Smyrna times., 1888-02-01
From HORSEPOWER to Electricity
in Wilmington.

The Every Evening of Wednesday
last thus notes the prOgl ess of travel in
that city:
Last night the first car was success
fully run by electricity over Whining
toms new passenger railway. The
road is not yet open for public travel,
but the trial trip of last evening war
rants us in bOasting that we have at
least set one foot on the next higher
rung in the ladder of progress whose
top is lost to sight in the impenetrable
future. What new and higher forces
may yet be caught and harnessed to
do mans bidding we can no more con-
lecture than could the WilmingtOnian
of three-score years ago have fOreseen
that his descendants of to-day would
hitch the lightning to their carriages
and use the same force to carry on
conversations over many miles of dis
lance.
Turning to the Delaware JOarnGL of
May 29th, 1927, we read:
Delaware and Chesapeake canal.
This valuable and important work is
apparently drawing near it's compile
ton. From the western end some
three miles, as we are informed, are
already finished, and on Monday last
several slOOps passed from the river
Delaware on the eastern side to the
village of st. Georges, a distance of Al
miles, for the first time. The remainder
of the work, included in the part COM
monty called the deep cut, is in rapid
progress, and appearances justify the
belief that the whole will be completed
within year from this day.
Some two years later we read, in the
Delaware Gazette of September oath,
1929:
our readers throughout the peninsula
to know that they can cross from this
place to the Jersey shore with horses
and carriages any day they choose.
The steam ferry-boat New JERSEY, Cap
tain Cyrus Abbott, runs daily between
the two places and affords a safe and
comfortable conveyance in about 40
minutes. Hitherto much incOnVen-
fence has been experienced on account
of the want of such a conveyance,
which has OccasiOned persons in the
lower part of the peninsula, who de-
sired to cross the river, to pass on to
Philadelphia for the purpose; but they
may now be accommodated with a
passage from this place as safe and as
comfortable and save themselves near
ly two days ride in the bargain.
The canal and the Jersey boat were
followed by the building of the New
Castle & Frenchtown railroad, one of
the earliest in America. This appears
to have been opened to travel about
1882, since on April 18th, 1888 we find
recorded the first railway accident
worth reporting on the Peninsula-a
train with from 200 to 300 passengers
running over a COW three miles east of
FrenchtOwn derailing nine cars but
fortunately seriously injuring no one.
The next step forward was the intro
ductiOn of gas as an illuminant. The
Delaware Journal of December 18th,
1884, with pardonable pride, relates
Many of our stores and hotels are
now lighted with gas, and the use of
it is extending along Market street. 1t
furnishes a beautiful and brilliant light
and the experiment is gaining so much
favor with our citizens that we may
consider the system of gas lighting as
permanently established in our town.
We may say, without vanity, that
Wilmington, in its public works de-
signed for the comfort and conven-
fence of its inhabitants, surpasses any
town of similar extent in the Union.
Its water works are unrivaled by any
in the country except the Paramount
water works of Philadelphia, and in
regard to light we are in advance of
Philadelphia-we mean gas light-fOr
our neighbOrs are yet cropping in the
dim twilight of tallOw candles and
whale oil.
On the next day, December 18th,
1884, public meeting was held in the
city hall at which resolutions were
adopted favoring the construction of a
railroad from Wilmington to the Sus-
quehana river, the nucleus of the later
Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore
railroad. The next issue of the Della
aUGre Journal said of this enterprise /:
1T is the natural thOroughfare be-
tween Philadelphia and Baltimore
across the Peninsula. =
To this we may add that Wilmington
itself now supports two steamboats,
which are proftably engaged; the
freights and passage between this town
and Philadelphia amounting to the
interest on more than one million dol
lars annually"
In what terms will the journalist of
sixty years to come write of the en-
terprise and progress of the Whining
ton of 1888?