# The Knickerbocker/Volume 13/Number 5/Jabez Doolittle

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​Jabez Doolittle and his Locomotive.—Since our last number, we have received letters from various parts of the country, respecting Jabez Doolittle and his Locomotive, by which it would appear, he has the gift of ubiquity; for he has been seen about the same time in a dozen different places, and a dozen different manners, but always under full speed; a kind of Flying Dutchman on land. 'Hie et ubique' should be his motto. We subjoin one of these letters, as it may tend to set the Far West at ease on a matter that seems to have caused some consternation.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE KNICKERBOCKER.
'Sir: In your last number, I read with great interest an article entitled 'The First Locomotive. It throws light upon au incident which has long been a theme of marvel in the Far West. You must know that I was one among the first band of trappers that crossed the Rocky Mountains. We had encamped one night on a ridge of the Black Hills, and were wrapped up in our blankets, in the midst of our first sleep, when we were roused by the man who stood sentinel, who cried out, 'Wild fire, by ———!' We started on our feet, and beheld a streak of fire coming across the prairies, for all the world like lightning, or a shooting star. We had hardly time to guess what it might be, when it came up, whizzing, and clanking, and making a tremendous racket, and we saw something huge and black, with wheels and traps of all kinds, and an odd-looking being on top of it, busy as they say the devil is in a gale of wind. In fact, some of our people thought it was the old gentleman himself, taking an siring in one of his infernal carriages; others thought it was the opening of one of the seals in the Revelations. Some of the stoutest follows fell on their knees, and began to pray; a Kentuckian plucked up courage enough to hail the infernal coachman as he passed, and ask whither he was driving; but the speed with which he whirled by, and the rattling of his machine, prevented our catching more than the last words: 'Slam bang to etarnal smash!' In five minutes more, he was across the prairies, beyond the Black Hill, and we saw him shooting, like a jack-a-lantern, over the Rocky Mountains.
'The next day we tracked his course. He had cut through a great drove of buffalo, some hundred or two of which lay cut up as though the butchers had been there, we beard of him afterward, driving through a village of Black Feet, and smashing the lodge of the chief, with all his family. Beyond the Rocky Mountains, we could hear nothing more of him; so that we concluded he had ended his brimstone carver, by driving into one of the craters that still smoke among the peaks.
'This circumstance, Sir, as I said, has caused much speculation in the Far West; but many set it down as a 'trapper's story,' which is about equivalent to a traveller's tale; neither would the author of 'Astoria' and 'Bonneville's Adventures' admit it into his works, though heaven knows he has not been over squeamish in such matters. The article in your last number, above alluded to, has now cleared up the matter, and hence forth I shall tell the story without fear of being hooted at. I make no doubt, Sir, this supposed infernal apparition was nothing more nor less than Jabez Doolittle, with his Locomotive, on his way to Astoria.
as the song goes; perhaps scouring California; perhaps whizzing away to the North ​Pole. One thing is certain, and satisfactory; he is the first person that ever crossed the Rocky Mountains on wheels; his transit shows that those mountains are traversable with carriages, and that it is perfectly easy to have a rail-road to the Pacific. If each road should ever be constructed, I hope, in honor of the great projector who led the way, it may be called the 'Doolittle Rail-road; unless that name should have been given as characteristic, to some of the many rail-roads already in progress.
'Your humble servant,
Hiram Crackenthorpe, of St. Louis.