¹ For map seeThe Passing of the Frontier,by Emerson Hough (inThe Chronicles of America).
¹ For map seeThe Passing of the Frontier,by Emerson Hough (inThe Chronicles of America).
The earliest overland stage line to Great Salt Lake was established by Hockaday and Liggett. After the founding of the famous Overland Stage Company by Russell, Majors, and Waddell in 1858, stages were soon ascending the Platte from the steamboat terminals on the Missouri and making the twelve hundred miles from St. Joseph to Salt Lake City in ten days. Stations were established from ten to fifteen miles apart, and the line was soon extended on to Sacramento. The nineteen hundred miles from St. Joseph to Sacramento were made in fifteen days, although the governmentcontract with the company for handling United States mail allowed nineteen days. A host of employees was engaged in this exciting but not very remunerative enterprise—station-agents and helpers, drivers, conductors who had charge of passengers, in addition to mail and express and road agents who acted as division superintendents. In 1862 the Overland Route was taken over by the renowned Ben Holliday, who operated it until the railway was constructed seven years later. Freight was hauled by the same company in wagons known as the "J. Murphy wagons," which were made in St. Louis. These wagons went out from Leavenworth loaded with six thousand pounds of freight each. A train usually consisted of twenty-five wagons and was known, in the vernacular of the plains, as a "bull-outfit"; the drivers were "bull-whackers"; and the wagon master was the "bull-wagon boss."
The old story, however, was repeated again here on the boundless plains of the West. The Western trails streaming out from the terminus of steamboat traffic between Kansas City and Omaha had scarcely time to become well known before the railway conquerors of the Atlantic and Great Lakes regions were planning the conquest of the greater plains and the Rockies beyond. The opening ofthe Chinese ports in 1844 turned men's minds as never before to the Pacific coast. The acquisition of Oregon within a few years and of California at the close of the Mexican War opened the way for a newspaper and congressional discussion as to whether the first railway to parallel the Santa Fé or the Overland Trail should run from Memphis, St. Louis, or Chicago. The building of the Union Pacific from Omaha westward assured the future of that city, and it was soon joined to Chicago and the East by several lines which were building toward Clinton, Rock Island, and Burlington.
But the construction of a few main lines of railway across the continent could only partially satisfy the commercial needs of the West. True, the overland trade was at once transferred to the railroad, but the enormous equipment of stage and express companies previously employed in westward overland trade was now devoted to joining the railway lines with the vast regions to the north and the south. The rivers of the West could not alone take care of this commerce and for many years these great transportation companies went with their stages and their wagons into the growing Dakota and Montana trade and opened up direct lines of communication to the nearest railway. On thesouth the cattle industry of Texas came northward into touch with the railways of Kansas. Eventually lateral and trunk lines covered the West with their network of lines and thus obliterated all rivalry and competition by providing unmatched facilities for quick transportation.
In the last days previous to the opening of the first transcontinental railway line a unique method of rapid transportation for mail and light parcels was established when the famous "Pony Express" line was put into operation between St. Joseph and San Francisco in 1860. By relays of horsemen, who carried pouches not exceeding twenty pounds in weight, the time was cut to nine days. The innovation was the new wonder of the world for the time being and led to an outburst on the part of the enthusiastic editor of the St. JosephFree Democratthat deserves reading because it breathes so fully the Western spirit of exultant conquest:
Take down your map and trace the footprints of our quadrupedantic animal: From St. Joseph, on the Missouri, to San Francisco, on the Golden Horn—two thousand miles—more than half the distance across our boundless continent; through Kansas, through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, along the Platte, by Fort Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Mountains, through the narrow passes and along the steep defiles,Utah, Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City, he witches Brigham with his swift pony-ship—through the valleys, along the grassy slopes, into the snow, into the sand, faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and horse—did you see them? They are in California, leaping over its golden sands, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the home of one million people, and has put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. Verily the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he rideth furiously. Take out your watch. We are eight days from New York, eighteen from London. The race is to the swift. ¹
Take down your map and trace the footprints of our quadrupedantic animal: From St. Joseph, on the Missouri, to San Francisco, on the Golden Horn—two thousand miles—more than half the distance across our boundless continent; through Kansas, through Nebraska, by Fort Kearney, along the Platte, by Fort Laramie, past the Buttes, over the Mountains, through the narrow passes and along the steep defiles,Utah, Fort Bridger, Salt Lake City, he witches Brigham with his swift pony-ship—through the valleys, along the grassy slopes, into the snow, into the sand, faster than Thor's Thialfi, away they go, rider and horse—did you see them? They are in California, leaping over its golden sands, treading its busy streets. The courser has unrolled to us the great American panorama, allowed us to glance at the home of one million people, and has put a girdle around the earth in forty minutes. Verily the riding is like the riding of Jehu, the son of Nimshi for he rideth furiously. Take out your watch. We are eight days from New York, eighteen from London. The race is to the swift. ¹
¹ Quoted in Inman'sThe Great Salt Lake Trail,p. 171.
¹ Quoted in Inman'sThe Great Salt Lake Trail,p. 171.
The lifetime of many and many a man has covered a period longer than that interval of eighty-six years between 1783, when George Washington had his vision of "the vast inland navigation of these United States," and the year 1869, when the two divisions of the Union Pacific were joined by a golden spike at Promontory Point in Utah. In point of time, those eighty-six years are as nothing; in point of accomplishment, they stand unparalleled. When Washington's horse splashed across the Youghiogheny in October, 1784, the boundary lines of the United States were guarded with all the jealousy and provincial selfishness of European kingdoms. But overnight, so to speak, theselimitations became no more than mere geometrical expressions. "Pennamite," "Erie," and "Toledo" wars between the States, suggesting a world of bitterness and recrimination, are remembered today, if at all, only by the cartoonist and the playwright. The ancient false pride in mock values, so cherished in Europe, has quite departed from the provincial areas of the United States, and Americans can fly in a day, unwittingly, through many States. Problems that would have cost Europe blood are settled without turmoil in the solemn cloisters of that American "international tribunal," the Supreme Court, and they appear only as items of passing interest in our newspapers.
In unifying the nation the influence of the Supreme Court has been priceless, for it has given to Americans, in place of the colonial or provincial mind, a continental mind. But great is the debt of Americans to the men who laid the foundations of interstate commerce. No antidote served so well to counteract the poison of clannish rivalry as did their enthusiasm and their constructive energy. These men, dreamers and promoters, were building better than they knew. They thought to overcome mountains, obliterate swamps, conquer stormy lakes, master great rivers and endless plains;but, as their labors are judged today, the greater service which these men rendered appears in its true light. They stifled provincialism; they battered down Chinese Walls of prejudice and separatism; they reduced the aimless rivalry of bickering provinces to a businesslike common denominator; and, perhaps more than any class of men, they made possible the wide-spreading and yet united Republic that is honored and loved today.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Thehistory of the early phase of American transportation is dealt with in three general works. John Luther Ringwalt'sDevelopment of Transportation Systems in the United States(1888) is a reliable summary of the general subject at the time. Archer B. Hulbert'sHistoric Highways of America,16 vols. (1902-1905), is a collection of monographs of varying quality written with youthful enthusiasm by the author, who traversed in good part the main pioneer roads and canals of the eastern portion of the United States; Indian trails, portage paths, the military roads of the Old French War period, the Ohio River as a pathway of migration, the Cumberland Road, and three of the canals which played a part in the western movement, form the subject of the more valuable volumes. The temptation of a writer on transportation to wander from his subject is illustrated in this work, as it is illustrated afresh in Seymour Dunbar'sA History of Travel in America,4 vols. (1915). The reader will take great pleasure in this magnificently illustrated work, which, in completer fashion than it has ever been attempted, gives a readable running story of the whole subject for the whole country, despite detours, which some will make around the many pages devoted to Indian relations.
For almost every phase of the general topic books, monographs, pamphlets, and articles are to be found in the corners of any great library, ranging in character from such productions as William F. Ganong'sA Monograph of Historic Sites in the Province of New Brunswick(Proceedings and Transactionsof the Royal Society of Canada, Second Series, vol. V, 1899) which treats of early travel in New England and Canada, or St. George L. Sioussat'sHighway Legislation in Maryland and its Influence on the Economic Development of the State(Maryland Geological Survey,III, 1899) treating of colonial road making and legislation thereon, or Elbert J. Benton'sThe Wabash Trade Route in the Development of the Old Northwest(Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science,vol. XXI, 1903) and Julius Winden'sThe Influence of the Erie Canal upon the Population along its Course(University of Wisconsin, 1901), which treat of the economic and political influence of the opening of inland water routes, to volumes of a more popular character such as Francis W. Halsey'sThe Old New York Frontier(1901), Frank H. Severance'sOld Trails on the Niagara Frontier(1903) for the North, and Charles A. Hanna'sThe Wilderness Trail,2 vols. (1911), and Thomas Speed'sThe Wilderness Road(The Filson Club Publications,vol. II, 1886) for Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Kentucky. The value of Hanna's work deserves special mention.
For the early phases of inland navigation John Pickell'sA New Chapter in the Early Life of Washington(1856), is an excellent work of the old-fashioned type, while in Herbert B. Adams'sMaryland's Influence upon Land Cessions to the United States(Johns HopkinsUniversity Studies in Historical and Political Science, Third Series,I, 1885) a master-hand pays Washington his due for originating plans of trans-Alleghany solidarity; this likewise is the theme of Archer B. Hulbert'sWashington and the West(1905) wherein is printed Washington'sDiary of September, 1784,containing the first and unexpurgated draft of his classic letter to Harrison of that year. The publications of the various societies for internal improvement and state boards of control and a few books, such as Turner Camac'sFacts and Arguments Respecting the Great Utility of an Extensive Plan of Inland Navigation in America(1805), give the student distinct impressions of the difficulties and the ideals of the first great American promoters of inland commerce. Elkanah Watson'sHistory of the … Western Canals in the State of New York(1820), despite inaccuracies due to lapses of memory, should be specially remarked.
For the rise and progress of turnpike building one must remember W. Kingsford'sHistory, Structure, and Statistics of Plank Roads(1852), a reliable book by a careful writer. The Cumberland (National) Road has its political influence carefully adjudged by Jeremiah S. Young inA Political and Constitutional Study of the Cumberland Road(1904), while the social and personal side is interestingly treated in county history style in Thomas B. Searight'sThe Old Pike(1894). Motorists will appreciate Robert Bruce'sThe National Road(1916), handsomely illustrated and containing forty-odd sectional maps.
The best life of Fulton is H. W. Dickinson'sRobert Fulton, Engineer and Artist: His Life and Works(1913), while in Alice Crary Sutcliffe'sRobert Fulton and the"Clermont"(1909), the more intimate picture of a family biography is given. For the controversy concerning the Fulton-Livingston monopoly, note W. A. Duer'sA Course of Lectures on Constitutional Jurisprudenceand his pamphlets addressed to Cadwallader D. Colden. The life of that stranger to success, the forlorn John Fitch, was written sympathetically and after assiduous research by Thompson Westcott in hisLife of John Fitch the Inventor of the Steamboat(1858). For the pamphlet war between Fitch and Rumsey see Allibone's Dictionary.
The Great Lakes have not been adequately treated. E. Channing and M. F. Lansing'sThe Story of the Great Lakes(1909) is reliable but deals very largely with the routine history covered by the works of Parkman. J. O. Curwood'sThe Great Lakes(1909) is stereotyped in its scope but has certain chapters of interest to students of commercial development, as has alsoThe Story of the Great Lakes.The vast bulk of material of value on the subject lies in the publications of the New York, Buffalo, Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Chicago Historical Societies, whose lists should be consulted. These publications also give much data on the Mississippi River and western commercial development. S. L. Clemens'sLife on the Mississippi(in hisWritings,vol. IX, 1869-1909) is invaluable for its graphic pictures of steamboating in the heyday of river traffic. A. B. Hulbert'sWaterways of Western Expansion(Historic Highways,vol. IX, 1903) andThe Ohio River(1906) give chapters on commerce and transportation. For the beginnings of traffic into the Far West, H. Inman'sThe Old Santa Fé Trail(1897) andThe Great Salt Lake Trail(1914) may be consulted, together with the publicationsof the various state historical societies of the trans-Mississippi States.
Various bibliographies on this general subject have been issued by the Library of Congress. Seymour Dunbar gives a good bibliography in hisA History of Travel in America,4 vols. (1915). The student will find quantities of material in books of travel, in which connection he would do well to consult Solon J. Buck'sTravel and Description, 1765-1865(Illinois State Historical Library Collections,vol. IX, 1914).
INDEX
Adams, J. Q., and internal improvements,145.Albany, Old Bay Path to,16; road to Baltimore,58;Clermont'svoyage to,113.Alexandria (Va.), rival of New York City,137.Alleghanies, pathways across,17-19,116et seq.Allegheny Portage Railway,151.American,New York, quoted,182.Appalachian Mountains, pathways across,15-21.Arkansas, influence of river trade on,180."Army" plan of occupying West,4.Ashley, fur trader,186.Audubon, J. J., description of barge journey,72-73.
Baily, Francis, journey in United States (1796-97),81-98; quoted,90-91.Balcony Falls, trail between James and Great Kanawha Rivers at,19.Baltimore, road to Albany,58; part in transportation development,136-137,143-151.Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,153; Washington's vision realized by,10; follows old trail,18,29; state appropriation,148; contest with canal company,150-151; reaches Ohio,151,171.Baltimore-Frederick Turnpike,59.Baltimore-Reisterstown Turnpike,58-59,143.Baring Brothers contribute to canal work,163.Bay Path,seeOld Bay Path.Becknell, Captain William, organizes first wagon train for Sante Fé,187.Bedford, Fort, established,50.Bixby, Captain, at Hat Island,181.Black Hawk War (1832),162.Bonneville, Captain B. L. E., on Overland Trail,189."Bonnyclabber Country,"86,87.Boone, Daniel,19.Bouquet, Colonel Henry, criticizes Washington,50.Boston and Albany Railroad,13,16.Boulton and Watt of Birmingham, Fulton uses engine of,110,113.Braddock's Road,51.Brissot, French traveler in America,81,83.Broad River, trail on,19.Brown, Charles, builds hull ofClermont,113.Brown, George, and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,149.Brownsville (Penn.) growth of,26.Bryan, Guy, of Philadelphia,66.Buffalo, demand for means of transportation,164,170; harbor improvement,169; growth,172.Buffalo-Utica Canal,124;see alsoErie Canal.Bunting, "Red," stagecoach driver,123.Burt, W. A., discovers iron ore in Michigan,165-166.
Calhoun, J. C., and internal improvements,145.California, western trail to,188; acquisition of,191.Campbell, fur trader,186.Canals, early projects,37-38; inadequacy of,157; in the West,157et seq.; see alsoChesapeake and Ohio Canal, Erie Canal, Welland Canal.Catskill Turnpike,16.Céloron de Blainville sends English traders from Ohio country,25-26.Charleston (S. C.), trails to Tennessee from,19.Charleston (Wellsburg) made port of entry,77.Charlotte Dundas(steamboat),109,110.Chastellux, Chevalier de, Washington's letter to,6.Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, Washington's vision realized in,10; plan for,132,143,144; Company formed,145; engineering difficulties,146; state subscription,148; contest with Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,150-151.Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad,19; Washington's vision realized in,10; follows old route,152.Chicago, harbor improvement,161,169; canal terminal,162; growth,162-163,172; demand for means of transportation,164,170; convention discusses rivers and harbors (1846),169; Illinois Central Railroad to,170.Chickasaw Trail,97.Chillicothe (O.), grant to Zane at,47.China, influence on West of opening ports,191.Chiswell, Fort, "Warrior's Path" from,19.Choctaw Trail,97.Chouteau, Robert,184.Cincinnati, founded,68; ship-building,76,180; made port of entry,77;see alsoColumbia.Clark, William, fur trader,186.Clay, Henry, and internal improvements,145; on Western canal project,155.Clermont(steamboat),78,113-114.Cleveland, demand for means of transportation,164,170; harbor improvement,169; growth,172.Clinton, DeWitt,Memorial(1816),127; and Ohio and Miami canals,159.Columbia (Cincinnati), port of entry,74,77; Baily at,92;see alsoCincinnati.Comet(steamboat),78.Conemaugh River, Kittanning Trail follows,17.Congress, Fitch appeals to,106; appropriation for canal survey,145.Connecticut Path,16.Connecticut River, Old Bay Path,15.Connellsville (Penn.), growth of,26.Converse, J. M.,184.Cooper, Peter, builds engineTom Thumb,150.Cotton, influence on river navigation,180.Cowpens, description of inhabitants,22-24.Crawford, agent for Washington, letter to,5.Crisman, Jesse, owner ofHit or Miss,140.Cumberland (Md.), eastern terminus of Cumberland Road,119.Cumberland Gap, "Warrior's Path" through,19; railroad through,20.Cumberland Road,136; Washington's vision realized in,10; building authorized,114-115; importance,116; plan,118-119; route,119-120; building of,120-121; cost,121; stage lines,122-123; freight traffic,123-124; extension to Missouri,132; Baltimore and,143-144; bibliography,199.
Day, Sherman, quoted,140.Deane, Silas, plan for payment of Revolutionary War debt,2-3.Delaware Water Gap,17.Delta (La.), changed by Mississippi River,177.Detroit, Washington marks out commercial lines to,9; port of entry,74; demand for transportation facilities,164; harbor,169; growth,172.Detroit(lake steamer),169.Dickens, Charles, cited,100; describes canal boat journey,140-141; describes aerial railway,141-142.Doddridge,Notes, quoted,27-28.Doolittle, Sylvester, buildsVandalia,168.Duane(ship),76-77.Duquesne, Fort,26,28,50.
Enterprise(steamboat),79."Era of Good Feeling,"60.Erie (Penn.), as place of embarkation,35; port of entry,74.Erie Canal,35,37,58,116-117; Washington foresees,9,12; work begun (1817),38,128; Hawley writes challenge to New York concerning,115; state enterprise,118,124-128,136; Hawley's original plan,119; building of,129-131; completion,132; locks enlarged,169.Erie Railroad,153; Washington forecasts,9-10; follows Indian trade route,17."Erie" war,194.Evans, Oliver, and steam propelled wagon,102-103.Everett, Edward, quoted,12-13.