Thomas Stevens, who had never seen North…

Thomas Stevens, who had never seen North America east of the Mississippi, reaches Boston after thirty-seven miles on wagon trails, railways, canal towpaths and public roads, to complete the first transcontinental bicycle ride on August 4, 1884.

Known as Tom, Stevens was born in Castle Street, Berkhamsted, the son of William and Ann Stevens.

His father was a laborer.

Thomas has an older sister, Bridget, and younger, Jane.

He had gone to Bourne Charity School, then became an apprentice grocer.

His father had emigrated to Missouri in 1868 but returned when his wife became ill and before the rest of the family could also go to America.

Tom had gone with a half-brother but without his parents and sisters in 1871 and the rest of the family had followed two years later,moving to Denver and then to San Francisco, where Tom had learned to ride a bicycle.

In early 1884, he had acquired a black-enameled Columbia 50-inch 'Standard' penny-farthing with nickel-plated wheels, built by the Pope Manufacturing Company of Chicago.

Packing his handlebar bag with socks, a spare shirt, a raincoat that doubles as tent and bedroll, and a pocket revolver (described as a "bull-dog revolver", perhaps a British Bull Dog revolver) he had left San Francisco at 8 o'clock on April 22, 1884.

From Sacramento, Stevens had traveled through the Sierra Nevada Mountains to Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming, greeted en route by members of local bicycle clubs, most prominently the president of a chapter of the League of American Wheelmen in Laramie, Wyoming.