Does anybody recognize this locomotive? (Shay)

CarterB wrote:Unless I'm blind, I don't see any pistons, piston rods or main rods on this 'thing'???

It's inside connected; you can just see the tops of the front cylinder heads between the lead truck wheels.

There was a Jacob Forster who was a director of the Fitchburg (MA) Railroad 1851-56 and also a director of the Peterboro and Shirley Railroad. In 1844 and 1853, he is referenced as President of the Fithchburg Railroad. (As a side note, he began the toothpick industry which became Forster Manufacturing Co. in Maine.)
"Jacob Forster, the younger, was in early life a partner
with George Thompson, under the style of Forster &
Thompson. They were commission merchants, having
their place of business on Long Wharf, Boston, where
Mr. Forster continued for many years after the dissolu-
tion of the firm. He was much interested in railroads,
and had a good deal to do with the building and direction
of the Fitchburg, Cheshire, Vermont and Massachusetts,
and that line of roads. He was president of the Fitch-
burg road for some years"
"The Fitchburg Railroad is a former railroad company, which built a railroad line across northern Massachusetts, USA, leading to and through the Hoosac Tunnel. The Fitchburg was leased to the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1900."
"The Fitchburg Railroad was incorporated March 3, 1842 to run from Boston to Fitchburg, and bought land next to the Charlestown Branch in May 1843. Construction began on May 20, and the first section to Waltham opened on December 20, 1843, operated by the Charlestown Branch until May 1, 1844. Further sections opened to Concord June 17, 1844, Acton October 1, 1844, Shirley December 30, 1844 and Fitchburg March 5, 1845. The new track next to the Charlestown Branch opened in August 1844; the Fitchburg Railroad leased the Charlestown Branch itself on September 1, 1845, and outright bought the branch on January 31, 1846. In 1848 a new bridge opened, carrying the line from Charlestown to downtown Boston."

Very similar photos of Fitchburg Railroad Loco #9 http://www.nyysa.com/archive/images/1/1/1561-0.jpg
http://www.nyysa.com/archive/images/1/1/1678-0.jpg

And almost identical Fitchburg Railroad Steam Locomotive #16 "Gardner" in 1880
http://www.nyysa.com/archive/images/1/1/1680-0.jpg

Fitchburg #23 Noted as "Hinckley & Drury 1854 " http://www.nyysa.com/archive/images/1/1/1671-0.jpg Hinckley and Drury was the Boston Locomotive Works who also built steam fire engines. see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinkley_Locomotive_Works A Boston, MA company that produced over 600 engines before being closed down by the Panic of 1857.

Fitchburg #17 "Charlestown" http://www.nyysa.com/archive/images/1/1/1679-0.jpg (built 12/1848)

Note: These all seem to be "inside connected" models, thus you don't see a main rod

This must be an inside cylinder locomotive? Not usual for North America.

EDIT: Someone beat me to it.

i know almost nothing on trains.that said i do know about photographs.the pictures provided and info i thank you for..some of the pictures had dates 1854(sm felton), and (charlston photo)1848.
i think they were dates. the problem is the drawing on the wikopedia link had a date.1881.as date of manufacture.

"""""* Shaw's four cylinder balanced engine describing a unique Hinkley product of 1881."""""1881. SHAW'S FOUR-CYLINDER BALANCED ENGINE
THE Hinkley Locomotive Works in 1881 built a locomotive called the H. F. Shaw which had four cylinders and which was publicized as being entirely free from the pounding and oscillating action of two-cylindered engines. As Sinclair describes it:

the drawing with the date has the same type locomotive as the other jpg pix provided by carter b.
my estimate on all the pictures provided were of the 1881 era by the type of media they were printed on and the date on the shaws 4 cylinder.and the facts of the known dates of when these types of photographs were produced.the 1854 and 1848 printed on the picture s must be wrong...in 1848 there were only daguerreotypes produced and im sure of that .and the size of 16x20 for the picture size again points to a real date of the 1880's.as for the one dated 1854 , ambrotypes were invented that year .but these are not copys of ambrotypes.maybe they are not dates but im bringing this to the attention of the train people ,for feeback on weather these were dates or not..if they are dates they are far off and what i say can be proved very easy.


another thing i noticed is that the daguerreotype of the train (pix i provided )seems alot more primitive, and why is there the big name of jacob forster on it in big letters and above that in smaller text says _ _ _ _ locomotive works . and a number under that..i say this because in all the pix provided there was no name on any of them i could see..so were the earlier trains named in the big letters and later trains of the 1880's not named with big letters.???. a few had numbers and one had initials on the part of the train being pulled by the locomotive,
of note on the pix i provided was the 3 stars on the front part of the train 's " face"..
thank you for all the help . i look forward to ideas on what i have said.. daguerreotypes of trains are very rare so. so pictured info on them is rare and to id a train with printed material must be hard at best.

joli68:

To answer some of your questions. Many early (and even more recent) locomotives (not the train itself, which may have also had a name and/or a number) were named as well as numbered.
Sometimes named after Railroad officials, or locations (i.e. "Jacob Forster", "The Best Friend of Charleston" or the "Tom Thumb") Usually, but not always, the name was on each side of the cab.

Most railroads would put either their railroad name or initials on the tender (i.e. "Fitchburg Railroad" or "FRR".

Locomotive builders most often put a "builders plate" usually on the front side/s of the boiler or smoke box. (i.e. Hinckley 1881) (see: http://www.nyysa.com/archive/images/1/1/1683-0.jpg on smoke box side below smoke stack) Earlier builders may have 'put their name' on the locomotive in a different manner or location.

I don't have your original photo, but the 'three stars' on the front may well have been their way of numbering "Locomotive #3"
Usually the locomotives would have their number on a plate dead center on the front of the smoke box,(see http://www.nyysa.com/archive/images/1/1/1669-0.jpg ) and then again painted or numbered somewhere on the sides. Later locos had lighted number signs on left and right at or near the front, on the sides of the headlight or by the smoke stack.

i dont know exactly how these replies are not with my reposted listing including pictures i posted directly to this site.thank you for the 2 replies with lots of info.to reply to the last [post yes i am aware of how the later ones had initials or a number on the front, as for a makers plack i could see none on the cica 1880 ones ,provided in the links to pictures from the first person to reply...what i found odd .was that i see no replies using internet explorer but i put on fire fox and did another search and it got me to these replies i didnt know i had...i posted 3 pix on my other "id this locomotive"

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 13&t=67436

copy n past this link to another area of this site ..there is 3 real nice pictures and a good enlargement of the whole train,,i look forward to a reply after you guys see my train(locomotive)...and as for those dates if they are dates they must be wrong as i can see no difference from the engraving of the one dated as made in 1881.and the media they or on is all wrong..my wife workes on the trains now so i do know a bit and the pictures of the fisgurge train provided is the train rout she is on now..i thought that was nice..thank you..PLEASE SEE THE PIX WITH THE LINK ABOVE OR MAYBE SEARCH. IM SURE YOU WILL LIKE THE HISTORIC PICTURES..THANX BILL PS SILLY ME ILL TRY TO UPLOAD TO THIS THREAD THE PIX..I WAS ABLE TO POST THE HUGE ENLARGEMENT TO THE LINK ON THE OTHER PAGE BUT FOR A unknown reason it says its to big for this page so still try to see the big pix of the whole train and im still trying to figure out what the first word is before "locomotive works" in the pix

this is a smaller pix

I've been looking at your builders embossing on the loco every which way - two eyes, one, cross-eyed, upside down. I'm inclined to think that it's the Boston Locomotive Works, in operation from 1848 through 1859, when they went bankrupt in spite of their reliable reputation. They later became the Hinkley Locomotive Works. I think that the reflected light may be playing tricks on the first and last letter of the word "Boston". They produced quite a few locomotives which wound up in New England, which would also fit in with CarterB's information that Jacob Forster was a railroad official up in the Fitchburg area. I agree with him that this is probably a Fitchburg Railroad locomotive as it seems unlikely that a successor company would retain another railroad's official's commemorative plate on a locomotive that they now owned.

MOST THANX YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT ,AND THANX TO ALL THE HELP. OTHER THAN THE LAST LETTER.I WILL CONTINUE TO TRY TO ENHANCE IT IF I GET A BETTER PIX ILL POST IT.I TRIED FILTERS, CONTRASTS ,EXPOSURE...ALSO THE PIX I POSTED HAS BEEN CORRECTED TO SEE THE TEXT NOT REVERSED.I ADD THIS NEXT PIX FOR HISTORY SO TO SPEAK.THE FITCHBURG STATION MUST STILL BE SIMILAR AS MY WIFE STATED WHERE IT WAS RIGHT AWAY AFTER SEEING THE PIX.

Referring to the original question, and further ponderings of locale and time period:

The folks referred to on back of photograph are found in Garrett county MD, Simeon Grove being age 27 in 1900, Fannie a couple of years older. Phillip was born about 1883, but haven't found him til 1910, a fireman for the lumber mill (I assume on a stationary boiler). I would take the bit about Phil being left on a doorstep with a grain of salt, although he seemed to be the only Duckworth unable to relate where his parents were born. Given the morals of the time, much taller tales abound in relationship to out-of-wedlock births. Phillip's blood relationship was possibly closer to the Duckworth family than anyone was willing to admit.

At any rate, the Grove(s)' and Duckworths profusely populated Allegany & Garrett counties MD for many years and your photo evidently dates sometime in the first couple of decades of the 20th century.

BTW, the other loco discussed here does have that trademark look that Hinckley put on his engines of the time. It's very logical that it was built by Boston. Most of the other referenced photos, although being early locos, represent many rebuildings and modernizations and, as elsewhere pointed out, were photographed much later. But aren't those that are nearly original some real gems? Rare shots indeed.