John B. Jervis
American civil engineer
1802 CE to 1878 CE
John Bloomfield Jervis (December 14, 1795 – January 12, 1885) was an American civil engineer.
He is America's leading consulting engineer of the antebellum era (1820 – 1860).
Jervis is a pioneer in the development of canals and railroads for the expanding United States.
He designs and supervises the construction of five of America's earliest railroads, is chief engineer of three major canal projects, designs the first locomotive to run in America, designs and builds the forty-one mile Croton Aqueduct – New York City's fresh water supply from 1842 to 1891 – and is a consulting engineer for the Boston water system.
Working as chief engineer for the Delaware and Hudson Canal and Railroad, he designs the Stourbridge Lion, as well as the first steam locomotives with a leading bogie that become the 4-2-0 locomotive type.
The 4-2-0 type is called Jervis in his honor.
Jervis authors a book on economics, The Question of Labor and Capital (1877), helps found the Rome Iron Mills in upstate New York industry, and is the founder of the Rome, New York public library.
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U. S. railways, hobbled by limited manufacturing capability, begin importing English steam locomotives, one of the first being the “Stourbridge Lion” imported by the Delaware and Hudson Railroad.
The Stourbridge Lion, which has earned the name Lion from the picture of a lion's face that had been painted on the front of the locomotive by its builder, is not only the first locomotive to be operated in the United States, it is also one of the first locomotives to operate outside of England, where it had been manufactured in 1828.
Assembled after shipment at the West Point Foundry in New York where it is first tested under steam in 1829, its first official run takes place on August 8 of this year in Honesdale, Pennsylvania.
The locomotive performs admirably, but the track that is built on which to run it is insufficient for the task.
John B. Jervis, who will later become the designer of the 4-2-0 (the Jervis type) locomotive, had in 1827 been named the D & H's chief engineer, Jervis had specified that the locomotives should weigh no more than 4 tons; the Stourbridge Lion weighs nearly double that, 7.5 tons.