"BACK TO THE FUTURE? IN 1868?"

Newark’s Steam Powered Robo-Man

These days there’s a popular fashion or “cosplay” fad known a “Steampunk.” Steampunk is based on the idea of futuristic technology existing in the past, usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. But thirty years before H.G. Wells published his sci-fi masterpieces, there was a real life Steampunk walking the streets of Newark, NJ.

In January 1868 a futuristic steam powered robot called the Newark Steam Man was patented and built by an eccentric inventor named Zadoc P. Dederick, who hoped he had solved the problem of the horseless carriage.  Dederick, a patternmaker by trade, built a man-like figure about seven feet tall with a 6 horse-power steam engine in its belly. Its legs were double-jointed, so that the knees could bend backward or forward, and its arms reached down to grasp the shafts of a small carriage that carried fuel, perhaps a passenger or two, and controls. Its feet were spiked with strong springs to retract them at each step. Its head, which had a face and hat, concealed a smokestack and a whistle. The device was clothed so that it would not frighten the horses.

Dederick hoped that the Steam Man could run at speeds up to 60 miles per hour, which was theoretically possible from this engine, but the best that it really did was a walk, perhaps a stumbling walk. Eyewitnesses claim that it really functioned, and on January 23, 1868, it marched around Military Park into a beer garden where it was put on display, at 25 cents per head, while it went through its paces.

The Steam Man received much attention from the national press, and visitors, including the governor of New Jersey, came from all over the East to see it. Dederick received inquiries about manufacturing it, and correspondents suggested that it be used to develop the prairies. On the whole it was treated seriously, but a wag on the Newark Daily Journal expressed worry, perhaps with Frankenstein in mind, that if steam men and women were made and reproduced, “will it be possible for normal men and women to compete with steam men and women?”

"