the company she was put in order, the cylinders new packed and at the word the apparatus was ready for movement. The first trip was performed with two pleasure cars attached, and a small carriage, fitted for the occasion, upon which was a detachment of United States troops and a field-piece which had been politely granted by Major Belton for the occasion. . . The number of passengers brought down, which was performed in two trips, was estimated at upward of two hundred. A band of music enlivened the scene, and great hilarity and good humour prevailed throughout the day.”
It was not long, however, before the Best Friend came to serious grief. Naturally, and even necessarily, inasmuch as it was a South Carolina institution, it was provided with a negro fireman. It so happened that this functionary while in the discharge of his duties was much annoyed by the escape of steam from the safety valve, and, not having made himself complete master of the principles underlying the use of steam as a source of power, he took advantage of a temporary absence of the engineer in charge to effect a radical remedy of this cause of annoyance. He not only fastened down the valve lever, but further made the thing perfectly sure by sitting upon it. The consequences were hardly less disastrous to the Best Friend than to the chattel fireman. Neither were of much further practical use. Before this mishap chanced, however in June, 1831, a second locomotive, called the West Point, had arrived in Charleston, and this last was constructed on the principle of Stephenson’s Rocket. In its general aspect, indeed, it greatly resembled that already famous prototype. There is a very characteristic and suggestive cut representing a trial trip made with this locomotive on March 5th, 1831. The nerves of the Charleston people had been a good deal disturbed and their confidence in steam as a safe motor shaken by the disaster which had befallen the Best Friend. Mindful of this fact, and very properly solicitous for the safety of their guests, the directors now had recourse to a very simple and ingenious expedient. They put what they called a ‘barrier car’ between the locomotive and passenger coaches of the train. This barrier car consisted of a platform on wheels upon which were piled six bales of
cotton. A fortification was thus provided between the passengers and any future negro sitting on the safety valve. We are also assured that ‘the safety valve being out of the reach of any person but the engineer, will contribute to the prevention of accidents in the future, such as befel the Best Friend.’ Judging by the cut which represents the train, this occasion must have been even more marked for its ‘hilarity’ than the earlier one which has already been described. Besides the locomotive and the barrier car there are four passenger coaches. In the first of these was a negro band, in general appearance very closely resembling the minstrels of a later day, the members of which are energetically performing on musical instruments of various familiar descriptions. Then follow three cars full of the saddest looking white passengers, who were present as we were informed to the number of one hundred and seventeen. The excursion was, however, highly successful, and two-and-a-quarter miles of road were passed over in the short space of eight minutes—about the speed at which a good horse would trot for the same distance.
This was in March, 1831. About six months before, however, there had actually been a trial of speed between a horse and one of the pioneer locomotives, which had not resulted in favour of the locomotive. It took place on the present Baltimore and Ohio road upon the 28th of August, 1830. The engine in this case was contrived by no other than Mr. Peter Cooper. And it affords a striking illustration of how recent those events which now seem so remote really were, that here is a man until very recently living, and amongst the most familiar to the eyes of the present generation, who was a contemporary of Stephenson, and himself invented a locomotive during the Rainhill year, being then nearly forty years of age. The Cooper engine, however, was scarcely more than a working model. Its active-minded inventor hardly seems to have aimed at anything more than a demonstration of possibilities. The whole thing weighed only a ton, and was of one horse power; in fact it was not larger than those handcars now in common use with railroad section-men. The boiler, about the size of a modern kitchen boiler, stood upright and was fitted above the furnace—which occupied the lower section—with
vertical tubes. The cylinder was but three-and-a-half inches in diameter, and the wheels were moved by gearing. In order to secure the requisite pressure of steam in so small a boiler, a sort of bellows was provided which was kept in action by means of a drum attached to one of the car-wheels over which passed a cord which worked a pulley, which in turn worked the bellows. Thus, of Stephenson’s two great devices, without either of which his success at Rainhill would have been impossible—the waste steam blast and the multitubular boiler—Peter Cooper had only got hold of the last. He owed his defeat in the race between his engine and a horse to the fact that he had not got hold of the first. It happened in this wise. Several experimental trips had been made with the little engine on the Baltimore and Ohio road, the first sections of which had recently been completed and were then operated upon by means of horses. The success of these trips was such that at last, just seventeen days before the formal opening of the Manchester and Liverpool road on the other side of the Atlantic, a small open car was attached to the engine—the name of which, by the way, was Tom Thumb—and upon this a party of directors and their friends were carried from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills and back, a distance of some twenty-six miles.
The trip out was made in an hour, and was very successful. The return was less so, and for the following reason:—
“The great stage proprietors of the day were Stockton and Stokes; and on that occasion a gallant grey, of great beauty and power, was driven by them from town, attached to another car on the second track—for the company had begun by making two tracks to the Mills—and met the engine at the Relay House on its way back. From this point it was determined to have a race home, and the start being even, away went horse and engine, the snort of the one and the puff of the other keeping tune and time.
“At first the grey had the best of it, for his steam would be applied to the greatest advantage on the instant, while the engine had to wait until the rotation of the wheels set the blower to work. The horse was perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead when the safety valve of the engine lifted, and the thin blue vapour issuing from it showed an excess of
steam. The blower whistled, the steam blew off in vapoury clouds, the pace increased, the passengers shouted, the engine gained on the horse, soon it lapped him—the silk was plied—the race was neck and neck, nose and nose—then the engine passed the horse, and a great hurrah hailed the victory. But it was not repeated, for, just at this time, when the grey’s master was about giving up, the band which draws the pulley which moved the blower slipped from the drum, the safety valve ceased to scream, and the engine—for want of breath—began to wheeze and pant. In vain Mr. Cooper, who was his own engineer and fireman, lacerated his hands in attempting to replace the band upon the wheel; the horse gained upon the machine and passed it, and although the band was presently replaced, and the steam again did its best, the horse was too far ahead to be overtaken, and came in the winner of the race.”