y 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 (as a typical
enthusiast would have done) 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:[4]--

"I came back to New York for a little bit of a brass engine of
mine--about one horse power (it had a 3 1/2 in. cylinder and 14 in.
stroke)--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!