De La Vergne

De La Vergne was a short-lived experimental automobile program inside John Chester De La Vergne's established Port Morris refrigeration and oil-engine works, not the full history of the industrial company. De La Vergne organized the De La Vergne & Mixer Refrigerating Company in 1880; after Mixer withdrew it became the De La Vergne Refrigerating Machine Company, a large New York manufacturer at the foot of East 138th Street. Refrigeration equipment and licensed Hornsby-Akroyd stationary oil engines remain outside the car catalog. In November 1895 the first issue of The Horseless Age described an actual four-vehicle motor-carriage batch: two Motor Hunting Traps and two larger Motor Drags. The works made the iron chassis frames, engines and gearing. Hincks & Johnson of Bridgeport built the Trap bodies, while Valentine Linn & Son of Brooklyn bodied the Drags. George Richmond managed the oil-engine department and developed the Trap's unusual single cylinder with two pistons; superintendent J. C. Bleveney devised the friction clutch and speed control. The four-seat Hunting Trap weighed about 1,500 lb, used a 4 HP horizontal gasoline engine, condenser cooling, electric ignition, chain drive and 36/48-inch solid-rubber wheels. The Motor Drag weighed about 1,800 lb and seated six, with one account claiming up to eight. Period sources conflict over whether its counterbalanced installation was one two-cylinder 4 HP engine or two distinct 4 HP motors, and over belt details, so the conflict is preserved. One Drag entered the snowy 1895 Chicago Times-Herald contest, withdrew after wheelspin and earned a $50 engine-counterbalance award; it was not a separate racer. Scientific American explicitly said the carriages were experimental and not generally on the market. John De La Vergne died on 12 May 1896, ending the vehicle venture, though the industrial business continued and became De La Vergne Machine Company in 1897. Wikidata's 1880 inception describes that parent and is corrected here to the 1895 automotive identity. No production truck, imported Benz row, motorcycle or Hornsby-Akroyd automobile is supported. Two period-named forms—Motor Hunting Trap and Motor Drag—exhaust the defensible catalog.

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