page_title: Norris Locomotive Works
section_title: Origin
hierarchical_section_title: Norris Locomotive Works / History / Origin
caption_attribution_description: English: William Norris - Founder of the Norris Locomotive Works.
context_page_description: The Norris Locomotive Works was a steam locomotive manufacturing company based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, that produced nearly one thousand railroad engines between 1832 and 1866. It was the dominant American locomotive producer during most of that period, as well as the first major exporter of American locomotives, selling its popular 4-2-0 engines to railways in Europe and building the first locomotive used in South America.
context_section_description: The company was started in 1832 as the American Steam Carriage Company by William Norris (1802-1867) and Major Stephen H. Long (1784-1864), a military topographical engineer and explorer.  The two men had experimented with steam engine building for years and, as early as 1829, designed a locomotive to burn anthracite coal.  Norris and Long also built an engine called the Black Hawk, which performed with partial success on the Boston and Providence Railroad and the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad in the early 1830s.  Major Long later left the firm and William Norris was joined by his brother Septimus, who patented several locomotive-related inventions.  The two brothers reformed the enterprise into the Norris Locomotive Works.
caption: William Norris
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