When we were kids in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, there was a well-to-do family lived on up the street. Mr. Metcalf had built a museum in his home. The ceiling in this room was two stories high with a balcony all around the second story. He had collected all kinds of Western artifacts, revolvers especially. Some of these were so large, you wondered if a man could hold it out one handed. One was a round revolver that could be hidden in your hand with the barrel protruding between two fingers. It held 22 22 caliber shells. With a barrel only two inches long, it must have been intended to get rid of someone who was usually well guarded. 

 He had a collection of weapons that had been made by prisoners in jail. There was a beautiful rope that a man had made by tearing up his bedding and plaiting four of these strips into an almost square rope. He had tied something to one end of the rope and thrown it over the wall till it caught on something and climbed out. I don't remember whether he escaped or not.

 Mr. Metcalf always drove a big, beautiful black car, a Winton. Bob and I were trying to remember if we knew of another one, but couldn't come up with one. In this year's Old Farmer's Almanac, there is a story of a man betting $50 with another man who said an automobile could not be driven across the United States in 90 days. This was 100 years ago. There were no gas stations then, but grocery stores carried small supplies for pumps and some farm machinery. 

 The subject of this story, Horatio Nelson Jackson, was a physician from Vermont who had just gotten through a bout of tuberculosis, had given up his profession, and had married a rich woman, so he had the means to travel. He paid a man $5000 extra for a slightly used Winton 1903 touring car, $2500 list price. It was a 20 horse power, two cylinder open car. He hired a young mechanic, Sewall K.Crocker by name, to accompany him. They removed the back seat and loaded up with tools, sleeping bags, cooking gear, block and tackle, and 150 feet of hemp rope, a shotgun, a rifle, pistols, ammunition, a spade, an axe, and an extra 12-gallon can. To avoid the deserts of Nevada, they headed for Oregon which took them 1000 miles out of their way. They followed dusty trails and once had to be towed several miles by a cowboy who tied his rope to their front axle to the horn of his saddle. They broke a front spring then the axle both fixed by local blacksmiths. 

 In Caldwell, Idaho, Jackson bought a small white bulldog, who wore goggles same as the men and Jackson said was the only one of the crew who sued no profanity on the whole trip. Twice the connecting rod to the crankshaft sheared off and they had to wait for parts sent from the factory in Cleveland. Once they were lost for two days, no food till they met up with  a lonely sheepherder who fed them roast lamb and boiled corn.

 The author, Dayton Duncan, collaborates with old time friend, Ken Burns. Duncan and Burns have a film airing on PBS this year.
 Large crowds gathered in every large city to cheer the trio on. They reached New York in 63 1/2 days. Jackson liked to brag that he never collected his bet although he spent $8000 of his own money for 800 gallons of gas, Crocker's salary, tires, and parts , and the bull dog. He also loved to show people a clipping from his hometown paper telling of the first man to cross the US by auto, being find for driving more than 6 miles an hour.