Miscellaneous Intelligence. 297 



Stonington railroad ; a work intended as the complement of the Bos- 

 ton and Providence railroad, then almost completed. Not long after, 

 in 1835, he yielded to the urgent solicitations of friends and parties 

 interested (in both classes of whom may be mentioned, for instance, 

 the late Patrick Jackson,) and assumed the position of Superintendant 

 and Engineer of the machine shops, principally for the construction of 

 locomotives which the Locks and Canal Company of Lowell had re- 

 cently established. Here he remained for two years or more, to the 

 advantage. of the Company, and to the increase of his own stores of 

 mechanical knowledge. We observe throughout his life, but perhaps 

 most prominently in these very engines built under his direction, the 

 self-denial with which he excluded novelties of his own, the caution 

 with which he admitted those of others, and the judgment which he 

 exercised in selecting and combining the most meritorious of existing 

 arrangements. * 



This preference for what was simple and had been tried, did not arise 

 from a want of originality, but pure self-command. On the contrary, 

 those who have been associated with him can recollect how ready he was 

 at all times with devices for facilitating the execution of work, or reme- 

 dying contrarieties and disasters as they occurred. His simplification 

 of the method of running curves on the ground may be taken as an in- 

 stance, occurring when he happened to be visiting a work of great im- 

 portance under the charge of an eminent brother engineer. The heads 

 of the long wooden piles that were being driven became always shat- 

 tered, and though ferruled with a ring, split under the blows of the 

 driver. Whistler immediately suggested the interposition of a loose 

 sheet-iron plate, to be placed on the head of the pile and to answer the 

 purpose of equalizing and dispersing the forces. It is hardly necessary 

 to add that the expedient was successful. 



After a while, in 1837, the condition of the Stonington railroad 

 became such as imperatively to demand his presence and attention ; 

 and he removed for the purpose from Lowell to Stonington. At 

 the same time he was called to take part in conjunction with McNeill 

 and Swift in the location and construction of the Western railroad. 

 In these connections he remained until 1840 ; when he found it more 

 convenient, in behalf of the last named railroad, to remove with his 

 family to Springfield. There he still was, when in 1842 he was invited 

 ,n a manner highly gratifying to himself and honorable on the part of 

 the Emperor of Russia, to assume the charge of certainly the most 

 gigantic undertaking of the age, the Petersburg and Moscow railroad. 

 This position was offered to him, not so much because he was an 

 American, as for his own high qualifications. A deputation of Russian 

 engineers who had visited America the year before, had occasion to 

 remark his extraordinary abilities and made report accordingly upon 

 their return; and this led to the invitation. This fact need detract 

 nothing from our national pride. Whistler, the man, after his trans- 

 feral to another continent became eminently the American ; and his 

 abilities thus advanced the reputation of his country beyond any thing 

 that could have been predicted of it before. 



The general direction and intent of this great railroad had been de- 

 termined upon before he was called in ; and the executive control of it 



Second Series, Vol. VIII, No. 23.— Sept., 1849. 38 



