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164:" after the company's president, was in the lead with the mayor and other dignitaries. He had modeled it after the English four-wheeled passenger railroad car but dropped the body down over the wheels for easier access. Four horses pulled the car and it carried up to 30 passengers in its three compartments. It was Stephenson's design which was finally adopted. In April 1833, he obtained a U.S. patent for it.
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Undeterred, Stephenson found a new site on West 27th Street, where in 1843 he started to develop a business which eventually covered 16 city lots. Streetcars continued to gain popularity, allowing
Stephenson to prosper for the remainder of his life. It was not long before he had fully reimbursed all
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and 129th Street. At first business prospered and he received an increasing number of orders, especially for railway cars. He was doing good business when the panic of 1837 struck the country, causing him years of distress as the bonds he had accepted in lieu of cash for orders became worthless. In
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As time went by, Stephenson introduced a number of improvements to his streetcars. Perhaps the most important was to reduce the weight from 6,800 pounds to just 3,500 pounds, allowing just two rather than four horses to pull the vehicle. He achieved this by using hickory or ash instead of oak and
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John
Stephenson emigrated to the United States from Ireland with his parents, James and Grace Stephenson, when he was two years old. After attending public schools in New York City, he completed his education at the
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after the president of the railroad company, started the public service. Stephenson is therefore remembered as the creator of the tramway. Stephenson was the great-grandfather of
209:. For many years, he was the world's largest builder of streetcars. By the time of his death in 1893, his factory had 500 employees and was producing some 25 cars a week.
193:. From 1852 he put all his efforts into building streetcars of various types as their popularity extended to cities throughout the world including, for example,
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adding larger windows rather than wood. He placed seats along the sides of the vehicle and used a single rear entrance rather than doors along the side.
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He also devised many other improvements in rail car design and was successful in filing at least 11 patents in his own name. It is estimated that the
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1842, his business finally failed and he lost all his property. He was only able to pay his creditors 50 cents on the dollar.
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for Brower until a fire destroyed his shop in March 1832. He immediately moved to a new site on
Elizabeth Street near
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on
November 26, 1832, with a procession of the four cars developed for the company. Stephenson's car, named "
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Wheels across
America: a pictorial cavalcade illustrating the early development of vehicular transportation
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made some 25,000 cars in the period 1876–1891 alone and an untold number over the life of the company.
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Horsecars, cable cars, and omnibuses: all 107 photographs from the John
Stephenson Company album, 1888
88:. At the age of 19, he became an apprentice to Abram Brower, the pioneer of the Broadway stage lines.
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where he continued to build omnibuses which proved to be a huge success on the streets of New York.
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Orders for his design came in not only received from New York and other U.S. cities but also from
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Lance Day, Ian McNeil: Biographical
Dictionary of the History of Technology from Google Books
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Wonders and curiosities of the railway; or, Stories of the locomotive in every land
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developed his eight-wheeled vehicles. Stephenson built a larger factory at
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Clay McShane, Joel Arthur Tarr: The Horse in the City. From Google Books.
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DEATH OF JOHN STEPHENSON; THE BUILDER OF STREET CARS PASSES AWAY SUDDENLY
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which was formally opened on 26 November 1832. Twelve days later a
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to run on rails in the United States. Stephenson also designed the
47:, N.Y.), an American coachbuilder, invented and patented the first
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This article is about the person. For the company he founded, see
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134:, a successful merchant and banker, to build a horse car for the
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John
Prentice: Tramway Origins and Pioneers from TramwayInfo.com
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The horse in the city: living machines in the nineteenth century
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which had just been granted a charter authorizing a route from
268:. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007, 242p.
282:. New York: Dover Publications, 1974, 54 leaves of plates.
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The street surface railway franchises of New York City
176:. In 1836, business prospered even more rapidly after
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In May 1831, Stephenson started his own business, the
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233:. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 1383p,
400:Streetcars - Cable Cars from About.com Inventors.
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438:. From Google Books. Retrieved 27 February 2009.
345:Death of John Stephenson from the New York Times
261:. Chicago, S.C. Griggs and Company, 1884, 254p.
150:. The first stretch was opened from Prince to
436:Biographical Dictionary of American Business
247:. New York, Columbia University; 1919, 259p.
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231:Gotham: a history of New York City to 1898
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69:United States Secretary of Transportation
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483:Eastern Province Herald, June 18, 1880.
517:American railroad mechanical engineers
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91:Stephenson died at his summer home in
59:built at Stephenson's works and named
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557:19th-century American businesspeople
547:Irish emigrants to the United States
254:. New York, A.S. Barnes, 1959, 341p.
300:The American Railroad Passenger Car
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472:Fred. Dietz: A Leaf from the Past.
229:Burrows, Edwin G.; Wallace, Mike,
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264:McShane, Clay; Tarr, Joel A:
136:New York and Harlem Railroad
53:New York and Harlem Railroad
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474:Retrieved 27 February 2009.
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460:The John Stephenson Car Co.
450:Retrieved 27 February 2009.
402:Retrieved 25 February 2009.
250:Hornung, Clarence Pearson:
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532:Wesleyan University alumni
522:American railroad pioneers
412:The John Stephenson Car Co
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552:People from County Armagh
257:Kennedy, William Sloane:
364:The Time of the Trolley
218:John Stephenson Company
113:John Stephenson Company
86:Middletown, Connecticut
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191:Honest John Stephenson
168:Failures and successes
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332:References
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157:John Mason
132:John Mason
61:John Mason
115:, on 667
95:in 1893.
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
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