cylinders. 239 This was particularly attractive to 

 Davis, and Mr. Baldwin had much to say as to the 

 importance of vertical cylinders not being subject to 

 the wear of the piston and cylinder as in the horizontal 

 engines, even going so far as to predict that, at no 

 distant time, a horizontal steam engine would not 

 be known, and as for water pumping engines, that 

 are always subject more or less to sand and grit, the 

 wearing was so serious on the lower side of horizontal 

 cylinder that, although Mr. Frederick Graff had so 

 arranged the cylinders of the great pumping engines 

 at Fairmount dam, which supplied Philadelphia with 

 water, that they could be taken out and rebored or 

 replaced by new ones without disturbing the rest of 

 the machinery, they would have to give way to vertical 

 pumps. This evidently made a strong impression on 

 young Davis. It must not be forgotten that this was 

 before the time of efficient tools, and that the little 

 cylinder of Baldwin's vertical engine was bored by 

 hand by bits set in a wooden boring block. 



From Mason & Baldwin's shop I took Davis to the 

 Philadelphia Museum, which at that time was under 

 the management of my uncle, Franklin Peale, with 

 his brother Titian R. Peale as naturalist. I intro- 

 duced Davis to the latter, whom we found in the taxi- 

 dermic room busy among animal and bird skins, 

 mounting specimens; this I thought would interest 

 him, but I was mistaken, for as we passed through the 

 little workshop of my Uncle Franklin, his eye had 

 caught sight of a model steam-engine on wheels. 

 This stood on a shelf nearly hidden by a heterogene- 

 ous mass of gimcracks piled over it, essays at perpetual 

 motion, model churns, plows and such like, that had 

 found their way to the museum and were not con- 

 sidered as worth being put on exhibition. 



It was soon evident that Davis' mind was not on the 

 work of the naturalist, for he began asking questions 

 as to the steam-engine on wheels that he had only 

 caught a glimpse of as he passed through the ante- 

 room. My uncle took him back into the shop, and 

 while removing some trumpery, to get a better view 

 of the model, my Uncle Franklin came in and was 

 much amused at Davis' eagerness and the questions 

 he asked about it. He explained the model, and gave 

 its history as being the joint work of his father, Charles 



239 This engine, preserved in the U.S. National Museum, was 

 partially described by Franklin Peale in his obituary of Mat- 

 thias Baldwin in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 

 (December 1866), vol. 10, pp. 279-288. A complete account 

 of the engine in its original state has not yet been found. 



Willson Peale, and Oliver Evans to produce a traction 

 engine for agricultural purposes. I do not recollect 

 that any date was named; I somehow got the impres- 

 sion that it was about the time that Oliver Evans 

 moved the dredging scow from the works to the 

 Schuylkill river by steam-power; this was in the year 

 1804. I cannot look back to a time that I did not 

 know this model, for when a small boy I had been 

 allowed to play with it and push it about on the floor 

 of my grandfather's play-shop, as he called his, at his 

 place near Germantown, and on one occasion I had 

 seen it steamed up and running around in an irregular 

 circle on a flat piece of ground, with a great propensity 

 to turn on its side on meeting any trifling obstruction 

 or enough steam given to accelerate its speed beyond 

 a slow walk and to burn the fingers of the one attempt- 

 ing to right it. This was my experience on that 

 occasion; it was very top-heavy. 



Davis was so much interested that he asked permis- 

 sion to remove it to the work bench, finding it in 

 better condition than expected; the remainder of the 

 day into the night, was spent in overhauling it, and 

 the next morning, in the presence of a crowd, that 

 soon collected, it was started from the back steps of 

 Independence Hall (the old State House), and made 

 the trip the length of the square to Walnut street and 

 return to the place of starting; on the back trip it ran 

 into the side gutter and twice turned on its side. 



I have no reason to doubt my uncle's statement that 

 the miniature working model was the joint work of his 

 father and Oliver Evans, and I cannot be far wrong in 

 fixing its date as not later than 1805. In fact, since I 

 commenced writing this article little circumstances as 

 related to me by my grandfather in connection with 

 the removal of the dredge boat from the works to the 

 Schuylkill, its launching and its trip down the Schuyl- 

 kill to the Delaware and up it to the foot of Market 

 street on that river front, propelled by little paddle- 

 wheels driven by the small steam-engine on board, 

 convince me that the working model dates back to 

 near that date, which was 1804. Previous to the 

 death of my uncles I learned from them that at the 

 time of the last removal of the Philadelphia Museum 

 the model was in the store-room and in good preserva- 

 tion, and the supposition is that it was destroyed at 

 the time that collection was burned. My hopes were 

 that my Uncle Franklin, as a mechanic, had taken 

 possession of and preserved it. 



I believe that the conversation with Baldwin, on the 

 value of vertical cylinders, and the day with the Evans 

 and Peale working model gave the bent to Davis' mind 



182 



