Person:Burton French (1)

From Illustrated History of Wyoming County, NY 1880

Burton French, son of Ira and Sylvia [Burton] French, was born January 25, 1817 at Doster, Bennington County, VT. In 1825 he removed with the family of his stepfather to Warsaw and came to Bennington in 1837. September 7, 1831 he was married to Mary A., daughter of Palmer and Caroline Fargo of Warsaw. He is a farmer and an extensive dealer in livestock and wool. He has been Justice of the Peace and held other offices in the gift of his townsmen.

The township of Burton in Yellow Medicine County, Minnesota was named after Burton French by his son Palmer.

Their children were

Palmer Ossian French was born on 6 Oct 1837. He died in Dec 1915. He married Nancy A. Wood in Litchfield, Michigan. After she died, he married Rhoda W. Gillett of Bennington, New York. Ira Burton French was born on 8 Mar 1839. He died on 21 Dec 1922. Sylvia Lovina French was born on 11 Feb 1841. She died on 24 Jun 1933. Burton Frank French was born on 2 May 1846. He died on 3 Aug 1933. He may have married Emily Kernan Henry C French was born on 2 Feb 1853. He died on 21 Dec 1860 in Bennington Wyoming Co NY. Romanzo Elias French was born on 9 Dec 1857. Romaine (Romine) Albert French was born on 9 Dec 1857. He died on 15 Oct 1939.

The Celerifere, an early version of the bicycle, was built around 1791 by a French man, Comte Mede de Sivrac. It was basically a scooter with a high seat. There were no pedals - you had to push with your feet like you do with a skateboard or a scooter. Around 1816 or 1818 Baron Karl von Drais de Sauerbrun in Germany added a moveable steering handle and called it the Draisinne. These early contraptions were often known as dandy horses or hobby horses, but weren't very popular.

The innovation that made the difference between an oddity and a craze was added by a Scottish blacksmith around 1839. Kirkpatrick Macmillan added pedals to enable him to get up hills. His fellow villagers thought he was crazy, but it was this innovation that made the bicycle a serious form of transportation.

Bikes began to grow in popularity from this point on. They were called velocipedes ("fast foot") or bone-shakers, because of the lack of proper tires made for a rough ride! It wasn't until around 1869 that they began to be called bicycles ("two-wheels"). Carriage makers in Paris (either Pierre and Ernest Michaux, or their employee Pierre Lallement) switched the pedal to the front wheel. That's why it is usually either the Michauxs or Lallement (who said the his employeers stole his idea), not Macmillan, who get the credit for inventing the bicycle.

In 1869 the penny-farthing or high-wheeler was invented. The large wheel meant that the rider could go much farther with each push of the pedal, but caused many accidents because the seat was so far off the ground.

In the mid-1880s Englshman James Starley began to manufacture what he called the "safety bicycle" which had two similarly-sized wheels and a major improvement - a chain and sprocket driven rear wheel, with the pedals between the two wheels like modern bicycles.

One more historical note - it's possible that the idea of the bicycle was thought of almost 400 years before it was actually invented. There is a drawing of a bicycle-like machine in one of Leonardo Da Vinci's notebooks, which dates back to about 1493. Some historians say it is a modern fake, and others say that it was drawn by Salai, one of Da Vinci's students.