The Dickinson press., 1884-11-01
ROMANCE OF A RAILWAY.
The First Railroads in America ana VIVA
Was Thought Of Them.

The First Railroads in America and What
Was Thought Of Them.
boston Advertiser.
Mr.. W. s. Kennedy has published q
book on the "Wonders and Curiosities
of the Railway" which presents the ro-
mantle side of the railroad. It was, he
says, Erasmus Darwin who wrote these
two prophetic lines:
Soon shall thy arm, u~nconquered steam, afar
Draw the slow barge or drive the rapid Cal.
It is not true that Mother Shipton
ever embodied this in her weird writ
ings:
Carriages without horses shall go
And accidents fill the world with woe.
These lines are proved to be forge
ries having been written in London in
1867.
Mr.. Kennedy traces the history of the
railrori in England and the United
States, and gives proper precedence to
the "Grapite Railroad" of Quincy,
Mass, as the first actual iron road IN
this country. It vas built in 1926 by
Grizzly Bryant, and designed for carry.
ing stone from the granite guarries of
Quincy to the Bunker Hill Monument
in Boston. The next railroad was n
constructed by the Delaware and Hud-
son Central Company to connect their
mines at Carbonate with Honesdale.
cit was on this road" the author tells
us, ''that the first revolution on Ameri-
can soil of the driving-wheel of alocomo-
tive was made" It was an English
engine, and was built at Stourbridge.
The "Stourbridge Lion" weighed seven
tons, and some uneasiness was felt as
to its crossing a frail hemlock trestle
v the Lackawaxen River. Mr.. Ho-
ratio Allen had charge, and the trial
trip took place August g., 1929. But
the chief honor is due to the late Peter
Cooper, who built the first American
locomotive, the Tom Thumb, which
ran over the Baltimore and Ohio
Railroad. The little machine weighed
q ton, and had one independent
invention about ia steam blast,
which is the fundamental feature
Of all modern locomotives, Once
there was a race between the Tom
Thumb and q horse belonging to a ri.
val stage proprietor. The horse dis
tanced the locomotive because the belt
of the blowing engine slipped its drum.
These were the beginnings of the sub
stitution of steam for horses, and to-day,
with 10000 locomotives in the United
States, the work of 40, 900 900 horses is
represented.
Mr.. Kennedy has not overlooked all
The strange objections made to rail-
roads in England and France. When
Mr.. Stephenson was cross-questioned
by a special committee as to the speed
Of his engine, an inquisitor with a
deprecatory smile asked, "Will you say
that you can go thirty miles an hour?"
and the reply was, Certainly" Then
every member of that committee leaned
back and roared with incredulous laugh
ter. M. Theirs was at first violently
opposed to railroads. They might do,
he thought, for short distances, but
were impracticable for long routes.
NJ. Arago thought that tunnels would
be injurious to health. In 1885 there
were DIRECTORS in the United States.
1t was q Bostonian who wrote: "The
rich and the poor, the educated and the
ignorant, the polite and the vulgar all
herd together in this modern improve
ment in traveling-and all this for the
sake of doing very uncomfortably in
two days what would be done delight
fully in eight or ten days."