My posting yesterday of two old locomotive photographs jogged Ken Martin's memory and he reminded me that he owns the attached photo of CB&Q 4-4-0 No. 53. It's a wonderful view, and the Corbin collection includes a small print of the same photo, but Ken has an original print, measuring 12x17 inches and including more of the passenger car behind the locomotive. There is no information as to where or when it was taken, only that it was produced by Shaw's Photographic Studio, Chicago. A listing of Chicago photographers from 1847 to 1900, compiled by the Chicago Historical Society in 1958 using listings from old city directories is no help in pinpointing the date, as there were no listings for Shaw's Photographic Studio, only a few for Peterson & Shaw and Treadwell & Shaw, both in the late 1860s-early 1870s.
So let's first consider the locomotive: CB&Q No. 53 was turned out by the Manchester Locomotive Works (like No. 108 in yesterday's posting) on August 11, 1856, carrying Manchester serial number 35. It lasted but a short time, as the Q built a new No. 53 (another 4-4-0) in company shops in 1870. The original 53 may have been in an accident that damaged it to such an extent that it was not deemed worth rebuilding, but more likely it was sold or transferred to another Burlington affiliate road. Whatever the case, the locomotive we see in the photo is a typical 1850s locomotive. Like the nine-years-younger No. 108 I posted yesterday, also built by Manchester, it has two steam domes, one conventionally positioned atop the wagon-top boiler above the firebox and holding the well-hidden safety or pop valve, surrounded by an ornamental brass flange; the other, smaller dome located near the front of the boiler and mounting the single chime whistle atop a tall upward extension. Between the two domes is the sand box -- certainly a box and not a dome in this case, basically a pair of oblong boxes with rounded ends fastened together and having a flat top which serves as a platform for the bell, its ornate hanger employing four turned metal posts. The standard Burlington cab with the rounded front corner is again present, and on this warm spring day the fireman's side front door is open, revealing that it includes the curved corner window and well as the flat forward window. The C. B. & Q. R. R. lettering that likely appears on both the cab side and the tender side is not visible, nor is a number on the side of the box headlight -- only the boiler-mounted number plate with "No. 53" affixed in polished brass letters and numerals. Note the extreme difference in the height of the tender's coupler pocket and that of the following passenger car, necessitating the use of a long link, bent at each end to fit into the pocket, and that the tender has suffered some indignity and wears a large rectangular patch, riveted in place, above the gent in the light-colored coat and trousers, holding his hat.
Which brings us to the group of people posed on and around the locomotive and my attempts to speculate as to the date of the photo -- or at least the occasion upon which it was taken. The fact that the locomotive is pulling a passenger car would seem to indicate that this is a train that was stopped specifically so the photo could be taken, since the scene is obviously not at a scheduled station stop. The photographer must, in fact, have been aboard the train and unloaded his cumbersome camera, tripod and other equipment and carried it out into a farmers field of what looks not unlike soybeans. (Were they being grown in Illinois in the 1850s-60s?) The locomotive wears no decorative bunting or any other decoration, but the presence of two American flags indicates some patriotic occasion. The size of the plants in the field would seem to indicate they were but a few weeks old, not mature enough for the Fourth of July. There was no Decoration Day/Memorial Day at this early date, so the only occasion that comes to my mind is the end of the Civil War following Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865. The occasion would have certainly been one for celebration as soon as word traveled west to Illinois and would explain the presence of the flags and the men doffing their hats. The assassination of Illinois' own President Lincoln just six days later on April 15 would, of course, have put a premature end to all joyful celebration of the war's end. Just speculation on my part, and I'm not at all sure that soybeans -- or any other crop -- would have grown to even this height by early-mid-April. Other suggestions are welcome.
Most of all, thank you, Ken, for sharing this great image!
Hol
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Posted by: Hol Wagner <holpennywagner@msn.com>
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