"The Thing"
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.
David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesBarry Lawrence Ruderman Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford LibrariesDigital Commonwealth, Boston Public LibraryDavid Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries
Marker data: Michigan History Center
See your own family's places through time.
Start with your family tree