The West Point Foundry Association
Figure 18.—Early drawing of Best Friend of Charleston, built in 1830.
The scene is now shifted to South Carolina and New York. The West Point Foundry Association, situated in New York City, had been the location of a stationary demonstration under steam of the blocked-up Stourbridge Lion on May 28, 1829, shortly after it was unloaded from the ship that brought it from Liverpool. The Association soon thereafter built a locomotive ([figure 18]) for the South-Carolina Canal and Rail-Road Co., which was building a line from Charleston to Hamburg, S. C., just across the Savannah River from Augusta, Ga. Prior to its adoption of the steam locomotive, the railroad had used horses to draw its cars, and had even experimented with a wind-propelled sail car.
The locomotive, the Best Friend of Charleston, which was to become the first to operate on a regularly scheduled run in this country, was constructed at a cost of $4,000 in the summer of 1830, and arrived at Charleston on October 23 of that year, on the ship Niagara. The same Horatio Allen who had tested the Stourbridge Lion for the Delaware and Hudson had become chief engineer of the South-Carolina Canal and Rail-Road Co. and was one of those responsible for the plans of the Best Friend.
Local machinists at Charleston were hired to reassemble the locomotive and prepare it for its first trial, but when the run was made on November 2, 1830, the wheels were discovered to be unsatisfactory. They were replaced by sturdier ones, and following a subsequent test on December 9, the locomotive was accepted. After several more experimental runs, some with passengers, the official first run, carrying 141 persons, finally took place on Christmas Day 1830.
Notice of the coming event had been published the previous day, so it became the first steam railroad train run scheduled by “timetable” to be made in the Western Hemisphere. All previous locomotive operations on this side of the Atlantic had been purely experimental—for test or demonstration purposes. At the time of this run the tracks of the railroad extended only about 6 miles out of Charleston, but by October 3, 1833, the full 136 miles to Hamburg had been completed. The South-Carolina Canal and Rail-Road was then the longest continuous railroad in the world (see [figure 19]).
A description of the Best Friend by David Matthew, who in 1830 had been foreman of the West Point Foundry Association, is contained in a letter he wrote in 1859 to the historian William H. Brown. Later quoted by Brown in his “History of the First Locomotives in America,” the letter says in part:
The Best Friend was a four-wheel engine, all four wheels drivers. Two inclined cylinders at an angle, working down on a double crank, inside of the frame, with the wheels outside of the frame, each wheel connecting together outside, with outside rods. The wheels were iron hub, wooden spokes and felloes, with iron tire, and iron web and pins in the wheels to connect the outside rods to.
The boiler was a vertical one, in form of an old-fashioned porter-bottle, the furnace at the bottom surrounded with water, and all filled inside full of what we called teats, running out from the sides and top, with alternate stays to support the crown of the furnace; the smoke and gas passing out through the sides at several points, into an outside jacket; which had the chimney on it. The boiler sat on a frame upon four wheels, with the connecting-rods running by it to come into the crankshaft. The cylinders were about six inches in the bore, and sixteen inches’ stroke. Wheels about four and a half feet in diameter. The whole machine weighed about four and a half tons.
Figure 19.—In 1833 the South-Carolina Canal and Rail-Road was the longest continuous railroad in the world.
Figure 20.—Old locomotive wheel at Redwood Library, Newport, R. I., claimed to be “wheel of first locomotive used on first railroad of any length in America,—Charleston, S. C., to Augusta, Ga., 1835.”
The Best Friend, as such, was short-lived. It gave service that was entirely satisfactory up to the moment its boiler exploded on June 17, 1831, when one of the helpers on the locomotive deliberately held the safety valve closed.
According to the statement in 1869 of Nicholas W. Darrell, first engineer of the Best Friend and later superintendent of machinery of the South-Carolina Canal and Rail-Road, the salvageable parts were used in constructing another locomotive which was appropriately named the Phoenix. Darrell’s recollection is confirmed by the early reports of the company, which also reveal that the machinery and new boiler were arranged differently on the Phoenix, the cylinders being placed outside the frame, and the weight being much more evenly distributed. The Phoenix was put in service on October 18, 1832.
Although no documented relics of either of these two locomotives remain, the Redwood Library at Newport, R. I., now exhibits an all-metal wheel ([figure 20]) claimed to be from the “first locomotive used on first railroad of any length in America. Charleston, S. C., to Augusta, Ga., 1835.” Quite probably it is a replacement wheel from the Phoenix, for Darrell also stated in 1869 that cast wheels with wrought tires were used to replace the original wooden wheels with iron tires that were on the Best Friend when it was salvaged to construct the Phoenix.
Figure 21.—Full sized operable replica of Best Friend of Charleston, built in 1928 by Southern Railway System.
The wheel at Newport is built up of parts, and consists of a large round hub, 12 round 1¼-inch-diameter spokes, a rim approximately 46 inches in diameter and 4½ inches wide, and a flanged tire 4¾ inches wide and about 1 inch thick, the flange of which is 2 inches wide on its outside face. The wheel, therefore, has a diameter of about 48 inches. The spokes are staggered in the hub and appear to be fastened to it by threaded nuts. Four keyways are cut into the hole in the hub. The complete history and exact origin of this wheel, given to the Redwood Library in January 1863 by Isaac P. Hazard of Newport, will probably remain a mystery.
As with other early locomotives, a full sized operable replica of the Best Friend has been built. The Southern Railway System, which now includes the old South-Carolina Canal and Rail-Road, in 1928 constructed a faithful replica of the locomotive at its Birmingham, Ala., shops, and in the same year reproduced the original tender and several cars at its shops at Hayne, S. C. ([figure 21]). A new boiler was installed on the replica in 1948.
Among the various fairs at which it has been exhibited are those held at New York in 1939 and 1940 and in Chicago in 1948 and 1949. At present it is to be seen in the depot of the Chattanooga Station Co. at Chattanooga, Tenn.
A small, nonoperable model of the Best Friend, about 2 feet long ([figure 22]), with tender and two cars, was made in the late 1880’s by D. Ballauf, well known model maker of Washington, D. C. It was first exhibited at the Cincinnati Centennial Exposition in 1888, after which it was placed on exhibition in the National Museum (USNM 180244).
Of the West Point, the second locomotive built by the West Point Foundry Association, and the second bought by the South-Carolina Canal and Rail-Road Co., no relics or replicas are known to exist. A satisfactory locomotive, it arrived at Charleston on the ship Lafayette on February 28, 1831. Its final disposition is no longer known.
Figure 22.—Model of Best Friend of Charleston, in National Museum.
Figure 23.—Early drawing of De Witt Clinton, built in 1831.
The third locomotive ([figure 23]) built by the West Point Foundry Association, the De Wilt Clinton of the Mohawk and Hudson Rail Road Co., was the first to run in New York State. Its first public demonstration was an excursion trip on August 9, 1831, on a 12-mile stretch of railway between Albany and Schenectady. The distance was covered in less than one hour. Another notable demonstration, attended by many public officials, took place on September 24 of the same year.
The locomotive, which had been shipped up the Hudson River to Albany during the last week of June with David Matthew in charge, weighed a little over 6,750 pounds, was 11½ feet long, and was mounted on four 54-inch wheels, all of which were drivers. The two cylinders, at the rear of the locomotive and connected to the axle of the front wheels, had a bore of 5½ inches and a stroke of 16 inches. The boiler was tubular, with copper tubes about 2½ inches in diameter and 6 feet long. The top speed when pulling a load of about 8 tons was said to have been about 30 miles an hour.
Figure 24.—Wheel, said to be from original De Witt Clinton, in National Museum.
The De Witt Clinton was never completely satisfactory, and after infrequent use in 1831 and 1832 it was disassembled and disposed of piece by piece. Some of the parts were listed as sold on April 20, 1835, others on September 13 and October 29, 1836. A total of $485 was realized from the various sales.
In 1891, a wheel said to have been one of the wheels of the original De Witt Clinton, was deposited in the National Museum (USNM 180947) by William Buchanan, at that time superintendent of motive power of the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Co. The all-metal wheel (figure 24) contains 14 round, 1-inch-diameter spokes staggered around the hub, and is 52½ inches in diameter. The flanged metal tire is missing from the rim, which is 4⅛ inches wide, but its presence would undoubtedly bring the overall diameter of the wheel up to 54 inches.
Figure 25.—Full sized operable replica of De Witt Clinton, built in 1893 by New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Co., at World’s Columbian Exposition, in Chicago, in 1893.
Figure 26.—Replica of De Witt Clinton photographed during an appearance in 1921.
This wheel, or an identical one, was used in the very early 1890’s by the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad Co. as a guide in their construction of the full sized operable replica of the De Witt Clinton locomotive, tender, and cars, first shown at the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893 (figure 25). The replica, constructed from the original plans of 1831, was made at the railroad’s shops at West Albany, N. Y. During the past 60 years the replica has undergone a number of repair operations, but it remains authentic. It has been exhibited on many occasions (figure 26).
Since the 1893 unveiling of the replica of the train at Chicago, it has been displayed at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis in 1904, the Fair of the Iron Horse (figure 27), the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933 and 1934, the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and 1940, the Chicago Railroad Fair in 1948 and 1949, and on many other occasions. For years the train was exhibited on a balcony within New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, but since 1935 it has been on loan from the New York Central System to the Henry Ford Museum at Dearborn.
An exquisitely made nonoperable model of the De Witt Clinton, its tender, and three cars, together about 3 feet long ([figure 28]), was made in 1932 by Peyton L. Morgan of Lynchburg, Va., and has been since 1935 in the collection of the National Museum (USNM 310961).
Figure 27.—Replica of De Witt Clinton at the Fair of the Iron Horse in 1927.
Figure 28.—Model of De Witt Clinton, in National Museum.