"At the close of the Exposition the unsold ordinaries were taken by the Baltimore firm of Timms and Lawford, and most of them were soon sold to the newly organized Cunningham Co., of Boston, Mass., which, in 1877, was the first bicycle importing firm in America. In the same year Albert A. Pope also began importing English bicycles, and in 1878 his company, the Pope Manufacturing Co., of Boston, Mass., became the first manufacturer of bicycles in America. In that year Pope began building bicycles under the trade name "Columbia" in the factory of the Weed Sewing Machine Co. at Hartford, Conn., and by 1895 all of his interests were concentrated in that city..."