What came first... 1985, 1955 or 1855? Einstien's time travelnwas within a one minute span of 1985. Time travel consists of source and destination buy in time instead of geography. When Doc got to 1855, that was the earliest (hence FIRST) instance of time travel in the series. When Marty showed up, Doc was already there so Doc was FIRST based on having the earliest components of time travel. If one must argue that being the "source" time is all that counts, is is Clara.