success. And by this time railroads were beginning in various
parts of the United States: the Mohawk and Hudson, from Albany to
Schenectady; the Baltimore and Ohio; the Charleston and Hamburg
in South Carolina; the Camden and Amboy, across New Jersey.
Horses, mules, and even sails, furnished the power for these
early railroads. It can be imagined with what interest the owners
of these roads heard that at last a practicable locomotive was
running in England.

This news stimulated the directors of the Baltimore and Ohio to
try the locomotive. They had not far to go for an experiment, for
Peter Cooper, proprietor of the Canton Iron Works in Baltimore,
had already designed a small locomotive, the Tom Thumb. This was
placed on trial in August, 1830, and is supposed to have been the
first American-built locomotive to do work on rails, though
nearly coincident with it was the Best Friend of Charleston,
built by the West Point Foundry, New York, for the Charleston and
Hamburg Railroad. It is often difficult, as we have seen, to say
which of two or several things was first. It appears as though
the little Tom Thumb was the first engine built in America, which
actually pulled weight on a regular railway, while the much
larger Best Friend was the first to haul cars in regular daily
service.

The West Point Foundry followed its first success with the West
Point, which also went into service on the Charleston and Hamburg
Railroad, and then built for the newly finished Mohawk and Hudson
(the first link in the New York Central Lines) the historic De
Witt Clinton. This primitive locomotive and the cars it drew may
be seen today in the Grand Central Station in New York.