25. Phineas Davis 

 and the Arabian 



Another of Sellers's friends who had an important 

 influence upon the design of early railroad loco- 

 motives was Phineas Davis. In 1 83 1 Davis built 

 the York, a locomotive with vertical boiler and 

 vertical steam cylinder, with which he won a 

 competition staged by the Baltimore and Ohio 

 Railroad. Shortly afterward he accepted a posi- 

 tion as manager of that railroad's Mount Clare 

 shops. His successful career with the Baltimore 

 and Ohio Railroad was cut short in 1835, when, 



at the age of 35, he was killed in the derailment of 

 one of his locomotives. 234 



It is interesting to learn here how Davis's 

 thinking may have been influenced by a visit to 

 the Peale Museum, where he found a steam trac- 

 tion engine model built many years earlier by 

 Oliver Evans, and by talking with Matthias 

 Baldwin, who had not yet become involved with 

 locomotive building but who had just completed 

 his vertical stationary steam engine to drive the 

 shop machinery of the firm of Baldwin and Mason. 



At the Chicago National Railway Exposition [of 

 1883] there was exhibited, by the Baltimore and Ohio 

 Railroad Company, an old relic of the most interesting 

 character, the old locomotive "Arabian," an engine 

 that went into service on that road in June, 1834, and 

 has been well preserved, and was still doing good 

 service in the yards of the Mount Clare workshops 

 after a lifetime lacking but one year of a half century; 

 undoubtedly the oldest effective locomotive in the 

 world. I remember this engine on its first trial on 

 the tracks at the machine shops, and as exhibited it is 

 the same engine; 235 the only change I noticed was 

 dispensing with the fan blowers that urged the fire 

 and substituting the draft made by the exhaust 

 steam. 236 



Seeing this old relic brought vividly to mind my 

 first acquaintance with Phineas Davis, its designer 



231 The sketch on Davis in Dictionary of American Biography 

 refers to further biographical information. 



235 The latest positive date that I have seen for existence of 

 the Arabian is 1850, in the 24th Annual Report . . . of the Balti- 

 more and Ohio Rail Road Company ( 1850), table c, opposite p. 54. 

 Before the 1893 exhibition certainly, and perhaps before the 

 1883 exhibition, the identity of the various grasshopper loco- 

 motives had been thrown into utter confusion by the renaming 



and constructor, and incidents that occurred at the 

 time of our first meeting, that I have no doubt had 

 an influence in directing his mind in the bent that 

 produced his first small 2^-ton engine built at York, 

 Pa., and afterwards the "Arabian" built in the shops 

 of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. 



Peter Cooper's little engine, that was tried on the 

 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1830, has the credit 

 of drawing the first passenger cars in America. 

 If my recollection is not entirely at fault, it only 

 made a few trips from Baltimore to the Relay House, 237 



and "restoring" done for one of the exhibitions. On the other 

 hand, I have seen no specific account of the Arabian's loss or 

 scrapping. It was known as "No. 1" in i860. See Lawrence W. 

 Sagle, A Picture History oj B & Motive Power (New York: 

 Simmons-Boardman, 1952). 



236 The fan blowers, intended to promote the burning of 

 anthracite coal, were patented by Phineas Davis on July 2g, 

 1834. Two "fan wheels" (conventional forward-curving blade 

 centrifugal blower fans) were directly driven by a "steam 

 wheel," built "in the same manner nearly as the wind wheels," 

 all mounted on a common shaft. The steam wheel was turned 

 by exhaust steam. See figure 77, on page 183. 



237 The Peter Cooper locomotive experiments were made in 

 1830 on the line to Ellicott's Mills. See J. Snowden Bell, 



180 



