FOKTY-NINTH CONGKESS, 1885-1887. 1017 



roa<l, Raleigh ami Augusta Air Line, Carolina Central Railroad Com- 

 pany: William M. Robinson, president. Texas and Pacific Railway: 

 L. A. Sheldeu, receiver. Texas and St. Louis Railway: S. W. Fordyce, 

 receiver. Ulster and North Carolina Railroad: A. B. Andrews, presi- 

 dent. Union Pacific Railway: C.F.Adams, jr., president; J. Blick- 

 ensderfer, chief engineer. Union Switch and Signal Company: C. H. 

 Jackson, president. Western Transit Company: S. D.Caldwell, gen- 

 eral manager. Westinghouse Air Brake Company: George Westing- 

 house, jr., president. West Shore Railroad: J. D. Laying, general 

 manager; C. W. Bradley, general superintendent. Wheeling and Lake 

 Erie Railroad : C. A. Wilson, chief engineer. Woodruff Sleeping Car 

 Company: John C. Paul, general manager. Zanesville and Ohio Rail- 

 road: James Buckingham, president. 



To whom it may concern: 



Mr. J. E. Watkins, of Camden, N. J., has been appointed honorary curator of the 

 section of steam transportation (railways and steamboats) in the V. S. National 

 Museum. 



Mr. AVatkins is authorized to treat in the interest of the National Museum with 

 any persons who may be willing to aid in the development of this section, and to add 

 to the collection already in the Museum objects illustrative of the history and growth 

 of this industry in the United States. Specimens thus acquired will be exhibited in 

 the Museum in the name of the donor. 



Spencer F. Baird, 

 Secretary Smithsonian Institution, and Director U. S. National Museum. 



In order that the collection in connection with this section may he made as com- 

 plete and creditable as possible, financial aid is necessary. 



Your attention is called to the inclosed petition to Congress, and your official 

 sanction is respectfully requested. 



A nation which contains within its borders over 120,000 miles of railway, repre- 

 senting stock and bonded capital of over $7,000,000,000, should be zealous to preserve 

 the history of the efforts of the pioneers in railway construction and equipment, 

 which, during the last half century, have had such an immense influence upon our 

 growth and the development of our civilization. 



The Pennsylvania Railroad Company has already presented to the Museum loco- 

 motive No. 1 (of the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company, imported in 1831 and 

 in use until 1865), more familiary known as the "John Bull," together with a sec- 

 tion of the original track, laid with stone blocks, etc., upon which this the oldest 

 locomotive on their system ran. 



Engravings of the first steam locomotive that ever performed actual service on a 

 railway (in Wales, 1804), the first steamboat which was commercially successful 

 (Fulton's Clermont, 1807), the first steamboat to navigate the ocean (John Stevens's 

 PItanix, 1807), the first steam locomotive built for actual service that ever turned a 

 driving wheel in America (the "Stourbridge Lion" ), and engravings of the working 

 drawings of the first three American-built locomotives are already on exhibition. 



Many other relics, models, and drawings have been promised by railroad and 

 steamboat officials and others. 



At the annual convention of the Master Mechanics' Association at Washington, in 

 July, 1885, resolutions indorsing the action of the U. S. National Museum establish- 

 ing the section of steam transportation w^ere paased, and when the matter was 

 brought before the American Society of Civil Engineers, at their Deer Park conven- 

 tion, in 1885, much individual aid was promised. 



Referred to Committee on Appropriations. 



