| Search Antiqbook |
Ask a question or
Order this book
Browse our books
Search our books
Book dealer info
[STEVENS, JOHN], Documents Tending to Prove the Superior Advantages of Rail-Ways and Steam-Carriages over Canal Navigation.
New-York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, No. 60 Pearl Street, 1812. First edition of the FIRST AMERICAN RAILROAD BOOK. 8vo. 45 pp. 20th- century calf. First two leaves repaired at inner margin. Very good. Howes S967; Sabin 91539; Kress B.6063. ¶ The exceedingly rare treatise on the feasibility of steam-powered railroad transportation by the American inventor, engineer and visionary, John Stevens (1749 - 1838), "The Father of American Railroads." Stevens was one of the pioneers of the steam engine, who, frustrated by Fulton and Livingston's monopoly on steamboat navigation, turned his attention to the prospects of inland transportation via rail. In this series of letters to the Commissioners of New York, Stevens elaborated his ideas on the feasibility of a new and revolutionary system of inland rail transportation, and proposed that the government provide funds for a radical new experiment, in these prophetic words: "Let a Rail-way of timber be formed by the nearest practicable route, between Lake Erie and Albany. The Angle of elevation in no part to exceed one degree, or such an elevation, whatever it may be, as will admit of wheel-carriages to remain stationary when no power is exerted to impel them forward. This rail-way, throughout its course, to be supported on pillars, raised fro, three to five feet from the surface of the ground. The carriage-wheels of cast iron, with projecting flanges to fit on the surface of the rail-ways. The moving power to be a steam-engine, nearly similar in construction to that on board the Juliana, a ferry-boat plying between this city and Hoboken." (p. 14) According to the AMERICAN NATIONAL BIOGRAPHY, "thus, like a prophet ahead of his time Stevens laid down the essentials of rail-roading; but not until years later did anyone take him seriously. Even his former backer Robert Livingston, considered his proposal impractical. Stevens petitioned the legislatures of several states, and finally in 1815 New Jersey formed a company to erect a line between Trenton and New Brunswick, the first American railway act. The Pennsylvania legislature followed suit in 1823 and granted Stevens the right to operate on it. In neither case, however, was money appropriated. To convince officials of the feasibility of steam locomotives, the doughty old inventor, at the age of seventy-six, designed and built on his Hoboken estate a model of a steam-powered engine and ran it on a circular track. This, the last of his innovations that brought his active career to an end, took place the same year as the Erie Canal was opened ... Like most keen inventors John Stevens conceived imaginative yet practical ideas that were never carried out in his lifetime - an armored navy, a bridge across the Hudson, a vehicular tunnel under the Hudson, and an elevated railway system for New York ... " Stevens' book is exceedingly rare: no copy has appeared at auction in at least the last 30 years
Offered for US$ 7500.00 by: James Cummins Bookseller - Book number: 232632