The Little Engine that Almost Got Away

By Staff
Published on August 1, 2003
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The HP Carlisle & Finch. A coffee table center piece, it seemed too small to have been designed with work in mind.
The HP Carlisle & Finch. A coffee table center piece, it seemed too small to have been designed with work in mind.

On May 28, 2002, Bear Creek, Pa., received over 5 inches of
rain in just a few hours. In a house just below Bear Creek Dam, a
HP Carlisle & Finch engine sat on a coffee table. Fifteen miles
away where I was working the sun was shining, and I was thinking
about Bear Creek. But I wasn’t thinking about the storm I had
no idea what was happening I was thinking about that Carlisle &
Finch.

First Look

Shortly before the spring of 2002, a friend from work told me
about a small engine he thought looked like a hit-and-miss that his
cousin was selling. I went to have a look at it, and when I first
saw the engine I thought it must have been built as a toy or a
salesman’s sample. Sitting on a coffee table, the engine was so
small it didn’t seem possible it was really made to work for a
living. I made an offer but I left empty handed, and it wasn’t
until I was almost home that I realized what I had just seen. I
remembered a friend who had one, and who had sold it for a good
buck, and I think I must have been so excited when I saw it my
brain just froze.

On the day of the storm the dam broke. The house was badly
damaged and the water reached the coffee table on the second floor.
The owners, after trying to save the house, had to be rescued from
the roof. I’m not sure, but that they may have moved the engine
to a higher spot in the house as the water rose, because when the
water receded the engine was still there, untouched by the ravaging
flood. In July 2002, after some competitive bidding, I finally
bought the little engine.

Carlisle & Finch

Green in color, this little HP engine has dual 8-inch flywheels
with 1-inch faces. It’s outfitted with a Lunkenheimer
carburetor, and it weighs in at 60 pounds. Carlisle & Finch
Co., Cincinnati, Ohio, built this little engine, and a 1913 catalog
cover I’ve seen says the company made electrical novelties,
dynamos, motors, experimental apparatus and gas engines. From the
late 1800s to about 1915, Carlisle & Finch also made model
trains, which are highly collectible today.

From what I’ve learned, these engines were available either
as kits or as complete units, and were both igniter and spark plug
equipped. I’ve heard they could be used to run a popcorn or
sewing machine. Carlisle & Finch is still in business today, a
major manufacturer of spotlights and searchlights for ships. I
would like to hear from other owners.

Contact engine enthusiast Stan Matlowski at: 118
Hunlock-Harveyville Road, Hunlock Creek, PA 18621; (570) 256-7422;
or e-mail: smatlowski@yahoo.com

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