2^0 
liERAMIC STUDIO 
First locomotive vised on an American track, imported from England. 
tried on August 8th, 1829, near Honesdale, Pa., upon the first 
tracks of the Delaware & Hudson R. R. 
'•The DeWitt Clinton" 
Locomotive and part of first train of passenger cars ever run ii 
Mohawk & Hudson Railroad. First trip August 9th, 1831. 
Locomotives of America from Original Documents 
the State of New York on 
From " History of the First 
by Wm. H. Brown." 
marked on back by E. Wood & Sons, "Baltimore & Ohio 
Railroad " and is not a matter of discussion. 
It will be well to remember that drawings used by old 
Staffordshire potters were often inaccurate. We find many 
proofs of this in the dark blue ware, and it seems to have been 
Trial of Peter Cooper's locomotive " Tom Thumb " on the horse car tracks of the 
B. & O. R. R. on the 28th of August 1830. From " History i if t hi i First Loco- 
motives of America from Original Documents, by Wm. H. Brown." 
especially the case with views of old steamboats, railroads and 
ships. A striking example of this inaccuracy is found on the 
Landing of Lafayette plate by Clews, which we do not repro- 
duce, as every collector knows it. On August i6th, 1824, 
Lafayette made his triumphal entry in New York on 
the steamboat Fulton escorted by a fleet of boats, among 
which was the famous Chancellor Livingston. The two steam- 
boats with three masts shown on the plate were then probably 
intended for the Fulton and the Chancellor Livingston, the 
Fulton being the boat on the left of the plate, dressed with a 
number of flags. A look at the illustration we give of the 
real Fulton, which had only one mast, will show how inaccu- 
rate were the drawings used by Clews. The small steamboat 
without masts in the foreground of the plate, ahead of the 
Fulton, shows another incorrect drawing, as there were at that 
time no American steamboats without masts. This boat is 
generally supposed by collectors to be the Nautilus, but the 
Nautilus, the first experiment of Robert Fulton, was built in 
France and tried on the river Seine on August 8, 1804. We 
find no record of an American built Nautilus. The fleet of 
steamboats on the Hudson comprised in 1816, besides the 
Fulton and Chancellor Livingston, the following boats, all 
built under Fulton's supervision: Car of Neptune, Fire Fly, 
Hope, Perseverance, Richmond, Olive Branch and North 
River; the latter was formerly the Clermont, built in 1807, 
Fulton's first American steamboat. In 1821 the Connecticut 
was added to the Fulton and Chancellor Livingston for packet 
service on Long Island Sound, and in 1826, the Washington. 
All these boats had masts, most of them two masts. The 
Boston, which was the first steamboat built without masts, 
was put in service only in 183 1. 
This shows that not only during Fulton's life, but many 
years after his death, which occurred in 1815, before the Chan- 
cellor Livingston, his last and greatest effort, was completed, 
the use of masts and sails was considered necessary to accele- 
rate the speed of steamboats. It is then difficult to see why 
collectors have called our illustration No. 3 "Fulton Steam- 
No. 3— 10-inch plate known as "Fulton Steamboat" froi 
Mrs. Fred Yates, Rochester. N. Y. 
the collection of 
No. 2— Dark Blue Cup and Saucer, called " Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.' 
boat plate." There is a strong objection to classifying this 
view as American. The landscape looks suspiciously English ; 
nothing in the high cliff surmounted by a lighthouse suggests 
any part of New York Bay or Long Island Sound. The boat 
does not even fly the American flag, which has been so freely 
used by makers of dark blue ware, and in so many unexpected 
ways, that its absence on a boat which would have been in- 
tended to be American looks remarkable. However, it must 
be said that altogether too much importance has been at- 
tached by collectors to the meaning of the American flag 
found on so many ships on dark blue Staffordshire. This 
