. Morton memorial; a history of the Stevens institute of technology, with biographies of the trustees, faculty, and alumni, and a record of the achievements of the Stevens family of engineers. ailroad Charter Colonel Stevens was anxious to put his recommendations of 1812 into practice. In1817 he obtained a charter from the State of New Jersey to build a railroad from theriver Delaware, near Trenton, to the river Raritan, near New Brunswick. This was un-doubtedly the earliest railroad charter granted in America; but no tangible result followed,because the scheme was regarded as wild and visiona
. Morton memorial; a history of the Stevens institute of technology, with biographies of the trustees, faculty, and alumni, and a record of the achievements of the Stevens family of engineers. ailroad Charter Colonel Stevens was anxious to put his recommendations of 1812 into practice. In1817 he obtained a charter from the State of New Jersey to build a railroad from theriver Delaware, near Trenton, to the river Raritan, near New Brunswick. This was un-doubtedly the earliest railroad charter granted in America; but no tangible result followed,because the scheme was regarded as wild and visionary. The introduction of the steam-boat, coupled with the success of the Duke of Bridgewater in the introduction of canalsabroad, had made them popular with capitalists than the untried railroad, and nomoney could be raised for that undertaking. Col. Stevens regretted that his financial con-dition was not such as to warrant him in building the road at his own expense. First Charter of the Pennsylvania RailroadHis interest in the subject of internal communication did not flag on account ofthis failure, for in 1823, through the exertion of Mr. Stevens, acts were passed by the legis-. Private Track ix Hoboken, Near IE IUESh Terminus lature of Pennsylvania ^ for the incorporation of a company to construct a railway fromHarrisburg to Pittsburg, and another company to construct a railway from Philadelphia toColumbia, in Lancaster County, among the incorporators being John Stevens, StephenGirard, and Horace Binney. John Stevenss Experimental Locomotive Three years later (1826), Col. Stevens, then seventy-six years old, constructedat his own expense a locomotive with a multitubular boiler which he operated for severalyears on a circular track on his estate at Hoboken. A model of this locomotive, together ^ Laws 1823, sec. 6, p. 252. - This was the first locomotive in .-\merica, driven by steam upon a track, of which there is reliablerecord.—ilr. J. Elfreth Watkins, in an address
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