A Man Named Dandurand, and the First Cars to Ride the Streets of Montreal

On November 21, 1899, the 25^th mayor of Montreal Raymond Préfontaine took a ride in what’s been claimed to be first automobile to ride the city’s then-muddy streets: The Waltham, which cut through the sounds of horses' hooves and rhythmic creak of carriage wheels.

Owned by a bourgeois real estate investor Ucal-Henri Dandurand—a man who developed the Rosemont neighbourhood which he named after his mother, Rose Philips, with Samuel Holt—he pulled the tiller of a steam-powered Waltham imported from Massachusetts (imagine a lever that’s steered the car much like the rudder on a boat), proudly parading Préfontaine around.

It had a very light 50 lb, 3hp, two-cylinder double acting steam engine, and the complete vehicle only weighed 600 lb with wire wheels.