272 



The Mohawk and Hudson Rail Road. 



was built for the purpose of transporting granite from the 

 quarry to tide water, a distance of three miles, was not a 

 passenger road, and was operated by gravitation and horse 

 power, in 1827; and that the first substantial and effect- 

 ive locomotive put upon an American rail road was the 

 Stourbridge Lion, built in England, and run out of Ilones- 

 dale on the Delaware and Hudson road in 1829; but it 

 was abandoned and never brought into practical use, 

 horse power being adopted instead — for the reason that 

 the structure of the road would not admit of the use of a 

 locomotive of so great weight. 



On the 29th of July, 1830, the ceremony of breaking 

 ground for the Mohawk and Hudson road took place near 

 Schenectady, M with a silver spade," by Stephen Van Rens- 

 selaer, then known as the old patroon in contradistinction to 

 his son Stephen, the young patroon. In September it was 

 announced that the stock of the road had risen to ten per 

 cent above par, and the editor of the Daily Advertiser, 

 always enthusiastic about such enterprises, predicted that 

 trains would make trips between the two cities in three 

 quarters of an hour, and reach Utica from Albany in four 

 hours. The latter was a somewhat startling prediction, 

 when we consider that the utmost exertion of the stages 

 barely overcame the distance in twelve hours. 



The officers of the company had decided to use steam 

 power, and had ordered two locomotives, one from Stephen- 

 son of England, similar to those that w r ere in use upon the 

 Liverpool and Manchester road, and another from the 

 West Point Foundery in the City of New York. On the 

 23d of July, 1831, neither of them had arrived. 



The construction of the road was described by the editor 

 of the An/us, Mr. Croswell, as supported upon square 

 beds of rubble, in which a heavy stone block was imbed- 

 ed, each pier containing eleven cubic feet of block and 

 rubble stone, the piers as being placed three feet from 

 centre to centre, and forming almost a continuous stone 



