Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1860-07-07
OUR EXCURSION.

OUR EXCURSION.
In some of the previous numbers of The Bugle,
we published a sketch of a visit we recently paid
to Washin gton and Mt. Vernon, designing on
another occasion to notice the railroad route we
traversed, and to make a fitting acknowledgment
to the Company who SO generously furnished US
with an excursion ticket.
The invitation extended by the Baltimore and
Ohio Railroad Co., to the editors of the West to
visit the cities of B fillmore and Washington, and
to extend their trip as far as Mt. Vernon, and the
arrangements made to render their excursion a
pleasant and interesting one, were no'less perfect
in detail than extensive in design. Other Railroad
Companies and Steam boat Lines entered into the
plan, so that the invitation covered au area Of
fourteen entire States, and part of four others
and was extended to some Twelve Hund-td or
more of the fraternity.
We were unable to join the editorial excursion
which left Wheeling on a special train on the 4th
of May; and although the two or three hundred
who embraced that opportunity travelled with
more cc1at, and in many places were received and
treated as public guests, if their enjoyment was
greater than that Of some others who passed along
singly, or in couples, or in scores as the case
might be, and at such time as best suited their
convenience or inclination, they must indeed have
had a joyous time.
The Baltimore and Ohio railroad was common
ced thirty-twO years ago this day (4th of July, J
and the first stone in its construction was laid
by the venerable Charles Carroll Of Carrollton,
who, in view of that Inauguration of a new
system of travel and transportation which should
bring the Great West into intimate connection
with the seabosrd of the East, declared the act
to be one of the most inn ortant in his life
the length of the track from Baltimore to
Wheeling-tbe eastern and western terminii
Of the roads three hundred and seventy nine
miles, and in addition to the main route, the Com
pany has FRI m time to time opened various branch
roads to meet the Increasing demands of trade and
travel. The extent of its business may be par.
tally estimated BY the fact that it employs be-
tween two and three hundred locomotives, which,
with the passenger and freight cara In constant
use, make a total of four thousand engines and
cars. To Keep the road in running order, to at
tend to passengers and the transportation of
freight, and to receive ard disburse the four or
five. Ndillions of'dollars that annually comes into
the Treasury of the Company, gives employment
w "a IN " wv lOupC dhl lGu
In the early days cf railroad travelling the cross
ing of the AlIeghaniss was regarded as a wonder
ful triumph of mechanical skill, and SO it was; and
every movement of the STATIONARY engine which
slowly dragged the cars over the inclined planes to
the SUBMITS height, was regarded with common,
liable pride. But such a method of overcoming
distractions is now numbered with the almost
forgotten times of stage body cars, and strap rails,
Had the Genii who came at Alladin's call to do
his bidding, been ordered to build an iron road
from point to point upon which their master could
travel with ease, and speed, and safety, we doubt
whether they would have been able to construct
SO admirable a highway as the skill and industry
of man has accomplished in the building of the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. 1t traverses a
country whose beauty and grandeur, whose varied
scenery of hill and dale, OF rugged mountains and
deep vallies, of rushing rivers and rocky ravines,
while charming to the ~traveler's eye, increased an
hundred fold the labors of the builders. The de-
sign and execution Of the work is strongly sug-
gestiVe of the old Scandinavian device of the
barred arm with the hand g~rasping a pick, and the
motto, I WILL FIND A WAY, OR | WILL MAKE oNE;'
and we respectfully suggest to tie Company the
adoption Of such a device and motto.
Passing from the East TO the West, starting
from the tide water Of Chesapeake Bay, the iron
horse, more dOcile and more easily governed than
the winged courser of the Arabian Nights, presses
steadily onward and upward until he has reached
On altitude OF more than twenty six hundred feet,
leaving behind him the Atlantic slopes with their
seats Of commerce, their manufacturing sites, and
their marts of opulenco, and gently descending to
the Great Valley of the Mississippi with its vast
resources of unmeasured wealth which needs but
the continuation of the skill and industry Of man
to ~deyelope, dnd TO build upon its soil far might
Ter empire than the Western Hemisphere has yet
seen. Easily and pleasantly as the cars pass
along, this ease was not WOE without toll, or this
pleasure without the WEAKNESS Of labor. The
builders OF bridges and of tunnels, strong arms
with picks, and shovels have prepared the way;
hills have been carried into the vallies, and mighty
ROCKS have been blown into fragments. There
stood a mountain which completely blocked up
the way; forty one hundred feet of tunneIline over
came the obstruction, and eighty six hundred feet
of other tunnelling cut a way through mountain ms
that defantly forbade farther progress. There
flowed a river, rushing now in foaming current
over lis rocky bed, now leaping in a cataract from
point to point, now seeking It's way amid the soil,
tu1s of narrow aud dark r%ayines, and now pour.
ing its waters through q wider valley. Bridges are