<P> The railway was built by Sylvester Marsh who grew up in Campton . Marsh came up with the idea while climbing the mountain in 1852 . His plan was treated as insane . Local tradition says that the state legislature voted permission based on a consensus that harm resulting from operating it was no issue--since the design was attempting the impossible--but benefits were guaranteed . He was putting up $5,000 of his own money, and that, plus whatever else he could raise, would be spent locally, including building the Fabyan House hotel at nearby Fabyan Station to accommodate the expected tourists . The railway is sometimes called "Railway to the Moon", because one state legislator remarked during the proceedings that Marsh should be given a charter, not merely up Mount Washington, but also to the Moon . </P> <P> Marsh obtained a charter for the road on June 25, 1858, but the American Civil War prevented any action until May 1866 . He developed a prototype locomotive and a short demonstration section of track, then found investors and started construction . The route closely followed a mountain trail that had been established earlier in the century by Ethan Allen Crawford . </P> <P> Despite the railroad's incomplete state, the first paying customers started riding on August 14, 1868, and the construction reached the summit in July 1869 . The early locomotives - represented today by the restored display locomotive, #1 Old Peppersass - all had vertical boilers, like many stationary steam engines of the time; the boilers were mounted to the locomotives' frames with twin trunnions, allowing them to pivot as the locomotive and coach climbed the grade, permitting gravity to always keep the boiler vertically oriented, no matter what the gradient of the track . Later designs introduced horizontal boilers, slanted so that they remain close to horizontal on the steeply graded track . </P> <P> In August 1869, President Ulysses S. Grant visited New England to escape the heat of summer in Washington, D.C. During his tour he rode the cog railway to the top of Mount Washington . </P>

What powered the original locomotives on mount washington cog railway