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

MORK FACTS OF THE STOURBKIDGE LION. gg
were raised aljove tlie groimd and kept running for the
amusement of the crowds attracted by its novelty.
Of this engine Mr, Horatio Allen speaks in a letter to
the author as follows
:
"This locomotive, or motive (but.not progressive motion), -was
not the engine which made the first run on the railroad at Honesdale,
Pennsylvania. This engine (built by Stephenson at Newcastle-upon-Tyne)
was set up at an iron-yard on the East-River
side of Kew Tork, and being blocked up, so that the wheels could
not touch the ground, the engine could go through the motions
without running."
As we are determined that our history of the first
locomotives in America shall lack no evidence to sus-
tain the facts we record, we cannot close our testimony
in the case of the " Stourbridge Lion " without
removing an impression which many persons entertain,
and have often declared to the author, that this same
old engine, which came^ from England and made the
first trip on a railroad in America, is still in existence
somewhere in New England. Such is not the fact.
Notwithstanding the testimony upon this point to be
found in the latter part of the Hon. John Torry's letter
to the author, where he distinctly records the ultimate
fate of the Lion, we have another letter from an old
citizen of that region, the same gentleman who favored
us with the file oi \i)a.e JDvmdaff Republican, Mr. Dilton
Yarrington, from which we will extract such parts as
relate to the final disposition of this locomotive, thus
" As far as the locomotive was concerned, it was considered a
failure from the very first time it was used. It stood around for
some years, and by degrees was taken to pieces and wasted away
like- an old cripple. I worked up some of the fragments of it in
the shop in 1849.
. . . , " Thg_ boiler is now in use here in Carbondale, in a
foundery, where it has been in use for twenty years past, and is
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