CHAPTER XX
EXPERIMENTAL LOCOMOTIVES
The first locomotive, then built to demonstrate its adaptability
to a curved road, was constructed by Mr. Peter Cooper, of New
York, long and most favorably known as the founder of the far-famed
Cooper Institute in that city. Mr. Cooper's locomotive was built
at the St. Clair Works, near Baltimore, and was first run upon
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the summer of 1829, nearly
two years before that first really successful locomotive (as it
was described in the Ledger, and built by Messrs. Tyler and Baldwin)
was tried upon the Germantown and Norristown Railroad, in 1832.
What success Mr. Cooper's locomotive displayed on its first trial
trip we will describe:
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, as we have before stated,
was the first of any extent begun in America; and the first built
for the purposes of trade and commerce, as nearly all are at the
present day. Previous to the year 1826, no railroad, even in England,
had been constructed for the general conveyance of passengers
or merchandise between two distant points. A few railroads had
been constructed for local purposes, such as the conveyance of
coal or ores from the mines to the points of shipment on navigable
streams; but, for general purposes of travel or transportation,
they were still regarded as an untried experiment, and the question
had not been settled whether stationary engines or horsepower
would be the most available. The Stockton and Burlington Railway,
the Killingsworth, and several others in England, all coal-roads,
had experimented with locomotives, but not one of them was satisfied
that the locomotive would ever advantageously supersede horse-power.
The Liverpool and Manchester Railroad had just been completed,
but the question had not been settled what power should be used
upon it. The same might be said of railroads in Americaone
or two short roads, for mining purposes, having been constructed,
using horsepower.
We have devoted the foregoing remarks to the
early history of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, not on the fact
that it was the first railroad in the United States, constructed
for the actual traffic and commerce of the community between two
distant sections of the country, the far-off West with the East,
but because it was the railroad upon which the first locomotive
built in the United States was successfully introduced. We allude
to the machine constructed by Mr. Peter Cooper, in 1829; and,
although this was but a Lilliputian affair, it nevertheless became
the forerunner of a race of iron giants who sprang into existence
as soon as the principle was established, for the demonstration
of which Mr. Cooper had brought forth his "Tom Thumb"
locomotive. The cause which led him, at this time, to deviate
from the path of his legitimate business, to become the builder
of the first American locomotive, will be better explained by
the perusal of his letter to the author, in answer to some inquiries
upon that subject, dated
MR. WILLIAM H. BROWN
"MY DEAR SIR: In reply to your kind favor of the 10th
last., I write to say that I am not sure that I have a drawing
or sketch of the little locomotive placed by me on the Baltimore
and Ohio Railroad, in the summer of 1829, to the best of my recollection.
" The engine was a very small and insignificant affair. It
was made at a time when I had become the owner of all the land
now belonging to the Canton Company, the value of which, I believe,
depended almost entirely upon the success of the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad
"At that time an opinion had become prevalent that the
road was ruined for steam locomotives, by reason of the short
curves found necessary to get around the various points of rocks
found in their course. Under these discouraging circumstances
many of the principal stockholders were about abandoning the work,
and were only prevented from forfeiting their stock by my persuading
them that a locomotive could be so made as to pass success fully
around the short curves then found in the road, which only extended
thirteen miles, to Ellicott's Mills.
"When I had completed the engine, I invited the directors
to witness an experiment. Some thirty-six persons entered one
of the passenger-cars, and four rode on the locomotive, which
carried its own fuel and water; and made the first passage, of
thirteen miles, over an average ascending grade of eighteen feet
to the mile, in one hour and twelve minutes. They made the return-trip
in fifty-seven minutes.
"I regret my inability to make such a sketch of the engine
as I would be willing to send you at this moment, without further
time to do so.
The following letter from Benjamin H. Latrobe, Esq., the chief
engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad during its construction,
addressed to the author, and containing a description and sketch
of the sailing-car invented by Mr. Evan Thomas, and experimented
with upon the road, and also his promise of a future sketch of
the Peter Cooper locomotive, will no doubt be interesting to our
readers:
"DEAR SIR: Your letter to me, of the 26th July, has been
forwarded to me at this place, where I am on a visit with my family.
It will give me pleasure to give you what information I can upon
the subject upon which you inquire, but I cannot do this so well
here, as I could after my return to Baltimore, and communicating
with my brother, who, as counsel of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
Company, entered its service a couple of years before I did, as
a subordinate in the engineer corps, on the 1 st of July, 1830.
"I will recollect the little experimental locomotive of
Mr. Peter Cooper, and also the sailing-car of Mr. Evan Thomas;
but I could not give you a reliable sketch of the former at present,
but, as to the latter, it was 'a basket body,' like that of a
sleigh, and had a mast, and, if I recollect, 'a square sail, and
was mounted upon four wheels of equal size.' It ran equally well
in either direction, but of course only in that in which the wind
happened to be blowing at the time, although it would go with
the wind abaft the beam, but at a speed proportioned to the angle
with a line of the sails. It was but a clever toy, but had its
use at the time in showing how little power of propulsion was
necessary upon a railway, compared with the best of the roads
that had preceded it. Mr. Cooper's engine had, I remember, a vertical
tubular boiler, and he was, at the time of its being placed on
the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the summer of 1829, regarded
as the first suggester of that form of boiler, although Mr. Booth,
the treasurer of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, had proposed
it for the Rocket engine about the same time; upon this point,
however, I am not posted. There at home I would refer to some
books and memoranda there, which, together with an interchange
of recollections with my brother, would enable me to speak more
specifically. The mode of applying the power to the wheels I do
not remember. I had just entered the company's service, and my
thoughts were directed more to learning the use of the leveling
instrument and transit, and how to run curves with the latter,
than to the rolling machinery of the railroad.
"I recollect very distinctly, however,
a trip which this little locomotive of 'Alderman Cooper's,' as
he was then called, made to Ellicott's Mills, where I was stationed.
It must have been in July or August, 1830. It brought out several
of the directors, and my brother was one of the party, and I remember
following it a little distance down the road, after it had started
with much puffing and leaking of steam from some of its joints
piping.
"It was in size (and power too, I might say) about the
scale of Evan Thomas's sailing-car; yet it was, as the first step
in the use of steam on that road, a highly important one.
"Its fuel, I think, was anthracite coal, the use of which,
in the engines which succeeded it, was a favorite idea with the
company, and influenced the form of the locomotives employed upon
the road for several subsequent years.
"The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, stimulated by the example
of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, next year (1830) offered
a premium of $500 to the constructor of the locomotive which would
draw fifteen tons, gross weight, fifteen miles an hour. This advertisement
brought upon the road an odd collection of four or five original
American ideas, of which it is much to be regretted that photographs
and indeed detailed drawings have not been preserved. Among these
was a rotary engine, by a Mr. Childs, which, I believe, never
made a revolution of its wheels, certainly not in the form of
the locomotive. The engine which took the premium was built by
Mr. Phineas Davis, which was the model for those built after it
for three or four years.
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