The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1885-04-16
THE FIRST RAILROAD TRAIN,
An Interesting Scrap of Railroad History
n>zl4od

An interesting ScEoP 0ASeoHy
Revived.
One can hardly realize in these days
when every civilized country is crossed
and re-crossed by railways without
number, that almost the first American
railway train drawn by a locomotive
ran from Albany to Schenectady, only
half a century ago, well within the
memory of many now living in this city.
A train had run wei a short railway in
South Carolina in the winter of 1890
1881.
1t is ten o'clock in the morning of
August 9, 1881. At the head of Lydius
Street, two miles from the Hudson river,
there stands on a railroad track a queer
looking locomotive, and behind it are a
tender and two strange passenger cars,
consisting of the bodies of stage coaches
fastened upon railroad trucks. A great
crowd is assembled, and it is nearly
time to start the train The railroad is
the Mohawk & Hudson; the company
has been running its cars by horses, but
received from the West Point Foundry a
new motor in the shape of the locomo-
tive engine, ..De Witt Clinton''-the
third one built in the United States for
actual service, and the first of that char
acter ever run on a passenger railroad
in the Northern States. Accordingly,
everybody is full of interest and curios-
ity, and at all available points
along the sixteen miles of rail-
road between Albany and Schenec-
| tady, the farmers are out in force
with their teams and families, to see
| the wonderful iron steed. 1t happens
that a travelling silhouette-artist named
William H. Brown, is in Albany on this
| gala-day, and finding everybody going
to see the locomotive, concludes to go
| likewise; for artist Brown is in the hab-
| it of shipping out of black paper not
| only very good individual portraits, but
| also representations of groups of people,
as we'll as ra%ce-courses, harbors, build
ings, etc. Arrived in the presence of
| the curious train of cars, he sees his op-
p~ortunity for securing a nice advertising
| plum; so he whips out a letter from his
| pocket, inverts his hat for a desk, and
hastily making a rough drawing of To-
connective and tender, and the first two
passenger coaches. In the evening of
the same day, he neatly cut out of black
paper, his now famous profile picture
modelled after his sketch-and after ex-
hibiting it in Albany, presented it to the
Connecticut Historical Society, where it
is still cherished as of the society's
choicest treasures. 1t has often been
reproduced in print.
But Conductor John T. Clark, having
stepped from platform to platform out
side the coaches to collect the tickets
previously sold at hotels and other
public places throughout the city, now
mounts a little buggy seat at the top of
the tender, and blows a tin horn as the
signal for departure; the engine starts
with a great jerk, and to the accompa-
niment of much putting and wheeling
from it, and loud shouts from the
crowd, the train moved off amid cloud
of smoke and a shower of sparks, and
goes s'thundering along" toward Sche
nectady. Among the passengers are
protile-artist Brown and Judge j. L.
ellis. The latter gentleman has given
as graphic a picture of the trip as the
artist has of the cars and engine. Says
Judge ellis:
1.-The train was composed of coach
bodies, mostly from Thorp and Sprague's
stage coaches, placed upon trucks. The
trucks were coupled together with
chains, or chain links, leaving from two
to three feet slack, and when the loco.
motive started, it took up the slack by
jerks, with sufficient force to jerk the
passengers, who sat on seats across the
top of the coaches, out from under theil
hats, and in stopping they came to.
gether with such force as to send them
flying from their seats.
They used dry pitch pine for fuel
and there being no smoke OF sparl
catcher to the chimney or smoke stack
a volume of black smoke, strongly i'm,
pregnated with sparks, Goals and Gin
ders, came pouring back the whole
length of the train. Each of the out
side passengers who had al umbrella
raised it as a protection against thu
smoke and fire. They were found t.
be but a momentary protection, for
think in the first mile the last one wen
overheard, all having their covers burn
off from the frames, when a genera
melee took place among the deck pas
sengers. each whipping his neighbor tc
put out the fire. They presented a yer,
motley appearance on arriving at tn
first station" At this point a success
full experiment was tried for the pur
pose of r~emedying the terrible bump
and jerks that were endangering tn
beaver hats of the dignitaries, and ere
ating such a panic among the secon
story passengers. The three links il
each coupling having been stretched t,
their extreme tension, a rail from tn
next fence was extended HORIZONTAL
between each pair of cars, and fastene'
to its place by means of the packin;
yarn used for the cylinders. Thi
proved satisfactory, and after a run t
Schenectady, where refreshments wer
partaken of, the train returned to Al
bany. MI. Charles Francis Adams, Jr.
has noted the fact that this was the frs
rude and spontaneous device in tn
direction of the modern buffer.
THE incidents off the traiT," cor
tinues Judge ellis, ''were quite a
2 striking as those on board. A genera
notice of the contemplated trip havin
been given. it excited not only the cur
osity of those living along the line {
the road, but of persons at a distanc.
: causing a large collection of people 8
all the in~tersecting roads along tn
route. Everybody, together with h
. wife and all his children, came in a
, kinds of c~onveyances, and being q
ignorant of what was coming as the
. horses were, drove up to the railroad
near as they could get, only looking fc
the best position to cur a view of th
!, train. As it approached, the horse
i took fright and wheeled, upsetting bug
: gies, carriages, and wagons, and lea7
i ing for parts unknown to the passe1
gers, if not to their owners, and it is ne
nov positively known if some of thel
o have yet stopped"
Q Albany, in 1881, was the center of
J, capital was embarked in it than in an
v other enterprise of the time. Lines
stages diverged to every point of til
compass, and the streets of Albany wei
thronged with vehicles arriving and d
r parting, sometimes in long procession