manufacturer locomotive builder
William Norris was born on July 2, 1802 in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. He was the son of William and Mary (Schaefer) Norris and was born in Baltimore, Maryland, where his father had a dry-goods store. He was a descendant of Henry Norris who emigrated from England to Virginia in 1680.
Norris graduated from St. Mary's College, Baltimore.
Norris was associated in business with his father for a few years and in 1828, with his father's help, opened a wholesale dry-goods store in Philadelphia. His father failed in business the following year and Norris was forced to close his store and look about for other work. He had always been keenly interested in steam engines and he now designed and built a steam carriage with an upright boiler and wooden wheels, which he demonstrated on the streets of Philadelphia. This achievement brought about his meeting with Colonel Stephen H. Long, Corps of Engineers, United States Army, who was also interested in locomotive building, and in 1832 the two organized the American Steam Carriage Company, with Long as president and Norris as secretary. They began the construction of a locomotive, designed by Colonel Long, which was to use anthracite coal as fuel, but it proved a failure. A second engine, the "Black Hawk, " was completed in 1833 and used first on the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad and later on the Philadelphia & Germantown Railroad. This locomotive, however, was not entirely successful and all members of the company withdrew their interest, leaving Long and Norris alone. The two then built three anthracite-coal-burning locomotives for a New England rail-road, which were completed in 1834, but while these were entirely successful they were soon relegated to sand and gravel trains, because "the coal fires required more attention from the enginemen than did fires of wood. " About this time Norris bought Colonel Long's interest in the locomotive works and soon after completed the successful locomotive "Star" for the Philadelphia & Germantown Railroad.
In 1835 he moved his shop from Kensington, Pennsylvania, to Bush Hill, Philadelphia, and there with six employees began the construction of another locomotive of his own design. The "George Washington, " as it was called, was completed in 1836 for the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad, and by its initial performance of hauling a train weighing 19, 200 pounds to the top of an inclined plane in Philadelphia at a speed of fifteen miles per hour, with a boiler pressure of only sixty pounds, it brought world-wide fame to Norris as a locomotive designer and builder.
The year after the successful demonstration of the "George Washington, " Norris received an order for seventeen similar engines from the Birmingham & Gloucester Railroad in England, and by 1855 his locomotive works had shipped one hundred engines to France, Austria, Prussia, Italy, Belgium, South America, and Cuba, besides constructing many engines for the railroads of the United States. In 1841 Norris had formed a partnership with his brother Richard, but three years later he resigned from the company to take charge of the government locomotive shops near Vienna.
He remained abroad five years and on his return to the United States he accepted the appointment of chief engineer of the eastern division of the Panama Railroad. When he again returned to the United States in 1855, he organized a company in New York City for the purpose of constructing a fast steamship of his own design, capable of making the voyage to England in six days. The company failed, however, and Norris was obliged to abandon his project before its completion. For his services abroad he received many valuable presents from the Emperor of Austria, Louis Philippe of France, and the Czar of Russia.
His great interest outside of locomotive design was music, and when but fifteen years of age he was organist and choir leader of a church in Baltimore. He composed sacred music and on February 8, 1841, produced in Musical Fund Hall, Philadelphia, at his own expense, Mozart's opera, The Magic Flute.
Norris married May Ann Heide in Baltimore in 1825. A son survived him.
