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

163
HISTORY OF THE FIRST JLOCOMOTIVES m AMERICA.
had accepted tlie offer of Mr. E. L. Miller to construct
a locoinotive-engine in New York, at tte "West Point
Foundery ; and tliat she should perform at the rate of
ten miles an liowr, instead of eight as first proposed, and
carry three times her weight, which was required the
year before on the Liverpool and Manchester Eailroad,
at a trial of engines for the premium of £500, which
Mr. Miller went out to. witness. Mr. Miller's engine,
under this contract, was brought out by him in the fall
of 1830, and on the 14th and 15th of December, 1830,
had her trial and proved her power and efficiency to be
double those contracted for. She was the first locomo-
tive-engine built in the United States to run on a rail-
road. She was first called the ' Best Friend,' but
having her boiler burst in June, 1831, and renewed in
Charleston, she was afterward called the ' Phoenix.'
This engine was built according to the plan and Tinder
the personal direction of our talented and enterprising
fellow-citizen E. L. Miller, Esq."
At the time this engine was engaged, 1830, Mr.
Miller led the van among the advocates of steam over
horse or any other power for railroads. Public opinion
was, at that time, much divided on the subject; the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company leaned in favor
of horse-power; but, nothing daunted by the weight of
their authority, Mr. Miller persevered, and, with an
unyielding fixedness of purpose, proposed to construct
an engine, on his own responsibility, equal to the best
then in use in England. He succeeded, and to him
belongs the honor of planning and constructing the
" Best Friend," ^q first locomotive ever huilt and worked
on a railroad in the United States.
The directors of the South Carolina Railroad, therefore,
are not only entitled to the credit of having had
Digitized by Microsoft®