The Riddle of Ravenna
In attempting to write the history of the Riddle, the writer realizes that he is tackling a subject which is at once controversial and possibly of insufficient interest to the average automobile enthusiast. However, there are three reasons for writing this story. First, although Riddle concentrated its efforts on both hearse and ambulance production, it also produced a limited number of passenger automobiles designed primarily for invalids' use. Second, the catalogue reproduced in this article is a most unusual piece of literature seldom encountered in the collections of catalogue collectors. Third, we have been blessed with actual family ties concerning the Riddle family itself, who have been most helpful in supplying illustrative and historical material.
In 1926, the Riddle Motor Company of Ravenna, Ohio passed into oblivion largely unlamented — unlike the passing of Lexington or Apperson, which had seemed tragedies to automobile enthusiasts. For a decade Riddle had built creditable funeral cars, ambulances and a handful of sedans designed for invalids in which wheel chairs could be placed in the rear section. The public knew little of them.
The first Riddle motor vehicles appeared about 1916, the last ones but a decade later. But Riddle coachwork had been highly renowned for many decades previously — Riddle carriages had been offered in a complete selection of body types and in use not only throughout the United States but in many corners of the world. At least two presidents of the country were carried to their final resting places in Riddle funeral cars: William McKinley in September 1901, and Warren G. Harding in August 1923.
With the advent of the motor industry, this concern saw the handwriting on the wall and added a line of bodies especially designed for motor-driven chassis. The first of these appeared on the White truck chassis from Cleveland, only 38 miles northeast of Ravenna. The first bodies for motor-driven hearses were made about 1912, even as the company still carried on horse-drawn hearse designs.
By about 1916, the business of the Riddle company had reached a point in sales which prompted its management to start assembling complete units, and by use of a Continental motor and other proven standard components, the first all-Riddle motor hearses were built. There was considerable competition from Sayers & Scoville of Cincinnati, Meteor and Mort (an appropriate name for a hearse), both of Piqua, Ohio; Henney of Freeport, Illinois; and Rock Falls, a Velie subsidiary, of Streator, Illinois. The highly-regarded Cunningham of Rochester, New York was also in the field. In the case of Riddle and other specialists, great care and pride in workmanship was the watchword. A good example was the hiring of Swiss woodcarvers to tackle the difficult and specialized business of carving the false curtains and filigree work so dear to hearse design.
The guiding light of the business was Henry W. Riddle, born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania on February 8, 1838. Left motherless at an early age, he sold papers, ran errands and at one time carried the mail from Pittsburgh to Bethany, Virginia as a boy. At the age of 13, he apprenticed himself to the carriage builder's trade. In 1856 he left Pittsburgh and traveled to New Orleans, stopping at Memphis, Vicksburg and Natchez. In 1861 he located at Ravenna, Ohio, where in partnership with his brother-in-law he bought the carriage plant of N. D. Clark which had been in business since 1831. In 1891, Mr. Riddle became the sole owner of the business and soon afterward organized the Riddle Coach & Hearse Company, of which he remained president until shortly before his death on December 16, 1920.
These 1920 Riddles were powered with the Continental 9-N engine with a bore and stroke of 3½" × 5¼" developing approximately 50 brake horsepower. A major change in design was effected in 1921 when the radiator was flattened to resemble the Cunninghams of the mid-1920s. The highly-polished nickel radiators on Riddles of the 1921-and-on period set the equipment off in such a fashion that the hearses, ambulances and the like commanded attention. In 1923, disc wheels were substituted for the earlier artillery wooden-spoked type. From 1923 through the end of production in 1926, the same 3¾" × 5" Continental engine was supplied.
The Riddle passenger automobiles were few and far between, possibly built only on special order. The 1921 and 1922 sedans and limousines strongly resembled Cadillacs of the era except for a curious fender apron treatment in front and the notable absence of the center pillar on the left-hand side of the car — this allowed large entrance space for wheel chairs when both doors were ajar. Prices ran from $4,850 for the seven-passenger sedan to $5,500 for the nine-passenger limousine. In 1924, an ambulance was added at $5,850 — the highest price of any Riddle model.
H. Warner Riddle, who followed his father in the Riddle enterprise until the business ceased in 1926, still resided in Ravenna. But as for the product itself, few if any remain today. When one considers that hundreds were built and marketed all over the world, one stops briefly to reflect what must have become of all of them.
