The next development in transportation facilities was the railroad, the first of which was the "Experiment" railroad built to carry stone to Bunker Hill Monument. Oliver Evans, in 1772, began to experiment upon the construction of a steam carriage to run upon the ground, but it remained for John Stevens to combine the steam carriage and the railway. The first rail cars, or coaches, were run by horse power. It is interesting to read Mr. Evans' prediction, which is as follows:
"I do verily believe that the time will come when carriages propelled by steam will be in general use, as well for the transportation of passengers as goods, travelling at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, or three hundred miles per day." In 1813 he predicted that the time would come when a traveller could leave Washington in the morning, breakfast at Baltimore, dine at Philadelphia and sup at New York, all in the same day, travelling "almost as fast as birds fly, fifteen to twenty-miles an hour."
In 1811, Robert Fulton, journeying by stage to Pittsburgh, said, "The day will come, gentlemen, I may not live to see it, though some of you who are younger will probably—when carriages will be drawn over these mountains by steam engines at a rate more rapid than that of a stage on the smoothest turnpike."
A howl of protest went up from the old stage drivers when the railroad was projected, but as every public necessity had its will, the railroads had come to stay. There were many accidents on these primitive roads, and these were made the most of by the opposition. One old stager said, "You got upset in a stage coach, and there you were. You got upset in a rail car—and where are you?"
From trail in the days of the Indians to T-rail of recent years seems a slow, tedious advance, but as some one has said:
"When we reflect upon the obstinate opposition that has been made by a great majority to every step towards improvement; from bad roads to turnpikes, from turnpikes to canals, from canal to railways for horse carriages, it is too much to expect the monstrous leap from bad roads to railways for steam carriages at once. One step in a generation is all we can hope for."—Clara D. Patterson, Easton, Pennsylvania.
[COLONEL BENJAMIN HAWKINS.]
By Mrs. J. L. Walker, Waycross.