Remington Kellogg, _Director_, _United States National Museum_. CONTENTS _Page_ Foreword: The vanishing iron horse 4 Remaining relics and operable replicas representing the first quarter-century of steam locomotives in North America 6 America’s first rail locomotive 10 Two British-built locomotives 14 Peter Cooper and Phineas Davis 22 The West Point Foundry Association 26 National Museum’s John Bull 38 Three Grasshoppers 47 Two midwestern locomotives 53 A One-Armed Billy 58 A Rocket in America 60 A Canadian relic 63 The final decade 66 Supplement: Models, in the National Museum, of locomotives not included in this work 75 Picture credits 104 Acknowledgments 105 Bibliography 106 Index 109 FOREWORD The Vanishing Iron Horse As the midpoint of the 20th century was reached, the curtain was falling upon the final phases of steam locomotive operation in North America. Almost certainly, after another decade there would remain in service comparatively few representatives of the engine which had been the primary source of motive power of the railroads for over a hundred years. In that comparatively short time the steam locomotive had changed the United States from a small country with a few seaports, and with towns and settlements little farther inland than river navigation permitted, to a great nation covered with cities and spanning a continent. It had made possible the confederation of the isolated provinces of Canada into a great Dominion. Now, by the 1950’s, owing to the emergence of another type of motive power, it had become obsolete and its days could be numbered.