Historic Steam Engine Returning Home to Braintree

This Saturday, a 45-horsepower steam engine will return to the place of its birth.

The engine, built by famed Braintree resident Thomas A. Watson's Fore River Engine Company near present-day Weymouth Landing 125 years ago, will be brought back to Braintree during a ceremony at 2 p.m. at the Watson Building on Quincy Avenue.

A marker will be installed on the building commemorating the company and Watson, co-inventor of the telephone with Alexander Graham Bell and founded of the Braintree Electric Light Company, now BELD. The engine itself will later be housed in the museum behind the Gen. Sylvanus Thayer birthplace.

Over the last several years, James Fahey, the director of Braintree Historical Society’s Museum and Research Center, tracked down the engine. He had been looking for artifacts from the Fore River Engine Co. and decided on the restored, museum-quality engine, which can be run now with compressed air.

The engine, once used in the U.S. Mail Steamer "Columbia" during its travels on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, is owned by Ted Valpey of Portsmouth, NH. It will be on permanent loan to the historical society, Fahey said.

During the ceremony Saturday, Fahey will present the history of Watson's engine company. Mayor Joseph Sullivan, East Braintree Civic Association Chair David Oliva, Steam Engineering Institute of Braintree President Paul Logan and Valpey will also offer remarks. BCAM will cover the event.