Meanwhile, the Stevens brothers, sons of John Stevens, were
engaged in the construction of the Camden and Amboy Railroad. The
first locomotive to operate on this road was built in England by
George Stephenson. This was the John Bull, which arrived in the
summer of 1831 and at once went to work. The John Bull was a
complete success and had a distinguished career. Sixty-two years
old, in 1893, it went to Chicago, to the Columbian Exposition,
under its own steam. The John Bull occupies a place today in the
National Museum at Washington.

With the locomotive definitely accepted, men began to turn their
minds towards its improvement and development, and locomotive
building soon became a leading industry in America. At first the
British types and patterns were followed, but it was not long
before American designers began to depart from the British models
and to evolve a distinctively American type. In the development
of this type great names have been written into the industrial
history of America, among which the name of Matthias Baldwin of
Philadelphia probably ranks first. But there have been hundreds
of great workers in this field. From Stephenson's Rocket and the
little Tom Thumb of Peter Cooper, to the powerful "Mallets" of
today, is a long distance--not spanned in ninety years save by
the genius and restless toil of countless brains and hands.


If the locomotive could not remain as it was left by Stephenson
and Cooper, neither could the stationary steam engine remain as
it was left by James Watt and Oliver Evans. Demands increasing
and again increasing, year after year, forced the steam engine to