Electric Autos
In a well-written history of electric cars, Megan Barber writes
“By 1900, electric cars were so popular that New York City had a fleet of electric taxis, and electric cars accounted for a third of all vehicles on the road. People liked them because in many ways early electric cars outperformed their gas competitors. Electric cars didn’t have the smell, noise, or vibration found in steam or gasoline cars. They were easier to operate, lacked a manual crank to start, and didn’t require the same difficult-to-change gear system as gas cars. Electric cars became extremely popular in cities, especially with upper-class women who disliked the noisy and smelly attributes of gasoline-powered cars….Henry Ford’s mass-produced Model T dealt a blow to the electric car. Introduced in 1908, the Model T made gasoline-powered cars widely available and affordable. By 1912, the gasoline car cost only $650, while an electric roadster sold for $1,750.”
A key point of her description is how little noise electric cars made. I recall stepping from in front of my mail truck in a residential neighborhood a number of years back and being surprised as a relatively novel hybrid-electric Toyota Prius noiselessly zipped past. It took a minute for my heartbeat to return to normal.
Joseph Bell, Auto Mechanic
In the opening scene of the 1994 movie Forrest Gump, a feather gently floats through a cloudy sky and onto a city square where it lands between a pair of legs in well-worn running shoes. A young man reaches down from a park bench, picks it up and, setting aside a box of chocolates, places it inside a picture book in his briefcase. The scene was filmed at Chippewa Square in Savannah, Georgia, one of the more beautiful squares within the Historic District. In 1904, T.A. Bryson built an impressive art deco structure on Chippewa Square to house his garage and auto showroom that survives to this day as a wedding venue.¹ According to the 1909 Motor Cyclopedia, the Bryson Automotive Exchange advertised second-hand cars, repairs, supplies, and garage space for 50 automobiles. Bryson specialized in autos manufactured by Packard, Franklin, Chalmers-Detroit, and Columbia Electrics; the first three built gasoline-powered vehicles while Columbia Electrics, as its name indicates, built electric-powered cars.
Joseph William Bell, Sr. (1883-1959), our maternal great-grandfather. was the fifth of eight children born to Julius Bythewood Bell and Elizabeth Jane Catherwood. Both had died by the time Joseph turned 20. Our mother Ann Grayson Guevara remembered that her grandfather “Worked as a clerk in the big old mercantile building on the waterfront” of Savannah, dealing with merchants and ship captains. “My grandfather was a joker. He was wonderful. Happy always, always telling stories. He was a tiny man, 5’5″ with a size 5 shoe. He was a sweetheart.”
Joseph Bell was a part of the American automobile industry at its infancy. At age 15 Joseph was employed by druggists Isaac and Joseph Solomons. Interestingly, his Irish-born maternal grandfather Samuel Catherwood (whom he never knew) was also a druggist. By age 22 Joseph was working for Robert V. Connerat, an automobile dealer (one of only three listed in the 1905 Savannah City Directory) at 18 E. State St. who specialized in autos manufactured by Stevens-Duryea, Autocar, (both gasoline powered), and Baker Car Company (electric). Three years later in 1908, he was employed by the aforementioned T.A. Bryson of Bryson Automotive. His duties were not specified, but his “machinist” title suggests he worked in the auto repair machine shop and worked on both gas and electric-powered vehicles. While still employed at Bryson, Joseph married Julia Marie Barnard (1889-1969).
By age 27, our great-grandfather was out of the auto business entirely, being then employed as a clerk for the Central of Georgia Railroad. He later worked as a bookkeeper for a storage and transfer company, then for the cotton merchants Flannery and Co. on the waterfront. Despite having worked as an auto mechanic, it seems Joseph did not own a car even into the 1940s, as he had to borrow a neighbor’s vehicle to come to the aid of his daughter Margaret Bell Pruitt and her three young children on Tybee Island when her husband died suddenly in 1947.
The Bell family was well acquainted with tragedy. Julia’s only brother died in his 20s. Joseph and Julia had three sons and three daughters. Joseph Jr. had a falling out with the family, and was said to have been murdered in Chicago. Their youngest daughter Betty Ann died of brain cancer in her 40s, leaving a young family. But the death of their oldest son that took place one hundred years ago may have affected them the most deeply. Julius Barnard Bell (1908-1918) was named for his grandfather. The family called him “Barnard.”
A Family Tragedy
“He became confused and instead of continuing across the street [he] turned and ran in front of the machine.”
According to a book on Savannah history, in 1918 “prior to modern paving, Savannah’s streets were sand, plank, stone, and brick.”² Paving did not begin in earnest until the 1930s. Drayton Street is a major northbound thoroughfare through the historic district, as it is one of the few north/south streets that does not run into an iconic square at some point. Drayton could have been cobblestone or brick at the time of the incident, though the description of the boy being “knocked to the pavement” makes one wonder if it was indeed paved. We do know that Barnard was actually 9 and not 11 as the article attests. Joseph Bell was a devout Catholic, and sent the children to Catholic schools, probably to St. Vincent’s (girls) and Cathedral Day School (boys), both we think were attached to the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. The family home (406 Anderson St., since demolished) was located a few blocks north and east of Drayton and Charlton Sts., while the cathedral was and is two blocks southeast of the intersection.
Why Barnard was crossing Drayton St. to the west side we can only speculate. Barnard’s sole surviving grandparent, Julia’s mother Emma Wideman Barnard (1861-1928), lived with Joseph’s unmarried older sister Annie Bell at the house in which Joseph was born, 18 E. Macon St. (ca. 1851, still standing), a block and a half southwest of the fateful intersection, and close to Chippewa Square.
Was Barnard going to visit his grandmother? Why wasn’t he in school? Did the relative rarity of cars cause Barnard to be complacent, or did the quiet electric engine surprise him, much as it did me some 90 years later?
The sudden loss of her older brother haunted our grandmother Mary Bell Grayson for the rest of her life. As our mother Ann told the story, when then seven year-old Mary arrived home from school she found her mother Julia sitting in the basement mechanically churning butter. She looked up and blandly said, “Barnard’s dead.” “And the woman kept driving to her bridge game!” Ann was told years later. The newspaper clippings contradict that part of the story.
Mrs. Mayhew Cunningham was indeed the stereotypical “upper class woman” who would be most likely to drive an electric car during in the early 1900s. Her husband was 49 years old and a well-connected lawyer who was then the president of the Savannah Board of Education and the Chatham Savings and Loan Co., as well as General Counsel for the Central of Georgia Railway, Joseph Bell’s recent employer. It is probable that Joseph knew who Mayhew Cunningham was. It is unlikely that Mayhew knew 34 year-old Joseph Bell, at least not until that tragic day.
¹Featured photo of Bryson Automotive ca. 1917 from Bryson Hall Event Venue, 5-9 Perry St. Savannah GA http://brysonhall.com/
²Images of America Savannah 1733-2000 by Susan E. Dick and Mandi D. Johnson © 2001 Arcadia Publishing
Adapted from A String of Bells: Stories of a Southern Family © 2020 by Nick J. Guevara, Jr.
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