HEBRON — The sound of a steam whistle and the hiss of the motor were unmistakable as the first of two dozen Stanley Steamers huffed down Route 119 from Gorham, N.H., to Hebron Academy on Tuesday.

The academy is hosting the cars as part of an annual weeklong tour of the White Mountains.

The tour began Monday at the base of Mount Washington to help celebrate the 150th birthday of the Auto Road, then onto Hebron Academy where Freelan O. Stanley was a student in the 1870s and later a longtime trustee.

Freelan and his twin brother, Francis, a Hebron Academy graduate of 1873, founded the Stanley Steamer company after they sold their photographic dry plate business to Eastman Kodak in the late 1800s. They built their first car in 1897 in their Watertown, Mass., manufacturing plant.

A Stanley Steamer, known as the “Rocket,” broke the world speed record in 1906 on Ormond Beach in Florida for the fastest mile in an automobile, 28.2 seconds.

In today’s world, the trip from Gorham to Hebron was no record setter for the steam-driven cars that arrived one by one several hours after their scheduled time. Breakdowns, lack of kerosene and frequent water stops to revive the engines delayed the arrival of some cars.

“We don’t go past a hose,” said one Stanley Steamer owner as he pulled up the long academy driveway to a hose to fill the tank below the passenger seat.

Howard Randall, president and general manager of the Stanley Museum in Kingfield, which hosts the annual Stanley Steamer tour, was the second to arrive. Randall drove a 1910 Stanley Model 70 which is owned by the museum.

He said members of the group travel at their own paces because each car differs in its motoring needs.

The cars are powered by steam but now run on kerosene. “Sadly, kerosene is disappearing from America,” Randall said, noting that the unexpected lack of kerosene at one stop on the tour delayed some of the motorists.

The newest car on the tour and the first to arrive is owned by David Nergaard of Littleton, Mass. He drove a 1922 Stanley Steamer with a 1950s Gibson box chassis and a Massachusetts license plate that read FOFE for the two Stanley brothers. Nergaard said he drove the highway from Massachusetts to New Hampshire without one stop for water, which most of the earlier Stanley Steamers could not do.

Nergaard did not attempt to climb to the summit of Mount Washington on Monday to recreate F.O. Stanley’s first ascent in an automobile in 1899, but three other Stanley Steamers did.

John Linderman of Connecticut, driving a 1910 Stanley Steamer Model 70, said he made it to the top of the mountain despite the 3,700 pounds of car and his own weight. He opted to put the car on a flatbed to come down the carriage road.

“It was a very high point,” he said of the White Mountain tour.

A 1909 Mountain Wagon Stanley Steamer was one of three that attempted to climb Mount Washington. The car had to stop part way up the carriage road because the weight of the car with seven people in it was too much for the 102-year-old vehicle.

“With seven people in it, it was a little heavy,” said Bayer Dorffen of Monson, N.H., as her husband, Herman, and a grandson filled the engine with water after arriving at Hebron Academy.

“He always wanted a steamboat. This is the closet we came to it,” Bayer said.

Randall said the original 1899 Stanley Steamer that Freelan and his wife, Flora, drove from their home in Newton, Mass., 197 miles to the Mount Washington carriage road and then more than 7 miles to the top of Mount Washington has never been found. But, he said, it is believed that an 1899 Stanley Steamer owned by the Mount Washington Auto Road may be the same one to make that first ascent by automobile.

The news of Stanley’s feat attracted worldwide attention, and the historic event was captured in a single photograph taken by Frank Hunt Burt, editor and publisher of Among the Clouds newspaper and a Newton neighbor of F.O. Stanley.

Hebron Academy archivist David Stonebraker said Freelan was a driving force behind the academy as it stands today. As a trustee from 1911 to 1940, Freelan not only insisted on the construction of the country’s first indoor school hockey rink and designed it himself, but he oversaw construction of several other major buildings, including Sturtevant Hall and the former infirmary building that bears his name.

The construction was done within a four-year period leading up to the Great Depression in 1929. Stonebraker said Stanley remained an influential member of the board for almost 30 years. No record remains of his time as a student at Hebron, Stonebraker said.

“He was a wonderful patron of the school,” he said.

The Stanley Steamer motorists ended their Tuesday tour in the Oxford Hills with a private tour of Bob Bahre’s vintage car collection on Paris Hill. They were led from Hebron to Paris Hill by a 1940s Brewster Bentley owned by Bahre, before they returned to the Town and Country Inn in Gorham, N.H.

“Onward into the fog. That’s their motto,” said one man when the Stanley Steamers began their trek back to New Hampshire.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

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