History of the First Locomotives in America - Chapters 2-9



CHAPTER II.
EARLY RAILROADS.

MANY persons, otherwise well-informed upon general topics, believe that 
railroads were constructed especially for locomotives, as the best-adapted 
road for the accom- modation of that peculiar machine and its train of 
cars. 

They never call to mind that a locomotive is a modern invention, and, for 
want of access to works such as we have referred to, they are not informed 
that a railroad is an ancient institution (if we may apply such a term to 
such a subject). They never have dreamed nor ever imagined that this 
peculiar kind of road was invented and in use several centuries ago, but, 
like the great auxiliary, the locomotive, was very defective and simple in 
its primitive state, and since that time, like the latter, has been 
subject to vast and continued improvements. 

Before, however, we enter upon the subject for which these pages were 
designed "the history of the first locomotives in America" it will not, we 
trust, be deemed inappropriate here to devote a small space in our work in 
describing the peculiar kind of road upon which the locomotive travels, 
now known universally as the railroad; and to such information as we have 
gathered of its origin and early progress. 

Various devices have been employed, from the period when wheelcarriages 
were first used, for facilitating the movement over the ground in 
transportation. These devices, however, were mostly limited to the 
smoothing, leveling, and hardening the surface of the way. The early 
Egyptians, in transporting the immense stones they used in the erection of 
the vast pyramids from the quarries, learned the advantage of hard, 
smooth, and solid track-ways, and the remains of such, formed of large 
blocks of stone, are said to have been found on the line of the great road 
they constructed for this purpose. 

The ancient Romans made also some approach to the invention of railroads, 
in the celebrated Appian Way. This was constructed of blocks of stone 
fitted closely together, the surface presenting a smooth and hard track 
for the wheels. In modern times such tracks or roadways were constructed 
in several European cities, London, Pisa, Milan, and many others. The 
first instance on record of rails being used on highways was as early as 
the year 1630, over two and a quarter centuries ago. They were invented by 
a person named Beaumont, and built and used for the transportation of coal 
from the mines near New castle, in England. 

Old Roger North alludes to railways as being in use in the neighborhood of 
the river Tyne in the year 1676, and he thus describes them: The rails of 
timber were placed end to end and exactly straight, and in two lines 
parallel to each other. On these bulky carts were made to run on four 
rollers fitting these rails, whereby the carriage was made so easy that 
one horse would draw four or five caldrons of coal at a load. We read of 
railways existing in Scotland in 1745, at the time of the Scotch 
rebellion. These railways were laid down between the Tranent coal-mines 
and the harbor of Cockenzie, in East Lothian. Improvements were made on 
these roads and continued until 1765, when they began to assume the forms 
of our present roads, even to the use of flanges upon the wheels; but up 
to this period no iron surface was ever heard of The mode of constructing 
a railroad at that period was as follows: After the surface was brought to 
as perfect a level as possible, or incline, as the case might be square 
blocks of wood, called sleepers, about six feet long, were laid two or 
three feet apart across the track; upon these two long strips of wood, six 
or seven inches wide and about five inches deep, were fastened by pins to 
the sleepers, and parallel to each other, but about four feet apart. Upon 
this wooden rail was spiked a projecting round moulding of wood, and the 
wheels were hollowed out like a pulley to fit upon the round surface of 
the wooden molding upon the rails. 

The first iron rails that we find any written account of were used at 
Whitehaven. They were cast-iron moldings, similar in shape to the wooden 
molding just described, and, like them, they were spiked down upon the 
wooden rail to receive the weight and pressure of the hollowed-out wheel, 
which, pressing entirely upon the molding of wood, soon rendered it unfit 
for use. This iron substitute was a wonderful saving in this respect. 

Thirty years after, in 1767, five or six tons of the same description of 
rails were cast at the Coalbrook Dale Ironworks, at Shropshire. St. Froud, 
a French traveler, describes these roads as being far superior to all 
other kinds of roads; that one horse, with perfect ease, could draw a 
wagon loaded with five or six hundred bushels of coal. 

In 1776, the first iron rails we have any written account of were cast 
with a perpendicular ledge upon the outer side, in order to keep the 
wheels from running off the track, and after a while the ledge was changed 
to the inner side of the rail. 

A railway of this kind was laid down at the Duke of Norfolk's colliery, 
near Sheffield. The road was torn up and destroyed by the laboring men of 
the colliery in a riot, and Mr. Curr, its builder and projector, had to 
save his life by concealing himself in a wood three days and nights to 
escape the fury of the excited rioters. 

Objections were soon discovered in rails with fianges either on the 
outside or inside, from their liability to obstruction by stones or dirt, 
which would impede the progress and endanger the safety of the carriages. 
A great step in advance was made in 1789, by Wil liam Jessop, in the 
construction of a railway in Lough borough, in Leicestershire, with the 
first cast-iron edge rail, with flanges cast upon the wheels, instead of 
upon the rail, as had been done a short time before. In 1800, Mr. Benjamin 
Outram, of Little Eaton, in Derbyshire, introduced stone props, instead of 
timber, for supporting the ends or joinings of the rails. Takeing the name 
from the projector, this kind of road was distinguished as the Outram 
road, and since that time, for brevity, all roads of this kind are called 
Tram roads; as this plan was afterward applied to wooden roads, where long 
stringers were used, with the iron molding as before described, and in our 
time the flat iron bar nailed upon the stringers, these roads are all a 
familiarly known as Tram-roads. Edge rails, as made by Jessop, were laid 
down in 1801, at the slate-quarry of Lord Penrhyn. The tire of the wheel 
was hollowed out to fit the projecting curve of the edged rail, but as the 
fit became soon too tight by wear, it was afterwards changed to a flat 
surface and rim of the wheel, and a fiange around each a edge of it. So 
great was this last improvement, that it was found that ten horses would 
do the work that had employed four hundred to do upon common roads. Edge 
rails were soon after introduced at the collieries in England. They were 
made thin at the base and spread in thickness at the top. These rails, 
introduced in 1808, continued in use until 1820, when the machinery was 
invented for rolling iron into suitable shapes for rails. This was a great 
improvement, for, as cast-iron rails could only be made three or four feet 
long, requiring frequent joints, the material was more liable and subject 
to break, especially with heavy weights passing over it. 

Up to this time the motive power was the horse. Many projects and schemes 
were talked of and proposed for propelling the wagons. Sails were 
suggested, and various other means were experimented upon, and speedily 
abandoned, but steam was the most favored, yet how to apply it was to be 
found out. 



CHAPTER III.
FIRST HEAD OF STEAM.

IT is recorded, 130 years before the Christian era, that the elder Hero of 
Alexandria is the first author who gives an account of the application of 
the vapor of boiling water as a power. Hero expressly ascribes the sounds 
produced by the statue of Memnon to steam generated in the pedestal and 
issuing from its mouth. Champollion, who is the highest authority on this 
point, declares that the Memnon of the Greeks is identical with Prince 
Amenophis II., one of the Egyptians who reigned at Thebes, 1,600 years 
before Christ. Therefore, if Hero's surmises of the Statue of Memnon are 
correct, we have an application of steam before the date of the exodus of 
the Israelites. Hero himself constructed a toy, one that would raise water 
like a fountain, keep a ball in equilibrium, and another giving a rotary 
motion to a ball; but he does not give the slightest hint that his 
invention or discovery could be made capable of any useful application, 
nor did he imagine that he possessed a knowledge of a power that was in 
future ages to produce such important results. 

A knowledge of some of the properties of steam seems to have been 
understood during the flourishing periods and even to the decline of the 
Roman empire. In the reign of Justinian, the architect Artemius, of that 
empire, gave some experiments to demonstrate the power of steam or vapor 
of boiling water. He arranged several vessels containing water, each 
covered with the wide bottom of a tube, which rose to a narrower top, with 
pipes extending to the rafters of an adjoining house. When fire was 
kindled beneath the vessels, the rafters were raised from their positions, 
and the house shaken by the force of the steam ascending the tubes. 

Cardan is the earliest modern author in whom we detect any hint of a 
knowledge of the mechanical power of steam. He gives a description of the 
eolipile, in a work dated 1071. The instrument showed how a current of air 
was made to follow the course of the steam that issued from the neck of 
the eolipile. Modern writers speak of various others who seemed to have 
ideas of the mechanical power of steam. The most worthy of notice are 
Baptista Porta, a Neapolitan, Brancas, a Frenchman, and De Coss. Brancas 
proposed to direct the current of air issuing from an eolipile upon the 
leaves of a wheel which, being set in motion, might serve to move 
machinery. This method was imperfect and wasteful, yet its attempt is 
deserving of praise, inasmuch as he is the first person who entertained a 
hope of realizing the vast benefits that steam has since conferred upon 
the world. 

One Marion de Lorme, in a letter to the Marquis decinq Mars, in 1641, 
describes his visit to the mad house, called the Bicetre, at Paris, in 
which he saw, confined in a cell, a poor creature named Solomon de Cause, 
who seemed to be one of the first to conceive the idea, in 1615, of 
employing the steam or vapor of boiling water as a power by which both 
carriages on land and ships at sea could be propelled. Accompanying De 
Lorme in this visit to the mad-house, was the Marquis of Worcester. After 
relating many curious cases of madness, De Lorme writes that they saw a 
man named Solomon de Cause, looking through the bars of his cell. On 
seeing that he was noticed, Solomon exclaimed in a hoarse and melancholy 
voice: "I am not mad! I am not mad! But I have made a discovery that would 
enrich the country which would adopt it; but I am not mad! I am not mad!"
"What has he discovered?" asked De Lorme of the guide. "Oh," replied the 
keeper, "something trifling enough, of course. The poor creature says that 
he has discovered a wonderful power in the use of steam from boiling 
water. He came from Normandy, about four years ago, to present to the king 
a statement of the wonderful effects that might be produced from his 
invention. The cardinal sent him away without listening to him. Solomon 
persisted, and followed the cardinal wherever he went, and finally so 
annoyed him with his discovery, that he had him shut up in the Bicetre, as 
a madman." 

Of all those who attempted to apply steam to useful purposes, the Marquis 
of Worcester fills the greatest space. His ideas of steam, and its 
applications, are to be found in a work called the "Century of Inventions,"
originally published in London, in 1663. The marquis, it is said, employed 
a mechanic thirty-five years to make models of machines for the power of 
steam. Many of these ideas appeared at the time absolutely impossible, yet 
they have been realized by modern inventors. In all his projects, the 
expansive power of steam alone was used. 

That the steam-engine was not a mere theory in the conception of 
Worcester, but was actually put into operation, a recent discovery has 
settled upon positive testimony. The Grand-duke of Tuscany, Cosmo de 
Medicis, traveled in England in 1656. The manuscript of his travels 
remained unpublished until 1818. The following is an extract: "His 
highness," that he might not lose the day uselessly, "went again, after 
dinner, to the other side of the city, as far as Vauxhall, to see a 
machine, invented by my Lord Somerset, Marquis of Worcester. It raises 
water more than forty geometrical feet, by the power of one man only." 
Here, then, is a description of an engine in actual operation. 

In all these projects the expansive power of steam was alone used; the 
steam was made to act directly upon the surface of the water; in this way 
the use of high steam is essential to success, and upon a large scale was 
attended with danger in the low state of the mechanic arts in those days, 
and various contrivances and improvements were introduced as in modern 
times. Consequently their necessity became visible, and as early as in 
1680 the safety- valve, which has since been of such importance in the 
construction of steam-engines, was invented by Denys Pepin, a French 
Protestant. It was made in the following manner: A conical aperture was 
made in the lid or top of the boiler, and to this was fitted a conical 
stopper, pressed into the aperture by a weight suspended at the end of a 
lever. It was identical with the most usual form of safety- valves at the 
present day. 

It has often been written that the power of steam was first discovered by 
the Marquis of Worcester, from observing the motion of the lid of a tea-
kettle of boiling water. It may be so, but we are more inclined to believe 
that the marquis got his first idea of the power of steam at the time of 
his visit to the Bicetre with Marion de Lorme, when he saw poor Solomon, 
and heard from his keeper the cause of his malady; then experimented and 
improved upon the hint. It does seem far more likely that this poor 
madman, as he was considered, and who it must appear had neither means nor 
friends to get him released from this thralldom, would be the one to 
observe the effects of the steam upon the lid of a tea-kettle than a proud 
English marquis. This, however we will leave for some one else to 
determine, and resume our subject, although we cannot doubt our readers 
will excuse this digression. 

The motion of a piston in a cylinder suggested itself to Pepin, first of 
all, as a method of adapting the expansive power of steam to produce 
mechanical effects. 

The history of steam, applied to purposes of acknowledged utility, 
commences with one Savary, a Cornish miner, who in 1718 proposed the use 
of it to free the mines from water; for as early as 1710 Newcomen and 
Hawley had completed the first steam engine in England, a patent for which 
had been issued in 1700. 

Pepin constructed an engine for the Elector of Hesse in 1707. Savary's 
engine was confined to a single object, that of raising the water from the 
mines; and even this was done at a great disadvantage, from the 
imperfection of the principle, and the makeup of the machine; yet it was 
important as a step to the construction of more perfect machines, and even 
it was itself of some value when compared with the methods of freeing the 
mines from water which were at that period in use. 

In 1709, over a century ago, the subject of steam was first introduced to 
the mind of James Watt, and his first engine was made soon after, or in 
1769. He was assisted by Dr. Robinson. 

At a very early period the same Savary, before mentioned, proposed steam 
as a means of propelling carriages, but made no practical experiments. 

The same James Watt in 1784 describes an engine for propelling carriages 
on common roads, but, being too much occupied in perfecting his condensing 
engine, nothing further was done by him toward constructing this 
locomotive. 

Steam-engines, imperfect as they were at that early period, appear to have 
been directed first to the propelling of boats upon the water rather than 
carriages upon the land. 



CHAPTER IV.
FIRST STEAMBOATS.

WORCESTER in his "Century of Inventions," speaks of the capacity for the 
rowing of his engine, used in raising water. 

Savary proposed to make the water raised by his engine turn a water-wheel 
within his vessel, which should carry paddle wheels acting on the outside; 
and Watt, as we are well assured, stated in conversation that, had he not 
been prevented by the pressure of other business, he would have made a 
steamboat. 

In truth, before the time of Watt's improvement in his steam engine, no 
modification by which steam was applied to useful purposes, as raising 
water, would have been able to propel vessels successfully. This is 
exemplified by evidences found recently in an ancient record, in which we 
have a description of a vessel propelled by steam. Blasco de Garay, an 
officer in the service of the Emperor Charles V., made, at Barcelona, in 
Spain, in the year 1543, an experiment in a vessel, which he forced 
through the water by apparatus, of which a large kettle with boiling water 
formed a conspicuous part. 

De Garay was, therefore, not only the first inventor of a steamboat, but 
the first (not even excepting Savary) who was successful in applying steam 
to useful purposes. De Garay, however, was too far in advance of the 
spirit of the age to be able to introduce his invention into practice. His 
machinery was imperfect, and the recollection of his experiment would have 
been lost had not the record been accidentally found among the ancient 
archives of the province of Catalonia. 

This experiment was, therefore, without any practical results and may be 
looked upon as a piece of curious antiquarian research rather than as an 
event filling a space in the history of steamboats. 

Among the early prime movers in seeking for the means of applying steam to 
vessels, we will name Genevois and the Comte deAuxiron. The first of 
these, whose attempts date as early as 1759, is chiefly remarkable for the 
peculiarity of his apparatus, which resembled the feet of a duck, opening 
when moved through the water in the act of propulsion, and closing on its 
return. 

The latter, D'Auxiron, also made an experiment in 1774, but his boat moved 
so slowly and irregularly that it was at once abandoned. 

In 1775 the elder Perrier, who afterward introduced the manufacturing of 
steam-engines into France, made an attempt in a steamboat, but was 
unsuccessful. 

The Marquis de Jouffroy continued the pursuit of the same object. His 
first attempt was made in 1778, at Baume les Dames, and in 1781 he built 
upon the Saone a steam-vessel one hundred and fifty feet long and fifteen 
feet wide. The report of his experiment was made to the French Academy of 
Sciences, and was said to be favorable. 

No successful experiment could be looked for until Watt made public his 
double-acting engine, and the improvements made in 1784 to keep up a 
continuous and regular rotary motion. To America, then, we are now to look 
for the first successful steamboat. 

Conspicuous in the list of early experimenters in steamboats are the names 
of Rumsey and Fitch. Both constructed boats propelled by steam as early as 
1783, and models were exhibited to General Washington. 

Fitch was the first to try his plan, and in 1780 he succeeded in moving a 
boat upon the Delaware; and it was not until 1786 that Rumsey got his boat 
in motion on the Potomac. Fitch's plan was a system of paddles. Rumsey at 
first used a kind of pump, which drew in water at the bow and forced it 
out at the stern of his boat. He soon abandoned this plan of the pump, and 
employed poles set in motion by cranks on the axis of the fly-wheel of his 
engine, and intended to press against the bottom of the river. Fitch's 
boat was propelled through the water at the rate of four miles an hour. 
Rumsey's invention never came to any valuable results. 

Next, after Fitch and Rumsey, came an ingenious gentleman named Miller, of 
Dolswinton, in Scotland, who, in 1787, made a substitute for oars, and 
applied wheels worked by men upon a crank; afterward steam was substituted 
by an engineer named Symington. 

This boat was a double pleasure-boat upon a lake in his grounds at 
Dolswinton. The trial was so successful that Miller built a boat sixty 
feet long, and it is said that it moved upon the Forth and Clyde Canal at 
the rate of seven miles an hour; but the vessel suffered so much by the 
strain of the machinery that it soon became unsafe and in danger of 
sinking, and was set aside, and Mr. Miller's experiments were never 
resumed. 

John Stevens, of Hoboken, next experimented in steam- vessels, in 1791. 
His first attempt was made in a boat with a rotary engine, but he soon 
substituted one of Watt's machines, and navigated his vessel five or six 
miles an hour. These experiments were continued up to 1807, much to the 
detriment of his fortune. 

The project of Gerrevois was revived in England about this time by the 
Earl of Stanhope. An apparatus like the feet of a duck was placed in a 
boat, and with a powerful machine, but never gained a velocity over three 
miles an hour. 

In 1797, Chancellor Livingston, of New York, built a steamboat on the 
Hudson River. He obtained from the Legislature the right and exclusive 
privilege, fn condition that he would provide, within a year a boat 
impelled by steam that would go three miles an hour. This he did not 
effect. In the year 1800 Stevens and Livingston united and built a boat to 
be propelled by a system of paddles, resembling a horizontal chain pump, 
and with one of the engines of Watt, but, in consequence of the weakness 
of the vessel, the engine would get out of lines and the experiment did 
not succeed. 

We have often heard and seen it written that steamboats were invented and 
first run by Fulton. Such was not the case, as we have shown in the 
foregoing pages; but Fulton made the first successful experiment with a 
steamboat with side-wheels, which is the plan adopted ever since, 
excepting in propellers. 

Fulton commenced his experiments in Paris, in 1803, upon the Seine, with a 
small vessel with side-wheels, driven by one of Watt's engines, adjusted 
for the purpose, and the experiment was a success. He soon after 
determined to construct a boat of a larger size, to be tried in the United 
States. This vessel was built in America; but as the workshops could not 
at that time construct the engine, one from Watt & Bolton was procured, 
and Fulton proceeded to England to superintend its construction. The 
engine arrived in New York early in 1806, and the vessel was set in motion 
in the summer of 1807. The success of this experiment is well known, and 
from that period steam-vessels have continued to increase in size and 
speed, from the humble efforts of these early experimenters, until they 
now assume the magnitude and magnificence of the floating palaces of the 
present day. 

The first steam-vessel that traversed the ocean was the steamship 
Savannah, in 1817, and this early effort demonstrated the principle that 
steamships could be used upon the sea. The Savannah may be looked upon as 
the pioneer, whose path has since been followed by some of the largest and 
most magnificent specimens of naval architecture in the world. 

Though steam, in its application to navigation, had been progressing 
rapidly, and even as early as 1807 attained such a degree of usefulness as 
to cause it to be looked upon as a fact, yet its application in 
facilitating intercommunication upon the land had not been developed 
during a quarter of a century afterward. 



CHAPTER V.
FIRST STEAM CARRIAGE

THE first actual model of a steam-carriage, of which we have a written 
account, was constructed by a Frenchman, named Cugnot, who exhibited it 
before the Marquis de Saxe, in 1763. He afterward, in 1769, built an 
engine to run on common roads, at the expense of the French monarch. As it 
is the first steam-carriage of which we have any written account, and 
believing that it should prove interesting to our readers, we copy this 
description of it from Appleton's JOURNAL OF POPULAR LITERATURE, SCIENCE, 
AND ART, August 17, l861 as follows: "One of the earliest efforts in the 
way of steam locomotion was the engine of Cugnot, of France, designed to 
run on common roads. His first carriage was put in motion by the impulsion 
of two single-acting cylinders, the piston of which acted alternately on 
the single front wheels. It traveled about three or four miles an hour, 
and carried four persons; but, from the smallness of the boiler, it would 
not continue to work more than twelve or fifteen minutes without stopping 
to get up steam. Cugnot's locomotive presented a simple and ingenious form 
of a high-pressure engine, and, though of rude construction, was a 
creditable piece of work, considering the time. He made a second engine, 
with while several successful trials were made in the streets of Paris, 
which excited much interest. An accident, however, put an end to his 
experiments. Turning the corner of the street one day, near the Madeleine, 
when the machine was running at a speed of about three miles an hour, it 
upset with a crash, and, being considered dangerous, was locked up in the 
Arsenal. Cugnot's locomotive is still to be seen in the Museum of the 
Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers, at Paris, and is a most interesting 
relic of early locomotion."

In 1784 William Symington conceived the idea of steam being applied to 
propelling carriages, and in 1786 made a working model, but soon gave it 
up, and nothing was ever after heard of the project. 

The first English model of a steam-carriage was made in 1784, by William 
Murdoch; this model was based upon the principle of the high pressure, and 
ran on three wheels (for common roads, of course). It worked to 
admiration, but nothing further was ever done to bring the idea into a 
more practical form. 

A few years after, Thomas Allen, of London, published the plan of a newly 
invented machine for carrying goods, without the use of horses, and by the 
use of steam alone for the motive pouter. His plan was to have cogged 
wheels to run upon cogged rails. The plan was all that was ever brought 
out. 

In 1801 Oliver Evans, of Philadelphia, a millwright, who had entertained 
the idea, as early as 1772, of propelling wagons by the action of high 
steam, was employed by the corporation of that city to construct a 
dredging-machine. The experiment was of a most remarkable character. The 
machine was, as you may term it, an amphibious affair. He built both the 
vessel and the machine at his works, a mile and a half from the water. The 
whole weighing 42,000 lids., it was mounted upon wheels, to which motion 
was given by the engine and moved without any further aid from the shop to 
the river. After the machine was in its proper element, a wheel was then 
fused to the stern of the vessel, and the engine being again set in 
motion, she was conveyed to her designed position. Here is the first 
propeller. As late as the year 1800, wooden or tram roads were general in 
all the coal and mining districts in England, using horse- power for the 
means of transportation of their coal or ore from the mines to the point 
of shipment. 

The first idea and proposition to introduce the railroad, imperfect as it 
then was, for the transportation of goods and for commercial purposes 
generally, and to be used as a highway between one city and another, as at 
the present day, was made before the Literary and Philosophical Society of 
Newcastle, England, by Mr. Thomas, of Denton, on the 11th February, 1800. 
The same idea was taken hold of in 1805, by a Mr. Edgeworth, who urged the 
same plan for the transit of passengers. He urges that stage-coaches might 
be made to go at six miles an hour, and post-coaches and gentlemen's 
travelling carriages at eight miles an hour, with one horse alone. He also 
suggested that small stationary engines placed from distance to distance 
might be made, and by the use of endless chains draw the carriages, at a 
great diminution of horse-power. 

These ideas of Mr. Thomas were followed by a recommendation from a Dr. 
Anderson, of Edinburgh, a friend and co-laborer with Watt in his 
experiments upon the improvements in steam-engines. The doctor dilated 
upon the subject with great warmth and enthusiasm. So apparently 
extravagant were his views upon this his favorite topic considered, that 
many of his friends thought his mind had become affected. "If," said he,
"we can diminish only one single farthing in the cost of transportation 
and personal intercommunication, and you at once widen the circle of 
intercourse, you form, as it were, a new creation, not only of stone and 
earth, of trees and plants, but of men also; and, what is of far greater 
consequence, you promote industry, happiness, and joy. The cost of all 
human consumption would be reduced, the facilities of agriculture 
promoted, time and distance would be almost annihilated; the country would 
be brought nearer to the town; the number of horses to carry on traffic 
would be diminished; mines and manufactories would appear in neighborhoods 
hitherto considered almost isolated by distance; villages, towns, and even 
cities, would spring up all through the country; and spots now as the 
grave would be enlivened with the busy hum of human voices, the sound of 
the hammer, and the clatter of machinery; the whole country would be, as 
it were, revolutionized with life and activity, and a general prosperity 
would be the result of this mighty auxiliary to trade and commerce 
throughout the land." How perfectly true were these arguments of Anderson, 
and how his predictions have been verified even in Our own State! What 
else could have developed the boundless wealth of our mountain-regions but 
the introduction of the railroad system and its powerful auxiliary the 
locomotive, by which means their hitherto inaccessible fastness have been 
penetrated, and access thereto made comparatively easy; while their vast 
resources of wealth in lumber, coal, minerals, and oil, have been brought 
nearer to a market, and, but for this system of transportation, they would 
to this day have been locked up in impenetrable mystery in the deep 
recesses of the mountains.



CHAPTER VI.
TREVITHICK'S ENGINE.

WHILE these propositions were developing, one Richard Trevithick, a 
foreman in a Cornish tin-mine, prompted, no doubt, by seeing the model 
engine which Murdoch had constructed, determined to build a carriage to 
run on common roads, and a Mr. Vivian joined him in the enterprise. They 
took out a patent in 1802. A description of this machine will not be 
uninteresting to our readers: 

This steam-carriage resembled a stage-coach, and was upon four wheels. It 
had one horizontal cylinder, which, together with the boiler and furnace-
box, was placed in the rear of the hind axle. The motion of the piston was 
transmitted to a separate crank-axle, from which, through the medium of 
spur-gear, the axle of the driving-wheel derived its motion. It is worthy 
of note that the steam-racks and force-pumps, as also the bellows used in 
generating combustion, were worked off the same crank-axle. 

This was the first successful high-pressure engine constructed on the 
principle of moving a piston, by the elasticity of steam, against the 
pressure of the atmosphere, and without a vacuum. Such an engine had been 
described by Leopold, though in his apparatus the pressure acted only on 
one side of the pistols while in Trevithick's and Vivian's engine the 
piston was not only raised but likewise depressed by the steam. This was 
original with them, and of great merit. 

This kind of carriage on common roads was tolerably successful. It was 
exhibited at the city of London, and attracted great crowds to witness its 
performance; and it drew behind it a carriage filled with passengers. But 
it soon became obvious that the roads in England were too rough and uneven 
for the successful use of shch machines, and it was soon after abandoned 
by Trevithick as a practical failure. 

Trevithick next turned his attention to the invention of a steam-carriage 
or locomotive, to run upon the tram-roads then in general use in England; 
and in 1804 he commenced his machine; in the same year it was completed 
and tried upon the Merthyr-Tydvil Railway, in South Wales. On this 
occasion it succeeded in drawing after it several wagons containing ten 
tons of bar-iron, at the rate of five miles an hour. The boiler of this 
machine was cylindrical in form, flat at the ends, and constructed of cast-
iron. The furnace and flues were inside the boiler, in which a single 
cylinder of eight inches in diameter and four feet six inch stroke was 
immersed upright. Although this locomotive, when tried upon the railroad 
as above stated, succeeded in drawing a considerable weight, and 
travelling at a fair speed, from other causes it proved like his first 
steam- carriage, a practical failure, and was soon abandoned. This 
experiment, however, may be considered as the first attempt to adapt the 
locomotive to service upon a railroad of which we have any written 
account. 

The great difficulty and obstacle which at that early day did more than 
any thing else to retard the successful progress of the locomotive for 
railroad purposes, was the idea that, upon the smooth surface of a rail or 
iron plate then in use, the smooth surface of the driving-wheel would not 
have adhesive power to cause the engine to move forward, much less have a 
sufficient friction to enable the machine, not only to go ahead itself, 
but to draw a weight of carriages behind it To remedy this evil, 
Trevithick recommended, and caused to be placed upon the surface of the 
drivingwheels of his machine, heads of bolts and numerous grooves, to 
produce the required adhesion. It proved successful, but produced a 
succession of jolts very trying. upon the cast-iron plates upon the roads 
upon which the experiments were tried, as well as upon the machine. 

In 1811 a Mr. Blankensop, of Leeds, took out a patent for a machine and 
rail adapted to each other: a rack or toothed rail was to be laid down 
along one side of the track, into which a tooth- wheel of his locomotive 
worked. The boiler of his engine was supported by a carriage upon four 
wheels without teeth, and resting immediately on the axles These were 
entirely independent of the working- parts of the engine, and merely 
supported its weight, the progress being effected by the motion of the 
cogged wheels working on the cogged rail. This engine began running on the 
railroad from the Middleton collieries to the town of Leeds, about three 
and a quarter miles, on the 12th of August, 1812. For a number of years it 
was a permanent object of curiosity, and was visited by crowds of 
strangers from all parts. These engines (for several were afterward 
constructed) drew after them thirty coal-cars, loaded, at a speed of three 
and a quarter miles per hour, and were in use for many years, and may 
justly be considered as the first instance of the employment of locomotive 
power for commercial purposes. 

Another curious experiment was tried in 1812, to overcome the want of 
friction upon the road and increase the power of the engine. A Sir 
Chapman, of Newcast]e, took out a patent for this invention. The plan was 
a chain stretched from one end of the road to the other. The chain was 
passed once round a grooved barrel-wheel under the eentre of the engine, 
so that, when the wheels turned, the locomotive would, as it were, drag 
itself along the railway. The experiment was tried with an engine 
constructed for the purpose on the Heaton Railway, near Newcastle, but it 
was so clumsy in its action that it was soon abandoned. 

But the most remarkable, extravagant, and amusing experiment of all, and 
one which must bring to the countenance of our readers at the present day 
a smile, was the one adopted by a Mr. Brunton, of the Butterby Works, 
Derbyshire, in 1813, who took out a patent for a machine which was to go 
upon legs like a horse. This contrivance had two legs attached to the back 
part, which, being alternately moved by the engine, pushed it before them. 
These legs, or propellers, imitated the legs of a man or the fore-legs of 
a horse, with joints, and when worked by the machine alternately lifted 
and pressed against the ground or road, propelling the engine forward, as 
a man shoves a boat ahead by pressing with a pole against the bottom of a 
river. 

This contrivance was so singular and ingenious that we cannot refrain from 
giving a description of it, taken from a very interesting work upon road-
making, by W. M. Gillespie. 

The legs are indicated by H and F and H as f. H represents the hip- joint, 
IR and P the knee-joints, A and a the ankle-joints, and F and f the feet. 
We will first examine the action of the front leg. The knee, Id, is 
attached to the end of a piston-rod, which the steam drives backward and 
forward in the horizontal eylillder, C:. When the piston is driven 
outward, it presses the leg K F against the ground, and thus propels the 
engine forward, as a man shoves a boat ahead by pressing with a pole 
against the bottom of a river. As the engine advances, the leg 
straightens, the point H is carried forward, and the extremity, M, of the 
bent lever H M, is raised. A cord, M S, being attaehed to S, the shin of 
the leg, the motion of the lever tightens the cord, and finally raises the 
foot from the ground, and prepares it to take a fresh step where the 
reversed action of the piston has lowered it again. The action of the 
other leg is precisely similar, but motion communicated to it from the 
first one. Just above the knee of the front leg, at X, is attached a rod, 
on which is a toothed rack, R. Working in it is a cog-wheel, which enters 
also a second rack, el, below it, which is connected by a second rod with 
point X of the other leg. When the piston is driven out and pushes the 
engine from the knee, the rack R is drawn backward, and turns the cog- 
wheel, which then draws the lower rack forward, and operates on the hind 
leg precisely as the piston-rod does on the front one, and thus the legs 
take alternate steps, and walk on with the engine. 

This locomotive or "mechanical traveller," as it was termed by its 
inventor, moved on a railway at the rate of two and a half miles per hour, 
with the tractive force of four horses. Mr. Brunton's machine, however, 
never got beyond the experimental state, for, on one of its trials, it 
unhappily blew up, killing and wounding several of the bystanders, was 
never repaired, but laid aside as one of the failures of the times. 

These experiments, though failures in their results, were followed up by a 
Mr. Blackett, of Wylam, whose persevering efforts paved the way for the 
future labors of George Stephenson. 

To make his experiments Mr. Blackett ordered one of the locomotives of the 
Trevithick patent, and also employed rack- rails and tooth driving- wheels 
like Blankensop's, and had his road altered for the occasion. This engine 
was the most awkwardly-constructed machine imaginable. It had a single 
cylinder six inches in diameter, and a flywheel working on one side to 
carry the cranks over the dead-points. The boiler was of cast iron, and 
the weight of the whole was about six tons; a wooden frame was supported 
by four pairs of wheels, and a barrel of water placed upon another frame 
sustained by two pairs of wheels served as a tender. When all was ready, 
the word was given to go ahead, but the engine would not move an inch; 
when it was finally set in motion, it flew to pieces, and the workmen and 
spectators, with Mr. Blackett at their head, scattered and fled in every 
direction! The machine, or what was left of it, was taken off the road, 
and afterward a portion of it was used as a pump at one of the mines. 

Mr. Blackett was not, however, discouraged. His next experiment was an 
engine with a single eight-inch cylinder, which was fitted with a fly-
wheel, the driving- wheel on one side being cogged in order to enable it 
to travel on the rack-rail. This engine proved more successful than its 
predecessors, and, although it was clumsy and unsightly, it was capable of 
drawing eight or nine wagons loaded with coal to the shipping-point at 
Lemington; its weight, however, was too great for the road, and the cast-
iron rails were continually breaking. Its work was by no means successful. 
It crept along at a snail's pace, sometimes taking six hours to go five 
miles to the landing-place. It was continually getting off the track, and 
there it would stick. Horses would then have to be sent out to pull it on 
the track. The engine often broke down; its pumps, plugs, and cranks would 
get wrong, then the horses again would be needed to drag the machine back 
to the shop. In fact, it at last got so cranky that the horses were 
frequently sent out to follow the engine to be in readiness to draw it 
along when it gave out. At last it was abandoned. 

Notwithstanding the repeated failures, and the amount of money expended on 
these experiments, Blackett persevered. In 1813 he made an experiment with 
a frame upon four wheels, to deterlnine the much disputed point, the 
adhesive power of a smooth-surfaced driving wheel upon a smooth-surfaced 
rail. Six men were placed upon this frame, which was fitted up with a 
windlass attached by gearing to the several wheels. When the men worked 
the windlass, the adhesion was found sufficient to enable them to propel 
the machine without slipping. This experiment settled the difficulty which 
was always thought to be in the way of the successful use of the 
locomotive upon the smooth surface of a railroad with smooth-surfaced 
driving-wheels, proving that rack-rails, tooth-wheels, endless chains, and 
legs, were useless requisites to the successful use of a locomotive with 
smooth- surfaced drivingwheels upon a smooth-surfaced railroad-track, and 
drawing loaded wagons behind it.



CHAPTER VII.
GEORGE STEPHENSON.

WHILE Mr. Blackett was building locomotives and experimenting with them, 
George Stephenson, then enjoying a high reputation for his ingenuity and 
skill as a machinist, was deliberating in his mind on the possibility of 
locomotives being made and improved so as eventually to supersede the use 
of horse-power upon tram-roads; but the want of means, and the difficulty 
of obtaining skillful mechanics at that early day to do the requisite 
work, retarded him in his long cherished idea of making a machine that 
would answer effectually the purpose for which the locomotive Eras 
intended. True it was that Blankensop's engine, built in 1813, had been in 
use upon the tram-way at Wylam, and improvements were subsequently made so 
that a machine had been constructed and run upon the tramway between 
Kenton and Cox Lodge, which was enabled to-draw after it sixteen loaded 
cars, of about seventy tons, at the rate of three miles an hour. Yet this 
engines and others like it, were far from being perfect, or adapted to the 
purpose for which they were intended, being clumsy, cumbrous, and awkward, 
in all their movements. Mr. Stephenson saw one of these at work, and when 
asked by one of his companions what he thought of it, he replied that he
"could make a better one than that;" and, to accomplish this, he devoted 
his whole mind and energies, the result of which we will show hereafter. 

It will not, we trust, be deemed out of place to devote a small space in 
our pages to give, as briefly as possible, some of the early history of 
this afterward most distinguished engineer and machinist, who may be 
justly looked upon as the father of the locomotive system in England, now 
so successful and essential to its commerce and manufactures. His history 
may tend to impress upon the mind of any youthful reader and mechanic who 
may be now, as he once was, a poor boy, how a young man, by industry and 
perseverance in a good cause, may ultimately build up for himself a 
position which would lead eventually to eminence and fame 

GEORGE STEPHENSON was born on June 9, 1781, in a small colliery village 
called Wylam, on the north bank of the river Tyne. The tram road between 
Newcastle and Carlisle runs along the opposite bank of the river from the 
coal-pits to the shipping-point. Robert Stephenson, the father of George, 
was a poor, hard working man, and supported his family entirely from his 
own wages of less at first than, but afterward raised to, twelve shillings 
a week. 

The wagons loaded with coal passed by Wylam several times a day. These 
wagons were drawn by horses; for locomotives had not been dreamed of by 
the most visionary of that early period. George's first wages were two 
pence per day, to herd some cows owned by a neighbor which were allowed to 
feed along the road; to watch and keep them off the tram-road, and out of 
the way of the coal- wagons; also, to close the gates after the day's work 
of the wagons was over. 

The old mine being worked out, the Stephenson family removed to the new 
opening at Dudley Burn, where Robert, the father, worked as fireman. 
George's first work about these mines was at what is known as a picker. 
His duty was to clean the coal of stone, slate, and other impurities, at 
wages advanced to sixpence per day, and, after promotion, raised to 
eighteen-pence per day. 

After several removals to new openings, as the coal would be worked out in 
the old, George, who had always lived at home, and was now about fifteen 
years of age, found himself at the new opening, at Folly's Close, where he 
was promoted to the position of fireman, at the opening called "Mid Mill 
Winnin." There he remained two years, and was then again removed to a new 
pit near Throckly Bridge, where he worked, and his wages were raised to 
twelve shillings per week. He next worked at a new opening called Water 
Row, where a pumping machine was erected, and George, who was then 
seventeen years of age, was placed in charge as plugman and engineer, 
while his father worked under him as the fireman. At that time he never 
suffered an Opportunity to pass without improving himself in the knowledge 
of his engine. When not at work, and while others, employed in and about 
the mines, would be spending their time and earnings in drinking and idle 
sports, George employed himself in taking to pieces his engine, to possess 
himself of knowledge and of every peculiarity about it. By these means he 
became thoroughly acquainted with his engine, and, if at any time it got 
wrong, he was able to adjust and even repair it, without calling in the 
aid of the chief engineer of the colliery. At this time (for want of an 
opportunity), George Stephenson, now entering upon the very thresh. old of 
manhood, could not read, nor did he even know his letters. The first 
rudiments of his education were derived from one Robert Cowen, who had a 
night school in the village of Wallbottle; with him he took lessons in 
spelling and reading, three nights in the week, paying three pence per 
week for his tuition. Notwithstanding these obstacles in his way, George 
labored, studied, and persevered, and at eighteen he was able to write his 
own name. 

In 1799 he attended another night school, at Newburn. His teacher was one 
Andrew Robinson, from whom he learned his arithmetic. During his leisure 
hours he employed himself in working out the sums set him by Robinson, and 
in the evening handed in his slate to the master for examination and a 
fresh supply of sums for his study. George's wages now amounted to £1 los. 
6d. to t2, per fortnight. To this he added his earnings for shoe-mending 
and shoe-making, which he had taken up. 

In 1804 he walked on foot to Scotland, to take charge of one of Bolton & 
Watt's engines. He returned, after a year's absence, to Killingworth, on 
foot, as he had gone, and was soon at work as brakeman at the lifting 
engine on the West Moore pit. 

In 1807 George Stephenson meditated upon emigrating to America; but found 
himself too poor to pay his passage, and was compelled to abandon the 
project. To his earnings then he added the repairing of clocks and 
watches, and the cutting out of clothes for the wives of the workmen to 
make up. Thus did this energetic and untiring man persevere and labor for 
advancement in knowledge, until he was promoted as head engineer or 
plugman, as the engineer was called, at the colliery. 



CHAPTER VIII.
STEPHENSON'S ENGINE.

IT was now that Mr. Stephenson, about twenty years of age, set about the 
construction of his first locomotive. As we before stated, the want of 
good and skillful workmen was a great drawback. None of the magnificent 
and ingenious machinery of the present day to be seen in our machine-shops 
had been invented. At that early period every part of the engine had to be 
made by hand, and hammered into shape as a horseshoe was; and John 
Thorswall, the colliery blacksmith, was his chief workman; and with all 
these disadvantages and difficulties to contend with, Mr. Stephenson 
persevered and finally completed his first locomotive. 

It will no doubt be interesting to our mechanical readers to have a full 
description of Mr. Stephenson's first effort. The boiler was cylindrical, 
eight feet long and thirty- four inches in diameter, with an internal flue 
tube twenty inches wide passing through the boiler. The engine had two 
vertical cylinders of eight inches in diameter and two feet stroke, let 
into the boiler, working the propelling gear, with cross-heads and 
connecting rods; the power of the two cylinders was continued by means of 
spur-wheels, which communicated the motive power to the wheels supporting 
the engine upon the rails. The adoption of the spur-gear was the chief 
peculiarity of this new engine; it worked upon what is termed the second 
motion. The chimney was of wrought-iron, around which was a chamber 
extending back to the feed-pumps, for the purpose of heating the water 
previous to its injection into the boiler. The engine had no springs, was 
mounted on a wooden frame upon four wheels. In order, however, to equalize 
the jolts and shocks which such an engine would encounter, the water- 
barrel, which served as a tender, was fused at the end of a lever and 
weighted, the other end being connected with the frame of the carriage. 
The wheels of this locomotive were all smooth, and it was the first engine 
so constructed. After ten months' labor, this locomotive was completed and 
put upon the Cillingwood Railway on the 25th July, 1814, and tried. On an 
ascending grade of one in four hundred and fifty feet, this engine 
succeeded in drawing after it eight loaded wagons of thirty tons' weight, 
at about flour miles an hour, and was the most successful working engine 
that had ever been constructed up to this period. It was called "Blusher." 
Although successful, this improvement over horse-power was not sufficient 
to justify the abandonment of the latter. The great trouble with this new 
machine was the inability of keeping up steam sufficient to answer its 
demands; and this experiment, like all its predecessors, might have been 
set aside as a practical failure, had not Mr. Stephenson hit upon 
(accidentally) the invention or discovery of the steam-blast. The puffing 
and noise occasioned by the escapement of the steam from the steam-pipe 
into the open air, after it had performed its duty in the cylinder, 
frightened the horses upon the common roads hard by and near the vicinity 
of the crossings, and occasioned much complaint to the authorities. Mr. 
Stephenson was warned by the police to abate the nuisance, or be subject 
to a prosecution. To remedy the evil he hit upon the plan of discharging 
the surplus steam into the smoke-stack, which produced a vacuum, and the 
draught in his furnace became so perfect, that double the quantity of 
steam was generated, and the power of his engine increased to double its 
former capacity. This was a triumph, and encouraged the inventor to 
further experiments. Seeing all the deflects of his first engine, and the 
wonderful effects of the steam- blast in facilitating the combustion of 
the fuel used in generating steam, Mr. Stephenson set about constructing 
his second engine, the patent dated February 28, 1815. 

This second locomotive we will describe, as we think it will prove 
interesting to our readers, especially so to our engine-drivers or 
engineers and our locomotive-machinists. 

Like the first, this engine had two vertical cylinders, communicating 
directly with each pair of the fore-wheels which supported the engine, by 
means of a cross-head and a pair of connecting-rods. It was soon seen that 
the direct action from the cylinder to the wheels upon such uneven roads 
would not answer with the rigidity of the machinery, particularly the 
stiff connecting-rods communicating from the wheels to the piston-heads. 
To obviate this difficulty, Mr. Stephenson invented and applied the ball-
and- socket joint upon his connecting rods, where they were attached to 
the pistons, and crank-pins upon the crank-axles. 

Many other experiments were tried and as quickly abandoned in England by 
this accomplished engineer, whose name and reputation were as well known 
in America as they were in England. These experiments tended in a great 
measure to prevent our own countrymen subsequently from falling into the 
same errors and mistakes that would be found in the pathway of the early 
developments of this wonder of science and mechanics, the locomotive. 

We will not believe but that a description, step by step, from the first 
experiments by Trevithick, in 1804, on the Merthyr- Tydvil Railway, in 
South Wales, when his machine drew after it several wagons containing ten 
tons of bar-iron at the rate of five miles an hour, to the experiments of 
Stephenson, with his far-famed Rocket, will prove interesting to the 
machinists and engineers among our readers, and we will continue our 
accounts until we come to the date of our own experiments in America. 

It will be remembered by our readers that in the Blucher the motion was 
continued by the spur-wheel system, and its place was supplied by 
inserting into the axle two cranks at right angles to each other, and this 
method answered extremely well; but even here Mr. Stephenson found 
obstacles, in the difficulty, at that early day, of forging cranks of 
sufficient strength and accuracy to answer the purpose, and stand the jars 
and jolts occasioned by the rough roads, and he tried a substitute for the 
requisite object. This new arrangement was a chain which rolled over 
indented wheels on the center of each axle, and so arranged that the two 
pair of wheels were effectually coupled and made to keep pace with each 
other. This did well for a while, but the chains soon proved troublesome, 
and were abandoned for the new plan of connecting the front and hind 
wheels together by rods outside of the wheels, instead of rods and cranks 
inside, as at first. This method completely answered the purpose, and is 
in use at the present day. 

Although many other improvements were afterward suggested to the fertile 
mind of Mr. Stephenson, and introduced in the machinery of the locomotive 
Blucher, yet, as a mechanical construction, it may be considered as the 
type of the present successful locomotive system. 

Mr. Stephenson was now left alone in locomotive experiments and 
improvements: all the other experimentalists before him quitted the field 
of that kind of enterprise, and all their works in the shape of machines 
were thrown away and entirely abandoned. 

Railways, as we have before stated, had been in successful operation for 
many years, in the transportation of coal and mineral ores from the mines 
to the places of shipment. The idea had never been suggested to the mind 
of any one, or had never, at least, been advocated, to use them for 
general purposes of traffic, or, as at the present time, for the 
transportation of goods, wares, merchandise, produce, or for the 
transportation of passengers from one city to another, until about the 
year 1800, as we before stated, by a Mr. Thomas, who introduced the 
subject before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle, and a 
few years after by a Mr. Edgeworth, and even then no other power was 
thought or dreamed of but the horse-power then in use upon all the tram 
roads (as the railroads were called in all the mining regions throughout 
England and wherever else they were used), and which had by this time 
become general, and was looked upon as one of the essential necessaries 
for such enterprises. But the use of steam- power had not entered the 
minds of the warmest advocates of railroads for general purposes, as at 
the present day. 

It was not until 1820 that the first suggestion of using the locomotive 
(imperfect as it then was) in the place of horse- power, was advocated by 
one Thomas Gray, who devoted much of his time and money in publishing 
articles and pamphlets upon the subject. He pointed out the importance of 
such a road between Liverpool and Manchester and other important points, 
all of which have since been carried out. He was so energetic and 
pertinacious in his efforts to impress it upon the minds of the people, 
and so untiring in his labors, that many pronounced him a bore, and those 
who knew him declared that he was cracked or deranged, just as, nearly two 
hundred years before, poor Solomon de Cause was shut up in a mad house for 
advocating his discovery of a great power in the steam of boiling water. 

While Mr. Gray was advocating the adoption of railways for general 
transportation purposes, George Stephenson was planning locomotives to run 
upon them. 



CHAPTER IX.
FIRST TRAINS.

In 1819 the Patton Colliery, in Durham, was altered into a locomotive 
railroad, and Mr. Stephenson appointed its chief engineer. He soon began 
his labors, and on the 18th of November, 1822, the road was opened for the 
first time for locomotives. Crowds came from all directions to witness the 
experiment. Five of Mr. Stephenson's engines were upon the road that day, 
each engine drawing after it seventeen wagons loaded, averaging sixty-four 
tons, at the rate of four miles an hour. 

Mr. Stephenson next became chief engineer of the Stockton and Burlington 
Railway, another coal-road about being constructed. On account of the 
nature of the ground over which this road would pass, and the limited 
means put into Mr. Stephenson's hands for its construction, he was 
compelled to adopt the incline plane system in those places where too much 
labor and money would be required. Other parts of the road were made for 
horse or steam power, which of the two had not as yet been determined 
upon. The success of Mr. Stephenson's locomotives had been tried and 
proved practical, although as yet not a saving in the expense of 
transportation. But Mr. Stephenson's views prevailed, and when the road 
was finished, on the 27th of September, 1820, he had three engines ready 
for its use, They were built at his works, the first ever established for 
locomotive manufacture. The Active, No. 1, was the first built at this 
establishment. A great deal of excitement and speculation arose throughout 
the country when the trial-day approached. The road was ready, as we have 
stated. Great crowds were assembled from every direction to witness the 
trial; some, more sanguine, came to witness its success, but far the 
greater portion came to see the bubble burst. The proceedings began at 
Brusselton incline, where the stationary engine drew a train up the 
incline on one side and lowered it down on the other. These wagons were 
loaded. 

At the foot of this plane a locomotive, driven by Mr. Stephenson himself, 
was attached to the train. It consisted of six wagons loaded with coal and 
flour, next a passenger-coach (the first ever run upon a railroad) filled 
with the directors and their friends, then twenty One wagons fitted up 
with temporary seats for passengers, and lastly came six wagons loaded 
with coal, making in all twenty-eight vehicles. The word being given that 
all was ready, the engine began to move, gradually at first, but 
afterwards in parts-of the road, attained a speed of twelve miles an hour. 
At that time the number of passengers amounted to 450, which would, with 
the remainder of the load, amount to upward of ninety tons. The train 
arrived at Darlington, eight and three-quarter miles, in sixty-five 
minutes. Here it was stopped, and a fresh supply of water was obtained, 
and the six coal-cars for Darlington detached, and the word given to go 
ahead. The engine started, and arrived at Stockton, twelve miles, in three 
hours seven minutes, including stoppages. 

By the time the train reached Stockton, the number of passengers amounted 
to over 600. 

We will here mention that, when this road was first contemplated, its 
projectors did not estimate the amount of coal that would be transported 
over it above 10,000 tons per annum; but before a very few years had 
elapsed, from the facilities offered by the railroad system, with 
locomotives instead of horse-power, the amount of coal transported 
annually amounted to 500,000 tons, and has since exceeded that amount. At 
this trial experiment, September 27, 1825, the first passenger-car, or 
wagon as it was called at that day, was put upon the road. It had been 
ordered and made at Mr. Stephenson's works, and had only arrived the day 
before the trial. It was the vehicle in which the directors and their 
friends rode upon the occasion. Although built by Mr. Stephenson, it was a 
very modest and uncouth-looking affair, made more for strength than for 
beauty. A row of seats ran along each side of the interior, and a long 
table was fixed in the center, the access being by a doorway behind, like 
an omnibus of the present day. This vehicle was named the Experiment, and 
was the only carriage for passengers upon the road for some time. It was, 
however, the forerunner of a mighty traffic, and soon after new and more 
improved passenger-carriages were introduced upon the road, all at first 
drawn by horses. 

The Experiment was first regularly put upon the road for passenger use on 
the 10th of October, 1861. It was drawn by one horse, and performed a 
journey each Bray daily between the two towns, twelve miles, in two hours. 
This novel way of traveling soon became popular among the people, and 
eventually proved so lucrative and extensive, that the carriage could not 
contain the number of applicants for a ride. Inside and outside it was 
Crowded, and every available spot was occupied. The Experiment, however, 
was not worked by the railroad company as passenger-cars are now, but was 
let to other parties, they paying a certain toll for the use of the road. 
It soon became a lucrative business, and hotel-keepers and others embarked 
in the enterprise, and a strong opposition was raised up between the rival 
owners or companies. The old carriage, the Experiment, was found too heavy 
for one horse; a new one was placed in its stead, and the old pioneer was 
afterward used as a railroad cabin near Shildon. To the driver of the old 
Experiment the first introduction of lights being used in passenger-cars, 
for the comfort of passengers, is due. This honest and considerate driver, 
whose name was Dixon, nightly purchased a penny candle, and when he was 
belated and it became dark in the carriage, he would light his candle and 
stick it upon the table running along the center of the carriage, between 
the two rows of seats, which added much to the comfort of his patrons. 

At that time the transportation of freight, like that of passengers, was 
not confined to the company alone. According to their charters, railroads 
were public highways. Any individual or company had the right of using the 
road with their own private wagons on paying a certain stipulated toll 
affixed by law. Like the passenger-carriages, private individuals owned 
freight wagons for the transportation of produce or their own manufactures 
to market, and used the road for the purpose. This traffic, like the 
passenger transportation, soon led to confusion and delays. Being a single-
track road, with only occasional sidings or turnouts here and there upon 
its route, the carriages often met upon the way, going in opposite 
directions. Then would begin a violent contest between the rival drivers, 
not only in words, but sometimes resulting in blows, to determine who 
should back to the siding and turn off to allow the other to pass. In 
these contests not unfrequently the passengers would take sides with their 
respective drivers, and scenes of riot and pugilistic displays were often 
the result of these contests, until one party or the other would be 
compelled to succumb. After a while this difficulty was somewhat 
diminished by the position parties coming to a kind of understanding that, 
in meeting upon the track, the carriage containing the lightest load 
should back off to the nearest siding; and finally it became a fixed rule 
that, whichever carriage arrived last at the halfway post, planted between 
the two sidings, should back off to allow the other to pass. This plan, 
though it tended in a great measure to render less frequent these 
difficulties and contests, subjected the working of the road to much 
trouble and delay, so that these private enterprises were superseded by 
the company commencing the regular passenger transportation system, which 
by that time became a source of much importance in the traffic upon the 
road, and must be considered as the first introduction of this source of 
profit upon all railroads of our time, exceeding, in many cases, the 
income from the freight department.