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

128 HISTORY OF THE PIRST LOCOMOTIVES IN AMERICA.
maternal grandfather, John Campbell, was Mayor of New York,
and deputy quartermaster-general during the Revolutionary "War,
in which his father also served as a lieutenant. Mr. Cooper's
father was a respectable hatter, and, as soon as young Cooper was
old enough to pick fur from the rabbit-skins used in making hats,
he was set to work. He had no opportunities for education, and
only attended school one or two months in his life.
' I have never
had any time to get an education,' he once almost pathetically remarked,
' and all that I know I have had to pick up as I went
along.'
" He remained in the hat business with his father until he had
mastered it in all its branches, and during much of the time, after
he had finished his labors for the day, he would work until late at
night with some carver's tools which his grandmother gave him, in
order to eke out his small wages.
" "We, who go to our places of business at nine, or less, and
leave at five, can little realize the toil which falls to the lot of
mechanics. The Cooper Institute is the result of the recollections
of those early days, and was intended to help poor boys in the
same situation as he had been. Young Cooper afterward went
into the brewing business, at which he remained about two years.
He then served the usual apprenticeship to coach- making, and
finally went into the cloth-shearing business with his brother. For
some time he succeeded very well, but after the War of 1812 his
business was so injured by the introduction of foreign cloths that
he left it and began cabinet-making. He gave this up after a
while, and opetied a grocery-store on the present site of the Cooper
Union, where he carried on a small retail trade for some time. He
finally bought a woollen factory with his savings, and since that
time has steadily prospered. He has since tried his hand at other
kinds of business, but the largest part of his fortune was gained
by the manufacture of glue and by his iron-works. He has shown
a Yankee talent for undertaking difierent speculations, as well as
great shrewdness and prudence in conducting them.
" In 1830 he erected extensive iron-works at Canton, near Bal-
timore, where he built from his own designs the first locomotive
ever turned out on this continent. He carried on large wire and roll-
ing mills at Trenton, New Jersey, and was the first person to roll
wrought-iron beams for fire-proof buildings. Ho has been much
interested in the progress of telegraphy, and has been an oflBlcer in
several leading telegraph associations.
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