During the early decades of the nineteenth century, overland transportation in this country was horrible. Even so, thousands of settlers braved the hardships of muddy, rutted, or nonexistent roads and steep mountains to cross the Appalachians and find new opportunities in the Ohio Valley.
Once settled in “The West,” these folks needed an inexpensive and reliable way to ship their farm products east to the large urban centers, such as New York City, Philadelphia, and Baltimore. In addition, the merchants in these places needed to ship their goods west to these same settlers.
The famous Erie Canal to serve New York, and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal west from Washington, D.C. were constructed during the 1820s to help with this traffic. Instead of a canal, however, Baltimore merchants and bankers put their money and effort into the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Construction began in 1828 and the double-tracked railway was in operation for thirteen miles between Baltimore and Ellicott’s Mill, Maryland, by 1830. At first, the railroad cars were drawn by horses, but by 1831, a steam engine invented by Peter Cooper was tried. This diminutive engine, named the “Tom Thumb,” proved a success and began to pull cars on the B&O.
The “Tom Thumb” was also a participant in the first race between a horse and a steam engine. Charles Francis Adams described the race in his 1878 book Railroads: Their Origin and Problems, from which I quote the following:
“About six months before [Adams had been describing the trial run of another early engine], however, there had actually been a trial of speed between a horse and one of the pioneer locomotives, which had not resulted in favour of the locomotive. It took place on the present Baltimore and Ohio road upon the 28th of August, 1830. The engine in this case was contrived by no other than Mr. Peter Cooper. And it affords a striking illustration of how recent those events which now seem so remote really were, that here is a man until very recently living, and amongst the most familiar to the eyes of the present generation, who was a contemporary of Stephenson, and himself invented a locomotive during [1829], being then nearly forty years of age. The Cooper engine, however, was scarcely more than a working model. Its active-minded inventor hardly seems to have aimed at anything more than a demonstration of possibilities. The whole thing weighed only a ton, and was of one horse power; in fact it was not larger than those handcars now in common use with railroad section-men. The boiler, about the size of a modern kitchen boiler, stood upright and was fitted above the furnace–which occupied the lower section–with vertical tubes. The cylinder was but three-and-a-half inches in diameter, and the wheels were moved by gearing. In order to secure the requisite pressure of steam in so small a boiler, a sort of bellows was provided which was kept in action by means of a drum attached to one of the car-wheels over which passed a cord which worked a pulley, which in turn worked the bellows. Several experimental trips had been made with the little engine on the Baltimore and Ohio road, the first sections of which had recently been completed and were then operated upon by means of horses. The success of these trips was such that at last, just seventeen days before the formal opening of the Manchester and Liverpool road on the other side of the Atlantic, a small open car was attached to the engine–the name of which, by the way, was Tom Thumb–and upon this a party of directors and their friends were carried from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills and back, a distance of some twenty-six miles.
The trip out was made in an hour, and was very successful. The return was less so, and for the following reason: The great stage [coach] proprietors of the day were Stockton and Stokes; and on that occasion a gallant grey, of great beauty and power, was driven by them from town, attached to another car on the second track–for the company had begun by making two tracks to the Mills–and met the engine at the Relay House on its way back. From this point it was determined to have a race home, and the start being even, away went horse and engine, the snort of the one and the puff of the other keeping tune and time.
“At first the grey had the best of it, for his steam would be applied to the greatest advantage on the instant, while the engine had to wait until the rotation of the wheels set the blower to work. The horse was perhaps a quarter of a mile ahead when the safety valve of the engine lifted, and the thin blue vapour issuing from it showed an excess of steam. The blower whistled, the steam blew off in vapoury clouds, the pace increased, the passengers shouted, the engine gained on the horse, soon it lapped him–the whip was plied–the race was neck and neck, nose and nose–then the engine passed the horse, and a great hurrah hailed the victory. But it was not repeated, for, just at this time, when the grey’s master was about giving up, the band which draws the pulley which moved the blower slipped from the drum, the safety valve ceased to scream, and the engine–for want of breath–began to wheeze and pant. In vain Mr. Cooper, who was his own engineer and fireman, lacerated his hands in attempting to replace the band upon the wheel; the horse gained upon the machine and passed it, and although the band was presently replaced, and the steam again did its best, the horse was too far ahead to be overtaken, and came in the winner of the race.”
So that first race went to the horse, but we all know who won out in the end.
