News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1886-06-24
MATTHIAS BALDWIN.
Tho Builder of the First Locomotive in
America and Founder of the Works.
From the Cincinnati Enquirer.l

From the Cincinnati Enquirer.l
We can see what good mechanics they
were in early times flom the fact that
| the engine which Matthias Baldwin
made, about 1899, is still in existence
and active operation. The locomotive
was near the same time invented in
England, and as the public here had not
seen one, Mr.. Peel, who kept a museum
In Philadelphia, came over to Baldwin
and asked him to build miniature To-
comotlve to run around the museum.
BALDWIN had seen nothing but descrip-
tlons and sketches of the British loco
motive, but he set to work, and April
| 20, 1881, had his miniature locomotive
made. 1t ran around the museum on
/. hoop rails, and carried four passengers
/ in two cars. Thus commencing at a
toy, an infant railroad company in the
| vicinity applied TO Mr.. Baldwin for
| genuine locomotive. Baldwin went up
to Bordentown, where there was a
| newly arrived Stephenson British loco
motive. He examined this machine,
which was not complete, and indeed
was in parts, and he commenced his
work by boring the cylinders with a
chisel fixed in a block of wood and
turned by hand.
At that time the blacksmiths could
not weld a bar of iron exceeding one
and one fourth inches in thickness The
| founder of the great locomotive works
set to business with his own hands,
created his tools, invented tools, and
| finally he made the Old Ironsides, as
the locomotive was called, and its trial
| trip was made in November, 1888. 1t
worked twenty years. After making
this engine, the corporation objected to
paying the full amount for it, presenting
some excuses, and Baldwin got but
So, 500.
He now set to work resolved to give
| himself up to this business of locomo-
tives. He went up to Albany to look at
an English locomotive, and immediate
ly saw some improvements which could
be made, and which he patented rs far
back as 1884. He then built large
locomotive for South Carolina, casting
the driving wheels in solid bell metal.
Then the State of Pennsylvania gave
him an order for locomotive, and this
one hauled nineteen loaded burden cars,
which was unprecedented at that day.
| Other engines followed for the State
road, and in 1885 the Baldwin locomo-
| tive works were commenced where they
| now stand, on Broad street in Philadel-
| phia. In the course of time this mans
enterprise led to the employment of four
thousand hands. l attended a school
for four years in the vicinity of these
shops, and l have seen them turn out
I four thousand male operatives for pa
rade, nearly every man an American.
/ By 1887 Mr.. Baldwin employed three
hundred men; by 1889 he had built 1856
locomotives. In 1910 he had built a
locomotive for Australia. Inventing all
the time, increasing the power of his
engines, studying the subject to the last,
! this man filed the West with transpor-
tation engines. BY 1851 he could build
forty-nine locomotives year. Matthew
! Baird, who had been his forem an since
| 1886, became his partner IN 1854. This
man Baird was one OF the builders of
the elevated railroads in New York,
/ though he had been humble mechanic.
| By 1860 Baldwin could produce eighty
three engines a year Mr.. Baldwin
died in 1876. All through his life he
gave unobtrusively to charities and to
churches, and the year he died 11S loco
| motives were turned out of his shops,
| and in 1871 they made 331 locomotives,
or nearly one for every day in the year.
Individual laborcrs from these works
have become foremen and founders OF
other important machine shops.