The little black buggy looked like it was being pulled by ghost horses, silently moving Tuesday morning down Broadway with seemingly nothing propelling it. But the tiny vehicle, with deep historical roots in Schenectady, has an electric engine, its sound lost in the noise of the city. The car, made by the Anderson Electric Company of Detroit, was owned by scientifi c genius Charles Steinmetz, who helped form, chaired and taught in the electrical engineering department at Union College.
The college owns the car and helped restore it. The black buggy will be used Sunday at graduation to carry Union President Stephen Ainlay in the procession. Steinmetz’ car was transported Tuesday from the Edison Exploratorium to a storage garage owned by the college.
The vehicle wasn’t running in December when it came to the Exploratorium, located on North Broadway near State Street. It is now functioning well.
The car was in storage the past five years and it is not known when it was last running. It had been found in a field in rural Sche- nectady County and restored in the 1970s by a Union College professor and used in ceremonies. Its body lasted because it’s made of aluminum.
John Spinelli, Union’s electrical engineering chair, said the car is important because it celebrates the college’s history.
“It connects Union to its past,” he said. “Steinmetz represented what Union engineering is all about. Steinmetz believed in a liberal education. . . . He was the embodiment of an involved professor.”
The car has been part of a program at the Exploratorium on the roots and evolution of the electric car. A new entrance had to be built on the front of the building, at a cost of $6,000, to fit the car into the building. It’s been parked in the front window and new batteries have been installed.
John Harnden, the founder of the Exploratorium and a Union alumnus, said Steinmetz’ car is a symbol of the early growth of technology in the area.
Steinmetz, who worked closely with Thomas Edison, is best known for his theories and analyses of alternating current as well as hysteresis, the phenomenon through which power is lost through magnetic resistance. Alternating current can reduce the power loss, and many believe it is Steinmetz’ work that made commercial electric power possible.
Harnden also points to others, such as Joseph Henry, a scientist raised in Galway who invented the first electric motor, for helping to make the region known for engineering.
“This area should be known as the original Tech Valley,” Harnden said. “So many things were incubated here.”
In 1914, when Steinmetz bought the car for $3,000, electrical cars were the only kind allowed in Schenectady. Gas-powered engines were banned for fear of pollution from exhaust and noise.
Steinmetz never drove the electric car or any car. The scientist, who had physical disabilities, once crashed a Stanley Steamer in the early 1900s. He never drove after that, but he did design electric cars.
Steinmetz was born in Prussia, now a part of Poland, in 1865. He died in 1923 and is buried in Vale Cemetery.
He came to the U.S. in 1893 and was hired by an electric company in Yonkers that would later become part of General Electric. Steinmetz worked for GE for 31 years and mostly resided in Schenectady.
The buggy is one of his most treasured possessions left, said Gene Davison, a lab technician at Union College who has been working on the car since the early 1980s.
Davison drove the car through campus — he’s the only one who knows how. It utilizes a tiller steering system, which uses a bar instead of a wheel. Pushing the bar forward turns the car left; backward turns it right.
The acceleration is also controlled by a handle. Pedals on the floor are for the brake and an emergency switch that cuts power to the engine.
Because there’s no clutch, the car gets off to a jerky start. But Davison says it’s a good ride.
“It’s kind of springy and rocks from side to side like a carriage,” he said. “Once it gets going, it’s a smooth ride.”