But one business was not enough for Peter Cooper. Attached to the glue-factory was a machine-shop which was the scene of many inventions. Here in Eighteen Hundred Twenty-seven and Eighteen Hundred Twenty-eight, Peter Cooper worked out and made a steam-engine which he felt sure was an improvement on the one that Watt had made in England.
Peter Cooper's particular device was a plan to do away with the crank, and transform the rectilinear motion of the piston into rotary motion. He figured it out that this would save two-fifths of the steam, and so stated in his application for a patent, a copy of which is before the writer.
The Patent Office then was looked after by the President in person. Peter Cooper's patent was signed by John Quincy Adams, President, Henry Clay, Secretary of State, and William Wirt, Attorney General. The patent was good for fourteen years, so any one who cares to infringe on it can do so now without penalty.
There were then no trained patent-examiners, and the President and Secretary of State were not inclined to hamper inventors with technicalities. You paid your fee, the patent was granted, and all questions of priority were left to be fought out in the courts. More patents have been granted to one individual—say, Thomas A. Edison—than were issued in America, all told, up to the time that Peter Cooper went down to Washington in person and explained his invention to John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, who evidently were very glad to sign the patent, rather than bother to understand the invention. In his application Peter Cooper states, "This invention is a suitable motor for hauling land-carriages."
It was one year before this that Stephenson in England had given an exhibition of his locomotive, the "Rocket," on a circular two-mile track in Manchester. Cooper had not seen the "Rocket," but Stephenson's example had fired his brain, and he had in his own mind hastened the system.
At this time he was thirty-six years old. His glue business was prosperous. Several thousand dollars of his surplus he had invested in charcoal-kilns near Baltimore. From this he had gone into a land speculation in the suburbs of that city. His partners had abandoned the enterprise and left him to face the disgrace of failure.
Commerce was drifting away from Baltimore to Philadelphia and New York. The Erie Canal had been opened and it looked as if this would be the one route to the West—the Hudson River to Albany, thence by canal to Buffalo, and on by the Great Lakes to the land of promise.
Pennsylvania had a system of canals, partially in use, and the rest in building, which would open up a route to the Ohio River at Pittsburgh. But engineers had looked the ground over, and given it as their opinion that Baltimore was hedged in by insurmountable difficulties. Prophecies were made that soon ships would cease to come to Baltimore at all. And under this lowering commercial sky, Peter Cooper saw his Baltimore investments fading away into the ether.
At this time the Manchester and Liverpool Railroad was in operation. The coaches and wagons were simply those in use on the roads, but with new tires that carried a flange to keep the wheel on the rail. It was found that a team of horses could draw double the load on a railroad that they could if the wheels of the vehicle were on the ground.
The news was brought to America. Wooden rails were first tried, and then these were strengthened by nailing strap iron along the top. It was a great idea—build a railroad from Baltimore to the Ohio River, and thus compete with the Pennsylvania canals to the Ohio!