The climax of joy, however, appears to have been reached by the editor of the Huntingdon Gazette, on the 15th of July, 1831, when he became jubilant over the launch of a canal-boat, and gave vent to the following outburst:—"What! a canal-boat launched in the vicinity of Huntingdon! Had any one predicted an event of this kind some years back, he, in all probability, would have been yclept a wizard, or set down as beside himself!"
These gushings of intensified joy, although they serve to amuse now, do not fail to convey a useful lesson. Let us not glory too much over the demon scream of the locomotive as it comes rattling through the valley, belching forth fire and smoke, or the miraculous telegraph which conveys messages from one end of the Union to the other with the rapidity with which a lover's sigh would be wafted from the Indies to the Pole; for who knows but that the succeeding generation, following in the footsteps made by the universal law of progress, will astonish the world with inventions not dreamed of in our philosophy, which will throw our electric-telegraphs and railroads forever in the shade?
For eighteen years, with the exception of the winter months, the canal packet held sway in the Juniata Valley, carrying its average of about thirty passengers a day from the East to the West, and vice versâ. When hoar old winter placed an embargo upon the canal craft, travel used to dwindle down to such a mere circumstance that a rickety old two-horse coach could easily carry all the passengers that offered. Who among us that has arrived at the age of manhood does not recollect the packet-boat, with its motley group of passengers, its snail pace, its consequential captain, and its non-communicative steersman, who used to wake the echoes with the "to-to-to-to-toit" of his everlasting horn and his hoarse cry of "lock ready?" The canal-packet was unquestionably a great institution in its day and generation, and we remember it with emotions almost akin to veneration. Right well do we remember, too, how contentedly people sat beneath the scorching rays of a broiling sun upon the packet, as it dragged its slow length along the sinuous windings of the canal at an average speed of three and a half or four miles an hour; and yet the echo of the last packet-horn has scarcely died away when we see the self-same people standing upon a station-house platform, on the verge of despair because the cars happen to be ten minutes behind time, or hear them calling down maledictions dire upon the head of some offending conductor who refuses to jeopardize the lives of his passengers by running faster than thirty miles an hour!
At length, after the canal had enjoyed a sixteen years' triumph, people began to consider it a "slow coach;" and, without much debate, the business-men of Philadelphia resolved upon a railroad between Harrisburg and Pittsburg. The project had hardly been fairly determined upon before the picks and shovels of the "Corkonians" and "Fardowns" were brought into requisition; but, strange to say, this giant undertaking struck no one as being any thing extraordinary. It was looked upon as a matter of course, and the most frequent remarks it gave rise to were complaints that the making of the road did not progress rapidly enough to keep pace with the progress of the age. And, at length, when it was completed, the citizens of Lewistown did not greet the arrival of the first train with drums, trumpets, and the roar of cannon; neither did any Huntingdon editor exclaim, in a burst of enthusiasm, on the arrival of the train there, "What! nine railroad cars, with six hundred passengers, drawn through Huntingdon by a locomotive! If any person had predicted such a result some years ago, he would have been yclept a wizard, or set down as one beside himself."
The Pennsylvania Railroad once finished, although it failed to create the surprise and enthusiasm excited by the canal, did not fail to open up the valley and its vast resources. Independent of the great advantage of the road itself, let us see what followed in the wake of this laudable enterprise. The railroad created the towns of Altoona, Fostoria, Tipton, and Tyrone; its presence caused the building of three plank roads, and the opening of extensive coal and lumber operations in the valley, and kindred enterprises that might never have been thought of. Nor is this all. A rage for travel by railroad has been produced by the Pennsylvania Company; and there is good reason to believe that it will increase until at least three more roads tap the main artery in the Juniata Valley,—the railroad from Tyrone to Clearfield, from the same place to Lock Haven, and from Spruce Creek to Lewisburg. These roads will unquestionably be built, and at no remote period. The Pennsylvania Road has now facilities for doing business equal to those of any road of the same length in the world; and, when a second track is completed, it is destined, for some years at least, to enjoy a monopoly of the carrying trade between Pittsburg and Philadelphia. Much as we regret it, for the sake of the Commonwealth which expended her millions without any thing like an adequate return, the canal is rapidly falling into disuse, and we see, with deep regret, that it has become entirely too slow for the age in which we live. With all the vitality forced into it that can be, we confess we can see no opposition in it to the road but such as is of the most feeble kind; yet all will agree that this opposition, trifling as it is, should continue to exist until such a time as other routes shall be opened between these points, and healthy competition established. But let us not dwell too much upon our modes of transit through the valley, lest the historian of a hundred years hence will find our remarks a fitting theme for ridicule, and laugh at us because we speak in glowing terms of a single railroad, and that road with but a single track for more than half its distance!
In order to give the reader a little insight into the progress which has been made in the valley, let us turn statistician for a time, with the understanding, however, that we shall not be held responsible for the accuracy of dates.
Less than twenty-six years ago, George Law sat upon the left bank of the Juniata, two miles west of Williamsburg, cutting stones for building two locks at that place. Now the aforesaid Law is supposed to be worth the snug little sum of six millions of dollars, and not long since was an aspirant for the presidential chair!
Thirty years ago, when Frankstown was a place of some note, Hollidaysburg contained but a few scattered cabins. In fact, twenty years ago it was "to fortune and to fame unknown;" yet it now contains a population (including that of Gaysport) that will not fall much short of four thousand.
Less than twenty-five years ago, Dr. P. Shoenberger, while returning from Baltimore with $15,000 in cash, fell in with the celebrated robber Lewis on the Broad Top Mountain. The intention of Lewis, as he afterward acknowledged, was to rob him; but the doctor, although he was unacquainted with his fellow-traveller, had his suspicions awakened, and, by shrewd manœuvering, succeeded in giving him the slip. Had the $15,000 in question fallen into the hands of the robber, Dr. Shoenberger would have been bankrupt, and the probability is that he would have lived and died an obscure individual. Instead of that, however, the money freed him from his embarrassments, and he died, but a few years ago, worth between four and five millions of dollars—more than one-half of which he accumulated by manufacturing iron in the Valley of the Juniata.
Less than sixteen years ago, a gentleman named Zimmerman was a bar-keeper at the hotel of Walter Graham, Esq., at Yellow Springs, in Blair county, afterward a "mud-boss" on the Pennsylvania Canal, and subsequently a teamster at Alleghany Furnace. At the present day the said Samuel Zimmerman owns hotels, palaces, a bank of issue, farms, stocks, and other property, at Niagara Falls, in Canada, which swell his income to $150,000 per annum. He is but thirty-eight years of age. Should he live the length of time allotted to man, and his wealth steadily increase, at the end of threescore-and-ten years he can look upon ordinary capitalists, who have only a few millions at command, as men of limited means.