Identifier: bulletinunitedst2101956unit (find matches)
Title: Bulletin - United States National Museum
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: United States National Museum Smithsonian Institution United States. Dept. of the Interior
Subjects: Science
Publisher: Washington : Smithsonian Institution Press, (etc.) for sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. Govt Print. Off.
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
Figure 23. — Early drawing of De Witt Clinton, built in 1831 The third locomotive (figure 23) built by the West PointFoundry Association, the De Witt Clinton of the Mohawk andHudson Rail Road Co., was the first to run in New YorkState. Its first public demonstration was an excursion trip onAugust 9, 1831, on a 12-mile stretch of railway betweenAlbany and Schenectady. The distance was covered in lessthan one hour. Another notable demonstration, attended bymany public officials, took place on September 24 of thesame year. The locomotive, which had been shipped up the HudsonRiver to Albany during the last week of June with DavidMatthew in charge, weighed a little over 6,750 pounds, was11V2 feet long, and was mounted on four 54-inch wheels, allof which were drivers. The two cylinders, at the rear of the 32
Text Appearing After Image:
Figure 24.—Wheel, said to befrom original De Wiff Clinton, inNational Museum. locomotive and connected to the axle of the front wheels,had a bore of 5V2 inches and a stroke of 16 inches. The boilerwas tubular, with copper tubes about 2V2 inches in diameterand 6 feet long. The top speed when pulling a load of about8 tons was said to have been about 30 miles an hour. The De Witt Clinton was never completely satisfactory, andafter infrequent use in 1831 and 1832 it was disassembledand disposed of piece by piece. Some of the parts were listedas sold on April 20, 1835, others on September 13 and Octo-ber 29, 1836. A total of $485 was realized from the varioussales. In 1891, a wheel said to have been one of the wheels of theoriginal De Witt Clinton, was deposited in the NationalMuseum (USNM 180947) by William Buchanan, at thattime superintendent of motive power of the New York Cen-tral and Hudson River Railroad Co. The all-metal wheel(figure 24) contains 14 round, 1-inch-diameter spokes s

Note About Images