About eight miles west of Newcastle, England, is the mining village of Wylam. Near the east end of the town there stands a two-storied house of four rooms. The lower west room was once the home of the Stephenson family. The floor of this single room, which served alike for kitchen, dining room, parlor, and sleeping room, was of clay. The walls were unplastered, and the rafters were bare. Here, on June 9, 1781, George Stephenson was born.

The father was the fireman of the Newcomen engine at the Wylam mine. With a wage of not more than a dollar and a half a week, and with six children in the family, there was scarcely enough for food and little to spare for clothing. So poor was the family, that none of the children were sent to school. But George received from his father and mother traits of character which were even better than riches, and made amends for his lack of early education. It was a trait of his to have definite ambitions. He set his hopes on an advance of one step at a time. When the desired position was secured, he was not satisfied, but prepared himself for a further advance.

As soon as George was old enough, he was put to work. His first job was herding cows, at four cents a day.

Growing older and stronger, he was hired out to do light farm work. He drove horses, milked cows, and hoed in the garden. But he soon joined his brother James at the mine, as a "picker" to clean the coal of dirt and stones. His wages were now twelve cents a day, and they were increased to sixteen cents when he became driver of the gin horse.

Driving a gin horse was well enough, but George wanted to be an engineer. To be assistant fireman was the first step. Great was his joy when, at about fourteen, he was made assistant to his father, at the wage of twenty-five cents a day.

By the time he was fifteen George had become a fireman, and was still ambitious to be an engineer. He spent the greater part of his spare time in studying his engine and in learning how each part worked. It was a great event in his life when some two years later his wages were raised to three dollars a week. "I am now," he was heard to remark, "a made man for life."

Not long after this, a new mine was opened, and George became the engineer. It was his duty to run the engine, keep it in order, and look after the pumps. If for any reason the engine stopped, and he was unable to make it go, he was to call upon the chief engineer of the mine. But the youth knew every part of his engine so well that he never needed to call for help.

Modeling engines in clay was his main pastime. He made models of those which he had seen, and of others which were described to him. In this way he first heard of the engines of Boulton and Watt. Wanting to know more about them, he was told that he would find them described in books. Alas! George could not read,—he did not even know his letters. He thus found that to advance further, he must be able to get information from books. Although he was as large as a grown man, and was doing a man's work, he decided that he must go to night school.

He went to school three nights a week, taking lessons in reading, spelling, and writing. During one or two winters, he took lessons also in arithmetic. This was easy for him. The secret was his perseverance. He spent his spare time about the mine on his "sums." The problems solved during the day, he carried to his teacher in the evening, and received new "sums" for the following day.

About this time, he decided to learn braking. A brakeman operates the machinery which hoists the coal. The work is responsible and well paid. A good friend allowed George to try his hand at the work, and although only twenty years of age, he was soon braking at another mine.

Thus, through attention to work and study, and through perseverance, George Stephenson advanced step by step from herdboy to brakeman; he educated himself, and became a skilled worker.

To add to his wages, Stephenson took to mending and making shoes in the evening. Among the shoes sent to him was a pair belonging to the girl who became his wife, a young woman of sweet temper, kind disposition, and good common sense.

Happy in his work, and content in his home, Stephenson set about improving the spare hours of the evening more diligently than ever. He studied mechanics, and came to know thoroughly the engines of both Newcomen and Watt. He took also to modeling machines. One of these was a perpetual-motion machine. Though it proved a failure, as all others have, it gave him opportunity to whet his powers of invention.

Shortly after the death of his wife in 1806, Stephenson went to Scotland, to superintend, in a cotton factory, a Boulton and Watt engine. This gave him the chance he had long wanted, to work with one of those wonderful machines. He remained there a year, returning with more than a hundred dollars saved from his wages.

In the meantime his father had met with an accident. While he was inside of a Newcomen engine, a workman turned on the steam. The blast struck him full in the face, not only scalding him terribly, but putting out his eyes. The poor man struggled along against poverty as best he could. On the son's return, his first step was to pay his father's debts, and a little later he moved his parents to Killingworth, where they lived for many years, supported entirely by him.

For some unknown reason, the engine at the High Pit, a coal mine near Killingworth, failed to work, and the miners were driven out by the water. The engineers of the neighborhood were called in, but each in turn failed to discover the trouble. One day Stephenson wandered over to the mine and examined the engine carefully. "Well, George," asked a miner, "what do you make o' her? Do you think you could do anything to improve her?"

"I could alter her," he replied, "and make her draw. In a week's time I could send you back to the bottom."

This conversation was reported to the manager, who in despair decided to give Stephenson a chance.

"George," said the manager, "they tell me that you think you can put the engine at High Pit to rights."

"Yes, sir, I think I could."

"If that's the case, I'll give you a fair trial . . . . The engineers hereabouts are all beat; and if you succeed in doing what they cannot do, you may depend upon it, I will make you a man for life."

The engine was taken to pieces, and many changes were made. These were completed in about three days, and the engine put to pumping. By ten o'clock that night the water was lower in the pit than it had been for a long time, and by the end of the week the workmen were "sent back to the bottom." Stephenson had made good his words.

His skill as an engine doctor was noised abroad. He was called upon to prescribe remedies for all the wheezy, creaky pumping engines of the neighborhood. As an engine doctor his wages were good, and he soon left the "regular" workmen behind. They in turn were jealous of him and looked upon him as a "quack." The manager of the High Pit, however, believed in him, and succeeded in 1812 in making him engine wright at Killingworth.