But reports of the wonders of the new English railways soon crossed the water, and in 1828 Horatio Allen was commissioned by the Delaware & Hudson Canal Company to purchase four locomotives in England for use on its new line from Carbondale to Honesdale, Pennsylvania. Of these locomotives three were constructed by Foster, Rastrick, and Company, of Stourbridge, and one by George Stephenson. The first engine to arrive was the "Stourbridge Lion" and on the ninth of August, 1829, it was placed on the primitive wooden rails and, to the amazement of the spectators, Allen opened the throttle and in a cloud of smoke and hissing steam moved down the track at the prodigious speed of ten miles an hour. One of the first railways in America was the old Mohawk & Hudson, which was chartered by an act of the New York legislature on April 17, 1826. The commissioners who were entrusted with the duty of organizing the company met for the purpose in the office of John Jacob Astor, in New York City, on July 29, 1826. One of their first official acts was to appoint Peter Heming chief engineer and send him to England to examine as to the feasibility of building a railroad. Mr. Heming's salary was fixed at $1,500 a year. In due course of time he returned from his European visit of observation and reported in favor of the project under consideration. Notwithstanding that he was absent six months, the expenses of his trip, charged by him to the company, were only $335.59. The road first used horse power and later on adopted steam for use in the day time, retaining horses, however, for night work. It was not deemed safe to use steam after dark. At first the trains consisted of one car each, in construction closely resembling the old-fashioned stagecoach. The road connected the two towns of Albany and Schenectady, and was seventeen miles in length, but the portion operated by steam was only fourteen miles in length, horses being used on the inclined plane division from the top of one hill to the top of another. [Illustration: _Early passenger cars, designed after the then prevalent type of horse coach. These cars were part of the train that ran on the formal opening of the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad (the first link of the New York Central System) on July 5, 1831._] Three years later a prize of $4,000 was offered by the Baltimore & Ohio Company for an American engine, and the following year a locomotive constructed by Davis and Gastner won the award by drawing fifteen tons at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. In 1832, Matthias W. Baldwin, founder of the Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, designed his first locomotive, "Old Ironsides," for the Philadelphia, Germantown & Morristown Railroad; and soon after his second locomotive, the "E. L. Miller," was put in service on the South Carolina Railroad.