county, referred to by the editor of the Gazette, did not offer as serious obstacles to the building of a railroad as real mountains in our country did elsewhere, but all these obstacles were soon overcome. If stationary engines were at first used on some lines of railroad in this country, particularly on the Allegheny Portage Railroad, they were abandoned many years ago.

The following details of the first American railroad that was built for the conveyance of both freight and passengers we glean from Poor's Manual of the Railroads of the United States and from the records of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company. Prior to the completion of the first section of the road of this company all the railroads in the United States that had been in operation. were built to haul coal or other heavy materials.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company was chartered by the Maryland Legislature on February 28, 1827, and by the Virginia Legislature on March 8, 1827. By the charter its capital stock was fixed at $5,000,000, with the right to organize on the subscription of one-fifth that amount. It was provided in the charter that the road was to be built from Baltimore to a point on the Ohio river not lower than the mouth of the Little Kanawha, where Parkersburg stands. Its terminus on the Ohio was subsequently fixed at Wheeling. As there existed a probability that the road would be extended to Pittsburgh the Pennsylvania Legislature "confirmed" the charter of the company on February 22, 1828. In April, 1827, the required subscription having been obtained, the company was organized and the surveys of the road were at once undertaken. On the 4th of July, 1828, the line having been finally located to Point of Rocks, the construction of the road was commenced with considerable ceremony, the venerable Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, laying the "corner stone." In 1829 the track was finished to Vinegar Hill, a distance of about seven miles, and "cars were put upon it for the accommodation of the officers and to gratify the curious by a ride." The progress of construction of the road from Baltimore to Wheeling is shown in the following statement, which has been officially verified.

Frederick is situated on a branch three and a half miles from the main line of the road, which accounts for an increase in the table in its total length from 377.40 miles, as given in Poor's Manual for 1904, to 381 miles. The Washington branch was opened from Relay to Bladensburg on July 20, 1834, and to Washington on August 25, 1834. It will be noticed that a quarter of a century elapsed before the road was opened from Baltimore to Wheeling in 1853.

The first section of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad after its opening to Ellicott's Mills was operated by horse power. On August 30, 1830, a small locomotive, built at Baltimore by Peter Cooper, was successfully experimented with on this section as a substitute for horse power, Mr. Cooper being his own engineer. Soon afterwards other and more powerful locomotives were introduced.

The Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad Company was chartered on April 2, 1837, by the Legislature of Pennsylvania. On April 18, 1853, the charter was amended so as to authorize the extension of the road to Cumberland, Maryland, to which place it was opened from Pittsburgh in June, 1871. This road, now forming the Pittsburgh division of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, was leased on December 13, 1875, to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company for fifty years from January 1, 1876, the lease to be renewable in perpetuity.

The section of the Pittsburgh and Connellsville Railroad between Connellsville and West Newton was opened for traffic on September 13, 1855. The road between Connellsville and Turtle Creek was opened on January 14,

1857, and the entire line from Connellsville to Pittsburgh was opened on October 10, 1861.

In 1907 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company owned, operated, or controlled 4,525.51 miles of main track.

In 1826 the New York Legislature granted a charter for the construction of the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad, for the carriage of freight and passengers from Albany to Schenectady, a distance of seventeen miles. Work on this road, however, was not commenced until August, 1830. It was opened for traffic on September 12, 1831. The next passenger railroad enterprise that was chartered in the United States was the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad in South Carolina, which was chartered on December 19, 1827. Six miles of this road were completed in 1829, but they were not opened to the public until December 6, 1830, when a locomotive was placed on its track. The road was completed in September, 1833, a distance of 135 miles. At that time it was the longest continuous line of railroad in the world.

It will be seen that the first passenger railroad in the United States that was opened to the public was a Maryland enterprise and that the second was a South Carolina enterprise. The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was the third passenger railroad to be opened for travel in the United States.

The Camden and Amboy Railroad was chartered in 1830 and construction was commenced in 1831. Its total length was sixty-one miles, thirty-four of which, between Bordentown and South Amboy, were opened for travel in December, 1832, and the remainder, between Bordentown and Camden, in 1834. The Allegheny Portage Railroad and the Columbia Railroad, both in Pennsylvania, which have been already noticed, were other early railroads in this country. They were opened in the spring of 1834.

The first locomotive to run upon an American railroad was the Stourbridge Lion, which was built in England. It was first used at Honesdale, Pennsylvania, on August 8, 1829, on the coal railroad of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. W. Hasell Wilson says that the locomotive John Bull, built by Stephenson & Co., of England,

to the order of Robert L. Stevens, president of the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company, was shipped from Newcastle in June, 1831, and placed upon the Camden and Amboy Railroad in August of the same year. Mr. Wilson further says that the first passenger train on this railroad that was regularly hauled by steam power was drawn by the John Bull between Bordentown and South Amboy in September, 1833, the time occupied for the thirty-four miles being about three hours.

The first American locomotive that was built for actual service was the Best Friend of Charleston, which was built at the West Point Foundry, in New York City, for the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad in South Carolina, and was successfully used on that road in December, 1830.

Phineas Davis, of York, Pennsylvania, invented and built the first locomotive that successfully used anthracite coal. In George R. Prowell's History of York County he says that the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company offered on January 4, 1831, a prize of $3,500 to the inventor and manufacturer of a locomotive of American manufacture that would burn coal or coke and consume its own smoke, and that Mr. Davis built in 1832 at the York Foundry and Machine Shop, of which he was half owner, a locomotive which met all these requirements. He called it The York. It used anthracite coal and was

a great success. Others followed in the same year.

CHAPTER XVII.

EARLY RAILROADS IN PENNSYLVANIA.

PENNSYLVANIA is the foremost State in the Union in the attention it has given to the building of railroads, and all things considered it is also the foremost in the results that have been attained. It is exceeded in railroad mileage by only two States, Illinois and Texas, but each of these States has a much greater area in square miles than Pennsylvania, each of them has fewer miles of double track than Pennsylvania, and in each of them, both prairie States, railroad construction has been very much less difficult from an engineering standpoint, and therefore less expensive, than in Pennsylvania. The following table shows the length of steam railroads which had been built in the three States named at the close of 1907. It also shows the area in square miles of each of the States mentioned, exact figures having been furnished for this chapter by the Government geographer, Henry Gannett.

The States which approach nearest to Pennsylvania in railroad mileage are Iowa, with 9,889.12 miles; Ohio, with 9,284.95 miles; Kansas, with 8,907.98 miles; Michigan, with 8,610.75 miles; and New York, with 8,371.63 miles. With the exception of Ohio each of these States has a larger area in square miles than Pennsylvania, and all of them are less mountainous, only New York approaching it in this physical characteristic. Nor have gifts of public lands helped Pennsylvania to build its railroads. If we consider also the enterprise of Pennsylvania in extending its railroad connections to other States its pre-eminence as a railroad State becomes even more manifest.