Incomplete letter from Samuel Holmes, New Jersey to Robert Young

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Trevithick was a dreamer an experimenter, he produced nothing of a successful nature. He ran a road engine to the coast down hill & she couldn’t return. He was abstract. Stephenson’s productions were abstract. The Royal George was emeriti. She earned profits no other engine up to her advent had done the work of hauling coal wagons cheaper than horses. The S&D shares of stock had run down from £100 year to £50 but after the advent of the Royal George’s success they appreciated to £300 per share. This is a concrete fact.
When the Directors of the Liverpool & Manchester Road went to see Grandfather at Shildon they decided it was useless to go to the collieries and elsewhere as Shildon was head quarters (sic). There was no other place no other effort to compare with its ‘’head quarters’’ was reached and they returned home. Their commission also said Shildon was head quarters where Grandfather ran the different engines for them at the conclusion of which the Royal George did the greatest work at cheapest cost of fuel & ‘’steam was blowing off when the experiment concluded’’. Such a thing was never heard of before. They previously slobbered out came to a standstill until steam was generated again.
At the earliest period Trevithick never developed into a locomotive builder he never got out of the dreaming class. Stephenson was a North of England hustler. He had a keen commercial brain. He could get a contract to build a railroad and put a good fireman on the job. He got the leading directors of S&D interested in his Row of Smiths’ Shops at Newcastle to build locomotives as far as they would go & he followed Timothy
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Hackworth as closely as possible & realising his knowledge he offered him half his interest in the business to act as head of the works. Stephenson was no fool. He was a very clever man, but he was not an Engineer or Inventor & he had no mechanical genius. This is all made plain & thoroughly thrashed out.
I never heard of Tomlinson. Who is he? & what is he? I suppose he is a writer who the North Eastern use. His assertions we will knock and use. There are many like him with a little knowledge they think or assume to know it all.
I know the name of Bainbridge very well. I was at Wesley College in 1855 with a Bainbridge. I think my old friend Jacob Vickers was a cousin of a Bainbridge. Our family knew the Bainbridge family well. How this Mr. Bainbridge comes in I do not know.
I was born in 1845. I was taken to Shildon in 1847 to my grandfathers house “Soho Cottage”. I was there until I was eight years of age. I went then to Hallowell House Aunt Pru’s Farm at Heighington a mile or two away. I was about five years old when grandfather died. I remember him very distinctly. He used to dance about with me. I also used to be in the dining room when business men were present & --- grandfather Uncle John & the others were talking business. I never had any fear of any one & was never shy. Grandfather had his horse & gig. I had a black pony. I remember the works as well I can sketch them. I even remember the placing of the tools. I used to work in the erecting shop. A bench went around it & I stood on a box & filed hexagon nuts, taking a chamfer off them. At the end of the week I stood up with the men at the Pay Office window. I put in a time board each day. When Sanspareil No 2 came out of the Erecting Shop with steam up I was on her. There was a pulley in the rail in which the driving wheels could rest & ……… without the engine going ahead. I was at grandfathers Funeral Service.
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I remember a man calling out to some boys in a tree beside the fire not to hurt the tree. I was great friends with Uncle Tim. He was quite a sportsman (.) A couple of setters were named Sam & Ben, of course after myself and my father. Uncle John had a house at Old Shildon near the Railway which went up from Soho that is it passed close by Soho Cottage. I used to sprag the wagons as they came down. One day I got at the wrong side of the sprag & was thrown into the ditch. I might have been thrown under the engine & under the wheels but I learned my lesson. I always spragged after that the spoke that was nearly up & not at the side coming down for the sprag would come around & throw me as it did once. You see I was brought up jumping on & off engines & locomotives.
The order of the works buildings was from the upper end the coke drying ovens then the Foundry with two cupolas then the machine shop then the blacksmiths shop. Separate from these buildings was the new erecting shop. It stood alone & was opposite a row of workmens cottages which continued above Soho Cottage and formed a street. Soho Cottage was enclosed with a garden in front and yard behind. The garden ran beside the railway. The lane off the the other side went up to Shildon with a triangular field between it & Soho. This ran up to a right angled walk which went to Old Shildon through the fields & across the railway, all of which is shown in the plan of the estate a copy of which
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you doubtless have as I sent Sam ‘’sic’’ several and should go in the book. I told you I have an elaborate parchment engrossed mortgage of the property when it was bought from Col. Stobart the original owner. Of course the mortgage document was returned when the mortgage price was met. When I was nine I went to Wesley College 1855 and I left 1861 and went to Sheffield at North Shore Shipyard Stretton on Tees (Msr Pease and Co) near Sir Robert Ropner & son miners. I served a five year apprenticeship in the Drawing Office & ship yard and remained five years longer as Chief Draughtsman etc. I then contracted to build an iron road for the Canadian Government and went to Quebec to fulfil my contract. This was about 1870-1871. I then went to Philadelphia and got up the plans & prospectus & models & calculations of the first American Line of Steamers for the Pennsylvania RR & afterwards took the management of Neafie & Levy’s shipyard at Phila. where I remained until January 1st 1875 when I started my own yard and engine works the New York & Philadelphia Engineering & Iron Ship Building Co intending to do a business like Thornycroft & Co for torpedo boats tugs & steam yachts which was the only suitable business in a ship building line in America at the time. I afterwards took my yards and formed Baird Heston & Co. Baird was a son in law of Chris J Parry of the firm of Burnham Parry Williams & Co. the Baldwin’s locomotive works Phila. The Northern Pacific RR Co bust up in 1873 when Jay Cook & Co failed for 40,000,000 dollars which led me to suppose by 1875 things would begin to straighten out but they continued getting worse so by 1879 we closed up & I came to New York & started as a consulting ship builders & brokers for the sale & charter of steamships & ship owners. This time I made a success & remained in business 36 years when I retired in 1916 two years ago. I had a great experience. I have had much hard work & many trials but final success.
Gertrude & I made our Wills last year. We each leave all we have to the other when one dies then the estate is equally divided. She leaves her half to whoever she pleases
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I leave my half to erect a monument to Timothy Hackworth my worthy grandfather. The monument is to be a copy of the obelisk known as the Washington Monument at Washington. It is 555 ft high a plain obelisk. I hope the Shildon people will give the land to place it. Any other subscriptions can be added but if not & should there not be enough to complete it the principal must remain until the dividends meet the whole cost is possible. I name The Farmers Line & Trust Company as Trustees they have an office in London.
This is my story & I do so much wish to see you & talk all matters over for I am sure we shall be very near & dear to each other. I shall be 73 on the 9th of November.
The war will end all right . ‘’Total Unconditional surrender’’. Devils Island for the Emperor if some of his people don’t kill him.
I am interested in the boys. I remember the Baffs being mentioned in the Life of Captain Vickers (97 Reg.) when he pitied them when they relieved his Regiment at Piraeus when they moved to the Crimea during the Crimean War. It is an old Regiment.
Gertrude joins me in love to you all. Yours affectionately Samuel Holmes I enjoy your letters. over
Postscript.
Sept 9th I omitted to say uncle John was the best informed man in England upon the Railway Question. He grew up in it, was part of it. He had a clear mind, splendid memory, and knew every detail of the growth of the locomotive and the development of the Railway System. He took the Russian Engine to St. Petersburg Russia & set it to work. As it was in winter he had a starvation time going in a sleigh through Germany or from the nearest Port, of course the Neva was frozen. It might be Danzie. He did the work however which shows how early he got into work with Grandfather for the Russian Empire (the first ever in Russia) was sent in 1836. Stand by whatever he has said or written upon this loco subject. He knew better than any other man in the kingdom or the world. I did not answer your reference to the Dillies. They were Timothy’s Dillies. Timothy Hackworth was Foreman Smith at the colliery under Hedley who was Viewer. Naturally Timothy Hackworth the Foreman Smith which was the same as engineer today was the man to handle such work. There is no room to discuss such a plain fact. It was his department. Attempts at locomotive building had been going on as recorded but no effective result had been arrived at. The neighbourhood naturally named them “Timothys Dillies” a sure thing and a claim by Hedley was a likely thing after the locomotive was made and success on the S&D by ‘’ The Royal George’’ & the engines that quickly followed. Those many men who had attempted any locomotive building jumped in to show how they had advanced the engines. Here is where Pangborn’s panegyric comes in “Hackworth’s Genius” etc. as written earlier in this letter. The question is settled by the man. His talent. His training. He was a smith, an accomplished, practiced working engineer. There were no tools, everything was off the anvil. Why support this argument Ericsson couldn’t mend his own broken engine “Novelty” at the Rainhill Race. Grandfather took off his coat and welded the job up for him. None of them were practical men. Stephenson wasn’t. He had been a starter and stopper with a colliery engine hoisting engine, but Hackworth was an expert a high-class Smith who could forge anything required with ingenuity, brain & the inventive faculty. His list of inventions proves all this, none of the others can refer to such a list & to such a training. This is the analysis of the men engaged in claiming the loco as their own. This wants to be hammered into the pages of The Life hammered not because it was the cause of Hackworth being successful over all others. This also answers the traction argument Grandfather naturally built the inclines.

NB Samuel Holmes (1845 – 1920) and Robert Young (1860 – 1932) were first cousins and grandsons of Timothy Hackworth.