Naturally, Bryant based the design of his early railroad cars upon the construction of the horse-drawn wagons of his day. Like the wagons, his cars had to be flexible if they were to keep on the track when passing over the two curves of the otherwise straight Granite Railway. In his description of another of his cars appear the road wagon terms—bolsters, truck, and center kingpin, to allow a swiveling motion. Rigidly bolted to cross timbers beneath the truck were two iron axletrees, on which revolved cast-iron wheels. (Some time would elapse in railroad progress before the wheels would be fixed to, and revolve with, the axles in journals.)
In early American railroad development Bryant is credited with the invention of the eight-wheel car, the turntable, switch, turnout, and many other improvements. In 1832, he had invented and used in the building of the United States Bank at Boston, his portable derrick, “used in every city and village in the country wherever there was a stone building to erect.” Others profited from Bryant’s amazing ingenuity. Although the Supreme Court of the United States decided in his favor in his most important invention, the eight-wheeled car, he did not collect, and he died poor.[8]
[8] For more data on the Granite Railway and Gridley Bryant, see: Charles B. Stuart, Civil and Military Engineers of America (New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1871); and The First Railroad in America (Boston: Privately printed for Granite Railway Company, 1926).
In the fine saga of the Bunker Hill Monument, the Granite Railway plays a prominent part. The demand of the monument for granite definitely inspired Bryant to conceive the idea of America’s first railroad, and to design pioneer equipment that contributed hugely to the subsequent progress of America’s great railroad system. The accurate account of the building of the monument, however, has to record the fact that the railroad was not so great a benefit as anticipated. In the short distance of 12 miles there was too much loading and unloading. Willard freely expressed his annoyance at these hindrances. That he took action is indicated in the following quotation from an apparently authentic source: “The stone used for the foundation and for the first forty feet of the structure (the monument) was transported from the quarry on a railroad to the wharf in Quincy (actually located in Milton) where it was put into flat-bottomed boats, towed by steam-power to the wharf in Charlestown, and then raised to the Hill by teams moving upon an inclined plane. The repeated transfer of the stones, necessary in this mode of conveyance, being attended with delay, liability to accident, and a defacing of the blocks, was abandoned after the fortieth foot was laid, and the materials were transported by teams directly from the quarry to the hill.”[9] This account fails to tell how the teams got up and down the steep hill at the quarry: the 84-foot rise at an angle of 15 degrees. Clever Bryant must have used his endless chain to drag the empty teams up, and to brake the loaded ones down.
[9] George E. Ellis, History of the Battle of Bunker’s (Breed’s) Hill (Boston: Lockwood, Brooks and Company, 1875).
Hoc nomen est in æternum, et hoc memoriale in generationem et generationem.
© R. Ruzicka 1915
Bunker Hill Monument in 1915
Reproduced from a wood engraving by Rudolph Ruzicka in the Boston Athenæum