Horatio Nelson Jackson, an eccentric Vermont doctor, drove from San Francisco to New York City in 1903 to become the first person to drive an automobile across the continent--a feat never before accomplished. It would mark the beginning of a new era in America and the end of another. It took Lewis & Clark over two years to go from the Atlantic to the Pacific--Horatio went the opposite direction, by means of the "horseless carriage", in less than 3 months.