Stories of Later American History Part 20

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From the painting by C.Y. Turner in the DeWitt Clinton High School, New York._

The Opening of the Erie Ca.n.a.l in 1825.]

It ran from c.u.mberland, on the Potomac, through Maryland and Pennsylvania to Wheeling, West Virginia, on the Ohio River. From there it was extended to Indiana and Illinois, ending at Vandalia, which at that time was the capital of Illinois. It was seven hundred miles long, and cost seven million dollars.

This smooth and solid roadway was eighty feet wide; it was paved with stone and covered with gravel. Transportation became not only much easier but also much cheaper. The road filled a long-felt need and a flood of travel and traffic immediately swept over it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From the painting by C.Y. Turner in the DeWitt Clinton High School, New York._

The Ceremony Called "The Marriage of the Waters."]

Another kind of highway which proved to be of untold value to both the East and the West, was the ca.n.a.l, or artificial waterway connecting two bodies of water.

The most important was the Erie Ca.n.a.l, connecting the Hudson River and Lake Erie, begun in 1817. This new idea received the same scornful attention from the unthinking as "Fulton's Folly." By many it was called "Clinton's Ditch," after Governor DeWitt Clinton, to whose foresight we are indebted for the building of this much-used waterway. The scoffers shook their heads and said: "Clinton will bankrupt the State"; "The ca.n.a.l is a great extravagance"; and so on.

But he did not stop because of criticism, and in 1825 the ca.n.a.l was finished. The undertaking had been pushed through in eight years. It was a great triumph for Clinton and a proud day for the State.

When the work was completed the news was signalled from Buffalo to New York in a novel way. As you know, there was neither telephone nor telegraph then. But at intervals of five miles all along the route cannon were stationed. When the report from the first cannon was heard, the second was fired, and thus the news went booming eastward till, in an hour and a half, it reached New York.

Clinton himself journeyed to New York in the ca.n.a.l-boat Seneca Chief. This was drawn by four gray horses, which went along the tow-path beside the ca.n.a.l. As the boat pa.s.sed quietly along, people thronged the banks to do honor to the occasion.

When the Seneca Chief reached New York City, Governor Clinton, standing on deck, lifted a gilded keg filled with water from Lake Erie and poured it into the harbor. As he did so, he prayed that "the G.o.d of the heaven and the earth" would smile upon the work just completed and make it useful to the human race. Thus was dedicated this great waterway, whose usefulness has more than fulfilled the hope of its chief promoter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Erie Ca.n.a.l on the Right and Aqueduct over the Mohawk River, New York.]

Trade between the East and the West began to grow rapidly. Vast quant.i.ties of manufactured goods were moved easily from the East to the West, and supplies of food were s.h.i.+pped in the opposite direction. Prices began to fall because the cost of carrying goods was so much less. It cost ten dollars before the ca.n.a.l was dug to carry a barrel of flour from Buffalo to Albany; now it costs thirty cents.

The region through which the ca.n.a.l ran was at that time mostly wilderness, and for some years packets carrying pa.s.sengers as well as freight were drawn through the ca.n.a.l by horses travelling the tow-path along the bank.

When travelling was so easy and safe, the number of people moving westward to this region grew larger rapidly. Land was in demand and became more valuable. Farm products sold at higher prices. Villages sprang up, factories were built, and the older towns grew rapidly in size. The great cities of New York State--and this is especially true of New York City--owe much of their growth to the Erie Ca.n.a.l.

THE RAILROAD

The steamboat, the national highways, and the ca.n.a.ls were all great aids to men in travel and in carrying goods. The next great improvement was the use of steam-power to transport people and goods overland. It was brought about by the railroad and the locomotive.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Tom Thumb," Peter Cooper's Locomotive Working Model. First Used Near Baltimore in 1830.]

In this country, the first laying of rails to make a level surface for wheels to roll upon was at Quincy, Ma.s.sachusetts. This railroad was three miles long, extending from the quarry to the seacoast. The cars were drawn by horses.

Our first pa.s.senger railroad was begun in 1828. It was called the Baltimore and Ohio and was the beginning of the railroad as we know it to-day. But those early roads would seem very strange now. The rails were of wood, covered with a thin strip of iron to protect the wood from wear.

Even as late as the Civil War rails of this kind were in use in some places. The first cross-ties were of stone instead of wood, and the locomotives and cars of early days were very crude.

[Ill.u.s.tration: From an Old Time-table (furnished by the "A B C Pathfinder Railway Guide"). Railroad Poster of 1843.]

In 1833, people who were coming from the West to attend President Jackson's second inauguration travelled part of the way by railroad. They came over the National Road as far as Frederick, Maryland, and there left it to enter a train of six cars, each accommodating sixteen persons. The train was drawn by horses. In this manner they continued their journey to Baltimore.

In the autumn of that year a railroad was opened between New York and Philadelphia. At first horses were used to draw the train, but by the end of the year locomotives, which ran at the rate of fifteen miles an hour, were introduced. This was a tremendous stride in the progress of railroad traffic.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Comparison of "DeWitt Clinton" Locomotive and Train, the First Train Operated in New York, with a Modern Locomotive of the New York Central R.R.]

To be sure, the locomotives were small, but two or more started off together, each drawing its own little train of cars. Behind the locomotive was a car which was a mere platform with a row of benches, seating perhaps forty pa.s.sengers, inside of an open railing. Then followed four or five cars looking very much like stage-coaches, each having three compartments, with doors on each side. The last car was a high, open-railed van, in which the baggage of the whole train was heaped up and covered with oilcloth. How strange a train of this sort would look beside one of our modern express-trains, with its huge engine, and its sleeping, dining, and parlor cars!

You will be surprised that any objection was raised to the railroad. Its earliest use had been in England, and when there was talk of introducing it in this country some people said: "If those who now travel by stage take the railroad coaches, then stage-drivers will be thrown out of work!"

Little could they foresee what a huge army of men would find work on the modern railroad.

In spite of all obstacles and objections, the railroads, once begun, grew rapidly in favor. In 1833 there were scarcely three hundred and eighty miles of railroad in the United States; now there are more than two hundred and forty thousand miles.

MORSE AND THE TELEGRAPH

The next stride which Progress made seemed even more wonderful. Having contrived an easier and a quicker way to move men and their belongings from one place to another, what should she do but whisper in the ear of a thinking man: "You can make thought travel many times faster." The man whose inventive genius made it possible for men to flash their thoughts thousands of miles in a few seconds of time was Samuel Finley Breese Morse.

He was born in 1791, in Charlestown, Ma.s.sachusetts. His father was a learned minister, who "was always thinking, always writing, always talking, always acting"; and his mother was a woman of n.o.ble character, who inspired her son with lofty purpose.

When he was seven he went to Andover, Ma.s.sachusetts, to school, and still later entered Phillips Academy in the same town. At fourteen he entered Yale College, where from the first he was a good, faithful student.

[Ill.u.s.tration: S.F.B. Morse.]

As his father was poor, Finley had to help himself along, and was able to do it by painting, on ivory, likenesses of his cla.s.smates and professors, for which he received from one dollar to five dollars each. In this way he made considerable money.

At the end of his college course he made painting his chosen profession and went to London, where he studied four years under Benjamin West.

Though for some years he divided his time and effort between painting and invention, he at last decided to devote himself wholly to invention. This change in his life-work was the outcome of an incident which took place on a second voyage home from Europe, where he had been spending another period in study.

On the ocean steamer the conversation at dinner one day was about some experiments with electricity. One of the men present said that so far as had been learned from experiment electricity pa.s.ses through any length of wire in a second of time.

"Then," said Morse, "thought can be transmitted hundreds of miles in a moment by means of electricity; for, if electricity will go ten miles without stopping, I can make it go around the globe."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The First Telegraph Instrument.]

When once he began to think about this great possibility, the thought held him in its grip. In fact, it shut out all others. Through busy days and sleepless nights he turned it over and over. And often, while engaged in other duties, he would s.n.a.t.c.h his notebook from his pocket in order to outline the new instrument he had in mind and jot down the signs he would use in sending messages.

It was not long before he had worked out on paper the whole scheme of transmitting thought over long distances by means of electricity.

And now began twelve toilsome years of struggle to plan and work out machinery for his invention. All these years he had to earn money for the support of his three motherless children. So he gave up to painting much time that he would otherwise have spent upon his invention. His progress, therefore, was slow and painful, but he pressed forward. He was not the kind of man to give up.

In a room on the fifth floor of a building in New York City he toiled at his experiments day and night, with little food, and that of the simplest kind. Indeed so meagre was his fare, mainly crackers and tea, that he bought provisions at night in order to keep his friends from finding out how great his need was.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Modern Telegraph Office.]

During this time of hards.h.i.+p all that kept starvation from his door was lessons in painting to a few pupils. On a certain occasion Morse said to one of them, who owed him for a few months' teaching: "Well, Strothers, my boy, how are we off for money?"

"Professor," said the young fellow, "I am sorry to say I have been disappointed, but I expect the money next week."

"Next week!" cried his needy teacher; "I shall be dead by next week."

"Dead, sir?" was the shocked response of Strothers.

"Yes, dead by starvation!" was the emphatic answer.