I haven’t actually met “Grasshopper” but I did learn not long ago that he has written the story of his life. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that he was “blowing off steam” but it does seem to me that if he has a story to tell I should have one too. Of course, I know that size doesn’t mean everything, but if you should weigh old “Grasshopper”—wheels, cab and all—he wouldn’t weigh nearly as much as my flywheel. But I feel that we do have several things in common ... we both know what it means to get all steamed up and we have both done a lot of work in our day.
My friend “Grasshopper” has traveled quite a bit but I think he has settled down now, just like me. They say that a rolling stone gathers no moss and certainly “Grasshopper” is bright and shiny but I don’t believe you will find much moss on me either.
Part of the Corliss on its way to the NCR power house in 1902. Five teams were required to move it.
My ancestry doesn’t go back quite as far as “Grasshopper’s” but the difference is only about thirteen years, at that. He was born in 1835 and was the second generation of his family. True enough, I came along a good many years later but my forefathers reach back to 1848, for in that year the Corliss line was begun. In the following year, on March 10, 1849, Mr. George H. Corliss, a remarkable man whose name I bear, was granted his first patent for steam engine improvements embodying his famous “drop cut-off valve gear.” He had developed some new ideas about steam engines, mostly about making them run steadier and on less coal. Those ideas meant a lot to industry all over this country. Outside of the teammate who worked next to me in the NCR power house for years, I never met any of my brothers but I am sure they were all hard workers who gave a good account of themselves.
Like anybody else, I don’t remember much about my birth. I was built in Mount Vernon, Ohio, by the C. & G. Cooper Company, which manufactured Corliss engines. My various pieces never really met until they all came together in the NCR power house back there in 1902. As I remember, it was a rather bumpy ride from the freight yards to the NCR factory but I felt quite important. Who wouldn’t, with five teams of horses pulling you along and people stopping to look at you all along the way. I gather that I was considered quite a fellow in engine circles in those days and I guess folks figured if the people at NCR went out and hired a big engine like me to work for them business must be good and expected to get better.
I really don’t know who figured out all the intricate variations in my anatomy but I have heard that E. A. Deeds, who was an engineer at NCR in those days, asked them to put in some special features which he thought would make me better. Those ideas must have been all right, for I have never known a sick day in my life. And for the record, let me say that I was running full speed right up to the moment I was shut off, in 1948. That had happened before when they made me stop to be looked over but they always let me start up again. Glad I didn’t know what was happening that day for I certainly had no idea of quitting, and I wouldn’t have liked the idea a bit. Of course, I came out all right, but for a while things looked pretty dark, I can tell you.
The Corliss as it looked in the NCR power house in 1902 where it functioned for almost fifty years with never a single failure.
As a matter of fact, according to the story I have pieced together from chance bits of conversation, I missed the scrap heap by just a hair. It seems there was some idea of putting only my fly wheel in Carillon Park, because they didn’t quite want to see me pass out altogether. Then one day, Colonel Deeds got the idea of putting all of me over here. He said there were not too many Corliss engines around and that we were getting fewer every year. He figured that future generations ought to know what we looked like, because we had done a good job. So, in the nick of time, he saved me. Nick of time is right! It was a matter of hours. The scrap man had already been out to look me over and I could almost feel the hot breath of the acetylene torch eating right into me.