294

Three letters concerning the original purchase of the historic locomotive John Bull.

Liverpool, England, March to July 1831
3 Autograph Letters Signed by Francis B. Ogden, each one or two pages, the first two with integral blanks and inked "6" postal stamps on the address panels, the last with a detached blank with docketing but no address; moderate wear variously including paper clip stains, mat toning, and mount remnants, second letter spot-sealed shut. Each letter mentions enclosures which are no longer present. 

The British-built John Bull was one of the first functioning locomotives in the United States when it took its inaugural run for the Camden and Amboy Railroad on 15 September 1831, and remains the oldest still in existence. It was most recently fired up for a demonstration ride for its 150th anniversary in 1981, and remains on permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. These three letters document its origins and shipment to the United States.

The letters were written by Francis Barber Ogden (1783–1857), the United States Consul at Liverpool, who became interested in the early British steam power efforts, and had attended the famous 1829 Rainhill trials which established steam locomotives on British railroads.  Here he served as an agent for the Camden & Amboy, New Jersey's first railroad, in their efforts to obtain their first locomotive. The maker (not mentioned here) was Robert Stephenson and Company, the world's first dedicated locomotive manufacturer. Two of the letters are addressed to Robert Livingston Stevens (1787-1856) of Hoboken, NJ, the Camden & Amboy's president. The other is addressed to his brother Edwin Augustus Stevens (1795-1868) of Philadelphia, who later founded the Stevens Institute of Technology. 

The railway's president Robert L. Stevens is generally credited as the inventor of the flanged T-section rail which is still in standard use in the United States today. No American steel mills were capable of producing these rails, so Stevens contracted for their delivery from England—also discussed in detail in these letters. 

In the first letter, dated 31 March, Ogden sends Robert Stevens "duplicate bills of lading, invoices &c of iron tubes and your cylinder shipped by the Great Britain. . . . A great quantity of the railway iron has arrived with all the plates, screw, both keys &c for that part, which is to be sent to New York. . . . There will also be 630 bars for Philadelphia, which I shall doubtless be able to ship in the course of the next week. . . . Probably before the present quantity is landed, some more will have arrived, as I have advice of two other shipments from Cardiff. I have written to Guest & Co. to have as much of * ready at Cardiff as he can by the 10th of April, when I will go down to inspect it." We use an asterisk to represent Ogden's little drawing of a rail cross-section—the innovative T-section still in use today.

The second letter dated 18 May is addressed to Edwin Stevens: "Enclosed you have invoices and bill of lading for 2006 bars of railway iron, shipped on board the Eliza Grant for Philadelphia. . . . When it is landed, you had better have a person to see that none is retained, as is sometimes done when the quantity overruns." 

The locomotive was tested in England, then dismantled for shipping to the United States. The final 16 July letter is addressed only as "Dear Stevens" with no address panel, presumably to Robert Stevens.  It references the Irish engineer Charles Blacker Vignoles, who is credited with later adapting the Stevens T-section rail for European use—his variant is known as the flat-bottomed or Vignoles rail. "I am happy in having it in my power at last to announce to you the departure of your locomotive engine. The enclosed bill of lading will show you that it was shipped on board the Allegheny, which vessel sailed from here yesterday morning, and I hope will be in Philadelphia by the time you receive this. . . . The price of iron remains about the same as when you were here, and I do not think there would be much difference in any future contract. It would make considerable, however, if you would consent to have the rails of unequal lengths, say from 10 to 16 feet, and it appears to me to be of little importance that the joints should always be opposite to each other. Vignoles has laid down his road in that way, the rail remarkably executed on your pattern, like the piece I sent out to you, but made lighter, and is very much pleased with it, and says it is decidedly the best rail in use."

Other records show that the locomotive arrived in crates in Bordentown, NJ on 4 September. A railroad employee named Isaac Dripps was tasked with assembling it, although it came with no instructions and he had never seen a locomotive before. He had it ready for its first public demonstration on 12 November, with passengers including Napoleon's nephew. The locomotive was originally known as the Stevens, but was soon renamed as the John Bull, and remained on regular duty until 1866, before entering the historic relic phase of its existence. 

Provenance: When the John Bull went to Chicago for the World's Columbian Exposition, these three letters were framed and exhibited nearby. They are described in the "Catalogue of the Exhibit of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at the World's Columbian Exposition" as items 382a, 382b, and 382c, and the 16 July letter is published in facsimile. The letters were discussed in more depth in the Railroad Gazette of 13 October 1893. The letters were apparently part of the extensive collection of retired rail clerk Samuel L. Roberts (1835-1918), who had curated the John Bull portion of the 1893 exhibition. A 13 September 1907 feature article in the Trenton Evening Times describes how he obtained papers including John Bull documents which had been "discarded after the P.R.R. Co. purchased the Camden & Amboy." 

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