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Updated: June 23, 2025
It kept its place until the walking-beam was cast away, and the American horizontal engine came into almost universal use. The object of this chapter so far has been to present an idea of beginnings; of the evolution of the universal and indispensable machine of civilization. The steam-engine has given a new impetus to industry, and in a sense an added meaning to life.
And now the huge walking-beam can be plainly distinguished, see-sawing up and down between the lofty paddle-boxes, and the decks appear crowded with hundreds of passengers, conspicuous among whom are to be seen the gay dresses of numerous ladies; and yes, surely that is the glimmer of bayonets, and that military-looking array drawn up on the hurricane-deck is a strong detachment of United States marines!
The massive walking-beam rose and fell above the deck; at one end a piston-rod worked up and down; and at the other was a connecting-rod which, in changing the rectilinear motion to a circular one, was directly connected with the shaft of the paddles. The General Grant was rigged with three masts, giving a large capacity for sails, and thus materially aiding the steam power.
By and by he made his lofty position easier and more picturesque by straddling the walking-beam, well down toward the end, just as he would have sat upon a horse. This made a pretty spectacle for those upon shore who awaited the boat's arrival. They saw a boy bounding up and down with the great seesawing beam.
But at length, in 1844, the steam-whistle was introduced, and the "walking-beam boys" were left without occupation. "W'en you git a leetle bit older dan w'at you is, honey," said Uncle Remus to the little boy, "you'll know lots mo' dan you does now." The old man had a pile of white oak splits by his side and these he was weaving into a chair-bottom.
Down at the "Old Lake End" the steamer for Mobile receives the burden. The gong clangs in her engine-room, the walking-beam silently stirs, there is a hiss of water underneath, the gang-plank is in, the wet hawser-ends whip through the hawse-holes, she moves; clang goes the gong again she glides or is it the crowded wharf that is gliding? No. Snatch the kisses! snatch them! Adieu! Adieu!
Watts possessed himself of the single fact that her walking-beam had been carried away by the shot, and he had not waited to ascertain anything more. She was disabled, and he had been instructed to hasten up the river as soon as he had assured himself of this fact, and made the signal.
A large, handsome steamer was the "Empire State," of the line which ran between Newport and New York. She was painted white, had walking-beam engines, and ornamented paddle-boxes, and had been known to run nearly twenty knots in an hour. On the evening of the twenty-seventh of May, in the year of which we write, she left her Newport dock as usual, with a full list of passengers.
He took the boy as a permanent member of the crew, and assigned him to the post of "walking-beam boy," buying for him a large and beautiful flag. Ever afterward, when within a mile of any town, the daring lad was to be seen climbing up to his difficult perch, pausing on the roof of the forecastle to get his flag from a box that had been built there for it.
He had brought a little mathematics into his calculations, and he had pointed the big gun of the steamer so as to cover the craft with the walking-beam when she came in sight around this turn of the stream. By this plan she was sure to come into the range of the piece, no matter on which side of the channel she was moving. "Now, Mr.
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