Antique cars on tour from Gardner rest on the lawn at Fruitlands as their drivers eat lunch in the tea room on June 24. (Photos by Tyler Papazian)

If you were in the front yard on Thursday morning, June 24, in Still River, you may have seen an unusual sight: pristine automobiles from the early 1900s tooling along on the way up to Prospect Hill. By 11 o’clock 12 early-model cars were parked under a blue sky on the grassy sward uphill from Fruitlands.

Ultimately, the stunning group of cars included seven Buicks, four REOs, a 1905 Cadillac, and a curved-dash Oldsmobile, which became the first mass-produced car in the USA. In production since the 1890s, it was the predecessor to Henry Ford’s famous mass-manufactured automobiles.

These cars, all one- and two-cylinders, were the cutting-edge of technology in their own day, when horses were still the more common form of transportation. Their engines are driven by 22 horsepower motors, about the same as a lawnmower of today. These cars have two speeds, low and high, low being up to 10 mph, and high reaching 20 to 30 mph. A throttle is used, rather than a gear shift, to deal with the need for more power when climbing hills.

This 1907 Model G Buick was one of many 100+ year-old cars at the show.

Their owners are members of the Horseless Carriage Club of America, a social and adventurous group of antique car enthusiasts who gather together to make short day trips from a central location from time to time. In this case, these pre-1916 automobiles were brought from as far away as Long Island, N.Y., and Falls Church, Va., to the Colonial Inn in Gardner. Wednesday’s trip was up Wachusett Mountain; Thursday’s jaunt was to Fruitlands Museum in Harvard.

Douglas Tomb of Falls Church, Va., owner of a 1909 Buick, considers the traveling cars to be a living museum and a tribute to the evolution of technology in that day and age. “The dash board, for example,” he explained, “originated as a wooden board, set vertically to deflect both wind and bugs. The earliest two-seaters had no doors in front, but four-seated touring cars eventually were given doors for the back seat, for passengers’ safety. Engines were under the seat, and the gas tank was located under the hood,” for easy access. “Whale oil was the fuel of choice,” he told us, and was produced in Newburyport, where the first refinery of whale oil was located. Eventually, petroleum became the source for fuel—undoubtedly an improvement from the whales’ point of view!

Flags decorate the hood of one of the vintage cars.

Twenty miles an hour was considered quite speedy when these cars had their day, in part because the early cars have no windshields, and a 20-mph breeze in the face is quite brisk. Also, the roads were so bad, Tomb said, the bumps and holes would have made any faster speed quite uncomfortable.

Chris Byler and Jared King were on hand from the town Cable Committee to gather footage for their upcoming video, providing a lasting memory of the morning event. Car owners Don Rising of Long Island, N.Y., and Tomb provided most of the enthusiastic and informative commentary.