Around the World on Wheels, 1898
Mr. and Mrs. H. Darwin McIlrath

The end of the 19th Century saw bicycling become a new national pastime. Everyone was crazy for “wheels” as the new machines were called. They were freedom and speed. They were independence. They were fun. Races and endurance feats were popular. It was into that atmosphere that The Chicago Inter-Ocean newspaper sent Mr. H. Darwin McIlrath on a trip around the world by bicycle with his wife (see our Heirloom articles for the first transcontinental bike race in the August, ’20 Heirloom, Thomas Stevens in the March, ’15 Heirloom, Annie Londonderry in the March, ’18 Heirloom, and Professor Wilson and family in the September, ’17 Heirloom). People wanted to bicycle and they wanted to read about bicycling.

In search of more information about an auto accident on the road down from Donner Summit in a Dragon (see our March, ‘21 Heirloom) our crack research team came across the first attempted crossing of the Sierra on chainless “wheels” (bicycles) by three fellows in 1895. That didn’t work out because the guys apparently chickened out after letting a newspaper know, but it was while looking for them (because another Donner Summit first is always good to put into our historical quiver) we stumbled across H. Darwin McIlrath and his wife who rode around the world from 1895 to 1898 on a reporting venture for the Chicago Inter-Ocean newspaper. Of course, they went over Donner Summit and Mrs. H. Darwin McIlrath was another first for Donner Summit – the first woman to bicycle around the world and that’s enough to get them into the Heirloom. Their book barely mentions the Sierra but there was an article in the Sacramento Record Union that gave a few details about riding from Cisco to Sacramento in one day. There were possibilities for the Heirloom in that – maybe – with more research. So this article is more than a book review; it’s another good story about a Sierra crossing.

Prior to the McIlraths departure from Chicago they were so popular and engendered so much public attention that the newspaper had to set aside space to deal with the “letters… [that came in to the newspaper] so thick and fast…” The crowds were so great in front of the building that “special policemen were detailed to keep the throng moving and traffic open.” (Around the World on Wheels). When the McIlraths left Chicago a great cheer went up from the thousands of spectators. The couple mounted their bicycles but could only proceed a few yards “so congested was the street. “They had to lead their wheels a few blocks until the crowds thinned out. That shows how bicycle crazy America had become, just prior to the automobile.

The Leoti Standard (Leoti Kansas 4/10 1895) said thousands cheered the McIlraths on as they left Chicago. They got to Denver on May 8 and Provo on June 13. Sacramento was July 25. Newspaper stories followed them on their way.

Since we focus on Donner Summit and our readers have little patience for less endowed parts of the country we’ll only quickly mention a little of what the McIlraths experienced from Chicago to Reno. They met Chinese railroad workers who smoked opium, met Italian railroad workers who were very hospitable, fought the desert, repaired flat tires, endured lack of water, and went from railroad section house to railroad section house and depot to depot. They met a cowboy who’d never seen a bicycle.

In “A Fair Globe Girdler” in the York, Gazette (Pennsylvania) (May 4, 1895) there is a description of the McIlraths to personalize the story. The article starts with a little character. A fellow named Frank Lenz had been murdered by “savage Kurds in Armenia” apparently fairly recently (to 1895). Despite that the McIlraths were going to girdle the globe. Clearly they were brave. The trip was also something that had never been done before and here the newspaper mentioned our friend Thomas Stevens (March, ‘15 Heirloom). The article said “Plucky” riders could peddle around the earth. That feat had been done before. In 1895, though, women were not in that “plucky” globe girdling group -yet. 25,000 miles is a long way. At the same time a woman was attempting the feat, Annie Londonderry (March, ‘18 Heirloom) but the newspaper said Annie’s was an “alleged” attempt. She might have used more steamers and railroads than was proper. Maybe there were rules for globe girdling by bicycle.

Mrs. H. Darwin McIlrath (that’s how they kept referring to her) felt sure she could pedal the whole way. Mrs. McIlrath was a brunette, 5’2” weighing only 106 lbs. (San Francisco Call 7/30/95) and the McIlraths had only been married two years. Mrs. H. Darwin had been a housewife during those years. In preparation for the trip Mr. and Mrs. had been peddling thirty to sixty miles a day in “all kind of weather and over all grades of road.” The San Francisco Call, (7/26/95), noting the arrival of the couple in Sacramento, described Mrs. H. Darwin as “by no means one of the strong-minded masculine type of femininity one would naturally expect capable of mustering up sufficient courage to brave the dangers and hardship to be encountered in a trip of this kind. On the contrary, she is petite, refined, beautiful, possessing the characteristics that blend to form the ideal, without one trace of the new woman.” “New women” were clearly to be disdained. On her bicycle she wore a sweater, cap, and bloomers, “perfect costume for the silent steed,” she said.

Mr. H. Darwin had an “athletic physique.” He was six feet in height, weighed about 160 lbs. and was 31 years old. He was good at sports, as was his wife. His background was interesting. He had a grandfather with seven six-foot sons. The grandfather was a giant who could lift 1,000 lbs. and could vault over a horse. H. Darwin trained to be a doctor for three years but then moved to journalism. As a cyclist and journalist he and his wife were going to “girdle” the globe for his newspaper.

In Chapter I of Around the World On Wheels (a compendium of the weekly letters H. Darwin sent back to Inter-Ocean) he complimented his wife as being a “brave little girl” a “great help… on our memorable voyage, an “expert wheelwoman,” and “unerring shot.” “Nerves she possesses in abundance,”

Their total outfits weight 50 pounds each. Their bicycles weighted 26 and 27 lbs. Mrs. McIlrath “wore the ‘rational’ costume so often derided by dress reformers…” They only carried spare underwear thinking they rely on local stores when new clothes were needed. Their luggage consisted of camera, photographic film, medicines, repair tools, two .38 pistols and one .44. The three “cannons” were as necessary as repair kits. They also carried letters and credentials to help with local authorities and which saved them from arrest and fines.

The McIlraths crossed the continent from Chicago and then the Sierra. Like Thomas Stevens, eleven years before, they crossed the Sierra over Donner Pass. Unlike Mr. Stevens (see our March, ’15 Heirloom) who wrote vividly about his adventures there (e.g. pressing against tunnel walls to avoid “smoke emitting monsters”), the McIlraths ignored the whole trip up to the pass, the tunnels and the scenery. This shows a great lack of character despite that which was described above.

There was a near drowning crossing Utah, lizards, a rattlesnake dispatched by a .44, the keys to the city at Provo, bicycle repairs, repair to dilapidated toilet, escorts by local wheelmen, temporary paralysis of hands and arms, a hot springs visit, collision with cows, freezing cold, lack of food, stolen chickens, heavy sands, head-winds, among other things but that’s not about Donner Summit and so can be ignored.

Then near Elko they were stopped by a band of horsemen looking for someone which required an inspection of Mr. H. Darwin’s mouth (you have to read the story). H. Darwin was not the right person. There was a set of broken handlebars and flat tires. Then, just before Reno, they were met by Professor Wilson and his wife on a tandem bicycle (see our September, ’17 Heirloom). The Wilsons were leading a welcoming party. The whole group rode down the main street of Reno to the Riverside Hotel. Dinner “fit for a king and sufficient for a regiment’ was ready. The McIlraths got entertainment in the city, a bike ride around town, and a discussion about gold or free silver (an important political issue of the day – remember Wm. Jennings Bryan’s Cross of Gold speech?). They visited Virginia City.

Now compare all that detail with the most important part of the trip, crossing the Sierra at Donner Summit as described in their book, On Wheels Around the World.

They were escorted by Professor Wilson to the California border. They left Truckee on the 23rd, “Making the 160 miles to Sacramento shortly after dusk.” That’s it. There were four sightseeing days in Sacramento and then off to San Francisco for overhauling wheels and shopping by Mrs. H. Darwin. Space in the letter back to his newspaper was also too limited to talk much about San Francisco beyond “the pleasure in store for a wheelman in the metropolis of the Pacific Coast.” So Donner Summit shouldn’t feel too badly.

By the time they’d reached San Francisco on July 30, they were tanned and dusty. They’d gone 2955 miles and been riding for 58 days. Their Fowler “wheels” (see the ad here in case you’re in the market) had single tube tires and they’d had not more than a dozen punctures. Mr. H. Darwin lost about ten pounds during the cross-country trip and Mrs. H. Darwin had gained a little weight, the details of which were not reported in deference to Mrs. H. Darwin’s sensibilities. They mentioned to the newspaper that one of the interesting things about California was they they’d been “snowballing” in the Sierra in the morning (they’d overnighted in Cisco) and eating fruit in 100 degrees in the afternoon.

We don’t need to rely solely on Inter-Ocean reports. The Sacramento Record Union (October 11, 1895) printed an article (headline formatted as it was),

Down the Sierra on Bicycles
The Ride of Mr. and Mrs. McIlrath
Last July
Interesting Description of their last
Day’s Run Into the Capit-
Tol City.

Why it took from July to October to get the article in the paper is not mentioned. Maybe it’s like the Heirloom, there’s just too much history vying for space. The article gives more detail.

“Early in the morning, July 24th, we were up and away (from Cisco), through the snowsheds again, the path delightfully smooth and the air cool and sweet.” Outside the sheds “the snow lay in great heaps.” Trains passed by going each way but the couple had become accustomed to the “thunder of the pounding pistons, the roar of the forced draught, and the hissing steam, and no longer dreaded their approach.” They emerged from the sheds at Emigrant Gap and stopped at the hotel. It was 5 AM and too early for breakfast there. On they went, twenty miles downhill without an effort. Instead using brakes they put one foot on the front tire to slow their bicycles. Apparently that wasn’t a great idea and H. Darwin McIlrath allowed that if they were to do the trip down the Sierra again, they would use brakes of the “strongest make.”

Soon they were “tearing along… like paper torpedoes.” The speed increased and became too great so H. Darwin tried to back pedal. The strap of his knickerbockers broke, flapped around and got caught in the chain sprocket. He was able to stop, somehow. He ended up with hands feeling as if they “were filled with burning coals.” The detail about how that happened is not included in the story. The important part was that the right leg of his knickerbockers was ripped off as neatly as if a surgeon’s knife had done it. H. Darwin was mad but his wife just laughed.

They had to go on so H. Darwin resolved to hide in the bushes if they met anyone or cover his limbs with his coat until they passed.

They continued downhill past old miner’s cabins whose only value was picturesque beauty. The country was “luxuriantly wild” and for miles they rolled through “sylvan beauty.” Eventually the came to a ranch where repairs could be made to the knickerbockers. Next it was on to “Towles” where “crowds of curious people surrounded our machines…” People did not believe the couple had already come the 25 miles from Cisco and were aiming for Sacramento that evening. Then it was on to Alta and then Dutch Flat and the other little towns. The McIlraths just waved their hats and did not stop. The railroad telegraphers tapped out the couple’s progress to the world and the “cynics in Towles”, “The Inter-Ocean wheels had passed.” Why was there no detail about Truckee and climbing to Donner Summit and down to Cisco?

Dinner was at the Freeman Hotel in Auburn. There “fashionably dressed ladies in light lawns and ducks lounged in the shade, languidly accepting the earnest attentions of a dozen young men, perfect symphonies in blue serge, white flannels and suede shoes.” The McIlraths dismounted “dusty, dirty and grimy.” “…with allopathic doses of hot water and soap, applied externally, we were soon able to enjoy a sumptuous dinner.” After eating they took again to the railroad tracks to Sacramento where a crowd, including reporters, waited. They got further away from Donner Summit and so we leave them to their travels.

Mr. and Mrs. H. Darwin McIlrath returned to the U.S. in October, 1898. They’d ridden 26,200 miles and walked another 6,000 miles. That didn’t include boat travel. Mrs. H. Darwin gained 15 lbs. even though she’d lost two toes when they’d lost their way in the snow.

There was still a thousand miles to go and they arrived in Chicago on December 8, 1898

I you are interested in the “wheels” the McIlraths used the model is “The Fowler” and is available in 1895 at Davis Brothers, 718 Market St. San Francisco. San Francisco Call 7/30/95 for about $120 according to the Los Ageles Herald (October 20, 1895)