The history of the first locomotives in America. From original ...

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HISTORY OF THE FIKST LOCOMOTIVES IN AMERICA.
not been settled wlietlier stationary engines or horsepower
would be tlie most available, Tlie Stockton and
Burlington Railway, the Killingsworth, and several
others in England, all coal-roads, had experimented
with locomotives, but no one of them' was satisfied
that the locomotive would ever advantageously super-
sede horse-power. The Liverpool and Manchester Eail-
road 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 America—one or two
short roads, for mining purposes, having been construc-
ted, using horse-power.
We have devoted the foregoing remarks to the
early history of the Baltimore and Ohio KaUroad, not
only from the fact that it was the first railrciad in the
United States, constructed for the actual traffic and
commerce of the community between two distant sec-
tions 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 lUiputian affair, it nevertheless became the forerun-
ner 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 sub-
ject, dated
* First experiment made in that year, then altered and successfully experi-
mented with in 1880.
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