Canton-made traveled winter roads from Stark County to New York City a century ago.

Neither snow nor sleet nor slush could keep a Canton-made Holmes from its appointed rounds a century ago.

Arthur Holmes, president and chief engineer at Holmes Automobile Co. in Canton, along with others, drove a car from his plant in the city to a dealership in New York City in the winter of 1918. He made the trip to let it be known to potential buyers that his car would withstand any weather conditions.

"How Arthur Holmes Proves Out a Car ... The New Holmes Air-Cooled," a Holmes advertisement in The Canton Repository on Jan. 14, 1918. "From Canton, Ohio, to New York over steep mountain grades, through snow drifts and roads of snow and ice."

What the car manufacture tried to show in his trek across the country 100 years ago was the capability of the car and its economy of its operation -- outside a showroom and off of the floor of a car show.

"It's all right to tie ribbons on a car in an automobile show, brilliant with glistening paint and shining accessories," the Jan. 14 ad admitted. "They all look good on dress parade. The question is, what will the car do in a grueling test of service -- in the most difficult road conditions, through blizzard, in a 50-mile wind with top up and the chains on?"

Questions that potential motor car owners and dealers alike were asking at the time of the trip, said the ad, were: What was the strength of the engine? What about the endurance of the car? What was its fuel economy?

The trip made by Holmes in his Holmes Touring Car in January 1918 sought to answer those questions. It was a car quiz that the Holmes seemed to pass -- if not easily, at least with the car intact and its driver convinced that his vehicle was "the last word in a perfected air-cooled automobile."

About the company

The Canton car manufacturing company was in its infancy at the time it took a very public chance in testing so ruggedly one of the first cars it built. A front-page article published in the Repository on Feb. 12, 1918, notes that the the Holmes Automobile Co. was organized only the prior year by Arthur Holmes, who had previously been a vice president of the H.H. Franklin Co. Holmes' new car manufacturing plant was not completed until a month after Holmes had set out on the multi-state journey.

"The officers told the stockholders that, with the new plant now completed and fully equipped, they were ready to start on the production of the first year's business, which they anticipated will amount to 4,000 cars," the newspaper reported.

A history of the company posted at american-automobiles.com, however, notes that production of the Holmes, which was built in Canton from 1918 to 1923, "hovered around 500 units each year."

The online history praised the quality of the car.

"The Holmes six was highly regarded with its louvred front grille that had a series of horizontal slits. 1918-1919 Holmes production included a $2900.00 Series A six passenger Touring Car and four-passenger two-door Sedan on a 126-inch wheelbase. They were equipped with an air cooled six-cylinder engine that was rated at 29.4 horsepower," said the history.

The reason that the Holmes Automobile Company had a short life was not due to manufacturing problems but rather in the management of the corporation.

"The Holmes Automobile Company failed in May 1923," the online history explained, "after its vice president was charged with larceny and embezzlement in 1921."

Manufactured days

But the winter trip in January of 1918 was taken by Arthur Holmes in happier times.

Interestingly, the Holmes Touring Car was manufactured only days before it set out. Much faith may have been placed in the design, but the reliability of the individual car being tested was relatively unproven at time of its departure.

"The engine was put into the chassis on Friday, January 4th, and the trip began on Saturday," the 1918 Holmes advertisement explained. "The engine had never been run on the block prior to being installed. It was so stiff that no man in the plant could turn it over. It required the electric starter and a man at the crank to start it.

"The comparatively level road between Canton and Pittsburgh gave the only opportunity to break the engine in before tackling the heavy mountain grades east of Pittsburgh. In spite of the severe conditions, the engine gave no trouble whatever."

The route taken by the car on its promotional run ended its first leg in Pittsburgh. Then it traveled "over the heavy grades and hair-pin turns of the Allegheny Mountain roads" to Hagerstown, Md. Among other major cities through which the Holmes traveled on its way to New York were Baltimore, Md., and Philadelphia, Pa.

The latter portion of the trip was more rugged, over terrain that was filled with hills.

Good mileage

The car left Canton with 15 gallons of gasoline. Total consumption of gas during the trip was 46 gallons over 594 miles, with the car traveling about 13 miles to the gallon. Only a gallon of oil was burned over the course of the trip, the ad boasted.

"When the conditions under which the trip was made are considered, this is remarkable," said the ad. "Up the long grades over the ice, with slipping wheels, in spite of the chains, in low or intermediate gear, with the top up in high winds, the gasoline consumption was approximately 30 percent greater than it would be under normal driving conditions."

But, these weren't normal driving conditions, at least for those unaccustomed to winters in the Northeast. More than 20 cars and trucks, wrecked from collisions as they slid off the slick road surface, were seen along the way.

Twice, the Holmes party "lost its way, got into roads that were worse than the regular roads, and made frequent stops to inquire the way, with the engine idling and consuming gasoline."

"The test demonstrates beyond any question that under ordinary conditions an average mileage of 16 miles and better may be expected."

Newspaper report

An article in The Canton Repository documented part of the return of the car to Canton a few days later. With Elmer Smith and Jacob Grobowsky at the steering wheel, the journey took the better part of a week. Weather was worse, the newspaper said.

"Leaving Philadelphia at 10 o'clock Monday night, a Holmes motor car ... bucked the snowdrifts of the Appalachian mountains and arrived at Canton at 7 o'clock Friday morning," said the article, which was published in the Repository on Jan. 20, 1918. "Although it was cold when they left Philadelphia, the real storm did not break until they had reached Lancaster, Grobowsky said, in telling of the trip Saturday. At Gettysburg they were informed that a snow plow had been trying to break through the drifts but that they had gotten but a mile and a half in three hours."

The Holmes crew was not deterred from traveling ahead.

"In order to give the car the best possible test, Grobowsky said, they started through. They drove the car into the drift as far as possible, depending upon the pan to drag a path, and then backed off again and again bucked the snow. Generally it was impossible to back out and it was necessary to shovel the car out."

A weather-related traffic tie-up down the road slowed the trip to a stop, but again the Holmes got underway. And in doing so the car helped the Postal Service adhere to its motto about not letting the weather interfere with its distribution of the mail.

"At McConnellsville, Grobowsky said, they found the mailman tied up for the first time in 14 years," reported the Repository. "The mailman, however, took advantage of Grobowsky and Smith's road breaking and followed them as far as his route permitted."

At Stoyestown, Pa., near Johnstown, the Holmes party encountered nearly two dozen men trying to cut their way through a snow drift that was more than 1,000 feet long and reported to be 3 to 5 feet deep.

"The Holmes car butted into the drift and with the aid of the laborers went through," said the Repository. "However, it required from 10 o'clock in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon to travel seven miles."

Memories of the arduous trip lingered, no doubt, in the minds of Grobowsky and Smith.

"There were times, Grobowsky said, when they had nothing to guide them but the tracks of some pedestrian who had fought his way through the snow," reported the Repository, "and at others they had an idea as to where the road should be only from the telephone posts or the Lincoln Highway posts."