I happened across a web page describing an old hardware store in the town where I'm living.
There's a photo from an 1896 booklet about the town of "Lunenburg by the Sea" (Nova Scotia), showing the business of "Frank Powers: Sanitary and Hot Water Engineer, and manufacturer of
The Celebrated 'Electric Bicycle'"
Hmm, interesting! How celebrated is that electric bicycle?
So celebrated that I'm coming up with
zilch on Google trying to find anything more.
You can see what looks like a pair of bikes with white balloon tires in this pic:
And you can also see that he liked his stoves. STOVES! STOVES! STOVES! STOVES!
Source:
Lunenburg by the Sea - Archives - Nova Scotia Archives & Records Management