The locomotive engine.
1846. The iron horse, (the steam-car,) with the wings of the wind, his nostrils distended with flame, salamander-like vomiting fire and smoke, trembling with power, but submissive to the steel curb imposed upon him by the hand of man, flies from one end of the continent to the other in less time than our ancestry required to visit a neighboring city.—Mr. Cathcart of Indiana, House of Repr., Feb. 6: Cong. Globe, p. 323.
1848. It remained for practical men, to harness the iron horse to the car, and to annihilate space and distance by the lightning line of news.—Mr. Bowlin of Missouri, the same, March 6: id., p. 354, App.
1852. Why shall your iron horse be checked in his career at the great Father of Waters?—Mr. Miller of Mo., the same: id., p. 184, App.
1854. The same progress has transferred our persons and our commerce from the horse and the slow and dull creaking wagon to the iron horse of the railroad.—Mr. Elliott of Ky., the same, May 10: id., p. 819, App.
1860. Away the iron horse rushes at a tearing gallop … until he pulls up with a jerk on the aforesaid prairie.—Richmond Enquirer, Aug. 24, p. 3/1.
1874.
| For, as the valley from its sleep awoke, | |
| I saw the iron horses of the steam | |
| Toss to the morning air their plumes of smoke, | |
| And woke, as one awaketh from a dream. | |
Longfellow, ‘Monte Cassino.’ (N.E.D.) |
