Sellers.] "^4o [Feb, 19, 



experience to enter a better shop uxDon more advantageous terms. His 

 second employer was " an uneducated Englishman, but a very good work- 

 man," and in his shop he soon became more proficient, and at the age of 

 twenty, before he w^s yet free, he was made foreman of part of the establish- 

 ment and had under him thirty men and boys. At the expiration of his 

 apprenticeship to James Flint, he continued with the firm, then Hyde & 

 Flint, for one year, and left them to take employment with Philip Gar- 

 rett, a Quaker gentleman, who had a small shop for the manufacture of 

 " small lathes, presses for bank-note engravers and the like." He 

 remained with Mr. Garrett until 1833, then went to Port Clinton, Penn- 

 sylvania, to start a foundry for Mr. Arundus Tiers, with whom his father 

 was engaged as accountant. This was the end of the varied experience 

 as a mechanician preceding his career as a constructer of locomotives. In 

 1834 he was employed by William Norris, then engaged with Colonel 

 Long in building locomotives (die design of the latter-named gentle- 

 man). Here he obtained his first insight into that branch of the mechanic 

 arts that was afterwards to be his life-work. He seems to have 

 considered this part of his mechanical education as of a negative 

 character, as he said "he had been schooled in the midst of fail- 

 ures," so that when in 1835 he was engaged by Messrs. Garrett & 

 Eastwick as foreman, and was intrusted with the designing of the 

 locomotive " Samuel D. Ingham," he endeavored to avoid what he 

 believed to be " the errors with which he had been made familiar." 

 This engine was considered a success, and led to the construction of 

 others like it. On December 15, 1836, he married Miss Sarah Poulterer, 

 whom he had met in New York in January, 1835. After his marriage, in 

 1837, he became a partner in the firm of Garrett, Eastwick & Co., invest- 

 ing his skill, the only capital he had, in the venture. In 1839, when Mr. 

 Garrett retired from business, the firm took the title of Eastwick & Harri- 

 son. In 1840, he designed an engine at the request of Mr. Moncure 

 Robinson, of the Reading Railroad. This engine, named the " Gowan & 

 Marx," ''-proved to be, for its weight (eleven tons), the most efficient 

 locomotive for freight purposes that had been built anywhere. ' ' This event 

 seems to have been the turning point in his life, for two Russian Engineers, 

 Colonels Melnekoff and Kraft, were in America at that time studying 

 the railway system of this country. They saw this engine and were so 

 well pleased with its operation that they procured tracings from the 

 drawings of it, and took them to Russia. This style of engine seems to 

 have been adopted by the authorities in Russia, and Mr. Harrison was in- 

 vited to visit that country, money being forwarded to defray his expenses. 

 He was cordially received, and in 1843, in association with his part- 

 ner, Mr. Eastwick, and Mr. Thomas Winans, of Baltimore, he concluded 

 a contract with the Russian Government to build the locomotives and 

 rolling stock for the St. Petersburg and Moscow Railway. This contract 

 amounted to three million dallars ; the work to be done in five years, it 

 being conditioned that all the work should be done in St. Petersburg, by 



