Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/708

en stringers capped with wnmght-plate rails rest- ing on pilrs inn! operated by locomotives. He emi- merates' comprehensively the advantages of a gen- eral railroad system, naming many details that wi re afterward found necessary, putting the prob- able future speed at from twenty to thirty miles an hour, or possibly at from forty to fifty. He gives a definite plan ami detailed estimates of the construction and cost. Hi- plan is identical with that of the successful South Carolina railroad built in 1830-'32, the first long railroad in the United States, which has been described as a continuous and prolonged bridge." The accuracy of his esti- mates was proved by the cost of this road. Ste- vens in 1814 applied to the state of New Jersey for a railroad charter from Xew York to Philadelphia. He received the charter in February, 1815, and lo- cated the road, but proceeded no further. In 1823, with Horace IMnney and Stephen Girard, of Phila- delphia, he obtained from the state of Pennsylvania a charter for a railroad from Philadelphia to Lancas- ter, on the site of the present Pennsylvania railroad. These two were the first railroad charters that were granted in this country. On 23 Oct., 1824, he obtained a patent for the construction of rail- roads. In 1826, at the age of seventy-eight, to show the operation of the locomotive on the rail- road, he built at Iloboken a circular railway hav- ing a gauge of five feet and a diameter of 220 feet, and placed on it a locomotive with a multi-tubular Imiler which carried about half a dozen people at a rate of over twelve miles an hour. This was the first locomotive that ever ran on a railroad in America. Col. Stevens was an excellent classical scholar, and not only a close student of natural philosophy, but fond of metaphysical specula- tions, leaving several philosophical treatises, which have never been published. He was through life an enthusiastic botanist ami amateur gar- dener, importing and cultivating many new plants.

The accompanying engraving represents Castle Point, Mr. Stevens's residence in Hoboken, N. J., which in 1835 was replaced by the present more >paciou- man-inn. The second John's son. John Cox, b. 24 Sept., 1785; d. in Hoboken, N. J., 13 June, 1857, was graduated at Columbia in 1803, and married Maria C. Livingston on 27 Dee.. 1809. In the early part of his life he resided mi In estate at Annandale, on the Livingston manor, and later in New Ynrk city. He was from his y<>nth a devoted yachtsman. He organized tin- New York yacht club, was its first commodore, and commanded the America" in the memorable race in England in 1851. Another son, Robert Livingston, b. 18 Oct., 1787; d. in Hoboken, N. J., 20 April, 1850, having a strong en- iii"; liia-. began to assist his fatlnT wlnn only seventeen years old. He took the " Phoenix " to Philadelphia' by sea in June, 1808. At the death of Fulton the speed of steamboats on tin- Hudson was under seven miles an hour, and at about that date Robert L. Stevens built the Philadelphia." which had a speed of eight miles. He built many steamboats, increasing the speed of each successive one up to 1832, when the " North America " at- tained fifteen miles. From 1815 until 1840 he stood at the head of his profession in the United States as a constructor of steam vessels and their machinery, making innumerable improvements, which were generally adopted. In 1821 he origi- nati-d 1 lie piv-i'iit form of ferry-boat and ferry-slips, making his boats with guards encircling them throughout, and constructing the ferry-slips with spring piling and spring fenders. In adopting the overhead working-beam of Watt to navigation, he made important improvements, inventing and ap- plying, in 1818. the cam-board cut-off, substituting in 1*21 the gallows-frame that is now used for the column that supported the working-beam, and making that beam of wrought-iron strap with a cast-inm centre, instead of purely of cast-iron. This he improved in 1829 into the shape that is now universally used. He lengthened the propor- tionate stroke of the piston, and invented the split water-wheel in 1826. In 1831 he invented the bal- ance-valve, which was a modification of the Cornish double-beat valve, and is now always used on the beam engine. He placed the boilers on the wheel- guards and over the water, improved the details in every part, and finally left the American working- beam (or walking-beam) engine in its present form. At the same time he strengthened the boiler, be- ginning with a pressure of two pounds to the square inch, and increasing the strength of tin- boilers, so that fifty pounds could be safely car- ried. He made the first marine tubular boiler in ls:!l. and was among the first to use anthracite coal. In the hulls of his vessels he gradually in- i reased the amount of iron fastening until it was finally more than quadrupled, increasing the strength of vessels while diminishing their weight. He reduced the vibration of the hull by the masts and rods that are now used, and added greatly to their strength by his overhead truss-frame.

On the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester railway in 1830, he went to England, where he had made, from a model he brought over, the rails for the road he was building, with his brother, Edwin A., in New Jersey. This rail is the well-known T-pattern, used in this country and in a large part of Europe, which is fastened by spikes without the intervention of chairs, which are required by the form of rail that is still used in England. He also then ordered from the Stephensons the locomotive called the " John Bull," the prototype of tlm>c that are made in this country, which is now preserved at the Smithsonian institution in Washington. Toward the close of the last war with England Robert was engaged in making a bomb that could be fired from a cannon instead of from a mortar, and that could thus be applied to naval warfare. In connection therewith he made many experiments on the Iloboken marshes, for which he obtained from the government the loan of heavy ordnance, and finally he succeeded in producing a successful percussion-shell. President Madison then appointed a board to test this shell in the harbor of New York, bothauam-t -olid targets of wooden beam- and au,nii-t an actual section of a ship of the line, built for the purpo-r. Each was demolished l>y a single shell. Tin ernment then adopted the -hell, purchasing n. large qiiantii , together wit lit he -ecivt nl' it- construction. In 1814 Edwin, under the direction of his father, had experimented with shot against inclined