JOSEPH HARRISON, JR., PHILADELPHIA.

525

Philadelphia, Mr. Eastwick, and Thomas Winans of Baltimore, concluded a contract with the Russian Government, amounting to three millions of dollars, to be completed in five years. It was a condition that this work was all to be done at St. Petersburg, by Russian mechanics, or such as could be found on the spot.

With workmen entirely unacquainted with the work to be done, and without knowing the language, or the peculiar manner of doing business in a foreign land, Messrs. Harrison, Winans & Eastwick, the new firm established in St. Petersburg, set about the difficult, and to almost every one but themselves, the impossible task of complying with the terms of their contract.

Commencing the business in the straightforward manner they had pursued at home, they asked only not to be hindered, and so well were their plans arranged and carried out, that all the work contracted for was completed, to the entire satisfaction of the Russian Government, and paid for, more than one year before the term of the contract had expired. During the progress of this work, other orders, amounting to nearly two millions of dollars, were added to the original amount, including the completion of the great cast-iron bridge over the river Neva, at St. Petersburg, the largest and most costly structure of the kind in existence, to finish which one year was added to the original term.

Before the close of the first contract, a second one was made for a period of twelve years, for maintaining the Locomotives and rolling stock of the St. Petersburg and Moscow Railway-the parties to the contract being Joseph Harrison, Jr., Thomas Winans, and William L. Winans. This second contract was carried on and finished to the satisfaction of both parties thereto, in 1862. During that year, a contract was concluded with a French company for maintaining the rolling stock of the St. Petersburg and Moscow Railway. This company commenced their work with the machinery in such perfect order as was not perhaps to be found on any railroad of similar length in the world. From this perfection, with all the workshops, tools, and other arrangements ready to their hands, which their predecessors had been twelve years in bringing to completeness, the rolling stock of the road was so much run down in three years as to compel an abrupt termination of the contract by the Government, and a new contract was made, in 1865, with Mr. Thomas Winans and William L. Winans, who were then in Europe, for another term of eight years. It will be thus seen that American reputation in railway mechanical engineering, first began in Philadelphia by Mr. Harrison and his partner, in their intercourse with Colonel Melnikoff and Colonel Kraft, has since maintained itself in Russia against all comers, and has now no competitor.

526

JOSEPH HARRISON, JR., PHILADELPHIA.

In 1847, the Emperor Nicholas, accompanied by his son, the present Emperor; the Grand Duke Constantine, his second son; Prince Paskevitch, Viceroy of Poland, with all the high officers of the Government, visited the Alexandroffsky Head Mechanical Works of the St. Petersburg and Moscow Railway, where the work for the road was being done. After spending many hours in a minute examination of every part of the establishment, the Emperor, shaking hands at parting with the American contractors, expressed the greatest satisfaction at what had been shown and explained to him. As an additional mark of his approval, his Majesty sent to each of our countrymen composing the firm, most beautiful diamond rings, of a present value of not less than three thousand dollars each. On the occasion of the opening of the Neva bridge, in the autumn of 1850, then just completed, the Emperor Nicholas, as a further mark of esteem, conferred upon Mr. Harrison the ribbon of the order of St. Anne, with a massive gold medal attached thereto. On one side of the medal is a portrait of his Majesty, and on the obverse, the motto in the Russian language, "For zeal."

In 1852, Mr. Harrison returned to Philadelphia, and set about employing the large means, which had rewarded his enterprise, for the adornment of his native city. He erected numerous and costly buildings, and established the most extensive and probably the first private Gallery of Art in Philadelphia. Though twelve years of the last twenty of his life have been passed abroad, it is evident he has not lost affection for the place of his birth, or forgotten the obligations of a public-spirited citizen.

Early in his engineering life, Mr. Harrison's attention was directed to a means of improving steam generation-more particularly with a view of making the use of this powerful agent less dangerous and liable to explosion. The result of his efforts in this direction is now before the public in the Harrison Steam Boiler-now largely coming into use which will be noticed more at length in a subsequent volume. The first boiler made on his improved principle was put in operation at Messrs. William Sellers & Co.'s Works, in Philadelphia, in 1859, and supplied steam for their entire establishment for several months in the summer of that year. Mr. Harrison's first patent from the United States is dated October 4th, 1859, though improvements on the original idea have since been the subject of several patents in this country and in Europe. At the International Exhibition held in London in 1862, the highest class Medal was awarded to this Boiler, "for originality of design, and general merit." He is now pursuing, with the zeal and perseverance of his earlier life, the highly important object of making steam generation safe from its present de