Belleville, New Jersey is the birthplace of America’s Industrial Revolution. And it was a newcomer to Belleville – coming from Great Britain – that got the Revolution off the ground.
In 1753 Josiah Hornblower was commissioned to build what would become the first steam engine assembled in the New World. Josiah Hornblower left Great Britain, headed to New Jersey and built that first steam engine for the owners of the oldest copper mine in the British Colonies – Schuyler Copper Mine.
Schuyler Copper Mine was located in Belleville, which is where Josiah Hornblower’s steam engine was built.
Hornblower building that first steam engine in Belleville marked the birth of America’s Industrial Revolution.
