Electromagnetically Powered Locomotive

Thomas Davenport was a Vermont blacksmith. He was born in Williamstown, Vermont on July 9, 1802, the eighth of 12 children, to Thomas Sr and Mary Davenport, who were poor farmers. At 14, he began a seven-year apprenticeship with a local blacksmith. In return for his work, Thomas learned the trade and was given six weeks each winter to attend school. He lived much of his life in Forest Dale, a small village in the town of Brandon.

Though he had humble beginnings, he went on to do great, but somehow long forgotten things. As early as 1834, he and his wife, Emily (nee Goss) Davenport developed a battery-powered electric motor. They used it to run a small model car on a short track, setting the stage for the later electrification of streetcars. It was the first attempt to apply electricity to locomotion. In 1833, Davenport visited the Penfield and Taft iron works in Crown Point, New York, where an electromagnet based on Joseph Henry’s design was in operation. Inspired by what he saw, he bought one from the factory and dismantled it to understand its workings. He then crafted a better iron core and rewired it, using strips of silk from his wife’s >wedding gown. Now, all I can say is that his wife must have really loved him, or she was as crazy as he must have been, because most women would not appreciate having their wedding gown cut up to be used as insulation for wiring. Nevertheless, she is listed as a contributor to the project. I don’t know if that means scientifically, or if it was to appease her for allowing the dress to be cut up.

In 1837, Davenport, along with his wife Emily and colleague Orange Smalley, received the first American patent for an electric machine, US Patent Number 132. Just a few years later, in 1840, he published The Electro-Magnetic and Mechanics Intelligencer, the first magazine ever printed using electricity.

In 1849, Charles Grafton Page, the Washington scientist and inventor, commenced a project to build an electromagnetically powered locomotive, with substantial funds appropriated by the US Senate. Davenport challenged the expenditure of public funds, arguing for the motors he had already invented. Page defused that objection by publishing a statement about his unique device. In 1851, Page’s full sized electromagnetically operated locomotive was put to a technical test on the rail line between Washington and Baltimore. The project hit more snags. Low on funds, Page asked for more money. In the summer of 1850, Benton told the Senate that Page had achieved a force ten times greater than his early battery tests. Benton then pushed for funding to let Page build an electromagnetically powered warship. This request met strong resistance. Senator Henry Stuart Foote argued Page hadn’t shown real progress or benefits, while Senator Jefferson Finis Davis opposed giving government money to one inventor when others, like Thomas Davenport, got nothing. Both the Senate and House denied further funding. To get the locomotive ready for its 1851 trial, Page went over $6,000 into debt. After the trial failed publicly, the press was harsh, and with no financial backing, Page was left in dire straits both financially and emotionally…leaving Thomas Davenport as the real sole inventor of the successful electromagnetically powered locomotive, and yet it is Page who is recognized for that invention.