The John Stephenson Car Company was an American manufacturer of

carriage A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...

horsecar A horsecar, horse-drawn tram, horse-drawn streetcar (U.S.), or horse-drawn railway (historical), is an animal-powered (usually horse) tram or streetcar. Summary The horse-drawn tram (horsecar) was an early form of public rail transport, wh ...

cable car Cable car most commonly refers to the following cable transportation systems: * Aerial lift, such as aerial tramways and gondola lifts, in which the vehicle is suspended in the air from a cable ** Aerial tramway ** Chairlift ** Gondola lift *** Bi ...

s, and

streetcar A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...

s, based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. It was founded by John Stephenson in 1831. Middleton, William D. (1967). ''The Time of the Trolley'', p. 424. Milwaukee:

Kalmbach Publishing Kalmbach Media (formerly Kalmbach Publishing Co.) is an American publisher of books and magazines, many of them railroad-related, located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. History The company's first publication was ''The Model Railroader'', which be ...

. . John Stephenson invented the first streetcar to run on rails, building this in 1832, for the

New York and Harlem Railroad The New York and Harlem Railroad (now the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line) was one of the first railroads in the United States, and was the world's first street railway. Designed by John Stephenson, it was opened in stages between 1832 and ...

. A reorganization in 1867 included shortening of the company's name to the John Stephenson Company. In the latter part of the 19th century, the company was a major builder of streetcars, constructing some 25,000 cars in the period 1876–1891 alone, including ones for export. Its customers included many systems, in the US and other countries. Among the foreign ones were the

Toronto Street Railways The Toronto Street Railway (TSR) was the operator of a horse-drawn streetcar system from 1861 to 1891 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Its successor, the Toronto Railway Company, inherited the horsecar system and electrified it between 1892 and 1894 ...

Montreal Street Railway Company Prior to 1959, Montreal, Quebec, Canada had an extensive streetcar system. The streetcar network had its beginnings with the horsecar era of the Montreal City Passenger Railway in 1861. The initial line was along Rue Notre Dame (Notre Dame St) ...

, the Halifax Street Railway,

Mexico City Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital and largest city of Mexico, and the most populous city in North America. One of the world's alpha cities, it is located in the Valley o ...

's '' Empresa de los Ferrocarriles del Distrito Federal'',

Lisbon Lisbon (; pt, Lisboa ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 544,851 within its administrative limits in an area of 100.05 km2. Grande Lisboa, Lisbon's urban area extends beyond the city's administr ...

’s CCFL (Carris), and

Caracas Caracas (, ), officially Santiago de León de Caracas, abbreviated as CCS, is the capital and largest city of Venezuela, and the center of the Metropolitan Region of Caracas (or Greater Caracas). Caracas is located along the Guaire River in the ...

' ''Tranvía Caracas ''and ''Tranvía Bolívar.'' John Stepehnson Co advert 1903

Stephenson's factory was located in

Elizabeth, New Jersey Elizabeth is a city and the county seat of Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey.New J ...

, after 1898. In that year, it completed the construction of a "large factory" on a plot of land, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' reported. The company was acquired by the

J.G. Brill Company The J.G. Brill Company manufactured streetcars,Young, Andrew D. (1997). ''Veteran & Vintage Transit'', p. 101. St. Louis: Archway Publishing. interurban coaches, motor buses, trolleybuses and railroad cars in the United States for almost ...

in 1904 and continued to operate under the Stephenson name until 1917, when the plant was sold to the Standard Aero Corporation for production of airplanes,''The New York Times'', August 27, 1917. and the corporation was liquidated in 1919.

References

External links

John Stephenson Company history
by the

Mid-Continent Railway Museum The Mid-Continent Railway Museum is a railroad museum in North Freedom, Wisconsin, United States. The museum consists of static displays as well as a round trip ride aboard preserved railroad cars. History The rail line used by the Mid-Conti ...

John Stephenson Company Streetcars
at the

Museum of the City of New York A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make these i ...

's Collections blog Companies based in Elizabeth, New Jersey Horsecar manufacturers Defunct rolling stock manufacturers of the United States Manufacturing companies established in 1831 Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1917 American companies established in 1831 1831 establishments in New York (state) 1917 disestablishments in New Jersey 1904 mergers and acquisitions Electric vehicle manufacturers of the United States Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York City {{US-rail-company-stub

See also

References

External links