E. J. Pennington

Edward Joel Pennington (1858 to 1911) was an American inventor and promoter of airships, motorcycles and automobiles, best remembered for his early motorcycle designs and for a reputation for grandiose and often spurious claims. Born at Moores Hill, Indiana, he was apprenticed at thirteen in a Cincinnati machine shop and in 1890 first applied a gas engine to a road vehicle. He demonstrated an original motorcycle design at Milwaukee in 1895, after which Thomas Kane acquired his patents, licensed the English rights to a British syndicate and, Grace's Guide says presumably, saw the motorcycle patents pass to Harry John Lawson. Grace's Guide says the surviving example is kept at the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu and that the design was primitive, with the engine cranks driving the rear axle directly. His promotional car bearing his own name took payments for orders but apparently none were delivered. Pennington and Baines were declared bankrupt in London in 1900, and he died in Springfield, Massachusetts, in March 1911.