SECTION V.—TRAVEL.
CHAPTER I.
BY LAND.
"Well, Charles, how do you purpose to go to the city to-day? The paper this morning contains some news that ought to interest you. There was a washout at Turk's Bridge last evening, and it will be several hours yet before trains can run."
This question was asked by Mrs. Barlow, one morning during the great street-car strike when the motormen and conductors had refused to run cars until their demands were granted.
"I see but one way left open for me," replied her husband. "The roads must be very muddy, and I cannot go on my bicycle. I suppose that I shall be compelled to walk. That was the original mode of traveling, and I imagine that in this case of necessity I can try it again. I am not used to so long a walk, but I see no other way. In one respect I am better off than my ancestors were, for I have good level side-walks, most of them paved, instead of rough paths, partly trodden down. I will start to walk, anyway."
Mr. Barlow did not own a horse, and could not drive to the city. He did not feel able to hire a public carriage, as, since the street-car strike began, so many desired to ride that the drivers charged very high prices. But he felt that he must attend to his business in the city that day, and immediately after breakfast he started on his five-mile walk. He was very tired before he reached the office, and the walk home in the afternoon wearied him still more. He was therefore greatly pleased the next morning to find that the strike was over, the railroad bridge repaired, the muddy roads nearly dry, and a choice open to him to travel either by steam cars, electric street cars, or bicycle.
Mr. Barlow learned an interesting lesson by this one day's experience. He obtained something of an idea of the life of his ancestors, who were compelled to walk whenever they had business to transact. He realized more than ever before what improvements had been made in the last three centuries in the means for travel. His thoughts were turned directly to these changes, and for several weeks he studied histories and scientific works to learn the ways in which these improvements came about. Let us note some of the results of his study.
Nearly three hundred years ago, Captain Newport, with a few small vessels, sailed up the James River, in Virginia. After some weeks the fleet returned to England, leaving about one hundred men, the colonists of Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in America. Here was a little village, with the Atlantic Ocean, thousands of miles wide, separating the colonists from all their friends and acquaintances. The great forest which covered the entire Atlantic coast contained now this clearing on the banks of the James River. North of the settlement dense woods extended in every direction; no white men lived nearer than the French colonies of Quebec and Nova Scotia. To the south also spread the forest; the nearest European settlement was the Spanish colony of Saint Augustine. Westward for hundreds and thousands of miles the almost uninhabited wilderness extended to the Pacific Ocean, the very existence of which was scarcely suspected by white men. Thus was the Jamestown colony almost entirely shut off from the world of civilization, a feeble band of Europeans surrounded by savage red men.
What interest had these colonists in travel? Tossed on the ocean as they had been for many weeks, worn with seasickness and lack of nourishing food, few had any desire to see more of the world. Besides, if they had wished to travel, where could they have gone? Roads through the forests were unknown; rivers were spanned by no bridges; swamps and marshes extended in every direction. The most remote houses were at easy walking distance. The little church was not far even from the last house in the village. If need for firewood or lumber led any one into the forest, he must go afoot. If any necessity arose for communication with the Indians, the journey must be made on foot. Thus we see that in the early days of Virginia what travel there was by land was limited to walking.
Thirteen years after the building of Jamestown a second English colony was planted in America. Another band of a hundred persons began a settlement at Plymouth in New England. The colony of Virginia had become well established by this time, yet it could be of but little help to Plymouth. Many hundred miles distant, it seemed hardly nearer than old England itself. The Pilgrims at Plymouth lived by themselves, as had the Virginia colonists, and for some years what travel they had was also on foot.
Time passed on in both colonies. New settlers came over the ocean to Virginia, and other villages were built at some distance from Jamestown. Thus arose reasons for journeys—desire to see friends in other villages—necessities of trade or commerce between the settlements. At first, of course, as travel by foot within a village was common, so journeys between villages were made in the same way.
An easier means of communication was provided when horses were brought over from England. These came in small numbers at first; there were but six horses in Virginia when the settlers had been there nine years. Thousands of years ago wild horses ranged in great numbers over the whole continent of America. But, for some reason or other, these had all perished, and when Columbus discovered the new world the red men were wholly unacquainted with these animals or their use. Therefore, when the white settlers in America desired horses they found it necessary to bring them in vessels from Europe.
To the first and most common mode of travel, by foot, was thus added the second method, namely, on horseback. In the old world this use of horses had existed for thousands of years. In fact, three hundred and four hundred years ago, at the time of the discovery and settlement of America, it was almost the universal means for land travel. It was natural then that it should be the first form taken up in America. Besides, the making of a bridle path through the woods, that is, a path wide enough for a man on horseback, was a comparatively simple matter. To build a carriage road would have been a much more difficult task.
In New England, as well as in Virginia, the population rapidly increased. The Plymouth colonists began to build other villages. A new colony was founded on the coast of Massachusetts Bay, but thirty miles from Plymouth. Here were established the towns of Salem, Charlestown, Roxbury, Dorchester, Newtown, and Boston. Other towns were soon built and clearings were made in every direction. Travel by horseback became common among those who could afford to keep horses. Those who were too poor must still travel on foot.
A MAN AND HIS WIFE TRAVELING ON HORSEBACK.
Most of the traveling was done by men. We read that Queen Elizabeth was an accomplished horsewoman; but as a rule few women were accustomed to hold the reins, and few side-saddles were in use. The horses of those days were very strong. They were trained to carry heavy burdens on their backs rather than to draw loaded wagons. They frequently carried more than one person; it was not unusual to see a man riding horseback, and behind him his wife, sitting sideways and holding on to her husband to keep from slipping off. For her comfort a pillion was used, which was a pad or cushion fastened to the saddle.
Not only was Massachusetts Bay rapidly settled, but villages were built fifty and even a hundred miles from Boston. Providence, Newport, and Portsmouth were founded, forming the colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Hartford, Wethersfield, and Windsor were established on the Connecticut. Dover and Portsmouth in New Hampshire, New Haven and Saybrook in Connecticut were built, and the village of Agawam, now Springfield, was founded.
All of these new settlements needed some connection with Boston, or the Old Bay Colony as it was called. The roads were mere paths, however, and over them carriages could not have passed, if there had been any. In a story written by J. G. Holland, called "Bay-Path," he described life in Agawam more than two and a half centuries ago, and his description of the roads and travel in those days is well worth reading.
"The principal communication with the Eastern settlement was by a path marked by trees a portion of the distance, and by slight clearings of brush and thicket for the remainder. No stream was bridged, no hill graded, and no marsh drained. The path led through woods which bore the marks of centuries, and along the banks of streams that the seine had never dragged. The path was known as 'the Bay-Path,' or the path to the bay.
"It was wonderful what a powerful interest was attached to the Bay-Path. It was the channel through which laws were communicated, through which flowed news from distant friends, and through which came long, loving letters and messages. That rough thread of soil, chopped by the blades of a hundred streams, was a bond that radiated at each terminus into a thousand fibers of love and interest and hope and memory.
"The Bay-Path was charmed ground—a precious passage—and during the spring, the summer, and the early autumn hardly a settler at Agawam went out of doors or changed his position in the fields, or looked up from his labor, or rested his oars upon the bosom of the river, without turning his eyes to the point at which that path opened from the brow of the wooded hill upon the East. And when some worn and wearied man came in sight upon his half-starved horse, or two or three pedestrians, bending beneath their packs and swinging their sturdy staves, were seen approaching, the village was astir from one end to the other.
THE BAY-PATH.
"The Bay-Path became better marked from year to year as settlements began to string themselves upon it as upon a thread. Every year the footsteps of those who trod it hurried more and more until, at last, wheels began to be heard upon it—heavy carts creaking with merchandise. A century passed away and the wilderness had retired. There was a constant roll along the Bay-Path. The finest of the wheat and the fattest of the flocks and herds were transported to the Bay, whose young commerce had already begun to whiten the coast.
"The dreamy years passed by, and then came the furious stagecoach, traveling night and day—splashing the mud, brushing up the dust, dashing up to inns, and curving more slowly up to post-offices. The journey was reduced to a day. And then—miracle of miracles—came the railway and the locomotive. The journey of a day is reduced to three hours."
CHAPTER II.
BY WATER.
When the Virginia colonists reached the shores of America, they sailed up the James River until they found a peninsula extending into the river and there they built Jamestown. When the Pilgrims completed their explorations of the shores of Cape Cod Bay, they chose the harbor of Plymouth as the best situation for their colony. Lord Baltimore established the Maryland colony at St. Mary's on an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. The Dutch founded New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The first settlements in each of the colonies were made on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, or but a few miles up large rivers. Why? The colonists had come to this new world in European vessels which could only bring them to the shore. Here they chose the most convenient place and built their town.
Thus these settlers were in the very beginning familiar with travel by water. But what a poor, inconvenient means of travel it was! The Jamestown colonists, one hundred and five in number, were tossed upon the stormy ocean for more than four months, enduring all the hardships of a severe winter in vessels that to-day would seldom venture upon the ocean, even in coastwise trade. Compare the two months and more of life on the Mayflower, where the passengers were crowded into the closest quarters, with the short six or seven days' trip to or from England to-day on the ocean steamers, where travelers find comforts and conveniences almost greater than those they are accustomed to at home.
PILGRIM EXILES.
Although the emigrants suffered greatly in these voyages across the Atlantic Ocean, the day of the return of the vessels to England was a sad one. When the last glimpse of the receding ship had vanished, the homesick watchers realized as never before their isolation—their separation from everybody and everything in which they were interested. Until vessels should again arrive from across the ocean they would be thrown entirely upon their own resources. The settlers were thus very dependent upon the ships that crossed the Atlantic so infrequently and with such difficulty.
Soon after the settlement, however, some of the colonies began to build vessels of their own. The forests provided lumber in great quantity and of the best quality. The first vessel to be built by the Massachusetts Bay Colony was launched at Medford the next year after the settlement of Boston. This small vessel was owned by Governor Winthrop and was appropriately called the Blessing of the Bay. The same year a Dutch ship, twenty times as large, was constructed at New Amsterdam.
A large part of the colonial shipbuilding was confined to New England, the Blessing of the Bay being but a leader in a long line. Within two years a ship as large as the Mayflower was built at Boston, and another twice as large at Salem. Within thirty-five years Boston had one hundred and thirty sail on the sea. New York built fewer but larger ships. Philadelphia was a leading shipbuilding town, and many vessels were constructed in the Carolinas.
The activity of the colonists in thus providing means for travel by water was not limited to ocean shipbuilding. The rivers, the inland roads, already prepared by nature, were used from the very beginning. As the settlements grew, both in population and in numbers, travel between them became more and more necessary, and the rivers and streams came more and more into use. The settlers were wise enough to follow the example of the Indians and to make themselves at once familiar with canoes and small boats of every description.
The earliest form of water travel was, perhaps, the raft. It was usually made of floating logs or bundles of brush tied together. To-day, even, rafts of single logs, merely pointed at the ends, are found in Australia, as well as rafts of reeds. On the coast of Peru rafts seventy feet long and twenty feet broad are common,—large enough to use sails as well as paddles.
The next step was to use the single log, made hollow by gradually burning it out or by slowly chipping away pieces with some sharp implement. On the Atlantic coast the most common form of canoe was the dugout, made from the cedar log; and singularly enough the same tree was most frequently used on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, especially near Puget Sound. These Western boats were frequently of great size, some on the Alaskan coast being ninety feet in length and propelled by forty paddles. The Indians had found these dugouts very serviceable, and as the European colonists began to travel over the same rivers and streams they patterned their river craft after those of the red men.
A BIRCH-BARK CANOE.
The lighter form of the canoe was preferred, where serviceable, to the dugout. This was made of a light but strong framework covered by bark or skins. That used by the Esquimaux was of sealskin stretched over whalebone. But the more common form was the Indian birch-bark canoe, which rapidly became very popular among the colonial hunters and trappers. No better description of the birch canoe can be found than that which the children's poet, Longfellow, gives in "Hiawatha."
"'Give me of your bark, O Birch Tree!
Of your yellow bark, O Birch Tree!
Growing by the rushing river,
Tall and stately in the valley!
I a light canoe will build me,
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing,
That shall float upon the river,
Like a yellow water-lily!
"'Lay aside your cloak, O Birch Tree!
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper,
For the Summer-time is coming,
And the sun is warm in heaven,
And you need no white-skin wrapper!'
"With his knife the tree he girdled;
Just beneath its lowest branches,
Just above the roots, he cut it,
Till the sap came oozing outward;
Down the trunk, from top to bottom,
Sheer he cleft the bark asunder,
With a wooden wedge he raised it,
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.
"'Give me of your boughs, O Cedar!
Of your strong and pliant branches,
My canoe to make more steady,
Make more strong and firm beneath me!'
"Down he hewed the boughs of cedar,
Shaped them straightway to a framework,
Like two bows he formed and shaped them,
Like two bended bows together.
"'Give me of your roots, O Tamarack!
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch Tree!
My canoe to bind together,
So to bind the ends together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!'
"From the earth he tore the fibres,
Tore the rough roots of the Larch Tree,
Closely sewed the bark together,
Bound it closely to the framework.
"'Give me of your balm, O Fir Tree.
Of your balsam and your resin,
So to close the seams together
That the water may not enter,
That the river may not wet me!'
"And he took the tears of balsam,
Took the resin of the fir tree,
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure,
Made each crevice safe from water.
"Thus the Birch Canoe was builded
In the valley, by the river,
In the bosom of the forest;
And the forest's life was in it,
All its mystery and its magic,
All the lightness of the birch tree,
All the toughness of the cedar,
All the Larch's supple sinews;
And it floated on the river
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn,
Like a yellow water-lily."
CHAPTER III.
STAGECOACHES.
Both by land and by water the methods of travel among the early colonists were extremely rude. From the early days of the settlements until the Independence of the United States the improvement was very slow. During the seventeenth century practically all of the long-distance traveling was by water. Schooners made regular trips from New England to Virginia, and smaller sloops or "packets" ran to New York from the different towns to the eastward. These vessels were dependent, of course, upon the wind, and the length of the journey varied greatly. Perhaps a packet might sail from New Haven to New York in two days, but calms or contrary winds might delay the trip, and make it a week in going from port to port.
On land, however, the facilities for travel slowly but surely improved. An interesting account of the rudeness and hardships of New England land journeys is furnished by the journal of Sarah Knight, who went from Boston to New York on horseback nearly two hundred years ago. The roads were openings in the forest, made by cutting down trees, and were often blocked by fallen trunks. The streams that must be crossed caused the most trouble. "We came," she wrote, "to a river which they generally ride thro'; but I dare not venture; so the post got a ladd and cannoo to carry me to t'other side, and he rid thro' and led my hors. The cannoo was very small and shallow, so that when we were in she seemed ready to take in water, which greatly terrified mee and caused mee to be very circumspect, sitting with my hands fast on each side, my eyes stedy, not daring so much as to lodg my tongue a hair's breadth more on one side of my mouth than t'other, nor so much as think on Lott's wife, for a wry thought would have oversett our wherey." For a woman to undertake such a journey was very unusual, and after her return she wrote with a diamond on the glass of a window these lines:
"Through many toils and many frights,
I have returned, poor Sarah Knights.
Over great rocks and many stones
God has preserved from fractured bones."
About the time that this long journey was made, carriages began to come into use. The most common of these were the large coach, the "calash," and a lighter, two-wheeled vehicle, with a calash top, similar to a chaise. But these carriages were for a time only used within the towns themselves, where the large number of houses required the building of better roads and streets. Comparatively few persons could afford to own private carriages, and their use was therefore not general for many years. Before the middle of the eighteenth century, however, carriages became more common. Broader and better roads had been built, and longer journeys could be made. As early as 1725, carriages had been driven from the Connecticut River to Boston, and overland travel began to be more customary.
The first roads that could be called suitable for carriage travel were for the most part toll roads. Instead of being made by the towns or counties, or by the colonies, they were built by corporations. These companies were granted the privilege of charging toll from every traveler over their roads for the purpose of paying a profit to the members of the company, as well as to keep the roads in repair. In the same way corporations built bridges, charging a small toll upon every one who crossed them. Thus travel was improved, time was saved, and less discomfort was caused the travelers.
OLD-STYLE CALASHES.
In the eighteenth century public carriages began to come into use. Previously if any one wished to travel by land, he found it necessary to own or hire horses. If he made a voyage by sea, he could pay his fare on some vessel that made the trip he wished to take. This means of public transportation, this carrying a person or his goods for pay, had been limited, however, to water travel. There were no regular conveyances running from town to town by land which would carry passengers or freight.
The town of Plymouth had been settled nearly a hundred years before the first line of stagecoaches in any part of the country was put in operation. This "stage wagon" ran between Boston and Bristol ferry, where it connected with the packet line to Newport and New York. Three years later a stage line began to run from Boston to Newport, making one trip each way every week. The driver advertised to carry "bundles of goods, merchandise, books, men, women, and children."
Travel was slow, much slower than seems possible to-day. The roads were still very poor, in fact scarcely fit to be called roads. Little by little new stage lines were established, nearly always in connection with some packet line. Up to the middle of the eighteenth century, however, opportunities to travel by stage were few and the time required great. Three weeks were needed to make the trip from Boston to Philadelphia, even under the most favorable conditions.
Less than three years before the battle of Lexington, the first stage was run between New York and Boston. The first trip was begun on Monday, July 13th, and the journey's end was not reached until Saturday, July 25th. Thirteen days were thus required for a trip which may now be made in five or six hours. As the amount of travel increased new lines were formed, the roads were improved, and stages were run more frequently and more rapidly. Sixty years after the first trip was made between New York and Boston the time had been cut down from thirteen days to one day and five hours; more than a hundred lines of coaches were then regularly running out of Boston.
In spite, however, of every improvement, travel by stage a hundred years ago was no simple or pleasant matter. Professor McMaster says: "The stagecoach was little better than a huge covered box mounted on springs. It had neither glass windows nor door nor steps nor closed sides. The roof was upheld by eight posts which rose from the body of the vehicle, and the body was commonly breast-high. From the top were hung curtains of leather, to be drawn up when the day was fine and let down and buttoned when rainy or cold. Within were four seats. Without was the baggage. When the baggage had all been weighed and strapped on the coach, when the horses had been attached, the eleven passengers were summoned, and, clambering to their seats through the front of the stage, sat down with their faces toward the driver's seat."
AN OLD-FASHIONED STAGECOACH.
The coach would set out from the inn with the horses on a gallop, which would continue until a steep hill was reached. Then would follow the slow pacing up the hill, the gallop down again, the dragging through a stretch of muddy road, the careful fording of a river, the watering of the horses every few miles, and the rapid gallop up to the next inn. Here the mail pouches would be taken out and in, perhaps a change of coaches made or more frequently of horses only, a delay for a little gossip, and the stage would be off again. This was all very exhilarating and agreeable in pleasant, warm weather, but how fatiguing in the cold and snows of winter, and even during a chilly summer storm.
These public conveyances were used only when necessary. Private carriages were much preferred to the stagecoach, as being a more comfortable as well as a safer mode of travel. The story is told of one young lady who was visiting near Boston, eighty years ago. She was very anxious to return to her home, but her father was unable to come for her. Her mother wrote: "Your papa would not trust your life in the stage. It is a very unsafe and improper conveyance for young ladies. Many have been the accidents, many the cripples made by accidents in these vehicles. As soon as your papa can, you may be sure he will go or send for you."
MUNROE TAVERN, LEXINGTON, MASS. (BUILT IN 1695.)
Whether the traveler went by stage or in his private carriage, it was necessary to stop at the inns. The taverns had a great deal to do with making journeys pleasant or disagreeable. As a general rule, the New England inns were kept by leading men, and in most cases the innkeeper was required to obtain recommendations from the selectmen of the town before he could get a license or a permission to establish and keep the tavern. Even the smaller New England villages boasted of inns that compared favorably with the hotels of the large towns. A Frenchman, traveling through the United States early in this century, wrote in highest praise of the inns of New England, whose windows were without shutters, and whose doors had neither locks nor keys, and yet where no harm ever came to the traveler. He admired "the great room, with its low ceiling and neatly sanded floor; its bright pewter dishes and stout-backed, slat-bottomed chairs ranged along its walls; its long table; and its huge fireplace, with the benches on either side."
He had less praise for the inns of the rest of the country. The buildings were poor, the fare was coarse, and the beds were bad. The roofs leaked, the windows were sometimes mere openings in the wall; the bedding was unclean and extremely uninviting.
If a traveler were compelled to stop at the Southern inns, he found his journey far from agreeable. Fortunately for him the Southern planter was the most hospitable of persons. "At his home strangers were heartily welcome and nobly entertained. Some bade their slaves ask in any traveler that might be seen passing by. Some kept servants on the watch to give notice of every approaching horseman or of the distant rumble of a coming coach and four." On the plantation the traveler was always treated as a most intimate friend, and in the cheery comfort of the mansion he forgot, for the time being, the trials and hardships of travel by land.
CHAPTER IV.
STEAMBOATS.
The idea of payment for transportation is very old. Thousands of years ago we read of vessels sailing upon the Mediterranean Sea prepared to transport persons or freight for sums of money. Where this idea originated is not known, but it may have occurred to a savage for the first time in some such way as the following:
A hunter lived on the banks of a river in Asia. One day he shot a duck which fell to the ground on the opposite shore. The hunter needed the bird, for he was hungry, but how was he to obtain it? The river was very deep at this point, and he could not swim. He knew that there was a shallow place five miles up the stream, where he might ford the river, and another ford five miles below. But to cross by either of these would require a journey of ten miles to the bird and ten miles back, just to get across a narrow river. He remembered that a big log lay upon a sand-bar in the river not far from where he was. He took a pole, pried off the log and rolled it into the water. Then seating himself on it he poled himself across, obtained the duck, and soon reached his home again. Here was the first water travel.
A few days later he heard a cry from over the river. Looking up, he saw a man who desired to cross. The stranger called to him to get his log and take him over, as he had carried himself. The hunter saw that the stranger had a deer on his shoulder. He was hungry, and therefore called out: "Give me the hind leg and half the loin of your deer for my labor, and I will bring you safely over." The stranger promptly agreed, and the hunter poled across the river. In some such way doubtless was the first payment made for transportation, and the idea soon became common that it was just and proper to charge a fare for carrying freight and passengers.
What powers have we found used in transportation up to a hundred years ago? First there was human power, either walking or plying oars or paddles. This energy is limited; walking is necessarily a slow process, and rowing is seldom a rapid mode of travel. Then came horse power, used first to carry travelers or goods and later to draw carriages and wagons, conveying passengers and freight. Horse power is superior to human power both in speed and in endurance, but it also has its limits and often fails at important times.
Then use was made of the wind, which, blowing against stretches of canvas, propelled vessels. Here was no human power to become wearied; no horse power to fail at the wrong time. Vessels need not stop at night in order to sleep, nor even at noon in order to take dinner. But the wind is fickle; it does not always blow; it frequently blows from the wrong direction; it often blows too much. Human power, horse power, wind power, each was insufficient or unsatisfactory, and the time was ripe for some power stronger and less fickle to produce more rapid transportation.
When the necessity of a new power became great, the needed energy and a way to use it were soon found. Near the close of the eighteenth century a number of men, unacquainted with each other's ideas, began to experiment with steam as a means for propelling vessels. Why had they not begun earlier? For two reasons. The demand for quicker water travel had but just commenced, and the fact that steam could practically be used as a motive power was only beginning to be understood.
It so happened that James Watt's steam engine was perfected just as the treaty of peace with Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the United States. Now American inventors were able to make use of the steam engine to aid travel and transportation. At once they began work. Samuel Morey built a steamboat on the upper Connecticut River; James Rumsey experimented on the Potomac; John Fitch on the Delaware, and William Longstreet on the Savannah; Oliver Evans was at work in Philadelphia, and John Stevens on the Hudson.
FITCH'S STEAMBOAT.
One of these boats used the steam engine to move oars; another pumped water in at the bow and forced it out again at the stern; a third had a wheel in the stern; and a fourth had a paddle wheel on each side. Some of the vessels used upright, and some horizontal engines. Most of these inventors succeeded in running their boats against the tide or the current of rivers, and proved that steam could be thus used. Each may be said to have invented a steamboat. But these men were all without means; they did not succeed in awakening the interest of wealthy men; and the public cared little about such inventions. Therefore each of these steamboats was given up in turn and soon forgotten; the eighteenth century passed away, and no practical result had appeared. It is natural to have more interest in the account of an invention which proved of practical value than in the stories of even successful attempts which were given up almost as soon as made.
Robert Fulton was born in Pennsylvania just as Watt began his study of the steam engine. Almost as soon as Watt had completed his improvements on the engine, Fulton came of age, and went to England to study painting with Benjamin West, the famous American artist. In the midst of his art studies he became interested in mechanical pursuits. He attracted the attention of some English scientists, and, by their encouragement, he abandoned painting and devoted himself to inventing. But who knows how much assistance his skill in drawing may have been to him in his preparations of plans and models?
Joel Barlow, a noted American poet, was then living in France, and upon his invitation Fulton spent several years in his home in Paris. Here he devoted his time to boats, as he had already done in London. His schemes were of various kinds. He planned diving boats, steamboats, and canal boats, and was particularly interested in a boat which he called a marine torpedo. This boat he planned to be used to injure vessels in naval warfare. For a time he neglected the steamboat, and bent every energy to persuade the French Government to adopt the torpedo. Afterward he urged his marine boats upon the English and American governments, but in vain. He did not realize the enormously greater future value of the steamboat.
In time, however, Fulton finished his plans, and a steamboat was built for him upon the river Seine. The next step was to enlist the coöperation of some one with power and means by proving that the invention was valuable. Fulton accordingly sought to bring the boat to the attention of the French Emperor. He succeeded in awakening Napoleon's interest. It was just at the time that the emperor was planning to take his great army across the Channel to attack England. He saw that steamboats, if of practical value, would be serviceable to him in these plans. Accordingly he directed a scientific committee to attend a public trial of the boat.
A day was set for the examination. Fulton had worked steadily for weeks, seeking to make every part as perfect as possible. The night before the appointed day, Fulton retired for rest, but sleep would not come to his eyes. His thoughts were so completely fixed upon his invention and what the next day meant to him that he could not control them. Not until morning began to dawn did he catch a nap, and then only to be immediately awakened by a knock at his door.
A messenger had come to tell him that his boat was at the bottom of the river. The iron machinery had proved too heavy for the little sixteen-foot boat, and had broken through. Fulton's hopes were at an end. Before he could build another boat and make another engine the opportunity would be past. His disappointment was intense. However, he did not despair, but was soon ready to try again.
Doubtless the failure was a blessing in disguise. The boat was probably too small to make a successful trip. The next time he would have a larger vessel. Instead of again trying to arouse French interest, he decided to make the next experiment at home.
Robert R. Livingston, our minister to France, who together with James Monroe purchased for the United States the great province of Louisiana, had long been interested in the possibilities of steam navigation. He entered into Fulton's plans and assisted him in every way. Soon after the disaster on the Seine both men returned to America, and the next six months were spent in building a boat and in putting into it a steam engine which they had especially ordered in Birmingham, England. A grant had been obtained from the New York legislature which gave them the exclusive right to run steam vessels on any of the waters of the State.
The new boat was a hundred and thirty feet in length, or eight times as long as that lost in the Seine. It was called the Clermont, after the country home of Livingston. It was a side-paddle steamboat, with wheels fifteen feet in diameter and four feet wide. The trial trip was announced for August 7th, 1807, and at one o'clock in the afternoon the Clermont stood at the wharf in New York ready for the journey.
Was the trial to succeed or fail? To succeed, the Clermont must steam up the Hudson River at a speed of, at least, four miles an hour. The trip proposed was from New York to Albany, a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, and return. This trip was regularly made by sailing packets, and the average time was four days. Could the Clermont reach Albany in thirty-seven hours, or a day and a half? Unfortunately, a north wind was blowing, which would greatly decrease the speed.
Fulton and Livingston were confident that it could be done. The steamboat left the wharf and slowly sailed up the river. Soon the faults natural to a new invention began to show themselves. The rudder did not work as it ought; the wheels were unprotected by a covering; the vessel sank too far in the water. But the trial, in spite of all the odds against it, was successful. The one hundred and fifty miles were made in thirty-two hours, with five hours to spare from the limit set. If we subtract the time spent in stops, but twenty-eight and a half hours were used, making an average of more than five miles an hour.
The first long steamboat trip had been accomplished. The indifference of the public at once changed to enthusiasm. Fulton was immediately urged to make regular trips, and, although the Clermont needed many improvements, he consented. The next winter, however, the boat was removed from the river for repairs; but in the spring regular trips were resumed, and the steamboat became a new and permanent means of transportation.
There was abundant opportunity to improve the steamboat and develop its use. At first Fulton's Clermont alone steamed up and down the Hudson River. Soon, however, other steamboats were built to run in opposition to the sailing packets. Steamers began to ply on Lake Champlain and on the Delaware River. Three years after the first voyage of the Clermont, a steamboat was making three trips a week from New York to New Brunswick, New Jersey; here the traveler took stage for Bordentown on the Delaware River, whence another boat carried him to Philadelphia. Two years later steam ferryboats ran between New York and the Jersey shore.
The first river steamboat was launched at Pittsburg, and was sent down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New Orleans in 1811. Three years later the Ætna steamed from Pittsburg to New Orleans, and back to Louisville. The same year a steamboat was built on the Lakes to run from Buffalo to Detroit, and a company was organized to start a steamship line from New York to Charleston. Five years afterward the steamship Savannah, using both steam and sails, crossed the Atlantic Ocean. She made but slow time, and the great space required to hold the fuel left little room for freight. Year by year, however, improvements were made on the vessels and quicker time was the result. Finally, anthracite coal came into general use, and thirty years after the trial trip of the Clermont, the steamers Sirius and the Great Western began regular trips between Liverpool and New York. The day of steam navigation had come, and from that time on the vexatious delays due to fickle winds no longer need be a cause of trouble.
CHAPTER V.
CANALS.
Ninety years ago, two brothers, James and John, found it necessary to make the long journey from their home in New York City to Kentucky. They had frequently traveled through the country, and were familiar with stages and packets. This time they proposed to make their first trip on the steamboat, since the Clermont was again making its regular runs. It was advertised to leave New York at one o'clock on Wednesday. The brothers felt no need of haste in their preparations for the journey, and it was nearly two o'clock before they came in sight of the wharf. Just then John made the remark that they were very foolish to arrive so early.
"We shall have to wait an hour or two," he said; "the boat won't be ready to start before three o'clock at the earliest."
"I am not so sure," was the reply. "Perhaps the steamboat will not be as late as the packets."
When they reached the wharf, no steamboat was there. Far up the river they saw, slowly moving off in the distance, a vessel, which they knew must be the Clermont, from the line of smoke that lay behind it. Immediately they began to inquire what it meant and were told, "Oh! that is one of Fulton's notions. He has given strict orders that the boat shall always leave the wharf exactly on advertised time." This was a novelty almost as great as the steamboat itself. Sailing vessels had been dependent upon the wind, and stages upon the conditions of the roads and the weather; neither made any pretence of running upon schedule time. Fulton's idea of punctuality was new and caused much grumbling for a time; but with the coming of the railroads it became an absolute necessity.
What were the two men to do? But two things could be done. They might take passage on a packet, or wait for the next trip of the Clermont. They decided to wait, as they were anxious to try the steamboat; they had had enough experience with the slow sailing vessels, and their poor accommodations. They did not permit themselves to be late a second time. In fact, the clocks had hardly struck twelve when they stepped aboard the Clermont.
The hour before the departure of the boat was spent in examining it from stem to stern. The original Clermont had been greatly improved. The wheels were now properly protected; a rudder, specially adapted to the boat and the river, had been constructed. Most noticeable were the accommodations for the passengers, which were almost elegant when compared with the poor quarters of the packets. In fact the Clermont had become "a floating palace, gay with ornamental painting, gilding, and polished woods."
At one o'clock sharp the boat quietly left the wharf. The wind was blowing freshly down the river and the tide was going out. A packet started at the same moment from a neighboring pier. The steamboat at once turned its prow up the stream, but the packet headed for the Jersey shore, as it could sail against the wind only by making long tacks. This greatly increased the distance it had to travel, and before sunset the Clermont had left the packet many miles behind.
The next morning everything was still going smoothly when the two passengers saw a little way ahead another packet, which had left New York before the steamboat. This sloop was making tacks like those they had watched the previous afternoon, and the Clermont was rapidly gaining on it. Suddenly John exclaimed, "What are they doing? Are they trying to run us down?" It was evident that the packet was coming straight for the steamboat; but the captain of the Clermont shut off steam at once and the packet passed its bow without doing harm.
COLLISION OF THE CLERMONT AND THE SLOOP.
Soon a sloop was met coming down the river. Again came the exclamation from John, "They are surely trying to run into us!" He had hardly spoken when the crash came; the packet struck the wheel box, tore it open, and then, sliding along the side of the steamboat, passed away down the river. On inquiry John ascertained that this was merely an illustration of the envy of the owners of packets, who feared that they would lose all their business. No serious damage was done, however, and the steamboat proceeded on its way.
The Clermont arrived at Albany at seven o'clock Thursday evening and the brothers spent the night at an inn. The next morning, after an early breakfast, a stage was taken which in a few hours carried them to Schenectady. This part of the journey was quickly made, as the road was one of the best in the country. On reaching Schenectady the travelers learned that they must wait till the next noon to take a boat up the Mohawk River. The hours slowly dragged along, another night was spent at an inn, and about three o'clock the next afternoon the slow trip up the Mohawk began. Two days later they reached Utica, and another stage took them, the next day, to Rome. From this village two days' sail carried them across the Oneida Lake, and down the Oswego River to Oswego on the banks of Lake Ontario.
After a delay of thirty-six hours a lake packet was found ready for them, which in time arrived at Lewiston at the mouth of the Niagara River, and so on they went, by land to Buffalo, by water to Erie, by land again to one of the branches of the Alleghany River, and down this to Pittsburg. From Pittsburg one of the flat-bottomed Western river boats, borne along by the current, conveyed them to Louisville, at the Falls of the Ohio.
Thus was made, in several weeks, a trip from New York to Louisville, which to-day requires scarcely more than twenty-four hours. Ten times had changes been made in the conveyances used. A steamboat, river rowboats, lake packets, Western flatboats and stages, were all needed, and nights and days even were spent at inns. Slow and cumbrous was travel in those days and very expensive. There was little traveling for pleasure, and only the most important business was worth the hardships and discomforts of such travel.
If it was costly for passengers to travel, it was even more expensive to carry freight. Enormous charges were placed upon all transportation of goods. New and better roads were being built in all directions, but these did little to reduce the cost of transporting goods. The cheapest routes continued to be by the rivers, as the expense of building good roads and keeping them in repair added to freight charges. The charges for freight transportation were so great that it prevented entirely the moving of many goods.
The people in Pennsylvania desired the salt which was obtained in New York, but it cost $2.50 a bushel to carry salt three hundred miles. Citizens of Philadelphia would have purchased flour which was raised about the sources of the Susquehanna River had it not cost $1.50 a barrel to carry it to Philadelphia. Hundreds of families were weekly moving westward into the new country across the Alleghany Mountains; they could not afford to take their household goods with them. The freight charges from New York to Buffalo were $120 a ton; from Philadelphia to Pittsburg, $125.
Something new in the line of transportation was needed; some way by which freight could be carried at less expense. Private companies were building new toll roads—but these did not accomplish the purpose. Different States expended money in improving the highways, and still the expense of transportation was enormous. The national Government also took part in the work and constructed a highway from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, on the Ohio River—but this was merely a single road over the mountains, and freight charges were as high as ever.
What could be done? Of course the roads everywhere must be improved and new ones built—all of which would take many years. But was there not some way to avoid carrying so much freight in wagons drawn by horses? Wherever there were rivers these could be used. Was it possible to make rivers, or at least to make water-ways, upon which boats might be used? The people of the United States began to talk of canals, and soon enthusiasm for canal building became universal.
What is a canal? It is a trench cut in the ground, filled with water deep enough for a well-laden boat, and wide enough for boats to pass each other. On one bank is a path, called the towpath, upon which horses or mules travel, pulling a canal boat behind them by means of a long rope. In most canals it is found necessary to lift the boats over higher land or up to a higher level. This is done by locks, which are built where the two levels of the canal come together. These locks are shut off from each part of the canal by gates. When the lower gates are shut and the upper gates open, water is let into the lock from the upper canal until on a level with it. Then a canal boat from the upper canal enters the lock. The upper gates are closed, the lower gates opened, and the water runs out of the lock. The boat, remaining on top of the water, sinks to the lower level and is ready to proceed on its course. In traveling the other way the process is turned about. The boat enters the lock and rises with the water which is let in from above until it is on the upper level.
Canals, with their locks, are simple and easily built. The expense lies mainly in digging the trench. When the canal is once finished the cost of running is very slight, and freight can be carried much more cheaply than over roads, or even by the natural rivers. Canal travel is very slow, however, as the boat is drawn by a horse at a slow walk. Therefore a canal is used, for the most part, to carry freight, especially freight not very perishable. Garden vegetables, fruit, and meats, for example, are not carried on canals to any great distance; on the other hand, the length of time used in conveying salt, or flour, or household goods, is not of so much importance.
Plans for canals sprang up all at once throughout the country. The Middlesex canal in Massachusetts and the Blackstone canal between Providence and Worcester were among the first built. The Delaware and Hudson canal in New York, and the Chesapeake and Delaware in Maryland were of early importance. In time nearly every Atlantic State had one or more canals as aids to transportation. Many of them were of additional importance because they connected neighboring bays, and could furnish opportunities for water travel, even when the harbors might be blockaded in time of war.
THE ERIE CANAL.
The greatest and by far the most important is the Erie canal, which connects Buffalo on Lake Erie with Albany on the Hudson River. This canal was due to the energy and persistence of Governor De Witt Clinton, who dug the first shovelful of earth in 1817, and made the first trip over the completed canal in 1825. There was great opposition to building this canal at the expense of the State, and the nickname of "Clinton's Big Ditch" was frequently applied to it.
Governor Clinton was wiser, however, than his opponents. Every cent spent on this canal, which is 363 miles long, 40 feet wide, and 4 feet deep, was wisely spent. On the day that it was finished the great prosperity of New York City began. A large part of the trade and commerce between the East and the West was carried over the Erie canal, because it furnished the cheapest route. Freight charges between Buffalo and Albany fell at once to less than one-quarter their former rates, and continued to decrease until they became less than $10 a ton.
Thus far had travel and transportation improved. From walking, horseback riding, and rowboats, slow changes had led to stages, packets, steamboats, and canals. From the simple Indian trail, like the Bay Path, had grown up the great highways, like the National Road. From slow and difficult journeys between neighboring towns, traveling had become easy from Maine to Florida, and from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River. Was there any chance for further improvement?
CHAPTER VI.
RAILROADS.
Up to this time progress had been more marked upon the water than upon the land. On the land travelers were still limited to human power and horse power. On the water, however, not only human power and wind were used, but also horse power and even steam power. The steamboat was thought to be the most rapid means of transit possible. No energy was known greater than that of steam; therefore no new source of power was expected.
If steam could aid water navigation, could it not be used in land travel? This question was ever present in the minds of inventors, mechanics, and travelers on both sides of the ocean. Little by little an answer was obtained, and the field of steam was enlarged. Even before Fulton's trial trip, the first step in the direction of the railroad was taken, though steam had nothing to do with this first practical experiment.
The city of Boston was built upon three hills, two of which have now been almost entirely moved away. Upon the third, called Beacon Hill, was built the State House. Early in this century the top of this hill was lowered by carrying away the gravel. For this purpose a tramway was built. This consisted of two sets of rails or tracks from the top to the bottom of the hill, upon which cars were used. The full car on one track ran down of its own weight, pulling up the empty car on the other track. This was the first use of rails in this country.
The first permanent tramway was built in Pennsylvania. Thomas Leifer owned a stone quarry about three-quarters of a mile from the nearest wharf on the Delaware River. He desired to carry his stone to tide water more easily than by the ordinary methods. Accordingly he built a tramway from the quarry to the wharf, and placed upon the tracks an ordinary wagon. To this he attached horses and had what we should call a horse car. The rails made a smooth road over which his horses could draw five tons as easily as one ton over the common roads. This tram was used regularly for eighteen years.
One-half of the steam railroad had now been invented. The tramway was the railroad—now steam must be applied. That was all. But that was not so easy as it would seem now. Year after year passed and no one attempted it. Doubtless many persons felt certain that the steam railroads were coming some time and that they would be of value, just as to-day many people expect that travel through the air is coming some time. At the same time there were many who did not believe that steam could be used for land travel at all; while others did not care to have it come for fear that travel would be made too speedy.
One of the leading English magazines took occasion to express its opinion concerning a proposed railway: "What can be more absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out of locomotives traveling twice as fast as stage coaches! We should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve's rockets as trust themselves to the mercy of a machine going at such a rate. We trust that Parliament will, in all railways it may sanction, limit the speed to eight or nine miles an hour, which is as great as can be ventured on with safety." What would this writer say to the safety of the trains of to-day, as they make forty fifty, sixty, and even seventy miles an hour?
Many of the inventions which have done the most for mankind have been made by Americans, but we owe the locomotive to an Englishman. George Stephenson from early boyhood devoted himself to the study of engines and machinery. When but thirteen years of age he assisted his father in the care of an engine at a coal mine near Newcastle. Working by day as an engineman, and studying by night in a night school, he prepared himself for his future work. He won the confidence of his employers, especially that of Lord Ravensworth, who supplied him with funds to build a "traveling engine" to run on the rails of the tramroad between the mines and the shipping port, nine miles distant. July 25th, 1814, Stephenson made a successful trip with his locomotive, "My Lord," which pulled the coal cars at the rate of four miles an hour.
Stephenson felt that this locomotive was but a beginning. He told his friends that "there was no limit to the speed of such an engine, if the works could be made to stand." He was still pursuing his studies and experiments when he was appointed engineer of a proposed railroad between Stockton and Darlington. The directors of the road had planned to pull their cars by horses, but they were won over by Stephenson to agree to try an engine. Eleven years after the trial trip of his first engine, Stephenson was ready to exhibit a locomotive upon a railroad joining two towns for the purpose of transporting passengers and freight.
A short time before the trial trip, Stephenson made a prediction concerning the future of his invention. "I venture to tell you," he said, "that I think that you will live to see the day when railways will supersede almost all other methods of conveyance in this country—when mail coaches will go by railway, and railroads will become the great highways for the king and all his subjects. The time is coming when it will be cheaper for a working man to travel on a railway than to walk on foot. I know that there are great and almost insurmountable difficulties to be encountered, but what I have said will come to pass as sure as you now hear me."
The Stockton and Darlington Railway was three years in process of construction, and the day of its opening, September 27th, 1825, was an important one in the history of travel. Imagine that first train load—the locomotive, guided by Stephenson himself, six freight cars, a car carrying "distinguished guests," twenty-one coal cars crammed with passengers, and six more freight cars all loaded. Ahead of the train, or procession, as it might be called, rode a man on horseback, carrying a flag bearing the motto, "The private risk is the public benefit." When the train started, crowds of people ran along by its side, for a time easily keeping up with it. Finally, however, Stephenson called to the horseman to get out of the way and, putting on steam, drove the engine at the rate of fifteen miles an hour. The future of the locomotive was assured.
Americans were ready for new methods of traveling. Three years after the opening of the first passenger steam-railway in England, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad began to construct a line from Baltimore westward, and in two years fourteen miles were opened to travel. For a year, however, horses were used as motive power; in 1831, the road advertised for locomotives. Meanwhile an engine, called the "Stombridge Lion," was brought over from England, in 1829, and used on a line built by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. It was found to be too heavy and was abandoned. The second locomotive used in this country, "The Best Friend of Charleston," was built in New York City, and was run on the South Carolina Railroad.
OLD-STYLE RAILROAD TRAIN.
The locomotive and the railroad had come, such as they were. The locomotive had its boiler and its smokestack, its cylinders and driving wheels; but it had no cab for the engineer and the fireman, and no brake to stop the train. The tender was but a flat car, carrying fuel and water. The cars were merely stagecoaches made to run on rails, and in no way were the passengers protected from the smoke and cinders of the burning wood. Yet this poor, inconvenient railroad was a great advance in itself, and it foretold greater advances in the days to come.
In 1835, five years after the opening of the first steam railroad in the United States, there were twenty-three roads and over a thousand miles of track. After 1835, an average of nearly four hundred miles was built yearly until 1848. From that time until the beginning of the Civil War, railroad construction proceeded with great rapidity, nearly two thousand miles of railroad being built each year. In 1849, a continuous line of railroad was completed between New York and Boston. Two years later two distinct lines were finished, connecting New York and Buffalo. At the end of another two years, through connection was had between New York and Chicago. At the same time railroads were being built in all sections east of the Mississippi River.
After peace was restored in 1865, came a great period of railroad building. During ten years the number of miles of railroad more than doubled, nearly four thousand miles being built each year. This was the period when the continuous lines, which had already reached the Missouri River, were continued across the continent. After five years of labor the Union Pacific Railroad, starting at Omaha, Nebraska, met at Ogden, Utah, the Central Pacific, which had been built from Sacramento, California. May 10th, 1869, the last spike was driven and the Pacific coast was bound to the Atlantic by bands of steel.
Since the completion of the Union and Central Pacific railroads, four other through lines have been constructed across the Rocky Mountains, within the territory of the United States, and one in Canada. It is now possible to go from ocean to ocean in less than five days, and to have such a choice of routes that neither the cold of winter nor the heat of summer need be troublesome.
At last the limit of rapid traveling seems to have been reached. Walking and horseback riding are indulged in only for pleasure and health; stagecoaches are used only for short lines where the railroad has not yet come; but all the long-distance traveling is now done behind the locomotive. Journeys of weeks have become trips of a few days, days have been lessened to hours, and the country has become knit together by rapid transit. Is there a chance for further improvement?
CHAPTER VII.
MODERN WATER TRAVEL.
James Greenleaf arrived in Duluth, one bright June day, four hundred and five years after the discovery of America. For nearly forty years he had been a missionary among the Indians of the British Northwest, but he had finally been persuaded to take a well-earned rest. Leaving his little settlement of red men, and taking a canoe, he had paddled up stream, carried his canoe over a portage, and paddled down a river until he reached Lake Superior, where a small sailboat had taken him to the flourishing city at the western end of the lake.
At the hotel he found, as he expected, his nephew, Henry Towne. Mr. Towne was a commercial traveler, always "on the road," as he would say, for a large furniture establishment in New York. In a letter to his uncle he had stated that business would call him to Minnesota at just that time, and that he would make the journey with his uncle from Duluth to New York.
The next day the two men started. The nephew had made all the necessary arrangements, having purchased tickets and engaged staterooms on the line of steamboats that connect Duluth with Buffalo. The first sight of the steamboat caused Mr. Greenleaf to exclaim at its size.
"It is not much like the steamboat that I took on the Hudson in the spring of 1856," he said. "I imagine, however, that I shall see greater differences than this, the further I go."
As the two men made a tour through the steamboat, the older gave expression to his thoughts in many ways.
"We did not have the saloon in those old days, when I did my traveling. Whenever we did not care to remain on the open deck there was no parlor to which we could go. No orchestra helped to while away our hours. No piano or organ added the charm of music to our journey."
"But you had a state room to which you could retire," replied his companion, as they came to the rooms numbered 240 and 242, which numbers were on the keys that they had obtained at the purser's.
"Yes," said his uncle, "a tiny room, six feet by six, with narrow little berths, and two small stools. I can assure you that it was nothing like these comfortable sleeping rooms, brilliantly lighted, with regulation beds, convenient toilet arrangements, and carpeted floors. However, I do not imagine that the machinery will let me sleep any better now than then."
The next morning, as the travelers went down to breakfast, the younger man asked, "Well, uncle, how did you sleep?"
"Never better," was the reply. "I tell you, Henry, I want to look at the machinery, after breakfast. It must be somewhat unlike the engine of my day, or the boat, large though it is, would have more of a jar."
When the two men stood above the mammoth engine and noted the smooth working parts, the regular and even motion of the great piston rods in and out of the cylinders, the quietness and gentleness with which each movement took place, the uncle said: "More improvements have been made on the engine of forty years ago than had then been made on that of the Clermont. And we used to think that the steamboats of our day were as much superior to Fulton's boat as his was ahead of Fitch's steam-moved paddles."
We cannot take note of all the novel sensations that came to the old missionary, nor can we pause to relate many of the conversations between the two men. We can record a few only of the greater changes which were discussed as they continued their journey, and mention some of the comments called forth by the scenes through which Mr. Greenleaf was passing.
On the afternoon of the second day the steamboat passed through the locks of the canal at Sault Ste. Marie.
"Uncle," remarked the drummer, "how does this canal compare with the Delaware and Hudson canal, with which you were familiar?"
"How can they be compared?" replied his uncle. "That was a long trench, hardly more than a scratch on the surface of the ground. This is broad and deep, though not long."
"Yes," said Mr. Towne, "but there is no new principle here. This canal is somewhat wider and deeper; its locks and gates are somewhat larger. Still it is only a canal."
"But we could not make such a hole in our day. We could not afford to hire men enough to dig it; it must have required many years to make this excavation."
"Oh; this canal was not made as large as this when it was first built. It has been enlarged since. But you know that we do not do all our digging now by hand. Steam shovels do the work for us. That gives us a great advantage over the day laborer with his pick and shovel."
"What strikes me as most noticeable," said Mr. Greenleaf, "is the number of vessels waiting on both sides of the lock. What causes such a crowd to-day, particularly?"
"This is no unusual number," replied Mr. Towne. "You do not realize what a traffic there is on the great lakes. It is stated that the tonnage passing through this canal is greater than that through any other strait on the face of the globe. This growth is very recent and very rapid."
"But what causes the traffic and where are all the vessels going?" asked the missionary.
"The great bulk of the freight," answered the younger man, "is grain from the Northwest, and iron, copper, coal, and lumber, now being obtained in vast quantities south of Lake Superior. So long as the steamboats can carry freight more cheaply than the steam cars, grain and ores will take this route. Sometime we shall have canals large enough for ocean steamers, which will connect the great lakes with the Atlantic Ocean. Then we can load our freight at Chicago or Duluth and not change it until it is unloaded at some English or European port."
The next day, as the steamboat was lying at the wharf at Detroit, conversation was turned to the great ferryboats plying across the river.
"I notice great changes in the steam ferries, since last I crossed the North River at New York," remarked Mr. Greenleaf.
"Yes," was the reply, "but you see only improvements. The ferryboats are larger and you might almost say clumsier; that is all."
"I do not think so," returned the missionary. "There must be some new invention to enable entire trains, with cars filled with passengers, to be carried across such a river as this."
"Of course," said his nephew, "the boat must be strong and large. However, the ferry docks have been improved. Now, when the boat is fastened, the wharf can be raised and lowered, until it is exactly on the level of the boat. Then not only passengers, but wagons and steam cars can pass from one to the other almost without knowledge of the change."
"How far have these cars come that I see on the ferry?"
"That," said the drummer, "is one of the through trains from Montreal to Chicago. The ferryboat next beyond, going the other way, bears a train containing cars bound for New York and Boston."
"Well, well! This is convenient," said the missionary. "The passengers are saved much trouble by not being required to gather up all their traveling bundles, leave the cars for the boat, and the boat for a new set of cars. We should have thought this a great gain, forty years ago."
"But do you realize what an inconvenience this ferry causes? Much time is wasted, not only because of the slow movement of the boats, but also from the necessary delays in embarking and disembarking the cars."
"Yes, I suppose so. But what would you do? Here is the river and it is too wide for a bridge."
"Oh, no!" replied Mr. Towne. "The bridge could be built, but it would be expensive and would not pay. But what do you think of a tunnel?"
"A tunnel? What do you mean?" said the other man, with a touch of surprise in his voice for the first time. "A tunnel? Where? Not under the river?
"Yes," answered his nephew, "a tunnel under the river. There is one, a few miles north, at Port Huron. There the train, instead of being delayed hours by the ferry, passes at almost full speed directly under the river, proceeding on its way as though the river were not there."
"Is not that something new?" asked Mr. Greenleaf.
A RIVER TUNNEL.
"Yes. It was opened only a half-dozen years ago. It is said to be the greatest river tunnel in the world. It is a little over a mile long and is fifteen feet below the bed of the St. Clair River. Half a mile of it is directly under the water, yet no one passing through it would realize that it was different from any one of the hundreds of tunnels through which the railroads of this country pass. It is but a natural following out of such tunnels as the five-mile tunnel under the Hoosac Mountains in Massachusetts, or the three-quarter-mile tunnels in Jersey City, or the score of tunnels on the line of the Southern Railway over the Blue Ridge in North Carolina. It is a great tunnel to-day, of course, but when the North River tunnel is finished, from New York to Jersey City, this will be of little account in comparison."
Detroit was soon left, Lake Erie was reached, and night came on. The next morning the steamboat reached its journey's end at Buffalo. Our friends hastened across the city and were soon seated in a sleeper, on the train for New York.
CHAPTER VIII.
MODERN LAND TRAVEL.
Soon after the train had started from the Buffalo station conversation began between Mr. Greenleaf and his nephew. "The steam is the same as in my day," remarked the former; "the steam pushes the piston in just the same way; there is no change in this direction. But all else is new."
"Yes," said the drummer, "you must see great changes; tell me some of them."
"Very well," was the reply. "The most noticeable thing about a railroad train used to be the jerking motion. We seemed to be going 'bump-i-ty-bump' all the time; and starting and stopping a train would often throw us off our feet."
"Various improvements," said Mr. Towne, "have helped to produce this easy-riding motion. The roadbeds are laid with much greater care—long experience and numerous experiments have provided us with the best rails; but more especially the absence of jar is due to steel springs, and also to the breaks and couplers. When one car was attached to another by two bolts thrust through a ring, nothing was firm, as the bolts would slide forward and back with every motion of the car. The new automatic couplers hold the two cars more firmly together. Again, the old hand brakes have been replaced by the automatic air brake."
"Yes, I have heard of that, but I do not understand it. Can you explain it to me?"
"I think so. George Westinghouse, Jr., about thirty years ago, took out a patent for the air brake. This alone has been enough to make him famous, although he has twelve hundred patents issued in his name. The Westinghouse air brake is now almost universally used. Some of the surplus steam in the locomotive pumps air into tanks in the cars, which air presses upon a piston, that moves a rod against the brakes. Thus the brakes can be held against the wheels with great force at the will of the engineer."
"Well, the next thing that I notice," said the missionary, "is the improved comfort of the passengers. The cinders filled the cars in the old days; the air within was always bad; the candles gave more smoke than light; and in winter, the stoves at the end of the cars gave no heat in the center."
"Yes, all that is changed," replied the younger man. "Spark arresters keep out the cinders; the overhead ventilators give us good air; bright light, almost like that of day, surrounds us in the evening; and, when wanted, the engine supplies steam in pipes running the entire length of the car, which gives even and ample heat."
"This car is wider than ours used to be, is it not?" queried Mr. Greenleaf.
"Yes," was the reply. "When the first Pullman sleeping car, the 'Pioneer,' was run on the Chicago and Alton Railroad, it was wider and higher than the ordinary coaches. Several bridges had to be raised to allow the car to pass under; and all the station platforms were altered to permit it to pass. Since then, as Pullmans and Wagners have come into use on so many roads, many changes in bridges have been found necessary, and station platforms have almost universally been cut down to the ground."
"Did I understand you to say that this is a sleeper?" asked Mr. Greenleaf. "Our sleeping cars, few and far between as they were, had berths or bunks three tiers high, fitted in on each side of the car, making it useless except to sleep in."
A PULLMAN SLEEPER.
"That was the great feature of Mr. Pullman's invention," was the reply. "He saw that few railroad companies would care to go to the expense of running cars which could only be used for sleeping purposes. He was familiar with the 'old-fashioned, stuffy cars, where men sat in stiff-backed seats and dozed and yawned and waited for morning. By putting people to sleep this wide-awake man made a fortune.' You are sitting on the bed now. But here comes the porter to make up the berths next to us. The lady wishes to put her little boy to sleep."
With much interest Mr. Greenleaf watched the porter make a sleeping room out of a sitting room. In a trice the cushions in the seats and backs were twisted about and laid from seat to seat, making a bed. With a jump, the porter stood on the arm of the seat, and turned a knob in the roof. Down came another bed, a few feet above the first. From this was pulled a triangular board which was placed between the beds and the next seats. Sheets, blankets, and pillows, which had been shut up in the roof, were soon properly spread out, and two good beds were the result. Curtains were found above the upper bed, which, hung upon poles, shut the beds off from the car aisle. Behind these the mother undressed her child and put him to bed.
Just at this moment a man went through the car crying "First call for dinner." Mr. Towne immediately jumped to his feet and said, "Let us go and get good seats."
"You have forgotten your hat, Henry," said his uncle.
"I don't need it. Come, hurry," said Henry.
Perplexed, the old man followed his nephew through three cars to the dining car, where they were soon seated at a little table, in front of a large window, from which everything they passed could be seen. It is not necessary to describe the dining room, for it was merely a well-furnished restaurant. The men ordered what they desired, and settled back to wait until their dinner was brought on.
"How is it, Henry, that we did not feel the wind as we passed from car to car? You hurried me so fast that I did not have time to notice."
"Don't you see," said the drummer, "how attaching a dining car to a train required another change also? There used to be a rule of every railroad company forbidding the passengers to go from car to car while the train was in motion. When the company put on the 'diner,' it invited the people to break its own rule. So vestibule cars came next. Side doors are built on the car platforms and with these closed the regular car doors can be left open. Thus one can walk the entire length of the train, through sleeper, parlor car, dining car, smoking saloon, library, bath room, barber shop, and writing room, without once going out of doors. This is a modern vestibule train."
One more interesting discussion took place the next morning as they were nearing New York City.
"Tell me something about modern bridges," said Mr. Greenleaf.
BROOKLYN BRIDGE.
"Oh! I am afraid that is too long a story to tell during the time that we have left. There seems to be no limit to the engineering skill of to-day. The world-famous structures are being surpassed every little while by new ones. To-morrow you must see the Brooklyn Bridge. We have supposed that this great suspension bridge with its sixteen hundred feet from tower to tower was about the limit. But the cantilever bridge over the Forth in Scotland has a span more than a hundred feet longer than the East River bridge. When the North River bridge is built to Jersey City, with its proposed span of three thousand feet, these other great bridges will be small in comparison.
"Our bridges are mostly of steel rather than wood nowadays," he continued. "Since the Portage viaduct on the Erie road, which was eight hundred feet long and two hundred and thirty feet above the river, and contained a million and a half feet of lumber, was wholly burned in 1875, wooden bridges have usually been but temporary affairs. In these days of frequent trains, the engineer's skill is needed on the shorter bridges as well as on these enormous structures. Iron towers were put in place of stone towers, and iron beams in place of wooden ones, at the Niagara Suspension Bridge, without interfering with the trains. I read the other day how a new iron bridge took the place of an old wooden one. It was built across the river by the side of the railroad track; during the night, when there was less travel than during the daytime, the old bridge was moved off, the new one took its place, and in a few minutes trains were running over it. Whatever engineering work is needed nowadays, some one will soon be found prepared to provide it."
At last the train entered the long cut and series of tunnels, which finally brought it to the Grand Central station on Forty-Second Street, New York City. Hurried along by the crowd, the aged sightseer hardly had an opportunity to make a remark about the immensity and grandeur of the brick station.
"But this station is poor and far behind the times," said Mr. Towne. "You should see some of the more modern ones that have recently been erected, or wait for the new New York station, which must soon be built. But let us hasten; I want to get home."
The young drummer, accustomed to travel of all kinds, familiar with crowds, and wont to make his way anywhere, did not realize that his companion was having difficulty in keeping up with him as he hastened along the street. Receiving no answer to a question that he asked, he glanced around to find that his uncle was not with him. Inwardly accusing himself of remissness in forgetting his companion's lack of experience, he turned and rapidly retraced his steps. He found his uncle standing on a corner, not daring to cross the street; to the relief of the latter, he decided to take a horse car across town.
Leaving the car at Sixth Avenue, the two men climbed the stairs to the elevated road. They had hardly purchased their tickets when a train drew up at the little station and a minute afterward they were off for Harlem. The horse-car ride, followed by that on the elevated road, started a discussion concerning street-car traffic. The horse car was remembered by the old missionary, who remarked that it came before the steam railroad.
Mr. Towne replied, "Yes. But its day is nearly over. New York City does not seem to have fully outgrown this slow street travel, but elsewhere more rapid transit is the rule. New York is coming to it, however. The elevated roads cannot carry all the travel—the horse cars are too slow—the size of the city demands something more than we now have."
"What do you expect will be done?" asked Mr. Greenleaf.
"We shall have to build a tunnel, an underground railway, a subway. Of course our roads must be either above ground, on the ground level, or below ground. The elevated roads have shown themselves to be unpleasant and annoying. It is not agreeable to look into the upper-story windows of dwellings, nor do people enjoy living on streets where the elevated road runs. Rapid transit is impossible in the street, where cross streets continually delay the cars, and where wagons and carriages of all sorts are regularly passing. The subway is the best method, the only decent way left open."
"Would not such a tunnel be dark and damp, dirty and unhealthy in every sense?" asked his uncle.
"Oh! no," was the reply. "Boston has recently completed a subway, something like a mile and a half long, with two branches, which has proved its great advantages. Sheltered in winter, cool in summer, never blocked by teams nor interfered with by snow or ice, brilliantly lighted, with air wholesome and dry, and less liable to accidents than any other device yet tested, the Boston Subway is a great success.
THE BOSTON SUBWAY.
"Did you say that there was no smoke?" again asked Mr. Greenleaf.
"No smoke at all. The cars are run by electricity, and cinders are therefore entirely absent."
"Are electric cars coming into general use?" was the next question.
"Yes; throughout the country," replied Mr. Towne. "New York even now has its electric roads up town. Horse cars have been replaced by electric cars in almost every city. Cable cars are used in some places, but the electric is preferred. The last few years have seen a wonderful development in electricity in every way, but in no respect greater than in the increase of electric railways. For shorter lines they are competing with the steam cars, and seem to be winning the day. Some steam roads are equipping their lines for electric service, and report successful results so far as tried. Whether the electric car will wholly replace the steam car, time only will tell."
"What a relief it must be to ride in a street car and not be obliged to pity the poor horses as they tug and strain to pull the heavy loads!" added the old missionary.
"You know, I suppose," replied the drummer, "that not only from the street cars, but in other ways the horse is being retired. The bicycle has supplanted the horse and buggy for use in thousands of families, besides being where horses could never be afforded. And now we have automobiles, or horseless carriages, run by gasoline, naphtha, or electric motors. These are expensive, and comparatively few can yet afford them for private use. They are being used to a considerable extent in large cities, especially here in New York, for public service or for the delivery of goods from our large stores. But the expenses will gradually lessen, and perhaps the day when the horse is to rest has begun."
ELECTRIC CAR, NEW YORK CITY.
"All this is wonderful," remarked his uncle. "We may walk still, if we wish. We may ride a horse or drive a carriage. We may take the stagecoach, or a private coach, or tally-ho. We may journey across the continent in palace steam cars. We may ride through a city on horse cars, or cable cars, or electric cars. We may travel on elevated tracks or underground. We may pedal our bicycles or ride in horseless carriages. We find good carriage roads, and excellent roadbeds for our railroads. Bridges and tunnels carry us over and under rivers, across ravines and through mountains. On the water, the canoe and the rowboat, the sailing vessel and the steamship, are at our disposal. Naphtha launches and electric yachts glide across the water. Harbors are dredged, lighthouses are erected, breakwaters are constructed, and canals are built, all for the use of travelers and commerce. The last years of the nineteenth century form an era in travel of which the world never dreamed."
SAMUEL F. B. MORSE.
MODERN PRINTING PRESSES.