THE FIRST STEAM TRAIN IN AMERICA
TAKEN FROM THE ANDOVER ADVERTISER
PUBLISHED ON JUNE 10, 1869
(REWRITTEN BY WILLIAM A. GREENE, 2015)
We have been presented by Messrs A. C. Bryson & Co., Railroad and Commercial Printers, 607 Chestnut St. Philadelphia, with a fine photograph (14X20) inches in size, representing the “first steam train in America.”
It was an excursion train from Albany to Schenectady, in 1831, on the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad.
The names of the passengers as far as known, were as follows: Louis Benedict, James Alexander, President of the Commercial Bank; Mr. Dudley; Dudley Observatory; Jacob Hayes, High Constable; Jacob Meggs, Sheriff; Billy Winas, Penny Postman; Thurlow Weed, Ex-Governor Yates, and the engineer, John Hampson, an Englishman.
The engine was imported from England in 1831, and was named “John Bull.” Her cylinder was five and a half inches in diameter, and stroke sixteen inches; wheels four and a half feet in diameter. The boiler had thirty copper tubes five feet in diameter. Connecting rods worked on double cranks on front axle. Weight of engine, four tons.
The train consisted of an engine, tender and two cars or coaches. The engine and tender are queer looking arrangements compared with those of the present day. The “cars” appear to be about the size of the Continental or Girard House coaches, and might be very readily mistaken for them.
The picture is suggestive of the rapid and miraculous growth of our country; and the improvements which have been made in all branches of industry appear like the works of necromancy, so rapid have been the transitions.
In 1831, the then wonderful feat of running from Albany to Schenectady, a distance of seventeen miles in cars propelled by steam, was accomplished a trip of a few minutes in the present day. In 1869, the Atlantic and Pacific are united with bands of steel, and the “iron horse” rushes on his tireless course across vast plains and through mountain gorges, where, but a few short years since, the foot of white man never trod. This is truly the “age of steam!”