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1883 poster commemorating Matthias W. Baldwin’s construction of “Old Ironsides, in 1832.
Credit: Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library
Having first built a miniature locomotive that ran around a track in Peale's Philadelphia Museum in 1831, Mathias Baldwin (1795-1866) then built "Old Ironsides" to carry passengers on the new Philadelphia, Germantown, and Norristown Railroad. His Baldwin Locomotive Works would go on to manufacture more locomotives than any other firm in the world.