He arrived in Ansonia, CT from France in 1865 and obtained work in the industrial Ansonia. Carroll gave Pierre the financial assistance needed to improve his Velocipede and apply for a joint patent. Lallement was a 19 year old mechanic in 1862 when he first started to work on his bicycle in France. He added a rotary crank shaft, attached peddles to the hub of the front wheel and then installed a t
hin strip of iron above the frame upon which he mounted a saddle seat. By 1863 Lallement formed a partnership with Pierre Michaux to produce his two wheeled Velocipede. After his 1865 arrival in America Lallement continued to work on improving his invention and received a USA patent in November 1866. He would ride his bike from Anosnia to Derby, CT and even rode it to New Haven where he met Mr. Carroll. On one trip he was arrested for frightening a horse. Unfortunately he was unable to find an American manufacturer to put his pedal powered bicycle in mass production. So in 1868, he and Mr. Carroll sold their rights to the patent to Calvin Witty, a private investor, and Pierre Lallement returned to Paris. In 1876 Albert Pope , a Hartford businessman purchased the patent. Pope then made a deal with the Weed Sewing Machine Company of Hartford, CT to manufacture Bicycles under the name Columbia. Pope made many improvements and purchased other manufacturing companies to make the bicycle. Pierre Lallement returned to Boston and testified in a patent infringement suit for Pope and was employed by him for a time. By 1890 the company was producing over 50,000 bicycles a year. Lallement worked for Pope in one of his factories in Brooklyn, NY and then in Boston, Massachusetts. After 1900's business slowed down. Automobiles were becoming popular so Pope dropped the manufacture of bicycles and started to build an automobile known as the Columbia Electric Car. To his detriment Pope lost a patent infringement suit to the Ford Motor Company in 1903. He died shortly after that and his company closed. Columbia Bicycles continued to be manufactured by one of the companies Pope had purchased. Today Columbia bicycles are still designed and engineered by the Columbia manufacturing Company of Westfield, Massachusetts but are made in China. it is the oldest bicycle company(Over 130 Years old) in the United States. Pierre Lallement died in a relative obscurity in Boston in 1891. He is buried at the Mount Benedict Cemetery in the West Roxbury section of Boston (Section F, Grave 1353)
In 1976 Clarie E. Sarney of Chagrin falls, Ohio, a descendant of Lallement, allowed Ansonia Bicentennial History Book Committee to publish a copy of Pierre's patent in their publication. Although Pierre Lallement obtained his United States patent in 1866, in France, Pierre Michaux, who actually did not start the manufacturing of Bicycles until 1868 using Lallement's design, is considered the inventory of the Bicycle. Marian K. O'Keefe
Sources:
1. "Wheelers of Fortune"- The New Haven Advocate, Nov 16, 1995
2. "The Rise and Fall of the Pope Manufacturing Company: A Missed Opportunity"- Connecticut League of Newsletter, Feb 2007
3. Pierre Lallement/ Wikipedia, July 2007
4. Dan Bieker, President of the Columbia manufacturing Company, Westfield, MA
5. Pierre Lallemant and His Bicycle, Charles E. Pratt, 1883
6. BICYCLE, THE HISTORY- David V. Herlihy
