Christian Linger

Christian Linger was a nineteenth-century German-American salesman, businessman, and dentist who lived and did business in various parts of Wisconsin. His claim to fame is that he conceived the idea of making horseless carriages that were hand-powered by a person to make it move. From that idea was developed the first gas-driven automobile in the United States.

Early life[]

The old Tesch Drug Store in Milwaukee

Linger was born in the Rhine Province in Europe in 1838. His family immigrated to Milwaukee in 1844. Linger's father was in poor health, so the children worked to support the family. Linger was around 16 years of age when he began learning dentistry in Dr Jennings' office in Milwaukee. He worked at dentistry for three winters and worked at a farm during the summer months. Linger then worked at the joiner's trade for a period of time and later in the sale of general merchandise in a store.^[1]

Mid life[]

Linger married Eva Michaels on November 5, 1871. She was eleven years his junior. They moved to Jefferson, Wisconsin, where he was a farmer for a year. He then became a merchant selling candy in a store he maintained for a year, and then became a traveling salesman selling medicines for a couple of years. Linger then went back to studying dentistry with a Dr Townsend of Jefferson. He worked with him for a little over two years, then worked at dentistry for six months with a Dr Crandall who was located in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. After that he returned to Jefferson where he practiced dentistry for a while and then moved to Oconomowoc, Wisconsin, where he practiced dentistry from August 1870.^[1] A Mrs. E. B. Smith placed a testimony in the Milwaukee Daily Sentinel on May 24, 1882, that she was pleased with the work Linger did in extracting 13 teeth and the making of a full set of upper and lower dentures for her in Oconomowoc on June 1, 1875.^[2] In 1896 Linger had a dentistry office in Tesch's Drug Store at 13 Grand Avenue in Milwaukee, and advertised he had been in the practice of dentistry for 33 years.^[3]

First gasoline motor car made in U. S., now in the Milwaukee Public Museum.

Linger in 1889 brought the idea for two hand-powered propelled horseless carriages to Frank Toepfer for him to construct in his machine shop on National Avenue in Milwaukee. One of the carriages was pumped like a railway handcar for its forward locomotion power.^[4] The other one was powered by a rocking-chair mechanism where the rocking motion of a person in the vehicle's seat provided the energy needed to propel forward the horseless carriage. The rocking-chair mechanism was attached to a crankshaft that transferred the energy made to the wheels of the carriage for its propulsion.^[5] Linger hoped the novel idea of moving a carriage without a horse would attract the attention of people so he could then promote the medical ointment he made.^[5][6] He used his self-propelled vehicles to travel the streets of Milwaukee and threw out pennies to the crowds that gathered as he moved along; he became known as the "Penny Doctor".^[7] With his business partner Gottfried Schloemer, Toepfer added a gasoline engine to the hand-powered horseless carriage idea and that new 1889 version became the first gasoline vehicle made in the United States.^[5][8][9]

Personal life[]

Linger and his wife had ten children. They were members of the Milwaukee Catholic Church.^[10] Linger died on November 5, 1910, and is buried at Calvary Cemetery.^[11]

References[]

Sources[]

• Butterfield, C.W. (1880). The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. Chicago: Western Historical Company.
• Buenker, John D. (2016). Milwaukee in the 1930s. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Wisconsin Historical Society Press. ISBN 9780870207433.