Lexington Public Library, in 1871.

"Mr. Thomas Harris Barlow was born in Nicholas County, Kentucky, (says
his son, Milton, in a letter to me) August 5th, 1789, and resided in the
State of his birth till the last year or two of his life and died in
Cincinnati June, 1865."

I shall condense Mr. Milton Barlow's short biography of his father,
which states that he had but a common school education. He was an
industrious and even a hard working student of mechanism for which he
had a wonderful natural gift, and which induced Col. R. M. Johnson to
appoint him principal Military Artificer in his Regiment. He was under
fire in the Battle of the Thames (1812) where he distinguished himself
for coolness and bravery. After his intermarriage with Miss Lizzie West
he turned his attention to erecting flour, saw and other mills and
building and overseeing their steam motive power. In 1825 he removed to
Lexington and opened a machine shop.

"I remember myself all which followed and give my own recollections.

Believing that Locomotives could be propelled at a greater velocity Mr.
Barlow and Mr. Joseph Bruen, another mechanical genius, built an engine
to run on the new Rail Road, just started from this place towards
Frankfort, the finished portion of the road extending then but five
miles from this City, and on which Sunday pleasure Cars were running
drawn by two horses.

The Steam Engine was an odd concern; not more than three or four feet
high wheels, boiler and all; the pistons working perpendicularly; two
cylinders _and a tongue in front to guide the steam wagon with the
necessary pilot wheel with its tiller ropes_. I never knew what became
of the engine but I have placed all that is left of the model in the
Museum of the Eastern Kentucky Lunatic Asylum along with the remnant of
Edward West's model steam engine for boats. Mr. Barlow and Mr. Bruen
also built another small steam engine which ran on a miniature oval Rail
Road, in the large room, third story of the factory, corner of Water and
Rose Streets, drawing after it a miniature car large enough to hold one
grown person or two children. I paid my 25 cents for a ride on it.
The novelty of the occasion brought multitudes of citizens, male and
female, to see it and as Mr. Barlow quaintly and truthfully observes,
'each of the visitors had to pay a small sum for the pleasure of riding
on land by steam.' I give the following remark of Mr. Barlow, Jr., just
as he used it without s