[Steam Engines]: [Brown, William Henry, artist]:

$850 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

THE FIRST STEAM RAILROAD PASSENGER EXCURSION TRAIN IN AMERICA. A scarce and unusual lithograph published by the Antique Publishing Company in Boston, mistakenly celebrating the fortieth anniversary of the "first Steam Railroad Passenger Excursion Train in America." The print, which features a large image of an early steam train after a silhouette by noted artist William Henry Brown, claims that the English engine "John Bull" was run by the Mowhawk & Hudson Railroad Company as the first steam passenger train in 1831, with fifteen passengers in two coaches. The story told by the print, cited by numerous books and articles over the years, is in fact almost entirely wrong: the Mohawk & Hudson ran one of the earliest steam railroad passenger excursions, but not the first. Their engine was named the "DeWitt Clinton," which is clearly the engine pictured in the lithograph - not the famous English steam train. The train had six carriages and carried close to eighty passengers on its first voyage. The DeWitt Clinton took passengers from Albany to Schenectady, bypassing the lengthy process of navigating the locks through the Erie Canal. The original artist, William H. Brown, was a railroad employee and history buff himself, and wrote a brief paper about the mistaken print that was discussed by the American Institute in 1873:"The train consisted of six passenger cars; only the two first were represented in Mr. Brown's picture, which was cut out of black paper with a pair of scissors, a

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