Stearns Knight

There are around 20 known J8-90 and H8-90 (like the convertible coupe shown above) cars. Anybody with one of these needs to be a member of the CCCA. But there is also a group of owners of the eight cylinder cars that have a page here:

https://app.rumbleseat.com/club/1/stearns-knight-eight-cylinder-society

Here are some pictures of my Brunn bodied J8-90. It is the only known open 90 series car (the phaeton is a new body). There is one other Brunn bodied car that survived. It is a Landualette .

My car was one of the 3 Brunn bodied cars built for the 1929 Auto Salon Circuit. The cars were then shown in Chicago and LA where mine was sold off the salon floor. Here are some period pictures of the car along with one showing the Commodore hotel in NY with the three cars pictured.

Here are some pictures of the other existing Brunn bodied car.

Tom Slatten purchased this Stearns in 1968. When he purchased the car, he knew nothing about the manufacturer nor had I heard about a sleeve valve engine. He just liked the classic lines of the car. He rebuilt the engine himself and did a partial restoration. The car then sat from 1970 until now when Bill Frye has got the car running again under its own power.

Charlotte Bridgwood's "Cleaning Device" is the name for the pre-WWII windshield wiper system you described. Patented in 1918 (US Patent 1,274,983), it features a carriage with wiping elements that slide horizontally back and forth along a fixed track mounted at the top of the windshield frame. An electric motor on the carriage drives a pinion along a rack in the track, providing full coverage without the typical arc motion of later designs. This was an early electric version, building on manual ideas, and it cleaned both sides of the glass. Though not widely produced before her 1920 patent expiration, it matches your description and influenced automatic wipers in the 1920s.
This is a J series Limo with that type of wiper.