Description
Full publication information and descriptions as follows:
Plate 20. Passenger Engine. Among the personnel credited is Frederick Mone, who published a treatise on American engineering illustrated with “large and detailed engravings” in the early 1850s.
Full publication information: “[D]rawn by A. Becher Eng[ineer]. Edw. Deicke engr. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1851 by Charles Caesar, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. Executed in F. Mone & E. Diecke’s Office, 131 Fulton Street N.Y. Printed in the Lithographic Institute of J. Bien 20 Fulton St. N.Y.”
Plate 21. Steam Fire-Engine “Missouri.” This print shows a historically significant invention that revolutionized firefighting: the world’s first practical steam-powered fire engine. The vehicle was a collaboration between three inventors in Cincinnati, Ohio — Abel Shawk, who is credited on the print, Alexander Bonner Latta and Miles Greenwood. In 1853, the Cincinnati Fire Department purchased one, becoming the first in the world to use a steam fire engine. Pleased with the results, Cincinnati formed the first professional and fully paid fire department in the United States and purchased a second engine. Weissenborn’s text describes its impressive features: “This engine possesses, in an eminent degree, all the qualities necessary in an efficient fire-engine, viz.: extreme lightness, simplicity, beauty, and power, and an enormous steam generative capability. One noticeable point is its quickness of action, occupying but four minutes in generating steam and throwing water — time taken from the moment smoke appears at the top of the chimney, until water is thrown from the nozzle, at the end of one hundred feet of hose.”
Full publication information: “F. Millward del. Steam Fire-Engine “Missouri,” built by Abel Shawk, Inventor & Patentee. “Young America” Works. Cincinnati, Ohio. Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1858 by G. Weissenborn in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. Engr. in G. Weissenborn’s Engr. Office 131 Fulton Street N.Y.”
[Plate 23.] Passenger Locomotive built by the New Jersey Locomotive & Machine. In A History of the American Locomotive: Its Development, 1830-1880, historian John H. White devotes a chapter of his book to the “Talisman,” which he calls “a typical Paterson wagon top of the mid 1850’s.” His text is illustrated with the engraving offered here (p. 361) and other detail drawings of its parts from American Engineering. He explains that the New Jersey Locomotive & Machine Company was a small firm in Paterson that produced more than 300 engines between 1851 and around 1863-64. This print lacks a plate number, but originally appeared as Plate XXIII in Weissenborn’s American Engineering.
Full publication information: “T.W. Bayes del. Ed. Deicke engr. Passenger Locomotive built by the New Jersey Locomotive & Machine Company Paterson N.J. Jas. Jackson Prest. H. Uhry. Supt. G. Weissenborn’s Engr. Office, 131, Fulton St, N.Y.”
Plate 24. Geared Screw Propeller Engines of the Steamship “Caroline” of Havana. Weissenborn’s text explains that “The steamship ‘Caroline’ is a merchant vessel, and is designed to run with great speed, as a passenger boat, on the coast of Cuba.” The subtitle of the print states that it was “designed by Reaney Neatie & Co. 2 Cylinders 40″ diameter 36” stroke. Engine geared 2 1/2 to 1,” and indicate it was made by “Penn Iron Works. Philadelphia Penna.”
Full publication information: “Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1858 by G. Weissenborn in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District of New York. Executed in G. Weissenborn’s Engr. Office 131 Fulton Street N.Y.”
Condition: Generally very good with the usual overall light toning, wear, soft creases. Center fold as issued, now professionally flattened, and few short marginal tears professional restored.
References:
“Fire Engine.” Ohio History Central. 2 August 2006. http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=2741 (1 February 2013).
“Passenger engine on the Hudson River Rail Road Columbia. Fig. 1 side elevation.” http://www.worldcat.org/title/passenger-engine-on-the-hudson-river-rail-road-columbia-fig-1-side-elevation/oclc/191306269 (1 February 2013).
Weissenborn, G. American Engineering. New York: G. Weissenborn, 1861. pp. 1, 182-189. Online at Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=h7bmLeAXoBUC (1 February 2013).
White, John H. Jr. A History of the American Locomotive, Its Development: 1830-1880. Courier Dover Publications, 1979. pp. 358-365. Online at Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=1A4iiGAz628C (1 February 2013).
