A Business Trip to Europe

The John Bull

Meanwhile, a month after the railroading engineer George Stephenson ran his famous pioneering locomotive, the "Rocket," on tracks between Manchester and Liverpool, Robert L. Stevens sailed for England to buy a locomotive from the Stephensons and railroad tracks of wrought iron from English mills. While crossing the Atlantic, Stevens pondered designs for the tracks and conceived of the T rail or flange rail which later came into universal use.

In England he bought the locomotive "John Bull" which came to be the first efficient passenger locomotive in the United States. By the spring of 1834, the "John Bull", which now resides in the Smithsonian was running from Perth Amboy to Camden across the Delaware from Philadelphia cutting the travel time from New York to nine hours.

When laying the tracks imported in the holds of many sailing vessels, Robert invented the hook-headed spike. In addition, given the open countryside in America as opposed to the enclosed fields of England, he invented the first cowcatcher which doubled as a guiding mechanism when the "John Bull" was rounding curves.

The growth of the C and A was enormous, both in terms of track and rolling stock and in profits. By 1837 the C and A had 15 locomotives, (nine built in the Stevenses machine shops in Hoboken), and had purchased coal fields in Schuykill County, Pennsylvania. The company had merged with another railroad running from Trenton to Philadelphia on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware and linked up with a new line running from Jersey City to New Brunswick . At that time through service from New York to Philadelphia had been reduced to 5 1/2 hours.

By 1840 the C and A investments were worth million; it owned 8 steamboats, 17 locomotives, 71 passenger and baggage cars and 65 freight cars. By 1869, investments totaled .5 million and 100 trains a day carried 6 million passengers a year.

Monopoly rights meant huge profits. Between 1834 and 1860 dividends were never less than 6 percent and reached as high as 30 percent a result of high fares which were often protested but to no avail. Since an estimated 20 percent of the State of New Jersey's income came from transit duties, in addition to dividends on 1/ 15 of the outstanding C and A stock, the state legislature was not interested in meddling with this lucrative enterprise. Later in the 19th century, the Camden and Amboy was leased for 999 years to Pennsylvania Railroad Company on very favorable terms.

Amassing a huge fortune through these engineering and entrepreneurial feats in the field of transportation, the Stevenses spent their money lavishly on, among other things, yachts. Characteristically, their contributions to yachting were pioneering, and the name of Stevens is deservedly famous in histories of the sport.