"The Thing"

"The Thing" is a Michigan historical marker in Memphis, St. Clair County, dedicated 1981.

Bordman Road at East village limits, Memphis

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Thomas Clegg (1863-1939) and his English-born father, John, built “The Thing,” the first recorded self-propelled vehicle in Michigan (and perhaps in the country) in 1884-85. The Thing, driven by a single cylinder steam engine with a tubular boiler carried in the rear, seated four. The vehicle was built in the John Clegg & Son machine shop here in Memphis. It ran about 500 miles before Clegg dismantled it and sold the engine to a creamery. The shop was razed in 1936, just a short time before Henry Ford offered to buy it for Greenfield Village.

TodayHistorical map

Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

Historical maps covering this location

1853 · Map of the surveyed part of Michigan (Digital Commonwealth, Boston Public Library)
1854 · A map of the surveyed part of Michigan / by John Farmer ; engraved by S. Stiles & Co. (University Library, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam)
1873 · (Map of St. Clair County, Michigan) (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1874 · Colton's Michigan (1874) (Barry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)
1889 · Ontario No. 1. (David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries)

(Map of St. Clair County, Michigan), 1873, covering the location of "The Thing", with a pin at the marker's coordinates — (Map of St. Clair County, Michigan), 1873, covering this location. David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries. The pin is ours, placed from the marker's coordinates.

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Marker data: Michigan History Center
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"The Thing"

Historical maps covering this location

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