Made Its Newcomerstown Debut in 1898
The "gasoline age" started in Newcomerstown,
Ohio in 1898 when
a motorcycle or automobile on the streets was such a curiosity that it
always attracted a big crowd.
Dent Lydick, father of H.J. Lydick bought the first motorcycle
here in 1898. It was a Mitchell and because the roads were gravel, it threw
him off once or twice about every time he took it out.
In 1900 the automobile came to Newcomerstown and again
the first one here, a two-passenger Oldsmobile with the engine under the
seat and crank on the side, was purchased by Dent Lydick. It never got
very far away from home but it did make one trip as far as Coshocton and
one to Uhrichsville. Mr. Lydick’s next car was a Cadillac and was so efficient
that it could get to Cleveland and back with only a few breakdowns.
It was in 1914 during Newcomerstown’s Centennial Celebration
that H.J. Lydick became the first person in town to take an airplane ride.
The pilot, a Mr. Sherrick of Canton, Ohio tried three times to get the
plane off the I.W. George pasture field. Each time he failed. So Mr. Lydick
had to drive over to Daugherty field while the pilot flew over by himself
(he could make it with only one person in the plane). From there they succeeded
in making a flight.
