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As a young apprentice he had studied the steam engine, and had resolved that he would improve it by doing away with the crank. To his mind this was a source of great loss of power, and he believed that, if he could transform the rectilinear motion of the piston rod directly into rotary motion without the intervention of the crank, he would effect a notable economy.

Now, there is no such loss of power through the crank as he imagined, nor is it likely that any other device for obtaining rotary from rectilinear motion will be found superior to that which Watt devised. But Peter Cooper assailed this fancied evil with undoubting confidence, both as to its existence and as to his ability to do away with it. The result was an invention for which he received, April 28, 1828, letters patent of the United States. At that early day patents were comparatively few,--so few that this one bears no number; and the duties of general administration did not prevent the highest officials from attending to details. This patent, issued to Peter Cooper, of New York, was personally signed by John Quincy Adams, President; countersigned by Henry Clay, Secretary of State; transmitted to William Wirt, Attorney-General; examined, approved, and signed by him, and returned to the Department of State for final delivery to the patentee. It grants for fourteen years to the said Peter Cooper, his heirs, administrators, and assignees the exclusive right to make, use, or license others to use, the described improvement in the method of effecting rotary motion directly from the alternate rectilinear motion of a steam piston. Evidently these distinguished statesmen--Adams, Clay, and Wirt--were not experts in mechanics, or at least did not undertake to hinder by technical criticism the experiments of American ambition; and there was no trained corps of patent-examiners to decide upon the novelty, practicability, and usefulness of any proposed improvement in the arts. Probably the government shared at that time the dominant American feeling of unconquerable youth, ready to attack all problems, especially those which previous experience had pronounced insoluble, and to determine the impossible by attempting it. This spirit has in fact more or less dominated the United States Patent Office down to the present time. With all its present equipment of examiners, trained in theory and versed in technical literature, it still concerns itself chiefly in the consideration of a proposed invention with the question of novelty, rather than that of feasibility or value; and the effect has been that, while thousands of patents are granted for absurd, unnecessary, or inoperative devices, the net result of the encouragement thus given to individual ingenuity and audacity is a catalogue of great inventions unmatched in the history of any other nation.

Engineers do not need to be told that this cumbrous arrangement could not successfully replace the crank, even if such a replacement were desirable. Yet the inventor constructed a working-machine, and satisfied himself, by a "duty trial" of some sort, that it "saved two fifths of the steam." His discovery, however, was not hailed with immediate recognition by the mechanical public; and its author, undisturbed in his faith, bided his time.

This, by the way, points to a characteristic of Peter Cooper, differentiating him from the numerous enthusiasts whom prudent men are accustomed to avoid. He was not a man "of one idea." His fertile and ingenious mind threw out its suggestions in every direction, into fields untrodden by experience; but when any such plan failed of acceptance, he turned, with undiminished courage and hope, to something else, remaining, nevertheless, still steadfast in his former conception, and ready to seize any opportunity for its realization.

Thus it came to pass that Mr. Cooper's abortive improvement upon the steam engine was the source of his fame as the builder of the first American locomotive, as the following chapter will explain.

THE TOM THUMB

IN the specification of the patent secured in 1828 by Mr. Cooper for an improved steam engine, he took pains to declare the suitability of his invention as a motor for "land carriages." No doubt he had heard of Stephenson's "Rocket," if not of the engine built by Blenkinsop in 1813, the sight of which in operation caused Stephenson to resolve that he would "make a better." The famous competitive trial of the Rocket, the Novelty, the Sanspareil, and the Perseverance, on a two-mile section of the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad, took place in October, 1827, at which time Peter Cooper must have been perfecting the application for his patent.

But other circumstances played their part in the result which we are about to consider. Some time before 1830 Mr. Cooper had been drawn into a land speculation at Canton, in the suburbs of Baltimore. Failing of support from his partners, he had been obliged to buy them out, and to assume the whole burden of the enterprise. Just at that time there was great popular expectation of the future importance of Baltimore. A little earlier, there had been general despair among the merchants of that city. New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were seeking the trade of the region beyond the Alleghanies,--then "the West," but now the centre of the population of the United States. New York flanked the mountains with her Erie Canal; Philadelphia got at last a practicable, though less satisfactory, water line; but Baltimore, though nearest of all to the longed-for market, found, through careful examination by eminent engineers, that no canal was practicable for her, at a cost within her means. In 1824 and 1825 the consequent general despondency concerning the future of the city was so strong that Baltimore merchants began to move to New York and Philadelphia.

In the address already cited, Mr. Latrobe, an eye-witness, says of the scenes which followed:--

The proposed railroad was to pass through Mr. Cooper's Canton property, which he had already begun to develop, "so that it should pay the taxes," by building upon it charcoal kilns, after a design of his own, with the purpose of turning the forest into charcoal, and, by means of this fuel, smelting the iron ore which the land contained. What was the immediate commercial outcome of this enterprise is not recorded. Mr. Cooper's characteristic recollection, more than sixty years later, was that, "with the exception of a dangerous explosion," which nearly cost him his life, the charcoal kilns were "a great success!"

But the great value of the property was expected to be realized through the new railroad; and this expectation suffered a serious blow when the horse cars failed to pay expenses; the operation of the line was suspended; the directors lost faith in the enterprise; and many of the principal stockholders declared that they would rather lose the investment made so far than "throw good money after bad." For the hope that the new agency of steam might help them out was blighted by the news from England that Stephenson had said that steam could not be used as a motive power on a road having curves of less than 900 feet radius; and this road had, at Point of Rocks, a necessary curve with a radius of only 150 feet!

The situation presented exactly the sort of challenge calculated to arouse the courage and ingenuity of Peter Cooper, besides appealing to another of his personal characteristics, namely, his undying and unalterable faith in his own ideas and conclusions, whether they had achieved recognition or not. He could lay aside a scheme which had not found immediate and successful application, and turn his attention, with undiminished vivacity, to something else; but he never owned to a real defeat. And now the problem presented at Baltimore seemed to him a providential call for his intervention. If the English engineers could not run their locomotives around sharp curves, it must be because they persisted in using the vicious crank, which he had already superseded by his invention! And, with unshaken faith in that device, he informed the Baltimore and Ohio directors that he thought he "could knock together a locomotive which would get a train around the Point of Rocks."

It is a curious circumstance that, ever since that day, the characteristic difference between English and American locomotives has been the ability of the latter to pass curves of shorter radius than the former can safely follow. The reason, as all railway engineers know, is that the usual English construction involves a rigid frame, while the American has a movable truck or "bogie" under the front part of the engine. This solution of the problem was not reached by Mr. Cooper. What he, in fact, accomplished was simply a piece of audacity, which encouraged the enterprise of his countrymen, by proving that the dictum of limited experience abroad was not conclusive. Two features of his Baltimore experiment were characteristic of him. The first was that he undertook it, not merely in order to vindicate his invention, but to effect a practical result, namely, to make his land speculation pay. And the second was that when he found it difficult to operate his pet invention in this experiment, he laid it aside at once,--without losing an atom of faith in it, but also without persisting in risking upon the vindication of his personal opinion in one matter the success of another undertaking, more immediately important.

Mr. Cooper's own recollection of this event deserves to be told in his own words. He says:--

"I came back to New York for a little bit of a brass engine of mine--about one horse power --and carried it back to Baltimore. I got some boiler iron and made a boiler about as high as an ordinary wash boiler; and then how to connect the boiler with the engine I didn't know. I couldn't find any iron pipes. The fact was that there were none for sale in this country. So I took two muskets, broke off the wooden parts, and used the barrels for tubing, one on one side and the other on the other side of the boiler. I went into a coach-maker's shop and made this locomotive, which I called the Tom Thumb, because it was so insignificant. I didn't intend it for actual service, but only to show the directors what could be done. I meant to test two things: first, I meant to show that short turns could be made; and secondly, that I could get rotary motion without the use of a crank. I effected both of these things very nicely. I changed the movement from a reciprocating to a rotary motion.

"I got up steam one Saturday night. The president of the road and two or three other gentlemen were there. We got on the truck and went out two or three miles. All were delighted; for it opened new possibilities for the railroad. I put up the locomotive for the night in a shed, and invited the company to ride to Ellicott's Mills on Monday. Monday morning, what was my chagrin to find that some scamp had been there, and chopped off all the copper from the engine,--doubtless in order to sell it to some junk dealer!

"It took me a week or more to repair the machine; then some one got in and broke a piece out of the wheel, in experimenting with it; and then two wheels, cast one after the other, were damaged by the carelessness of the turner. I was thoroughly disgusted and discouraged; but, being determined that I would not be balked entirely, I changed the engine so that the power could be applied through the ordinary connection with a crank.

"At last all was ready; and, on a Monday, we started,--six in the engine, and thirty-six on the car which I took in tow. We went up an average grade of eighteen feet to the mile; made the thirteen miles to Ellicott's Mills in one hour and twelve minutes; and came back in fifty-seven minutes. The result of that experiment was that the bonds of the railroad company were sold at once, and there was no longer any doubt as to the success of the road."

The Tom Thumb continued for several weeks to make trips to Ellicott's Mills; and on one occasion ran a race from Riley House into Baltimore with a light car, drawn on a parallel track by a gray horse noted for speed and endurance. The contest was planned by the stagecoach proprietors of Baltimore, with the view of demonstrating that nothing could be gained by the substitution of steam for horse power on the railroad. The gray horse won the race, but not until after the Tom Thumb had passed him, and only by reason of a temporary breakdown of the machine, which caused a delay too great to be subsequently made up. Mr. Cooper's characteristic recollection of the event, as given fifty-five years later, was that "they tried a little race one day, but it didn't amount to anything. It was rather funny; and the locomotive got out of gear."

Mr. Latrobe says of the Tom Thumb:--

"The machine was not larger than the hand cars used by workmen to transfer themselves from place to place; and as the speaker now recalls its appearance, the only wonder is that so apparently insignificant a contrivance should ever have been regarded as competent to the smallest results. But Mr. Cooper was wiser than many of the wisest around him. His engine could not have weighed a ton; but he saw in it a principle which the forty-ton engines of to-day have but served to develop and demonstrate. The boiler of Mr. Cooper's engine was not as large as the kitchen boiler attached to many a range in modern mansions. It was of about the same diameter, but not much more than half as high. It stood upright in the car, and was filled above the furnace, which occupied the lower section, with vertical tubes. The cylinder was but three and one half inches in diameter; and speed was got up by gearing. No natural draft could have been sufficient to get up steam in so small a boiler; and Mr. Cooper used, therefore, a blowing apparatus, driven by a drum, attached to one of the car wheels, over which passed a cord, that, in its turn, worked a pulley on the shaft of the blower. The contrivance for dispensing with a crank, though its general appearance is recollected, the speaker cannot describe with any accuracy; nor is it important,--it came to nothing. . . .

"In a patent case, tried many years afterwards, the boiler of Mr. Cooper's engine became, in some connection which has been forgotten, important as a piece of evidence. It was hunted for, and found among some old rubbish at Mount Clare. It was difficult to imagine that it had even generated steam enough to drive a coffee mill, much less that it had performed the feats here narrated."

After this experimental demonstration, the Tom Thumb retired into honorable but obscure repose in its maker's warehouse at New York, from which it emerged, fifty years later, to take part in the centennial celebration of the beginning of the commercial history of Baltimore . According to a contemporary report of the festival, "in the vast procession, Mr. Cooper and his little Tom Thumb locomotive were the two most conspicuous objects, and received all the honors which could be paid by a quarter of a million of enthusiastic people."

FOOTNOTES:

These and other statements in this chapter are taken from a lecture, delivered March 23, 1868, before the Maryland Institute, by Hon. J. H. B. Latrobe, giving his personal recollections of the early history of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.

This was the sacrifice of a favorite invention to immediate practical considerations, which has been mentioned above as an instance of Mr. Cooper's common sense.

MUNICIPAL AFFAIRS

PETER COOPER'S acquaintance with the affairs of New York city ranged from the time when, as a child, he was taken by his mother to see the last remaining fragments of the stockade erected by the early inhabitants for protection against the Indians, to the full metropolitan glory of the decade of his death. This wonderful municipal history is too commonly regarded from a special standpoint, as if it were but the record of a continually renewed and often unsuccessful struggle against corrupt and incompetent city government. Contests of this kind, under democratic institutions, always occupy more space in the press, and make more noise in public oratory, than the quiet but steady progress of commercial undertakings, and the labors of unselfish citizens for education, art, and social improvement, which go on beneath the turbulent surface. Americans have long suffered under the unjust imputation of peculiar devotion to "the almighty dollar." The fact is that in no other country do individuals give so much or do so much without pecuniary reward--whether for personal friendship or for public spirit--as in the United States. The munificence of private benefactions and endowments, far surpassing the government support given in other nations to similar institutions, furnish an abundant proof of the first half of this proposition; while the other half is proved by the innumerable boards, committees, and other organized bodies, to which active business men give time and thought without remuneration.

This spirit has never been wholly missed in public affairs, even in the city of New York, so often charged with the lack of it. All the great features of its municipal progress, even those which have been, at some stage, tainted with lamentable corruption, have been originated or supported by unselfish public spirit. It might even be said that without this support, innocently given and deceitfully misused, the schemers for private gain could not have achieved their periodical and temporary successes.

Peter Cooper was an illustrious example of good citizenship in this respect. First elected to public office as "assistant alderman," in 1828, he turned his attention immediately upon the subject most important to the growth and welfare of a city, yet most likely to be neglected until it is forced upon the community as an unwelcome necessity,--namely, the water supply. Up to that time, New York had depended upon the springs of Manhattan Island, some of which supplied water, conveyed through the streets by means of wooden pipes , while most of them were utilized by means of pumps only, to which the inhabitants sent for their supply.

Mr. Cooper induced the water committee, of which he had been appointed a member, to visit Philadelphia and inspect the works by which the water of the Schuylkill was raised to a high reservoir, and thence distributed in iron pipes throughout that city, and then to examine the Croton and Bronx rivers, for the purpose of ascertaining what these streams could supply. The season being dry, the rivers were so low that Mr. Cooper was not satisfied of their capacity to furnish the needed quantity; so he investigated further, on his own account, the watershed of the Hackensack River in New Jersey, and subsequently submitted to the board of aldermen plans and models, illustrating a scheme for the supply of water to New York from that region, by means of pipes laid under the North River.

To the end of his life, Mr. Cooper adhered to his preference for this method of conveying water across river channels, as compared with elevated aqueducts, like the "high bridge" subsequently constructed across the Harlem River. And in this particular, his intuitive engineer's judgment was not at fault, although the classic example of the Romans, who spent untold labor and time in building aqueducts, where buried conduits would have been both cheaper and better, still dominated the professional world. But Peter Cooper furnished another example of his practical wisdom, by sacrificing his superior theory for the sake of the useful result contemplated. Thorough study showed that, although the Croton region could not be relied upon at all times for an immediately adequate water supply, yet its average through the year was sufficient for the purpose, so that the creation, by means of higher dams, of large storage reservoirs, would solve the pressing problem. This plan was ultimately adopted, and has been pursued with suitable enlargements, ever since. Peter Cooper was made chairman of the water committee,--a position which he retained until some years after the Croton system was completed.

In the procurement of iron pipes for the system of distribution, and their proper testing before acceptance, his integrity and intelligence were specially effective in protecting the interests of the city, by securing the best material at the lowest cost. While Mr. Cooper was a strong "protectionist," favoring the encouragement of American industries, he never recognized any distinctions among Americans. In his patriotic thought, the unit to be regarded was not the city or the State of New York, but the United States of America; and he earnestly opposed the contention of the New York iron founders, that contracts for the pipe of the Croton system ought not to be made with inhabitants of another State. His arguments prevailed; and the pipe was ordered from a Philadelphia manufacturer, who offered a better article at a lower price.

During Mr. Cooper's official service, and not without his active aid and advice , the beginnings of an organized police and fire service were established. When he was first elected to office the city was guarded by watchmen, who served four hours every night for seventy-five cents. Every householder was expected to have leathern buckets in his hall, and in case of an alarm of fire to throw them into the street, so that the citizens voluntarily running to the rescue could form a line to the nearest pump, and, passing the water by means of the buckets, supply the tank of the small hand-engine, which then squirted it upon the burning building. It is needless to detail here the steps by which out of this crude beginning the present effective New York Fire Department has been perfected. Suffice it to say that the beginning itself was promoted, and its future importance was foreseen, by Peter Cooper and his public-spirited colleagues.

But a still more profoundly important element of municipal and national progress, in which the participation of Peter Cooper was active and influential, was the free public school system in New York. This system was originally planted by the great mayor and governor, De Witt Clinton, to whom the State is indebted for the Erie Canal, and for many other plans and impulses scarcely less significant. While Clinton was an advocate of universal suffrage, he perceived the danger of granting this power to an ignorant and largely foreign population; and in 1805 he secured a charter for "The Society for Establishing a Free School in the City of New York for the Education of Such Poor Children as do not Belong to, or are not Provided for by, Any Religious Society."

The appeal of this society to "the affluent and charitable of every denomination of Christians" was liberally answered, and by December, 1809, a school capable of accommodating five hundred children had been erected upon a purchased site. This was the beginning in New York city of the free school system, over which for twenty-five years De Witt Clinton presided. During that period the schools, supported by generous private contributions, and also after a while by a state tax, steadily increased in number, efficiency, and public favor. Peter Cooper had been always a zealous supporter of these schools, but not until 1838 did he become--by election as a trustee of the Free School Society--officially connected with them. It was a critical period in their history. The original national debt of the Union had been recently extinguished, and a considerable surplus had been returned to the contributing States, of which New York devoted its share to educational purposes, thus largely increasing the fund for the city. In 1822, sixteen years before, the common council had made the free schools "unsectarian," excluding from the benefits of the fund all institutions of denominational character. The various sects had submitted reluctantly to this decision so long as the fund was too small to be divided among them; but its sudden enlargement encouraged an attempt to secure appropriations for parochial schools.

In his first annual message Governor Seward recommended to the legislature the establishment of schools in which the children of foreigners might be "instructed by teachers speaking the same language with themselves and professing the same faith." The Roman Catholic community, acting at once upon this suggestion, sent a deputation to the New York common council demanding for their schools "a pro rata share" of the educational fund, to which as taxpayers they contributed.

In the resistance made to this claim by the Free School Society Mr. Cooper took a prominent and ardent part. The advocates of unsectarian public schools were victorious; but the controversy continued to agitate the State until the passage by the legislature in 1842 of an act establishing in New York city a new board of education to control the schools supported from the funds of the State, and at the same time forbidding the support from this fund of schools in which "any religious sectarian doctrine or tenet shall be taught, inculcated, or practiced." The Free School Society, resenting and distrusting this new arrangement, continued its separate activity for eleven years; but in 1853, the unsectarian character of the public schools of New York having been established beyond question, the society and the board of education were by common consent amalgamated by statute. At the final meeting of the society Peter Cooper delivered the valedictory address, the language of which indicates that not without apprehension did he contemplate the surrender of the public schools to the exclusive control of a body of officials likely to be more or less influenced by partisan or political considerations.

Yet his characteristic common sense came again in this instance to the front. The moral which he drew from his doubts and fears was that "the stewardship we are about to resign is not a reprieve from the responsibilities of the future." And in obedience to this conviction he accepted, with fourteen of his old colleagues, membership in the board of education, of which he served for two years as vice-president, resigning in January, 1855, at which time he had formed and begun to carry out the great plan of an institution for free popular education with which his name is now forever associated.

Many years later Mr. Cooper became the president of the Citizens' Association of New York, which he supported with untiring enthusiasm and lavish expenditure, and which in its day did good work in securing for the city an efficient fire department, boards of health, docks, and education, and an improved charter. Mr. Cooper retired in 1873, and the association died soon after, to be revived in other organizations, which have from time to time continued the perennial battle for good government in New York begun by him.

FOOTNOTE:

A curious survival of this state of things is the Manhattan Company, which secured from the legislature a perpetual charter, so skillfully framed that, although it grants much more extensive powers than could now be obtained by a corporation, it cannot be successfully assailed so long as the fundamental condition is fulfilled,--namely, that the company shall be prepared to furnish water at all times, on demand. It is said that, in compliance with this requirement, a small steam pump is kept continually running, in connection with a short system of pipes, somewhere near the City Hall, and that the company stands ready to furnish water to any applicant--only, the charter does not fix the price which it may exact! So far as I know, the only use now made of the extensive powers granted by this famous charter is the maintenance of the Manhattan Bank. A few years ago, excavations in lower Broadway brought to light bored logs, which were supposed to be relics of the old "Manhattan" system.

THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART

IN many respects the industrial conditions under which Peter Cooper began his career had been revolutionized before he finished it. The apprentice system has well-nigh passed away; and the old freedom with which an intelligent, industrious, and ambitious young man could turn from one occupation to another, seeking that road which offered greatest promise of preferment, is greatly hampered by the modern regime of "organized labor," which, whatever its advantages, presents its own peculiar perils for the workingman. But it remains forever true that under either of these systems, or any others that can be evolved or invented, knowledge is power, and the bestowal of it is the one gift which neither pauperizes the recipient nor injures the community.

As a struggling young apprentice, Peter Cooper regarded with intense sympathy the needs and limitations of the class to which he belonged. But his notion of a remedy was not that of paternal legislation, or belligerent organization, or social reconstruction. To his conception the atmosphere of personal liberty and responsibility furnished by the new democratic republic, offering free scope to individual endeavor and rewarding individual merit, was the best that could be asked.

What he dreamed of doing was simply to assist these social conditions by providing for those who were handicapped by circumstances the means of power and opportunity, to be utilized by their own assiduity. This plan included not only what he then thought to be the most effective system for intellectual improvement, but also provision for such innocent entertainment as would supersede the grosser forms of recreation, which involved the waste of money and health.

Walking up the Bowery Road--then the stage route to Boston, but now a crowded down-town street--he selected in the suburbs of the city the site for his great institution; and, as he accumulated the necessary funds, he bought at intervals lot after lot at the intersection of Third and Fourth Avenues, until he had acquired the entire block, paying for his latest purchases very high prices compared with those he had paid at the beginning. At last he commenced the erection of a six-story fire-proof building of stone, brick, and iron. This work occupied several years, and during its progress a period of great financial distress threatened to interrupt it. But he persisted in the undertaking, at great risk to his private business; and the building was finished at a cost of more than six hundred and thirty thousand dollars. Subsequent gifts from Mr. Cooper, together with the legacy provided by his will, and doubled by his heirs, and still later donations from his family and immediate relatives, make up a total of more than double that amount.

Up to the time when the building was completed Mr. Cooper had taken little advice as to the details of his project. Its outlines in his mind were those which he had conceived a quarter-century before, and though he was doubtless conscious that new social and industrial conditions had intervened which would require some modifications of his plan, he had not formulated such changes.

The classes which he wished especially to reach were those who, being already engaged in earning a living by labor, could scarcely be expected to take regular courses in instruction; and the idea of such instruction appears to have been at the beginning subordinate in his mind. He had a strong impression that young mechanics and apprentices, instead of wasting their time in dissipation, should improve their minds during the intervals of labor; and not unnaturally his first thought as to the means of such improvement turned to those things which had aroused and stimulated his own mind. Probably he did not realize that the mass of men were not like himself, and that something more than mere suggestion or opportunity would be required to develop the mental powers and enlarge the knowledge of the average workingman. However that may be, the original vague design of Mr. Cooper was something like this:--

There was in the city of New York a famous collection of curiosities known as Scudder's Museum. Barnum's Museum afterwards took its place; but that, too, has long since disappeared; and the small so-called museums now scattered through the city but faintly remind old inhabitants of the glories of Scudder's or Barnum's in their prime. These establishments contained all sorts of curiosities, arranged without much reference to scientific use,--wax-works, historical relics, dwarfs, giants, living and stuffed animals, etc. There was also a lecture-room, devoted principally to moral melodrama; and on an upper floor a large room was occupied by the cosmorama,--an exhibition of pictures, usually of noteworthy scenery, foreign cities, etc., which were looked at through round holes, enhancing the effect of their illumination.

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