Construction and Initial Use
The John Bull was built in Newcastle, England, by Robert Stephenson and Company for the Camden and Amboy Railroad (C&A), the first railroad built in New Jersey. It was dismantled and then shipped across the Atlantic Ocean in crates aboard the Allegheny. C&A engineer Isaac Dripps reconstructed the locomotive to the best of his ability (the shipment did not include any drawings or instructions to assemble the locomotive) and ran it for the first time in September 1831. On November 12, 1831, Robert Stevens (then president of the C&A) repaid some political debts by inviting several members of the New Jersey legislature and some local dignitaries, including Napoleon's nephew Prince Murat, for rides behind the newly delivered locomotive over a short test track. The prince's wife, Catherine Willis Gray, made a point of hurrying onto the train so she could be declared the first woman to ride a steam-powered train in America.
Until the railroad construction was completed, the locomotive was placed in storage; horse-drawn cars served the construction efforts until 1833. The C&A applied both numbers and names to their first locomotives, giving this engine the number 1 and officially naming it Stevens (after the C&A's first president, Robert L. Stevens). However, through regular use of the engine, crews began calling it the old John Bull, a reference to the cartoon personification of England, John Bull. Eventually the informal name was shortened to John Bull and this name was much more widely used until the Stevens name fell out of use in favor of John Bull.
In September 1836 the John Bull and two coaches were shipped by canal to Harrisburg, and became the first locomotive to operate there.
Read more about this topic: John Bull (locomotive)
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