[Illustration: Figure 52.—_Rocket_ at the Fair of the Iron Horse, October 7, 1927. Note shortened smokestack.] A Canadian Relic [Illustration: Figure 53.—Photo of _Samson_, built in England in 1838 by Hackworth, taken in Nova Scotia by a New Glasgow photographer some time before 1890. Observe chairs provided for engineer.] The third and last of the three complete British locomotives of the 1825-1849 period remaining in North America is also the only extant locomotive of the period on this continent located outside the United States.[5] The _Samson_ (figure 53) was built by Timothy Hackworth at New Shildon, Durham, England, in the summer of 1838, at a cost of about $10,000, for the General Mining Association of Nova Scotia. (Despite statements that the _Albion_, also preserved in Nova Scotia, was built by Hackworth before 1840, it was actually built by Rayne and Burn in Newcastle in 1854.) The _Samson_ was not, as has so often been claimed, the first locomotive in Canada. It had been preceded in 1836 by the Stephenson-built _Dorchester_ employed on the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad, running between St. Johns and Laprairie, south of Montreal. The _Dorchester_ exploded and was demolished near Joliette in 1864. Also antedating the _Samson_ was the _Jason C. Pierce_, built in 1837 by William Norris for the same railroad, and destroyed in a fire in about 1890. The _Samson_ was one of three identical Hackworth locomotives built for the General Mining Association, whose railroad was known unofficially as the Albion Mines Railway, and the South Pictou Railroad. Each had an 0-6-0 wheel arrangement, 56½-inch gauge, 48-inch cast iron plate wheels, and vertical cylinders with a bore and stroke of 15¼ and 18 inches. Each weighed 17 tons. The other two, the _John Buddle_ and the _Hercules_, were scrapped in 1885 and 1892, respectively. [Illustration: Figure 54.—_Samson_ at Chicago in 1883, during Exposition of Railway Appliances. George Davidson, long its engineer, stands at controls on right.] The _Samson_ made a trial run in December 1838, and was put into regular service on September 19, 1839, hauling cars of coal from the Albion mines at Stellarton to the harbor at Pictou, a distance of about 6 miles. According to one early report, a train of 30 coal cars, weighing 3 tons each, was the usual load pulled to the harbor. The _Samson_ made about 3 round trips a day at a speed of a little less than 10 miles an hour. This same report states that up to 1856 the locomotive operated on a steam pressure of 70 pounds per square inch, and thereafter, until it was taken out of service in the early 1880’s, on 45 pounds. The locomotive was operated in an unusual manner. The engineer was stationed at one end, adjacent to the cylinders and driving gear, while the fireman was located at the other end, from which the boiler was fired.