Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works was a 19th-century manufacturer of railroad steam locomotives based in Paterson, in Passaic County, New Jersey, in the United States. It built more than six thousand steam locomotives for railroads around the world. Most 19th-century U.S. railroads owned at least one Rogers-built locomotive. The company's most famous product was a locomotive named The General, built in December 1855, which was one of the principals of the Great Locomotive Chase of the American Civil War. The company was founded by Thomas Rogers in an 1832 partnership with Morris Ketchum and Jasper Grosvenor as Rogers, Ketchum and Grosvenor. Rogers remained president until his death in 1856. His son, Jacob S. Rogers, reorganized the company as Rogers Locomotive and Machine Works and led the company until he retired in 1893. Robert S. Hughes then became president and reorganized the company as Rogers Locomotive Company, which he led until his death in 1900. Rogers avoided the 1901 American Locomotive Company (ALCO) merger by closing and reopening as Rogers Locomotive Works, but the company's independence lasted only until 1905, when ALCO purchased it. ALCO continued building new steam locomotives at the Rogers plant until 1913 and used the Rogers facilities through the 1920s as a parts storage facility and warehouse. Eventually, ALCO sold the property to private investors. Today, several Rogers-built locomotives exist in railroad museums around the world, and the plant's erecting shop is preserved as the Thomas Rogers Building; it is the current location of the Paterson Museum, whose mission is to preserve and display Paterson's industrial history. 1831 to 1856: Thomas Rogers era The firm that was to become Rogers Locomotive Works began in 1831. Thomas Rogers had been designing and building machinery for textile manufacturing for nearly 20 years when he sold his interest in Godwin, Rogers & Company (of which he was the Rogers part of the name) in June of that year. Rogers set out on his own with a new company called Jefferson Works in Paterson, New Jersey. The Jefferson Works built textile and agricultural machinery for a year before Rogers met the two men who would help transform the company into a major locomotive manufacturer. In 1832, Rogers partnered with two investors from New York City, Morris Ketchum and Jasper Grosvenor. Jefferson Works was renamed Rogers, Ketchum & Grosvenor, and the company began to diversify into the railroad industry. The company soon