by The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer;His Mysterious Disappearance
Table of Contents
Title Page
Front
I. On the Road
1. PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
2. ATHENS, GREECE
3. PITTSBURGH
4. PEKING, CHINA
5. SHANGHAI, CHINA
6. VANCOUVER, CANADA
7. KIUKIANG, CHINA
8. ARDMORE, PENNSYLVANIA
9. CALCUTTA, INDIA
II. The Search
10. EAST LIVERPOOL, OHIO
11. CONSTANTINOPLE, TURKEY
12. ERZURUM, TURKEY
13. ERZURUM
14. ERZURUM
III. Epilogue
15. REPERCUSSIONS
16. REFLECTIONS
Back
The Lost Cyclist
The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance
David V. Herlihy
* * *
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
BOSTON NEW YORK
2010
* * *
Copyright © 2010 by David V. Herlihy
All rights reserved
For information about permission to reproduce
selections from this book, write to Permissions,
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company,
215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.
www.hmhbooks.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Herlihy, David V.
The lost cyclist : the epic tale of an American adventurer
and his mysterious disappearance / David V. Herlihy.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-547-19557-5
1. Lenz, Frank G. 2. Cyclists—United States—
Biography. I. Title.
GV1051.L463H47 2010
796.6092—dc22 [B] 2009028857
Book design by Melissa Lotfy
Printed in the United States of America
DOC 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Photo credits appear on page 314.
* * *
To my mother, Patricia Herlihy
* * *
Contents
Prologue: Alton, Illinois, October 28, 1952 ix
I: On the Road
1. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 30, 1887 3
2. Athens, Greece, January 4, 1891 25
3. Pittsburgh, August 9, 1891 49
4. Peking, China, November 3, 1892 71
5. Shanghai, China, December 15, 1892 95
6. Vancouver, Canada, December 20, 1892 119
7. Kiukiang, China, January 27, 1893 127
8. Ardmore, Pennsylvania, May 31, 1893 140
9. Calcutta, India, September 17, 1893 147
II: The Search
10. East Liverpool, Ohio, October 12, 1894 173
11. Constantinople, Turkey, March 23, 1895 194
12. Erzurum, Turkey, May 13, 1895 210
13. Erzurum, September 9, 1895 237
14. Erzurum, October 19, 1895 259
III: Epilogue
15. Repercussions 279
16. Reflections 293
Notes on Sources 305
Acknowledgments 310
Photo Credits 314
Index 316
* * *
Prologue: Alton, Illinois
October 28, 1952
PAUL COUSLEY LOOKED UP from behind his crowded desk and stared incredulously as an elderly man strolled into the pressroom of the Alton Evening Telegraph. Moments later, the veteran editor bounded toward the stranger with an outstretched hand. "Will Sachtleben?" he blurted. "Well, I'll be!" The visitor beamed, delighted that someone in this small town by the Mississippi River had recognized him after an absence of fifty years.
"Time was when Will Sachtleben was a popular hero in Alton, known to everyone," Cousley reminisced in the paper the next day. "His fame was nationwide, and wider still, because of his daring deeds." The editor himself fondly recalled the day, back in the spring of 1893, when Sachtleben and a college chum, Thomas G. Allen Jr., sailed into town on "safety" bicycles, prototypes of the modern machine. The intrepid pair had just completed what one newspaper pronounced "the greatest journey of this century, or perhaps of any century": a three-year, fifteen-thousand-mile romp across Europe, Asia, and North America. Incredibly, they had eclipsed a similar journey by Thomas Stevens, made a few years earlier atop an old-style "high-wheeler."
The American public, caught up in the great bicycle boom, relished Sachtleben's harrowing tales of adventure and hardship in exotic lands astride the wildly popular vehicle. Two years later, his fame grew even greater as he embarked on a second, no less daring mission: a trip to eastern Turkey to unravel the mysterious fate of another famous cyclist, Frank G. Lenz of Pittsburgh, who had disappeared toward the end of his own global circuit designed to set new milestones while validating the inflatable tire. Sachtleben's timing was impeccable: the ancient Ottoman Empire was on the verge of collapse, and American newspapers were rife with reports of widespread massacres of Armenians in the very region where the young wheelman had vanished.
The two old-timers sat down for a long chat about the good old days, when the bicycle was the fastest vehicle on the dirt roads and an exchange of letters could take months. Asked why he had come back to Alton after all those years, the retired theater manager and longtime Houstonian explained that he and his nephew, Charles King, had just driven to San Diego to visit Sachtleben's younger brother, Charles, the last of his four siblings still alive. They were on their way back to King's home in Columbus, Ohio, and Sachtleben wanted to revisit his boyhood home, a rambling Victorian on the corner of Seventh and Langdon.
"I have often thought of Alton," the eighty-six-year-old confided to Cousley. "Of my loving mother, also born here, who left us children so early in life, and of my self-sacrificing father, who said to me as we walked down the hill to the Chicago & Alton railroad station the day after my graduation from Washington College: 'Well, son, stay away until you get your fill.'" Added the aged adventurer with a sly smile: "I reckon I did just that."
The veteran newsman, ever on the alert for a good story, coyly mentioned that one of his retired writers was preparing a series of articles on colorful Altonians at the turn of the century. Sachtleben had barely agreed to submit a detailed account of his search for Lenz, the lost cyclist, when he noticed the time. "Now if you'll excuse me, Mr. Cousley," he interjected softly as he rose to his feet, "I really must be on my way."
I. On the Road
1. PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
May 30, 1887
"HE RIDES WITH a dash and daring that can almost be called recklessness." So marveled the Bulletin's sports columnist, describing Pittsburgh's newest wheelman, a nineteen-year-old prodigy named Frank George Lenz. Perched atop a massive, spidery wheel measuring fifty-six inches in diameter, the precocious Lenz, the reporter noted, "surmounts curbstones and dashes over objects with an ease and abandon that calls forth admiration from even old and experienced riders."
Young Lenz in fact cut a dashing figure on or off his wheel, with his sandy blond hair, boyishly handsome face, piercing blue eyes, and muscular five-foot-seven frame. His ever-flashing grin, easy-going manner, and cheerful company quickly made him as popular with the public as he was with his peers.
A decade earlier, at the dawn of American wheeling, this bookkeeper from a modest German American family might have seemed a bit out of his element. The pioneer wheelmen were predominantly eastern elitists who practiced medicine, architecture, law, and other prestigious professions, while emulating the predilections of their English counterparts. But the
sport's popularity had grown considerably in the interim, as Americans enjoyed greater prosperity and increased leisure time. Cycling welcomed respectable, up-and-coming young men like Lenz, driven by ambition.
In Pittsburgh alone, the nation's twelfth-largest city with a population around a quarter of a million, the local fleet of wheelmen had grown from about twenty-five hearty riders to about three hundred, including a handful of lady tricyclists. The national figure, meanwhile, had surpassed 100,000. Numerous clubs flourished across the country, and a handful of manufacturers operated in the East and Midwest.
The impressive growth of the cycling industry in the 1880s was due in large part to the vigorous efforts of Albert A. Pope, the pioneer American manufacturer and the maker of Lenz's Columbia bicycle. This Boston businessman helped to quash the public's initial misgivings about the big wheel and to establish the sport as a healthy and gentlemanly pursuit, albeit a risky one reserved primarily for the young and athletic. Among other successful initiatives, Pope helped launch the League of American Wheelmen (LAW), a national lobby that pushed for better roads while promoting racing and touring.
The prospects for further growth were downright rosy, thanks to the newly introduced Rover "safety," which had already induced a few women and some older men to take to the wheel. Developed in England, it was the latest in a long line of two-wheeled challengers designed to remedy the high-wheeler's chief drawback: its unfortunate propensity to hurl the careless—or unlucky—pilot over the handlebars whenever the big wheel hit an unforeseen obstacle, an all-too-common occurrence known in cycling parlance as a "header." These dreaded spills could inflict serious injury and even, on rare occasion, death. The new pattern promised fewer and softer spills, and it was the first alternative bicycle to gain any real traction in the marketplace. Notwithstanding its solid rubber tires, the safety bicycle was a radical departure from the norm. It featured two small wheels of similar size, the rear one powered by a chain and sprocket. Some even said it was the bicycle of the future.
But to fanatics like Lenz and other athletic young men the world over, it was no substitute for the "ordinary." An offshoot of the original "boneshaker" of the late 1860s, the high-wheeler had long delivered to a select few an irresistible mix of speed, exercise, camaraderie, and adventure. Affirmed one early devotee: "I have passed some of the happiest hours of my life on my bicycle." It boasted light and springy metallic wheels, a backbone of tubular steel, and joints turning on smooth ball bearings. It was a modern mechanical miracle on a par with the telephone, the typewriter, and the elevator.
Nor were purists seduced by the prospect of a safer ride. On the contrary, as one enthusiast explained, "The element of safety is rather distasteful to a good many riders who prefer to run some risk, as it gives zest to the sport." To them, the big wheel was an asset, not a liability. It effectively absorbed road shock, gave an optimal gear, and retained the boneshaker's direct action cranks, the simplest and most efficient propulsion scheme. It also placed the rider directly above the pedals, allowing him to apply his full weight when pedaling. From that lofty vantage point, comfortably seated above the dust of the road, the rider enjoyed a view comparable to that of a horseman. Even average riders could easily cover one hundred miles in a single day over the roughest of dirt roads.
Before buying his first bicycle, Lenz had saved for many months, putting aside a portion of his $1,200 annual salary with A. W Cadman and Company, a manufacturer of brass fittings located in Pittsburgh's strip district on the southern bank of the Allegheny. At last, he scraped together $125, enough for a Columbia Expert, an entry-level roadster weighing a hefty forty-five pounds. He joined the Allegheny Cyclers, a club based on the other side of the river in what was then the distinct city of Allegheny. With a membership of about thirty, it was the largest of the three bicycle clubs in the immediate Pittsburgh area.
Before long, the young clerk was spending nearly every free moment on his bicycle, escaping the unhappy home he shared with his tyrannical stepfather William and his dear but doting mother Maria Anna. On weekdays, before or after his dreary workday, he would cycle at least five miles. On weekends he would roam the hilly countryside alone or with any club mate who dared to chase after him. He loved the sensation of flying into the distance as he churned his smooth pedals and plunged ever deeper into nature's lush sanctuary. He had no qualms about returning in the dark, with his trusty gas lamp suspended on his front hub.
Lenz soon earned a reputation for gritty outdoor adventures. In June 1887, he accomplished his first "century" run to New Castle, Pennsylvania, and back. Leaving home at four in the morning, he proceeded over miserable roads. On his return, his handlebars snapped in two. Despite the jolting and jittery ride, he continued to pedal, arriving home at midnight, sore but satisfied. Two months later, Lenz recorded his first long-distance tour, spending his two-week vacation cycling to New York City and back.
Recognizing his extraordinary speed, stamina, and verve, Lenz's numerous friends urged him to give amateur racing a whirl. Throughout the cycling season, from May to October, various bicycle clubs in Pittsburgh and nearby cities organized high-wheel races, which were generally held on weekends and holidays at outdoor tracks before a paying public. The events typically covered between one-half and two miles, with the winner collecting a token prize, not to mention the crowd's adulation.
That Decoration Day, in 1887, Lenz entered his first cycling contest, witnessed by a festive crowd of one thousand. He had traveled by train to Beaver Falls, a small town thirty miles northwest of Pittsburgh. Facing several competitors, he was to make four circuits to complete a mile. "He undoubtedly would have won the novice race," the Bulletin reported, "had it not been that the track was slippery and his wheel slid from under him on the first lap." He did manage to prevail in the consolation race, finishing a mile in four minutes less eighteen seconds.
A few months later, in August, Lenz tried another variety of competition: a twenty-mile road race outside Pittsburgh hosted by his own Allegheny Cyclers. The scorching heat had reduced the field to six, including the two favorites, the brothers William (W. D.) and Albert (A. C.) Banker. These club mates were widely considered the strongest wheelmen in western Pennsylvania, and they relished their stature. The family ran a bicycle store in Pittsburgh that specialized in Victor products (Columbia's chief rival), as well as a riding school in Allegheny.
"Lenz was sick before he started," the Bulletin reported, "and those who had hoped that he might give W. D. Banker a hard tussle, saw that the condition of their man precluded any such ideas." The challenger nevertheless gamely fought off cramps and gave the Bankers chase. The Bulletin relayed the remarks of an old lady in De Haven, who had stopped to watch the men fly by five miles into the race: "Them fellers is fools to race on a day like this," she scoffed. "Why, my old man had to knock off harvesting, it is so hot." To no one's surprise, W. D. finished first, in 1:44.5, followed by A. C., a mere second behind. Lenz arrived six minutes later, in fourth place.
By the close of his inaugural season, Lenz had begun to deliver on his considerable promise as a racer. In October, he entered a two-mile race in Pittsburgh starring A. C. Banker, who was a few months older and an inch taller than Lenz. "The day was inauspicious on account of the high wind that prevailed, raising clouds of dust and rendering anything like fast time impossible," the Bulletin reported, "but the prizes were an incentive that nerved each contestant to do his utmost."
Still, no one anticipated a shocking upset. "This was a genuine surprise," the Bulletin affirmed. "Everybody thought that Banker was a sure winner, but Lenz made a great effort on the finish and won by three yards." A stunned and humiliated Banker vowed that he would never again lose to an "inferior rider" and promptly hired a personal trainer to ensure that he avenged himself at the next opportunity.
In 1888, at the start of his second season, Lenz upgraded to a fifty-three-inch Columbia Light Roadster, which was a good twelve pounds lighter than his original mount. His p
erformances improved markedly. For the first time, he nearly climbed Pittsburgh's Irwin's Hill, a two-hundred-yard stretch where the road rose fifty feet. That June he needed only eleven hours to make another run to New Castle and back, this time without incident. His results on the track were even more striking.
That July, before six hundred fans, Lenz took on the revenge-minded A. C. Banker. The Bulletin described the half-mile contest as "one of the best races between local men ever seen here," adding that "the pace was for blood from the word go. Banker was looked upon as a sure winner, though Lenz received all the encouragement." Amid deafening cheers, the popular upstart crossed the tape just ahead of his rival, registering a time of 1:33 and pocketing a pair of opera glasses. For good measure, Lenz also edged out W D., winning the two-mile race by half a wheel.
Remarkably, Lenz was still employing a relatively heavy model designed for road use. "If Lenz gets a racer," the Bulletin columnist mused, "he will undoubtedly do much better than on the roadster he now rides, with a cyclometer swinging from the hub." Bowing to peer pressure, Lenz obtained Columbia's lightest model, which weighed a scant thirty pounds, just in time for the follow-up races three weeks later. In the quarter-mile open, he again made a furious spurt down the stretch in a bold bid to eclipse A. C. Banker. But this time Lenz's foot slipped, and he flew off his precarious mount. The bicycle began to flip over and over, before breaking into pieces. For his part, Lenz badly bruised his knee. He decided to go back to his trusty Light Roadster.
Despite the setback, Lenz was assuredly, as the Bulletin proclaimed, a "rising luminary in the racing field." But he was not satisfied being a mere local celebrity. He was, after all, a proud denizen of Pittsburgh, a city known for producing overachievers of international repute. The steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, for one, had started out as a bobbin boy in a local cotton mill and was now the world's richest man. The financier Andrew Mellon and the coke magnate turned art collector, Henry Clay Frick, had likewise amassed vast personal fortunes from nothing, not to mention George Westinghouse, the electrical pioneer who ran the factory where Lenz's stepfather labored as a machinist. To no one's surprise, when Lenz spotted an opportunity to vault into the national limelight, he seized it.