Joseph Harrison Jr. 1810-1874 - Mechanic, Engineer and Entrepreneur
A lot of info on the early days of locomotives in Philly, U.S. and globally from the following book available on the Hathitrust archive below. The locomotive engine, and Philadelphia's share of its early improvements - by Joseph Harrison Jr., 1872
Book pointed out to me by John Rowe after he posted photos of the long lost Joseph Harrison Jr. mansion in Torresdale, torn down around 1901 to build the Torresdale water treatment plant for the city.
The mansion was a Summer Palace of sorts, a Russian style Dacha fit for a Russian nobleman and sitting on the river front, must have been a sight in its day. A real Xanadu on the Delaware, something out of Doctor Zhivago. The summer house to offset the equally humble townhouse in the St. Petersburg Russia style on Rittenhouse Square.
That Joseph Harrison Jr. was a Philly born and trained mechanic and engineer who came of age in the cutting tech age of steam locomotion in the 1830s. That he and his company manufactured steam locomotives here, was a player in those early days of the steam engine, improving itself every six months or so with new engineering applied as with several of his cutting edge patents. It was in 1843 that he got a series of contracts with the Czar of all the Russias to design, build and maintain all rolling stock between St. Petersburg and Moscow - all freight engines and cars - all passenger engines and passenger cars on an already built railway bed, built by an American engineer. Sold one of his important American patents to Baldwin before leaving that put Baldwin on the right track to becoming one of the premier locomotive producers on the planet.
Before living in Russia for almost twenty years 1843-1862 on various contracts and probably for astronomical fees and bonuses running an equivalent or better of a Baldwin Locomotive in the what I presume was a state owned industry - production and repair shops outside of St. Petersburg.
Back in Philly - with his Russian sourced wealth he built his town house and summer house and then - Phillypreneur Harrison operated a Safety Boiler Factory in Gray's Ferry, adjoining the U.S. Arsenal. Not the same Harrison family as the Chemical factory there that I can determine btw.
