10 Facts About Gridley Bryant

Gridley Bryant was an American construction engineer who ended up building the first commercial railroad in the United States and inventing most of the basic technologies involved in it.

Gridley Bryant's son, Gridley James Fox Bryant, was a famous 19th-century architect and builder.

Gridley Bryant was the son of Zina and Unice Bryant.

Gridley Bryant invented a portable derrick in 1823 and soon gained a reputation as a master structure builder.

Gridley Bryant was awarded the contract to build the United States Bank in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown, Massachusetts.

Since the railroad was essentially new technology, Gridley Bryant had to create the designs for nearly every aspect of the railroad, including the cars, track, switches, wheels, turntable, and load transfer equipment.

Gridley Bryant used similar developments and technologies that had already been in use on the railroads in England, but he modified his design to allow for heavier, more concentrated loads and a three-foot frost line.

The major difference between Gridley Bryant's Granite Railway and the Liverpool and Manchester was in the motive power; Gridley Bryant was a gravity and horse-drawn railroad, while the Liverpool and Manchester used steam locomotives.

In 1834, Ross Winans filed a patent for the eight-wheel car design that Gridley Bryant had first invented.

Gridley Bryant was called upon as an expert witness by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in an effort to invalidate Winans' patent.