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Robert Stephenson and Co: Pride of Newcastle: Difference between revisions

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A locomotive built in 1828 by [[Robert Stephenson and Co]] and the first locomotive to be shipped to the US where it was christened '''America'''
The first locomotive shipped to America from Britain in 1828 known unofficially as the Pride of Newcastle or incorrectly as America. The locomotive was built in the South Street, Newcastle, works of [[Robert Stephenson and Co]].


Christened the America but also known as the Pride of Newcastle, it was shipped from London that November and reached New York on January 15, 1829. Four months later, on May 13, a second engine, the [[Foster, Rastrick and Co: Stourbridge Lion| Stourbridge Lion]], arrived from [[Foster, Rastrick and Co]].
When [[Robert Stephenson]] returned from Columbia in 1827 he found the works at South Street had lost its way due to the preoccupation of his father George with the problems of the [[Liverpool and Manchester Railway]].  He set about the re-organisation of the works and the production of new designs for their locomotives. The first was a 0-4-0 for the Liverpool and Manchester Company delivered in May 1828 (Works number 11) which was later named [[Robert Stephenson and Co: Lancashire Witch|Lancashire Witch]]. This was a major leap forward in that it was the first locomotive to have its cylinders directly driving the wheels in what is now considered to be standard for steam locomotives.


Soon thereafter, with public curiosity sharply on the rise, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company arranged to demonstrate its two locomotives. Again the America went first; New York newspapers described its being put in motion (with wheels raised off the ground) before an enthusiastic crowd that included “his Excellency the Governor, several judges of the courts, the gentlemen of the D&H Co., and a large number of others.” A day later the same public “experiment” was made on the Stourbridge Lion, with equally satisfactory results.
In 1827 the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company decided on the purchase of locomotives for its Gravity Railroad between Honesdale and Carbondale, Pennsylvania.   They employed an engineer, [[Horatio Allen]], to visit England and investigate the locomotive practices and possibly make a purchase.


The following weeks were used for mechanical fine-tuning and for planning operational details. A letter from Allen to Jervis, dated June 22, noted their agreement to put the America “on the summit,” while “the other engine (the Lion) had better be taken to the head of the canal [at Honesdale].” By early July all was in readiness for transferring both locomotives upriver to the nearer end of the newly made canal. Company records show their safe arrival via packet boat and the start of their further journey.
In May 1828 Allen witnessed the first run of Lancashire Witch and in July 1828 was in South Street works discussing the purchase of one locomotive.  This was completed and subsequently became works number 12. It was almost identical in design to Lancashire Witch but to a track gauge of 4ft 3” instead of 4ft 8½”.  The cost was £580. Allen went on to purchase three more from [[Foster and Rastrick]] of Stourbridge (see [[Foster and Rastrick: Stourbridge Lion|Stourbridge Lion]]),


But from this point the story—the official story—is dramatically interrupted. According to a later company history, “On July 16, the locomotives cleared from Eddyville . . . [but] no record of the arrival of the America at Honesdale has been found, and no mention of it in the correspondence that exists in regards to the unloading of the Stourbridge Lion. The history, therefore, of the America from the time it started up the canal remains a mystery.”
The locomotive was completed in October 1828 and shipped from Newcastle to New York by way of London in the same month. It arrived in New York by the ship Columbia on the 15th January 1829.   The Delaware and Hudson Gravity Railroad was at the end of the Delaware and Hudson Canal and in January 1829 the canal would be closed by ice.  In consequence, the locomotive was assembled and placed in the care of the Abeel and Dunscombe Foundry of Water St, New York.   It became the centre of interest for New Yorkers and was steamed on the 27th May 1829 by raising it on blocks and firing the boiler.  


In short, the Stephenson engine — first to be ordered, built, and paid for, first to arrive, and first to be 'demonstrated' under steam — seems suddenly to have vanished. Its several firsts, plus such technical considerations as its apparent mechanical superiority and significantly lighter weight, point to the America as the likely choice to be first also for a trial run. Yet according to all subsequent accounts, that historic honor went instead to the Stourbridge Lion.
The first of the Rastrick locomotives arrived on the 13th May 1829 and was placed in the care of the West Point foundry.


On the morning of Saturday, August 8, 1829, before a large crowd of excited onlookers drawn from Honesdale and the surrounding countryside, Horatio Allen climbed aboard the Stourbridge Lion and took the controls. Years later he would remember the moment for admiring audiences. In one grandiloquent version he began as follows: “When the imagination has attained to some of the scene, let us seek to go back to a time when only one of these iron monsters was in existence on this continent.” (Had he forgotten entirely about the America?) He continued: “The impression was very general that the iron monster would either break down the road or that it would leave the track and plunge into the creek. My reply to this apprehension was that it was too late to consider the probability of such occurrences; that there was no other course but to have the trial made of the strange animal which had been brought here at such expense, but that it was not necessary that more than one should be involved in its fate: that I would take the ride alone. . . . Preferring, if we did go down, to go handsomely and without any evidence of timidity, I started with considerable velocity, passed the curve over the creek safely, and was soon out of hearing of the cheers of the large assembly present. At the end of two or three miles, I reversed the valves and returned without accident to the place of starting, having thus made the first railroad trip by locomotive in the Western Hemisphere.”
In the early spring of 1829 neither locomotive had been granted a name.  However, in a letter dated 22nd June 1829 Horatio Allen calls the Stephenson locomotive the Pride of Newcastle but it believed the locomotive never carried a nameplate.   At some point someone painted a lion’s head on the front of the Rastrick locomotive and this is now understood to have been done in America.  As a result this locomotive became known as the Lion, later extended to Stourbridge Lion but again this name was never graced by a nameplate.  


The completion of Allen’s ride let loose a burst of local celebration, marked not only by 'cheers' but also by volleys from 'a large cannon,' one of which misfired and seriously injured a young bystander.
The Pride of Newcastle was steamed again on the 22nd June 1829.  However, the problems which would beset this engine started to become clear.  Unlike the Stourbridge Lion the Pride had some difficulty in making steam which resulted in Horatio Allan modifying the locomotive at the foundry.  In a June 1829 letter Allen says that he has raised the chimney of the Pride and fitted a “hot-water reservoir”.  It is now known that the chimney modification was to increase the draught on the fire but the “reservoir” was a feed water heater, an efficiency idea proposed by Rastrick but which could only make matters worse for the poor steaming Pride.


In fact, the Lion’s success was not as complete as first imagined. The weight of the engine had damaged the track underneath. Company officials felt a 'very serious disappointment' and sought to curtail public awareness of the entire 'trial.' Even so, news reached Wall Street within weeks and sent the value of D&H stock shares into a steep plunge. The company tried to recoup by substituting horses for the power of the locomotive, but it suffered years of additional difficulty.  
By the end of June 1829 Allen and the Chief Engineer of the Company John Jervis began to plan the delivery of the locomotives. Although the canal was now clear of ice there had been frequent breaches of the canal bank which made transit dangerous. The letter of the 22nd June 1829 suggests that the Pride of Newcastle should be placed on the Summit Plain of the Railroad (Rix’s Gap) whilst the other engine (then still not known by its later name) be placed at the head of the canal (Honesdale).  


When at last its mining operations began to yield profit — truly vast profit — the Stourbridge Lion was resting unused in a crude shed beside the track. Still, the Lion has been fully rewarded and recognized by history. Allen’s claim for its being “first . . . in the Western Hemisphere” is echoed today by the Smithsonian Institution, which proudly displays the engine’s complete boiler and other original parts. The same triumphant line appears in textbooks and monographs too numerous to mention.
The original idea was for the locomotives to be loaded into two canal boats in New York and these be towed to Rondout Creek where the canal started.  However, there was concern about this as the Hudson River was notoriously fickle. Therefore, it was decided to load them onto the steamboat Congress and tow the empty canal boats behind transferring the locomotives at The Strand at Rondout. The steamboat left New York on the 2nd July 1829 with the two partially dismantled locomotives as deck cargo. The steamboat arrived on the 3rd July 1829.   The next report is that of the 16th July when the two canal boats with their cargo of locomotives cleared the first lock on the canal at Eddyville.     What took some 13 days at Rondout is unclear but is now believed to be difficulty in lifting and loading the locomotives.    Much has been stated about the weight of these.  Investigation and study of the ship lading and other data indicates that the Pride of Newcastle without tender, coal or water would have been some 6.5tons and Stourbridge Lion 7.5tons, a matter of great difficulty with the limited facilities at The Strand in 1829.  


In 1871 William H. Brown, a pioneer historian of America’s railways, sought to establish an exact record by asking each of the principals 'about the first Locomotive imported to this country.' Jervis replied flatly (and falsely) that 'the name of the first locomotive ordered from England, and the first in America, was the Sturbridge Lion.' Jervis’s master mechanic, David Matthew, answered with an evasive sidestep: ''Sometime about the middle of May 1829 the locomotive called the Sturbridge Lion arrived from England.'' Horatio Allen, alone among Brown’s informants, alluded to the America but misdated its arrival by a full eight months and rather cryptically declared that ''this . . . was not the engine which made the first run on the road at Honesdale.'' Subsequently, Allen would reverse himself by claiming that the two engines had reached New York together and ''when the time came that one . . . was to be sent to Honesdale. The Sturbridge Lion was sent.''
Much has been said about the Pride of Newcastle vanishing from the records from this point onward.   In fact a detailed study by Wayne County Historical Society has proved conclusively that both locomotives arrived in Honesdale on the 21st July 1829.  


Faced with such confusing testimony, Brown could only discount the Stephenson locomotive, while giving full honors to the Lion. It was left to later historians to identify the America by name and establish the date of its arrival. But for them, too, its subsequent disappearance remained a mystery. As one wrote in 1979, ''Not having been run, the [America] . . . made no particular impression on anyone and was ignored by contemporary writers. It would seem that this is the explanation for the obscurity which has surrounded its fate.''
As at Rondout the lifting of the locomotives from the canal boats was a problem. There was no crane at Honesdale capable of lifting them and it was not until the letters of one John Torrey were studied which were written in 1870, that it became clear that a temporary inclined plain was build to haul the locomotives out using a number of capstans. This required the coal shipments to be temporarily suspended which caused the canal management to complain to Jervis.    


There is, however, another explanation. Recently recovered documents show beyond doubt that on July 23 both the America and the Stourbridge Lion reached Honesdale, where both were unloaded and both were placed on tracks.
The Pride of Newcastle being lighter was removed first as the removal of Stourbridge Lion required an additional capstan to be constructed as indicated in the invoices of August 1829.   As a result the Pride was assembled first and was ready for steaming by the 25th July 1829.  


Then we learn at last the fate of the America. First to be tried on track. And also, first to explode. It blew up on the 26th July 1829
The matter of the successful run of the Stourbridge Lion can be found under the section dealing with that locomotive and we will just follow the Pride of Newcastle.


It appears, moreover, that the America was the focus of an early corporate cover-up. How else to explain its nearly complete absence from the records, and remembrance, of D&H officials? Certainly there was money at stake, a huge amount for the time. The private writings of the Wurtses, all through the period in question, disclose their acute fears for the solvency of the company. And if investors reacted so sharply to the way the Lion had damaged its track, would not the likely response to an engine explosion have been sharper still?
It would appear that an attempt to raise stream was made on the 26th July 1829.  The details of this will be explained later.   It is clear that this was unsuccessful and nothing further is reported on the Pride of Newcastle apart from one reference in the Dundaff Republican newspaper of August 1829 to it be “placed on the ground on the berm side of the canal”.   Clearly the engineers had given up on it.


Reputations were at stake as well. Jervis was known, to employers and others, as an extremely sensitive sort, and his name, more than any other, was tightly linked to the railroad project. Allen and Matthew were young men near the start of their careers. The Wurts brothers had marked a course toward the summits of high finance but were as yet just partway there. Mayor Hone had committed his considerable prestige to the fortunes of the D&H. So, too, had other company backers. With all these men, failure—or simply a public perception of failure—might hold grave consequences for the future. To grasp their motives is easy enough; to reconstruct the hidden event itself is more difficult. BLEW UP JULY 26, 1829 is a headline, no more and no less. But if we let our imagination carry us back to those critical summertime months, we can create at least a probable scenario for the America’s violent demise.
The D&H Canal Co’s experiment with locomotives was unsuccessful and it remained a horse worked gravity line until its closure in the 1890s.     The two locomotives remained at Honesdale.   In 1834 the Canal Co put up these and the other two from Foster and Rastrick for sale but there were no takers.


As the time approached for putting the new locomotives into actual operation, tension would certainly have run high. But the engineers’ plan to use the America on the railway’s remote “summit” section afforded the chance for a private test run. Moreover, the date set, July 26, was a Sunday; the local populace would be otherwise occupied. A handful of company officials and employees would constitute the only audience for this momentous—but unpredictable and risky—event.
It has not been possible to follow the fate of the Pride of Newcastle. The boiler disappeared without trace but the wheels were retained and were recorded as being stored at the canal offices.  The cylinders were apparently sold for re-use at a foundry in Carbondale.   Later, it would appear that the wheels and at least one cylinder were recovered as the Smithsonian Museum in 1914 tried to reconstruct the parts of Stourbridge Lion using these.


At the appointed hour the firebox was stoked, steam was raised, and, with an unknown man at the throttle, the America was put into motion—making transportation history, whether acknowledged or not. How far? How fast? How many runs? Who was the first locomotive engineer? The answers to these questions may never be discovered, for on that day the America BLEW UP, and those present agreed to say nothing of what they had witnessed, beyond a small circle of company insiders.
The cylinder and wheels are now on display in the museum correctly labelled except that for a time the museum mounted the cylinder upside down..  


There remained, of course, the Stourbridge Lion, which, unlike the America, had been conspicuously set up in the middle of town (in Honesdale). There it stood, the focus of much attention and curiosity, hour after hour, day after day. In later years it was remembered 'as looking like a mammoth grasshopper . . . and the front was ornamented with a large, fierce-looking face of a lion.”'As a result, 'it was an object of great dread' to local passersby.
Two aspects need to be clarified.


There was, in short, no possibility of conducting a closed trial of this second locomotive. Company officials would have to run it in a very public way or else face unwanted questions (perhaps including some about the America). So run it they did. Surely they were fearful; Allen’s much later account describes a prevalent “impression” of impending disaster. And for those few who knew the fate of the America thirteen days before, the anxiety must have been extreme. Still, as Allen put it, “there was no other course but to have the trial made.” He himself would emerge as martyr or hero; at the time he could not have known which.
The name America has been bandied about.  This originates from historians misreading the title on the Robert Stephenson Description Book dealing with No 12.  This book was rewritten circa 1831 by a clerk whose was knowledge was incomplete and for No 12 all he knew was that “No 12 was (for) America”.  In 1883 in correspondence with the aforementioned John Torrey, he was told the name was America and when Clement Stretton produced his History of Locomotives in America in 1893 he picked up the same error producing a fictitious drawing of No 12 complete with nameplate.   This drawing has details not applicable to No 12 and is dimensionally incorrect and therefore wholly discredited.    The legend that the Stephenson engine was called America was therefore well established on both side of the Atlantic despite efforts by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers making efforts in 1923 to dispel the myth.  


Because the Lion succeeded—in historic, if not operational, terms—any public memory of the America would gradually fade. Moreover, the personal memories of those most closely involved would be carefully suppressed. Yet this does not mean they forgot, as the carved box so clearly testifies. At some point later on, one of them sat down with tools and materials to create a private memento of what must have been a searing experience for all. A dream had died there on the “summit” above Honesdale, and now it would have its appropriate coffin. Preserved by means unknown through several succeeding generations, the box would eventually surface, in the spring of 1981, in a small antiques shop on New York’s Upper East Side.
Now to matter of the “box” discovered by Robert Thayer in a Manhattan junkshop the 1980s as repeated in Railroad Heritage Magazine in 1998.   This purports to be an artefact produced in the 1829 to commemorate the steaming of a locomotive called America on the 26th July 1829 and which subsequently blew up.     The Wayne County Historical Society have investigated this claim and found that the box is indeed an artefact commemorating the events of July/August 1829 but carved in about 1883 and after John Torrey had been told that the name was America.  The carver is not identified but is certainly not David Matthews as is claimed.  Interestingly, the locomotive depicted on the box is the De Witt Clinton a 0-4-0 locomotive built in 1830 for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad by the West Point foundry.   In 1883 no image of the Pride of Newcastle existed but it was known that the West Point foundry copied the features of the Pride but provided a multi-tubular boiler which overcame the steaming problem.  Knowing this the carver used well publicised image of the Mohawk and Hudson locomotive as the closest rendition.  


Most likely, its maker was David Matthew, known for his skill in drafting as much as for his mechanical expertise. Probably, the recipient was Jervis, since his is the only name it carries. They were two old friends and colleagues who shared a painful secret, which now, more than 150 years later, need be a secret no more.
Finally, the term “Blew Up” has been wrongly identified a being an explosion when the term is slang for raising steam.  So the Pride was “blown-up”, that had its boiler lit on the 26th July 1829 but failed to raise sufficient for operation.  The reason for this is due to the D&H Co using anthracite, a notorious difficult coal, the feed water heater modification made by Allen and the fact that all the Stephenson engines of that period had the same defect due to the absence of a reliable blast pipe.
 
In conclusion, the Pride of Newcastle and its sister Lancashire Witch were the forerunners of the locomotive design which became the Rocket of October 1829 whose success at Rainhill proved to be the starting point for all subsequent locomotive designs.  In 1883 the veterans of the D&H Gravity Railroad realised that an opportunity had been lost in not persevering with a design which proved so successful in England.  A fact that was bemoaned by Horatio Allen in 1885 when he stated, “Had we used the Stephenson engine in August 1829 we would have presaged the events of Rainhill in October 1829”.    This is true reason behind the commemorative box.  


== See Also ==
== See Also ==
Line 48: Line 50:
== Sources of Information ==
== Sources of Information ==
<references/>
<references/>
* [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1998/6/1998_6_91.shtml] American heritage
* The Pride and the Lion (Wayne County Historical Society 2011)
* Railroad History Fall-Winter 2009


{{DEFAULTSORT: }}
{{DEFAULTSORT: }}
[[Category: Early Railway Locomotives]]
[[Category: Early Railway Locomotives]]

Revision as of 15:33, 12 April 2013

The first locomotive shipped to America from Britain in 1828 known unofficially as the Pride of Newcastle or incorrectly as America. The locomotive was built in the South Street, Newcastle, works of Robert Stephenson and Co.

When Robert Stephenson returned from Columbia in 1827 he found the works at South Street had lost its way due to the preoccupation of his father George with the problems of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. He set about the re-organisation of the works and the production of new designs for their locomotives. The first was a 0-4-0 for the Liverpool and Manchester Company delivered in May 1828 (Works number 11) which was later named Lancashire Witch. This was a major leap forward in that it was the first locomotive to have its cylinders directly driving the wheels in what is now considered to be standard for steam locomotives.

In 1827 the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company decided on the purchase of locomotives for its Gravity Railroad between Honesdale and Carbondale, Pennsylvania. They employed an engineer, Horatio Allen, to visit England and investigate the locomotive practices and possibly make a purchase.

In May 1828 Allen witnessed the first run of Lancashire Witch and in July 1828 was in South Street works discussing the purchase of one locomotive. This was completed and subsequently became works number 12. It was almost identical in design to Lancashire Witch but to a track gauge of 4ft 3” instead of 4ft 8½”. The cost was £580. Allen went on to purchase three more from Foster and Rastrick of Stourbridge (see Stourbridge Lion),

The locomotive was completed in October 1828 and shipped from Newcastle to New York by way of London in the same month. It arrived in New York by the ship Columbia on the 15th January 1829. The Delaware and Hudson Gravity Railroad was at the end of the Delaware and Hudson Canal and in January 1829 the canal would be closed by ice. In consequence, the locomotive was assembled and placed in the care of the Abeel and Dunscombe Foundry of Water St, New York. It became the centre of interest for New Yorkers and was steamed on the 27th May 1829 by raising it on blocks and firing the boiler.

The first of the Rastrick locomotives arrived on the 13th May 1829 and was placed in the care of the West Point foundry.

In the early spring of 1829 neither locomotive had been granted a name. However, in a letter dated 22nd June 1829 Horatio Allen calls the Stephenson locomotive the Pride of Newcastle but it believed the locomotive never carried a nameplate. At some point someone painted a lion’s head on the front of the Rastrick locomotive and this is now understood to have been done in America. As a result this locomotive became known as the Lion, later extended to Stourbridge Lion but again this name was never graced by a nameplate.

The Pride of Newcastle was steamed again on the 22nd June 1829. However, the problems which would beset this engine started to become clear. Unlike the Stourbridge Lion the Pride had some difficulty in making steam which resulted in Horatio Allan modifying the locomotive at the foundry. In a June 1829 letter Allen says that he has raised the chimney of the Pride and fitted a “hot-water reservoir”. It is now known that the chimney modification was to increase the draught on the fire but the “reservoir” was a feed water heater, an efficiency idea proposed by Rastrick but which could only make matters worse for the poor steaming Pride.

By the end of June 1829 Allen and the Chief Engineer of the Company John Jervis began to plan the delivery of the locomotives. Although the canal was now clear of ice there had been frequent breaches of the canal bank which made transit dangerous. The letter of the 22nd June 1829 suggests that the Pride of Newcastle should be placed on the Summit Plain of the Railroad (Rix’s Gap) whilst the other engine (then still not known by its later name) be placed at the head of the canal (Honesdale).

The original idea was for the locomotives to be loaded into two canal boats in New York and these be towed to Rondout Creek where the canal started. However, there was concern about this as the Hudson River was notoriously fickle. Therefore, it was decided to load them onto the steamboat Congress and tow the empty canal boats behind transferring the locomotives at The Strand at Rondout. The steamboat left New York on the 2nd July 1829 with the two partially dismantled locomotives as deck cargo. The steamboat arrived on the 3rd July 1829. The next report is that of the 16th July when the two canal boats with their cargo of locomotives cleared the first lock on the canal at Eddyville. What took some 13 days at Rondout is unclear but is now believed to be difficulty in lifting and loading the locomotives. Much has been stated about the weight of these. Investigation and study of the ship lading and other data indicates that the Pride of Newcastle without tender, coal or water would have been some 6.5tons and Stourbridge Lion 7.5tons, a matter of great difficulty with the limited facilities at The Strand in 1829.

Much has been said about the Pride of Newcastle vanishing from the records from this point onward. In fact a detailed study by Wayne County Historical Society has proved conclusively that both locomotives arrived in Honesdale on the 21st July 1829.

As at Rondout the lifting of the locomotives from the canal boats was a problem. There was no crane at Honesdale capable of lifting them and it was not until the letters of one John Torrey were studied which were written in 1870, that it became clear that a temporary inclined plain was build to haul the locomotives out using a number of capstans. This required the coal shipments to be temporarily suspended which caused the canal management to complain to Jervis.

The Pride of Newcastle being lighter was removed first as the removal of Stourbridge Lion required an additional capstan to be constructed as indicated in the invoices of August 1829. As a result the Pride was assembled first and was ready for steaming by the 25th July 1829.

The matter of the successful run of the Stourbridge Lion can be found under the section dealing with that locomotive and we will just follow the Pride of Newcastle.

It would appear that an attempt to raise stream was made on the 26th July 1829. The details of this will be explained later. It is clear that this was unsuccessful and nothing further is reported on the Pride of Newcastle apart from one reference in the Dundaff Republican newspaper of August 1829 to it be “placed on the ground on the berm side of the canal”. Clearly the engineers had given up on it.

The D&H Canal Co’s experiment with locomotives was unsuccessful and it remained a horse worked gravity line until its closure in the 1890s. The two locomotives remained at Honesdale. In 1834 the Canal Co put up these and the other two from Foster and Rastrick for sale but there were no takers.

It has not been possible to follow the fate of the Pride of Newcastle. The boiler disappeared without trace but the wheels were retained and were recorded as being stored at the canal offices. The cylinders were apparently sold for re-use at a foundry in Carbondale. Later, it would appear that the wheels and at least one cylinder were recovered as the Smithsonian Museum in 1914 tried to reconstruct the parts of Stourbridge Lion using these.

The cylinder and wheels are now on display in the museum correctly labelled except that for a time the museum mounted the cylinder upside down..

Two aspects need to be clarified.

The name America has been bandied about. This originates from historians misreading the title on the Robert Stephenson Description Book dealing with No 12. This book was rewritten circa 1831 by a clerk whose was knowledge was incomplete and for No 12 all he knew was that “No 12 was (for) America”. In 1883 in correspondence with the aforementioned John Torrey, he was told the name was America and when Clement Stretton produced his History of Locomotives in America in 1893 he picked up the same error producing a fictitious drawing of No 12 complete with nameplate. This drawing has details not applicable to No 12 and is dimensionally incorrect and therefore wholly discredited. The legend that the Stephenson engine was called America was therefore well established on both side of the Atlantic despite efforts by the Institute of Mechanical Engineers making efforts in 1923 to dispel the myth.

Now to matter of the “box” discovered by Robert Thayer in a Manhattan junkshop the 1980s as repeated in Railroad Heritage Magazine in 1998. This purports to be an artefact produced in the 1829 to commemorate the steaming of a locomotive called America on the 26th July 1829 and which subsequently blew up. The Wayne County Historical Society have investigated this claim and found that the box is indeed an artefact commemorating the events of July/August 1829 but carved in about 1883 and after John Torrey had been told that the name was America. The carver is not identified but is certainly not David Matthews as is claimed. Interestingly, the locomotive depicted on the box is the De Witt Clinton a 0-4-0 locomotive built in 1830 for the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad by the West Point foundry. In 1883 no image of the Pride of Newcastle existed but it was known that the West Point foundry copied the features of the Pride but provided a multi-tubular boiler which overcame the steaming problem. Knowing this the carver used well publicised image of the Mohawk and Hudson locomotive as the closest rendition.

Finally, the term “Blew Up” has been wrongly identified a being an explosion when the term is slang for raising steam. So the Pride was “blown-up”, that had its boiler lit on the 26th July 1829 but failed to raise sufficient for operation. The reason for this is due to the D&H Co using anthracite, a notorious difficult coal, the feed water heater modification made by Allen and the fact that all the Stephenson engines of that period had the same defect due to the absence of a reliable blast pipe.

In conclusion, the Pride of Newcastle and its sister Lancashire Witch were the forerunners of the locomotive design which became the Rocket of October 1829 whose success at Rainhill proved to be the starting point for all subsequent locomotive designs. In 1883 the veterans of the D&H Gravity Railroad realised that an opportunity had been lost in not persevering with a design which proved so successful in England. A fact that was bemoaned by Horatio Allen in 1885 when he stated, “Had we used the Stephenson engine in August 1829 we would have presaged the events of Rainhill in October 1829”. This is true reason behind the commemorative box.

See Also

Loading...

Sources of Information

  • The Pride and the Lion (Wayne County Historical Society 2011)
  • Railroad History Fall-Winter 2009
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