CHAP. II.]

EVANS'S STEAM-CARRIAGE.

71

curred to John Fitch in 1785; but he did not pursue the idea "for more than a week," being diverted from it by his scheme of applying the same power to the propulsion of vessels on the water.* About the same time, Oliver Evans, a native of Newport, Delaware, was occupied with a project for driving steam-carriages on common roads; and in 1786 the Legislature of Mary

land granted him the exclusive right for that state. Several years, however, passed before he could raise the means for erecting a model carriage, most of his friends regarding the project as altogether chimerical and impracticable. In 1800 or 1801, Evans began a steam-carriage at his own expense; but he had not proceeded far with it when he altered his intention, and applied the engine intended for the driving of a carriage to the driving of a small grinding-mill, in which it was found efficient. In 1804 he constructed at Philadelphia a second engine of fivehorse power, working on the high-pressure principle, which was placed on a large flat or scow, mounted upon wheels. "This," says his biographer," was considered a fine opportunity to show

* This statement is made in "The Life of John Fitch," by Thompson Westcott, Philadelphia, 1857. Mr. Thompson there states that the idea of employing a steamengine to propel carriages on land occurred to John Fitch at a time when, he avers, "he was altogether ignorant that a steam-engine had ever been invented!" (p. 120). Such a statement is calculated to damage the credibility of the entire book, in which the invention of the steam-boat, as well as of the screw propeller, is unhesitatingly claimed for John Fitch.

the public that his engine could propel both land and water conveyances. When the machine was finished, Evans fixed under it, in a rough and temporary manner, wheels with wooden axletrees. Although the whole weight was equal to two hundred barrels of flour, yet his small engine propelled it up Market Street, and round the circle to the water-works, where it was launched into the Schuylkill. A paddle-wheel was then applied to its stern, and it thus sailed down that river to the Delaware, a distance of sixteen miles, in the presence of thousands of spectators."* It does not, however, appear that any farther trial was made of this engine as a locomotive; and, having been dismounted and applied to the driving of a small grinding-mill, its employment as a traveling engine was shortly forgotten.

* Horne's "Memoirs of the Most Eminent American Mechanics," New York, 1858, p. 76.

CHAP. III.]

EARLY RAILWAYS.

73

CHAPTER III.

THE CORNISH LOCOMOTIVE MEMOIR OF RICHARD TREVITHICK.

WHILE the discussion of steam-power as a means of locomotion was proceeding in England, other projectors were advocating the extension of wagon-ways and railroads. Mr. Thomas, of Denton, near Newcastle-on-Tyne, read a paper before the Philosophical Society of that town in 1800, in which he urged the laying down of railways throughout the country, on the principle of the coal wagon-ways, for the general carriage of goods and merchandise; and Dr. James Anderson, of Edinburg, about the same time published his "Recreations of Agriculture," wherein he recommended that railways should be laid along the principal turnpike-roads, and worked by horse-power, which, he alleged, would have the effect of greatly reducing the cost of transport, and thereby stimulating all branches of industry.

Railways were indeed already becoming adopted in places where the haulage of heavy loads was for short distances; and in some cases lines were laid down of considerable length. One of the first of such lines constructed under the powers of an Act of Parliament was the Cardiff and Merthyr railway or tram-road, about twenty-seven miles in length, for the accommodation of the iron-works of Plymouth, Pen-y-darran, and Dowlais, all in South Wales, the necessary Act for which was obtained in 1794. Another, the Sirhoway railroad, about twenty-eight miles in length, was constructed under the powers of an act obtained in 1801; it accommodated the Tredegar and Sirhoway Iron-works and the Trevill Lime-works, as well as the collieries along its route.

In the immediate neighborhood of London there was another very early railroad, the Wandsworth and Croydon tram-way, about ten miles long, which was afterward extended southward to Merstham, in Surrey, for about eight miles more, making a total length

of nearly eighteen miles. The first act for the purpose of authorizing the construction of this road was obtained in 1800.

All these lines were, however, worked by horses, and in the case of the Croydon and Merstham line, donkeys shared in the work, which consisted chiefly in the haulage of stone, coal, and lime. No proposal had yet been made to apply the power of steam as a substitute for horses on railways, nor were the rails then laid down of a strength sufficient to bear more than a loaded wagon of the weight of three tons, or, at the very outside, of three and a quarter tons.

It was, however, observed from the first that there was an immense saving in the cost of haulage; and on the day of opening the southern portion of the Merstham Railroad in 1805, a train of twelve wagons laden with stone, weighing in all thirty-eight tons, was drawn six miles in an hour by one horse, with apparent ease, down an incline of 1 in 120; and this was bruited about as an extraordinary feat, highly illustrative of the important uses of the new iron-ways.

About the same time, the subject of road locomotion was again brought into prominent notice by an important practical experiment conducted in a remote corner of the kingdom. The experimenter was a young man, then obscure, but afterward famous, who may be fairly regarded as the inventor of the railway locomotive, if any single individual be entitled to that appellation. This was Richard Trevithick, a person of extraordinary mechanical skill but of marvelous ill fortune, who, though the inventor of many ingenious contrivances, and the founder of the fortunes of many, himself died in cold obstruction and in extreme poverty, leaving behind him nothing but his great inventions and the recollection of his genius.

Richard Trevithick was born on the 13th of April, 1771, in the parish of Illogan, a few miles west of Redruth, in Cornwall. In the immediate neighborhood rises Castle-Carn-brea, a rocky eminence, supposed by Borlase to have been the principal seat of Druidic worship in the West of England. The hill commands an extraordinary view over one of the richest mining fields of Cornwall, from Chacewater and Redruth to Camborne.

Trevithick's father acted as purser at several of the mines. Though a man in good position and circumstances, he does not

CHAP. III.]

TREVITHICK'S BOYHOOD.

75

seem to have taken much pains with his son's education. Being an only child, he was very much indulged―among other things, in his dislike for the restraints and discipline of school; and he was left to wander about among the mines, spending his time in the engine-rooms, picking up information about pumping-engines and mining machinery.

His father, observing the boy's strong bent toward mechanics, placed him for a time as pupil with William Murdock, while the latter lived at Redruth superintending the working and repairs of Boulton and Watt's pumping-engines in that neighborhood. During his pupilage, young Trevithick doubtless learned much from that able mechanic. It is probable that he got his first idea of the high-pressure road locomotive which he afterward constructed from Murdock's ingenious little model above described, the construction and action of which must have been quite familiar to him, for no secret was ever made of it, and its performances were often exhibited.

Many new pumping-engines being in course of erection in the neighborhood about that time, there was an unusual demand for engineers, which it was found difficult to supply; and young Trevithick, whose skill was acknowledged, had no difficulty in getting an appointment. The father was astonished at his boy's presumption (as he supposed it to be) in undertaking such a responsibility, and he begged the mine agents to reconsider their decision. But the result showed that they were justified in making the appointment; for young Trevithick, though he had not yet attained his majority, proved fully competent to perform the duties devolving upon him as engineer.

So long as Boulton and Watt's patent continued to run, constant attempts were made in Cornwall and elsewhere to upset it. Their engines had cleared the mines of water, and thereby rescued the mine lords from ruin, but it was felt to be a great hardship that they should have to pay for the right to use them. They accordingly stimulated the ingenuity of the local engineers to contrive an engine that should answer the same purpose, and enable them to evade making any farther payments to Boulton and Watt. The first to produce an engine that seemed likely to answer the purpose was Jonathan Hornblower, who had been employed in erecting Watt's engines in Cornwall. After him one