A small, nonoperable model of the locomotive, about 2 feet long ([figure 3]), was made in the National Museum in 1898 (USNM 180241) and is exhibited there. A full sized operable replica, constructed in 1928 at the Altoona shops of the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., was demonstrated ([figure 4]) at the Stevens Institute of Technology on November 23, 1928, upon the occasion of the inauguration of Harvey N. Davis as president of the Institute. It was given by the Pennsylvania Railroad to the Museum of Science and Industry at Chicago in 1932, where it is now exhibited.
Another replica of the Stevens locomotive, made by the Pennsylvania in 1939, appeared in the railroad pageant at the New York World’s Fair in 1939 and 1940, and for a time in 1941 was exhibited at the Pennsylvania Station in New York City. In June 1941 it was placed on exhibition in the museum of Stevens Institute, where it remained until March 1943. At that time it was returned to the Pennsylvania Railroad Co., and has since been stored in their enginehouse at Trenton, N. J.
Figure 3.—Model of Stevens’ locomotive, in National Museum. The boiler is shown outside the sheet-metal shell which normally surrounds it.
Figure 4.—Full sized operable replica of Stevens’ locomotive, built in 1928 by Pennsylvania Railroad Co., being demonstrated at Hoboken, N. J., on November 23, 1928.
The design of these replicas is based in part on the recollections in the 1880’s of the grandson of John Stevens, Dr. Francis B. Stevens, who was a frequent passenger on the original locomotive in 1825 at the age of 11. These recollections are contained in letters from Dr. Stevens to J. Elfreth Watkins, onetime curator of transportation and engineering of the National Museum. Stevens’ letters, dated March 30, 1883, January 17, 1888, and November 19, 1892, are now in the archives of the Museum.
Two British-Built Locomotives
The next locomotives known to have been used in this country were the British machines today popularly referred to as the America ([figure 5]) and the Stourbridge Lion ([figure 6]). They were contracted for in England in 1828 by Horatio Allen, who had been sent there for that purpose by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Co., and were delivered at New York City in 1829.
The America, built by the already famous British firm of Robert Stephenson & Co., of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, arrived from London on the ship Columbia on January 15. The Stourbridge Lion, built by Foster, Rastrick and Co., of Stourbridge, arrived from Liverpool on the John Jay on May 13. The delivered price of the former was $3,663.30 and of the latter $2,914.90. On July 2 they were shipped up the Hudson River by the steamboat Congress to Rondout, N. Y., where they arrived on July 3.