The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-01-22
BUILDER OF PANAMA RAILROAD.
Credit Due to George Nj. Totten, Chief
 Engineer.

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 anna railroad gives entire credit for the immense engineering feat to Aspinwall, Stephens and Chauncey. There is an omission here which I venture to sup ply. The man who penetrated the swamps. designed the roadbed and sur veyed the line from Navy Bay, on the Atlantic, to the Bay of Panama, on the Pacific, whose brain thought out and put the Panama railroad into working condition, was George M. Totten, of New Haven, chief engineer of the Pan- anna Railroad company.
 To verify this assertion: General IT, formation Series No. w." information from abroad, Navy Department, Bu- reau of Navigation, Office of Naval In- ltelligence; see Plate " appended to the lreport of Commander McCalla, U. S. N, upon the canal expedition to the isth- mus in April. 1885. These words will be Hound: "The railroad was commenced in the year 1850, and the last rail was laid on January 27, 1855; the whole has
 been constructed under the direction of lGeorge M Totten, chief engineer, and James L. Baldwin, chief assistant en-
 gineer." In 1S49 the Panama Railroad
 company entered into contract with
 Messrs. George Muirson Totten and
 John c. Trautwine for the construction
 of the road. Totten and Traut-
 wine knew more about the cli-
 mate, terrain, flora and fauna of
 this region than any other men of their
 day. Some years before they had been
 in the employ of the Colombian govern lment, building a canal Canal del
 Dique) from the Magdalena river to the
 Caribbean Sea at Cartagena. Hence
 the conditions they were to encounter
 were well known to them. Their opera
 tions were outlined by reconnaissance previous to their employment by Colo
 Incl G. w. Hughes, U. s. A., corps of en-
 gineers.
 At this period the isthmus swarmed with einigrants en route to California
 for gold The conditions of the original contract could not be adhered to. on
 this account. Mr Totten made his req
 sons clear to the company, and he was
 then engaged as engineer of the road,
 and not as contractor James l.. Bald-
 win was chief assistant engineer, and MT Trautwine, assistant, proceeded to
 Manzanilla Island and began clearing in
 the month of May, 1850.
 On June 1, 1850, Chief Engineer Totten arrived from Cartagena with forty na-
 tive workmen to start with. MT. Ste phens, president of the company, was ,, with Mir Totten. Both had been to Be-
 gotta to obtain revisions in the original contract.
 , The rainy season was now on, with it's 1sr~+ fN, ba
 gineers were encamped upon an unin- habited island and forced to bunk in a | brig crowded to suffocation. Below : decks mosquitoes, sand flies and other Ivermin held high carnival, while upon
 the upper deck any one would be wet to ? the skin by the drenching rain. The la
 bor of the day in malarious and "Yel-
 low Jack climate, with little rest at night, soon told upon the engineers and 6 laborers alike In a short time most of
 the party had malaria and no surgeon. r The company obtained condemned : steamer that was tied up at Chagres and sent it down as a residence. The
 insects continued their annoyance, but a the quarters were bettered.
 : At the end of June MT. Totten again : went to Cartagena for men, as his first r supply was hors de combat Meantime n Stephens and Trautwine returned to {. New York, doubting if Totten and Bald- e win could carry out the road. Baldwin n land the few workmen remained, survey ing and cutting their way through the
 jungle, till Totten returned in July
 with fifty men. Totten was the stron-
 lgest physically, and he was able to go y further into the swamps, having at
 times to swing from the limbs of trees z to stretch the lines. In the latter part F. of July Trautwine returned with a sur 8 geon, Dr. John Augustus Totten, oi : New Haven, Conn, the first surgeon oi g the Panama railroad, and brother of tht n chief engineer, together with fifty Irish
 men from New Orleans. The line had < now been run two miles and half, an6 t two miles more had to be surveyed p The road was to strike range of hills u half a league from the terminus, an6 If then to stretch into the deep morass 7 It is needless to go further with the de r. lscription of the line The Tribune's
 correspondent has shown what splen. r did roadbed George M. Totten, chief en e gineer, built, but omitted to mention hi. e name. It is there to stay, with some al e iteration that repair and modern traffit Il demanded, but the first line shows tha tt work was done in those days by a mas tt ter mind. G. M. Totten constructed tn, Il wrought iron bridge placed upon stone
 pillars that crosses the Chagres at Ear h bacoas. This bridge, six hundred ant l, twenty-five feet long, eighteen feet il a breadth and forty feet above the sur d face of the water, was at the time on,
 of the longest and best built bridges il l. the world.
 r, MT. Totten went to the isthinus ;
 fyoung, athletic man. He returne, y broken in health. His brother, Dr J. John Augustus Totten, came back t is New Haven in 1862, to offer his service J. to his government, but died a fev l. months after hls return. G. M. Tottel t. was largely instrumental in erecting tn d Episcopal church at Aspinwall Tn
 church was consecrated by the Righ l. Rev. Bishop Alonzo Potter of Pennsyl > vania, in the month of June, 1865
 Shortly after this ceremony vethak,
 Totten, eldest son of the chief engineer ,- was buried from it.
 Later, when M. De Lesseps went t ,+ the isthmus early in the sos to arrang