Self-Starter (New Haven, 1900?)

[Bapopik at AOL.COM]

   Wasn't everything invented in New Haven?...OED has one 1894 "self-starter" cite, then 1902...The OXFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN FOOD & DRINK may use this post.
   From the NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE, 3 February 1954, pg. 10, col. 5:

_John A. Petrie,_
_Dealt in Magic_
   NEW HAVEN, Conn., Feb. 2 (AP).--John A. Petrie, eighty-three, of New Haven, died today in Grace-New Haven Hospital.  Mr. Petrie, who was active in a large magical equipment business until a week ago, had been an intimate friend of some of the great personalities in the magic field--Houdini, Powell, Thurston and Hardeen, and he held patents for hundreds of magical devices.
   The owner of one of the first four autos in New Haven, Mr. Petrie, his family said, invented the self-starter in 1900.  Cars at that time carried some seventy-two pounds of batteries for starting purposes, so Mr. Petrie attached a magneto to the fly wheel to create a spark.  According to one of his sons, Mr. Petrie never patented the invention.
   He was for a time a partner of A. C. Gilbert, which broke up when the latter went into the toy business.  Mr. Petrie, who corresponded frequently with Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, perfected many locks for doors of the first automobile built.  Passengers entered through doors in the rear of the car and Mr. Petrie made the locks to prevent the riders from falling into the street.
   Two sons,  Arthur J., and J. Walter Petrie, survive.

(I haven't checked the New Haven newspaper's obituary to see what it credits him with--ed.)