Horseless Carriages - the earliest automobiles

In The Hesperus Prophecy, the Powell family is chased through the State, War, and Navy Building, exiting into Lincoln’s Tunnel where horseless carriages are waiting. Horseless carriage is an early name for automobiles, the mechanically powered vehicles a rarity when most were still pulled by horses.

Mary Elizabeth’s father distrusted them, calling them the whimsical toys of men possessing more money than sense. Her father felt they were unpredictable and dangerous, and this sentiment persisted long after the night of the 1898 Obturavi attack. The Saturday Evening Post in 1911 quoted Alexander Winton, a pioneer in the auto industry:

To advocate replacing the horse, which had served man through centuries, marked one as an imbecile. Even though I had a successful bicycle business, and was building my first car in the privacy of the cellar in my home, I began to be pointed out as “the fool who is fiddling with a buggy that will run without being hitched to a horse.”

Despite Henry Ford’s production of the Model T starting in 1908, widespread adoption of the automobile didn’t happen until the 1920s. However, by the end of the decade, 60% of American families owned one. Henry Ford’s friendship with Thomas Edison meant the Clypeate had access to the most advanced prototypes of the day, which James and Declan encounter in 1939, rusting away in Lincoln’s Tunnel. Perhaps they’ll prove useful one more time.