Chapter I: Front Matter

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THE FIRST QUARTER-CENTURY OF STEAM LOCOMOTIVES IN NORTH AMERICA

United States National Museum Bulletin 210

THE FIRST QUARTER-CENTURY OF STEAM LOCOMOTIVES IN NORTH AMERICA

Remaining Relics and Operable Replicas with a Catalog of Locomotive Models in the U. S. National Museum

by

SMITH HEMPSTONE OLIVER

Curator of Land Transportation United States National Museum

Smithsonian Institution · Washington, D.C. · 1956

ADVERTISEMENT

The scientific publications of the National Museum include two series known, respectively, as _Proceedings_ and _Bulletin_.

The _Proceedings_ series, begun in 1878, is intended primarily as a medium for the publication of original papers based on the collections of the National Museum, that set forth newly acquired facts in biology, anthropology, and geology, with descriptions of new forms and revisions of limited groups. Copies of each paper, in pamphlet form, are distributed as published to libraries and scientific organizations and to specialists and others interested in the different subjects. The dates at which these separate papers are published are recorded in the table of contents of each of the volumes.

The series of _Bulletins_, the first of which was issued in 1875, contains separate publications comprising monographs of large zoological groups and other general systematic treatises (occasionally in several volumes), faunal works, reports of expeditions, catalogs of type specimens, special collections, and other material of similar nature. The majority of the volumes are octavo in size, but a quarto size has been adopted in a few instances. In the _Bulletin_ series appear volumes under the heading _Contributions from the United States National Herbarium_, in octavo form, published by the National Museum since 1902, which contain papers relating to the botanical collections of the Museum.

The present work forms No. 210 of the _Bulletin_ series.

Remington Kellogg,
_Director_, _United States National Museum_.

CONTENTS

_Page_
Foreword: The vanishing iron horse 4
Remaining relics and operable replicas representing the first
quarter-century of steam locomotives in North America 6
America’s first rail locomotive 10
Two British-built locomotives 14
Peter Cooper and Phineas Davis 22
The West Point Foundry Association 26
National Museum’s John Bull 38
Three Grasshoppers 47
Two midwestern locomotives 53
A One-Armed Billy 58
A Rocket in America 60
A Canadian relic 63
The final decade 66
Supplement: Models, in the National Museum, of locomotives not
included in this work 75
Picture credits 104
Acknowledgments 105
Bibliography 106
Index 109