Many of the U.S. presidents happened to be early adopters as well, making use of existing technologies in novel ways, or employing for themselves completely new, just emerging ones. President Barack Obama once claimed addiction to his BlackBerry. Franklin Roosevelt used the radio for “fireside chats” even as he was still a governor. Kennedy defeated Nixon largely on the strength of his comely television image. And before them Theodore Roosevelt was the first to test out in public the new electric self-propelled vehicle.

On this day in 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt, accompanied by his entourage, rode through the streets of Hartford in an electric automobile, the Columbia Electric Victoria Phaeton.

The swing through Hartford was part of Roosevelt’s reelection campaign tour of New England, and he was accompanied accompanied by Colonel J.L. Greene of Hartford, and riding a car built by a local bicycle machinist (even back then, politicians knew how to cater to local voters). The presidential “motorcade” had men on horseback and bicycles riding alongside, providing security — which was easier then, when the maximum speed of the car was 13 miles per hour.