In 1904, Edgartown inventor Elmer Bliss was issued patent 768,892 for a life-size automaton designed to advertise tobacco products. It smoked real cigars by alternately drawing in and distending lifelike human cheeks with a hidden battery-powered pump.
Said to be a lookalike of President Harrison, Bliss founded the Regal Shoe Co., a major ladies’ shoe manufacturer based in Boston with four massive factories and a chain of international shoe stores. Grandson of Edgartown whaling captain Jared Fisher, Bliss summered in his childhood home on the Island, from which he filed many of his patents throughout the early 1900s — mostly for sizing feet, shoes, and gloves, but also for chairs, awnings, and advertising contraptions like this one.
Bliss caused a stir in 1900 when he drove through town in a steam-powered “locomobile” which he had brought down from Boston, thought to be the first automobile on the Island. With his shoe fortunes, Bliss purchased Osborne Wharf, revived the Edgartown Yacht Club, funded and built the clubhouse, and served as its commodore.