet
and Oldsmobile dealer, I never heard about the local automobile
factory that never quite got started. That is, I never heard
about it until this month.
First,
a disclaimer. I'm not a professional historian, so I reserve
the right to do my research the easy way: at home. That's
where I found the following information, in bits and pieces, most of
it on the Internet.
Some
of the facts have not been confirmed. If you spent a week in
Ohio searching through century-old newspaper archives and public
records, you could check those facts and learn other interesting details.
But
I'm not planning to go to that much trouble. Here's what I do know.
In
1854, a 22-year-old farmer emigrated from Germany to the United
States. His name was Nicholas Scharf. ("Scharf"
in German is the equivalent of "sharp" in English.)
Like
many of his countrymen of that era, Nicholas settled in central
Ohio. He was described as "a Catholic in religious belief,
and a Democrat in politics."
In
Franklin County, he met another German farmer by the name of Frank
Frund and married his daughter Magdaleine. They had nine
children: three boys (George, John Adam, and Joseph Frank) and
six girls (Annie, Marianna, Maggie, Katie, Clara, and Louise).
Nicholas
was only 47 years old when he died in 1879. His widow moved
the family to neighboring Union County and settled in Claibourne
Township, outside the village of Richwood. In 1883, the History
of Union County reported that "she owns a farm of
fifty-four acres of good land. She is a careful manager, and
with the aid of her son George, who stays at home to work for her,
she is conducting her farm in a most prosperous manner."
We
may assume that the other Scharfs did not stay on their mother's
farm. In particular, John moved to nearby Richwood,
where he must have become some sort of mechanic a tinkerer
with machinery.
Starling
Mead, reminiscing in 1972 about the Richwood Gazette,
recalled that the weekly newspaper "first got a Monotype in
1915. Harry Bertram came from Cincinnati to run it. Then
he later returned to the factory and Herman Dolsky was the
operator. Whenever it broke down, John Scharf repaired it, but
then he went to Dayton to work during the World War. If it
broke down then, all the type had to be set by hand."
In
Scharf's later years, he would receive at least three patents for
his inventions, including number 1,554,131 in the year 1925. It
described a shovel and dredge for use in construction and
agriculture. Seven years later, patent number 1,866,490 covered
a small merry-go-round (below) that half a dozen children could ride,
each pumping pedals to make it turn.

And
in 1937, near the age of retirement and still living in Richwood,
John and his brother Joe jointly received patent number 2,092,562 for
a stock-operated water pumping device. They wrote, "An
object of the invention is to provide a device of the type by which
stock, such as horses, cattle, or other animals, cause water to be
pumped when they desire to drink, which will pump a limited amount of
water from a well or other source of supply, and which will operate
gates leading to and from the apparatus so as to insure against
overcrowding on the apparatus and giving an animal opportunity to
drink without molestation."
But
years before that, John was interested in making improvements in
America's newest obsession, the motorcar.
He
was not alone. Many American handymen had their own ideas for
building a better automobile, including Henry Ford, who cobbled
together a Quadricycle in the shed behind his house in 1896.
Over the next four years, 68 new makes of cars appeared, according to
Bellamy Partridge in Fill 'er Up! All have disappeared.
There
were 67 new companies in 1901. There were 78 in 1902.
"Factories were opening and closing all the time. Some of
them went no further than a few experimental models. Some ran
for a year. Others went sailing along for five years or fifteen
or even twenty, succumbing finally to bad business, bad management,
the depression, or inability to meet the competition of the gigantic
combinations which by that time had come into the picture."
One
problem for the designer of a new automobile was how best to
transmit power from the fast-turning motor to the slower-turning wheels.
When
John Scharf was growing up on the farm, he had seen steam-powered
traction engines like this one, in which the "power takeoff"
was driven by a broad leather belt running around the engine's flywheel. |
 |
 |
Some
early automobiles used pairs of toothed sprocket wheels, connecting
them with chain drives as on a bicycle. |
But
most autos had transmissions consisting of sets of gears. The
use of these solid metal disks with teeth or
"cogs" does present some difficulties. Before
synchronized transmissions were developed, changing from one gear to
another could result in a horrendous noise. Ford's 1908 Model T
used a "planetary" transmission; the gears didn't grind,
but there were only two speeds.
On
November 24, 1910, using the word gear in its other
sense of equipment, the Richwood Gazette reported that
John
A. Scharf, Richwood machinist, has been granted a patent on his
automobile driving gear. Hes worked on numerous kinds of
autos and felt he could make a gear which would not contain a single
cog gear, while other gears were full of cog wheels and the cause of
no end of trouble.
How
did Scharf avoid using cog wheels? The German firm
Benecke & Rehse, dealers in antique stock certificates, speculate
that it was wahr scheinlich
per verschiebbarem Transmissionsriemen über eine
kegelförmige Welle, so dass sich mit dem Wellendurchmesser das
Übersetzungsverhältnis stufenlos verschob. In
other words, Scharf probably slid a transmission belt over a conical
shaft, so that the transmission ratio infinitely varied with the
diameter of the shaft. It might have been a continuously
variable transmission something like this.
Using
his idea, Scharf built a car in 1910. Encouraged by his
neighbors in Richwood, he decided to see if he could make a business
out of it.
The
first requirement was to raise about $10,000. Scharf
incorporated the Scharf Gearless Motor Car Company for that
purpose. The editor of the Gazette, George Worden,
agreed to serve as company president. The Columbus Bank Note
company printed a hundred certificates, each for one share of stock,
and Scharf and his friends went to work selling them for the sizeable
sum of $100 a share.
Area
investors showed their support for a potential new local industry by
buying 45 of the shares. Among them were H.G. Payne
(certificate #19) and W.H. Siples (#23), both dated December 27,
1912. Frank L. Adams bought certificate #41 the following July
3, about the time that the official location of the company was
changed temporarily to Westerville, Ohio. However, local
participation raised less than half of the capital that would be needed.

On
September 4, the Gazette
did its part to pump up enthusiasm by reporting, "The Scharf
Gearless Motor Car Company will soon have under construction a Scharf
Gearless Runabout auto which will be a unique car, containing a
Scharf patented transmission and steering devices, and the price will
be below any car on the market. Dozens of people in and around
Richwood are contemplating purchasing this car. This new car
will be ready for demonstration within a few weeks."
It
was a cyclecar, a little runabout about the size of a modern golf
cart. It probably weighed around 600 pounds and was equipped
with a motorcycle-type engine.

The
designs of these one-of-a-kind cycle cars varied greatly, but
its possible that the Scharf looked something like the JB
Rocket from Detroit (top) or the 1914 Hall Cycle Car from Waco (bottom).

John
Scharf drove his gearless prototype the 50 miles to Columbus, hoping
to find more investors there. No one was interested.
Without
sufficient funds to proceed, Scharf could do no more. He had
to return the money he did manage to raise. The company bought
back all 45 shares from its investors. Payne's certificate was
marked "canceled" on September 19, 1913.
Of
the original 100 stock certificates (45 issued, 55 not issued),
maybe a dozen survive today in the hands of collectors. Their
rarity makes them somewhat valuable. Benecke & Rehse offers
certificate #41 at 450 euros or about $660. George H. LaBarre
Galleries Inc. lists an unissued certificate for sale at $125.
One
of the unissued certificates, #76, ended up in the hands of Richwood
resident Chester Robertson. His wife's brother, Don Purke, used
to visit the Robertsons in Richwood for two or three weeks at a time.
Don
now lives in Prescott, Arizona. Earlier this month, he wrote
me that he had discovered this website and remembers my father's auto
dealership. "My sister lived just up the street from it,
and every time when we walked to town, we walked past it.
...One time when I was visiting Richwood, in walking uptown I passed
a building that must have been the earlier post office.
Inquiring around town, I found the owner of the building who gave me
the post office front with all the mail boxes, stamp window,
etc. I lived in Reno, Nevada, at the time, and it took me two
or three years to get the post office front to Reno as the brass
boxes were very heavy. As I write this email, I am looking at them."
Don
told me that he had a stock certificate that his brother-in-law Chet
had given him. It was for the Scharf Gearless Motor Car Company
of Richwood, Ohio. This was the first that I had heard of this
company. Don wrote that he was trying to pass on "all the
stuff I have collected over the years" and wanted to find
someone in the area who might be interested in the certificate.
"I'm an old car nut and would like to pass it on to someone back
there that is interested in old cars."
I
did some research and discovered that these certificates were not
exactly worthless. "You might be able to get a hundred
bucks or so from the certificate, if you wanted to find a broker to
buy it," I wrote Don. "If you prefer to give it away,
I can't think of anyone in particular in Richwood who would be
interested. Any likely candidates were members of my late
father's generation and are no longer with us. If you decided
to give it to me, I wouldn't sell it. I'd add a picture to my
website and then probably pass it on to an organization interested in
Richwood history, either the newspaper or the library."
And
so it was that unissued certificate #76, framed, arrived in
yesterday's mail. And so it is that I'm showing it to you
below. Thanks, Don! |