John Wesley Carhart: Preacher, Author, Inventor, Physician and Father of the Automobile

The first automobile in the history of the United States appeared on Racine, WI, streets back in 1873. It was a steam propelled horseless carriage conceived, designed and built by Rev. John Wesley Carhart, pastor of the Methodist-Episcopal Church there. A few years later, while serving as Presiding Elder of the Appleton, WI, District of the Methodist Church, an "Open Letter" written by fellow Methodist Minister George C. Haddock, and published in the Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, would change the course of John Wesley Carhart's life forever. John Wesley Carhart also was a prolific writer. One of his books, "Norma Trist," was one of the first novels to deal with homosexuality. He self-published the book and was arrested for sending pornography through the mail when he began filling mail orders for the book. Another of his books, "Under Palmetto and Pine," was a sensitive treatment of the problems facing African Americans living in the South, especially in Texas, during the late 1880's.