Am boy Railroad, and afterward
superintendent of motive power of the Pennsylvania Railroad, who is
now, after a busy life, enjoying a peaceable retirement at his
pleasant home in West Philadelphia.

Mr. Dripps, who is now in the eighty-second year of his age, was
employed by Robert and Edwin Stevens in repairing and assisting with
their steamboats on the Delaware River and at Hoboken as early as
1829. When the "John Bull" arrived in Philadelphia he was detailed by
Robert Stevens to attend to the transportation of the engine to
Bordentown, where it was landed safely the last week in August, 1831.

The boiler and cylinders were in place, but the loose parts--rods,
pistons, valves, etc.--were packed in boxes. No drawings or directions
for putting the engine together had come to hand, and young Dripps,
who had never seen a locomotive, found great difficulty in discovering
how to put the parts in place, alone and unassisted, as Robert
Stevens, who had returned from Europe, was absent at Hoboken at the
time attending to other matters.

DIMENSIONS OF ENGINE AND PARTS.

The bronze bass-relief upon the monument, made from the working
drawing furnished by Mr. Dripps, is an exact representation of the
locomotive when it arrived in America.

The engine originally weighed about ten tons. The boiler was thirteen
feet long and three feet six inches in diameter. The cylinders were
nine inches by twenty inches. There were four driving wheels, four
feet six inches in diameter, arranged with outside cranks for
connecting parallel rods, but owing to the sharp curves on the road
these rods were never used. The driving wheels were made with cast
iron hubs and wooden (locust) spokes and felloes. The tires were of
wrought iron, three quarters of an inch thick, the tread being five
inches and the depth of flange one and a half inches. The gauge was
originally five feet from center to center of rails. The boiler was
composed of sixty-two flues seven feet six inches long, two inches in
diameter; the furnace was three feet seven inches long and three feet
two inches high, for burning wood. The steam ports were one and
one-eighth inches by six and a half inches; the exhaust ports one and
one-eighth by six and a half inches; grate surface, ten feet eight
inches; fire box surface, thirty-six feet; flue surface, two hundred
and thirteen feet; weight, without fuel or water, twenty-two thousand
four hundred and twenty-five pounds.

After the