The Bicycle Industry of Amesbury – a Brief and Surprising History

Reproduction of an 1896 advertising poster for the Eastern Cycle Mfg. Co. of Amesbury. (Collections of Amesbury Carriage Museum, gift of Mike Harrold).

Amesbury Massachusetts is well known as a center for the manufacture of carriages, automobile bodies, textiles, boats, hats and more. But who could have imagined there was a story to be told about the bicycle industry in Amesbury? Industrial Survey Team member, Tom Murphy was drawn into this question. Below is a link to the short history that he has written.

His story begins on January 18, 1895, when readers of the Amesbury Daily News learned about a new bicycle made in Amesbury. On display in the window of J. W. Creasey’s Pharmacy on Market Square was a model safety bicycle made by Geo. Knight[s] the local machinist – “one of the finest machines ever seen in this town.” We can only imagine the interest in this new mode of transportation.

The bicycle craze was spreading, and not surprisingly, Amesbury makers adapted to the new reality. A small number of mechanics developed the local industry that mirrored the national rise and fall of the bicycle as a form of transportation. The “safety bicycle,” like the one that Knights built in 1895, was the culmination of developments that began in the mid 1860s with the introduction of the velocipede. It is a surprising and fascinating story.

Click here to read more about the history of the bicycle industry in Amesbury.