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THE TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAILWAY.
REMARKS
6"- y)£v$
RUTLAND, VERMONT,
JUNE 24, 1809.
BY JOHN A. POOR.
PORTLAND:
PRINTED BY B. THUHSTOIÍ óc COMPANY.
1869.
THE Til AXS-CONTINENT AL RAILWAY.
AT
RUTLAND, VERMONT,
JUNE 24, 18C9.
BY JOHN A. POOB.
PORTLAND:
PRINTED 13Y 33. THURSTON & COMPANY.
1869.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
JOHN A. POOR,
in the office of the District Court for the District of Maine.
S*tate of
CHARLES W. roMOM;
May 10, 1S06
LIBRARY
BUREAU OF RAILWAY EC0NQIWC8,
WASHINGTON, O. C.
,50
THE TRANS-CONTINENTAL RAILWAY.
Mr. President, and Gentlemen of the Convention :
I count myself fortunate in being able to partici¬
pate in the proceedings of this Convention, by your
kind invitation. It is a business meeting. I came
with my associates from Portland to report progress
at the eastern end of the route, rather than to take
active part in its labors. But for an important politi¬
cal State Convention, iff" Maître 'ftfeay, other friends
.»-•ir*
from our State wouldf^ve been # with you, to show
their appreciation of the enterprise you have under
consideration.
I am happy to meet so large and so earnest an
assemblage of business men, engaged in a work which
is to connect you* in business, by railway, with the
harbor of Portland, the line that is to form a chief
link in that golden belt which is to span the Conti¬
nent of North America at its widest part, under the
name of The Trans-Continental Railway.
4
Evidences of thrift and prosperity are aronnd me on
all sides. This beautiful Opera House in which we are
assembled attests the wealth of Rutland. But this
visit to your flourishing town is a new experience, for
it is, I believe, the first time that the men of Maine
have been invited to speak for railroads in Vermont.
It is pleasant to me to recall the railroad history of
New England for the last twenty-five years, and to
note the great changes in that time in the business
of your region of the country.
It was my fortune to meet some of the leading rail¬
road men of Vermont at Montreal, in somewhat of an
adversary character in 1845, urging the claims of the
Passumpsic Railroad, as an outlet for St. Lawrence
trade by way of St. Johnsbury and Concord to Boston,
against our favorite direct route from Montreal to. the
o ,t
sea at Portland. You know how events turned.
Everything went in our favor. It is enough to say,
that at Montreal Portland influence prevailed ; the
Legislature and people of Canada, with scarcely a dis¬
senting voice, gave their support ta the Portland line
over all other projects, against the remonstrance of
the leading capitalists and business men of Boston,
presented at Montreal by one of your prominent citi¬
zens, Hon. Erastus Fairbanks, afterwards Governor of
5
your State.* He persevered at home in pushing his
. railroad after his defeat in Canada, presented his pro¬
ject to the people of Boston, with a favorable response
in the way of subscriptions to its stock; We moved
on also, and in 1848, as our road to Montreal extended
northward toward your State line, it became my duty
as one of the directors of the Atlantic and St. Law¬
rence Railroad Company, with my friend and asso¬
ciate, Hon. P. Barnes, of Portland, to ask of the Legis¬
lature of your State a charter for our road across your
northern counties. With generous unanimity the
' Legislature granted our request. Many at heart, or
secretly, opposed our project. Others regarded it as
a mere paper corporation. Others, alleging that the
' road would never be built, consented, but afterwards
stoutly resisted further grants required. As our line
advanced from Portland toward the Vermont border,
everything had to give way to the necessities of
business,—the line was forced on, and opened through,
so that cars came from Montreal to Portland on the
18th of July, 1853, inside of twelve hours time.
Maine is no longer dependent on Boston. Since
then things have changed. Portland has risen into
* See Appendix, A-.
6
commercial importance, and become a shipping port
and market for western produce, the packet station
in winter of the Montreal, and other lines of ocean
steamers, and a better market than Boston for Pro¬
vincial trade.
The European mails are carried in winter direct by
way of Portland to Montreal and the West, without
paying tribute to Boston, or calling there, as in the
olden time.
The Cunard steamers have retired from Boston
since she lost the carrying trade of Canada, and the
foreign importations into Boston have fallen from
$45,988,545 in 1854, the highest point they ever
reached, to $37,039,771 in 1868,—while the importa¬
tions into Portland have risen from $3,124,676 in
1854, to $17,100,957 in 1868, and its exports in like
proportion.
Portland, from its geographical position, is the nat¬
ural Atlantic port and market of a large portion of
New Hampshire and Vermont. Portland, Bristol,
Woodstock, and Kutland are on the same parallel.
Portland is 89 miles north of Boston, and only 25
miles east of iL More than three-fçmrths of the terri¬
tory of Vermont lies north of a due west line, on the
parallel of 43° 39', the latitude of Portland, of Mer-
7
edith, of White River Junction, of Woodstock, and
the head of Lake Champlain, Whitehall. Before the
advent of railways or canals, Northern Vermont came
to Portland to market. The Northern Canal from
Lake Champlain, 73 miles from Albany, was com¬
pleted to the Hudson, at Waterford, 64 miles, in 1819,
by the State of New York, which drew at once the
trade of Western Vermont to New York City.
From 1820 to 1830 Boston made slow progress.
In 1830 she began railroad agitation, and in 1835
stretched out her iron arms in the form of railways.
She looked upon Maine commercially as still her
province, and paid little regard to railroads east or
north of Portland. She turned north-west and west,
and with railway lines crossed the States of New
Hampshire and Vermont to Lake Champlain, and to
the St. Lawrence at Ogdensburg, and drew to her
harbor the bulk of trade of both these States, and of
Northern New York.
But Maine awoke from her lethargy in 1844, and
Portland started her line to Montreal, which has large¬
ly changed the course of the grain trade of the West.
The supplies of western produce for Lowell, Law¬
rence, and other places are left on the way, and do
not come to Boston, as of old, Boston herself drawing
8
some of her domestic supplies from the West by way
of Portland. Flour comes down the St. Lawrence
and the canals, and by the Grand Trunk Eailway to
Montreal ; thence to Portland and to Boston by rail-
i
way and steamer.
Finding her plans frustrated in 1845,—to anticipate
the completion of our railway from Portland to Mon¬
treal, to supersede it in point of fact, Boston started off
•f
on a new crusade,—abandoning almost entirely the
Boston, Concord, and Montreal project,—a railway
to Ogdensburg, and completed it through by Boston
capital in October, 1850. Then came Boston's great
Railroad Jubilee, in full expectation that she would,
by her superior attractions, intercept, at Ogdensburg,
the produce of the West on its way to Montreal.
4
But the whole project has, so far, as a commercial
speculation, proved a failure, as the Boston Board of
Trade returns fully show. The Boston Daily Adver¬
tiser, under date of June 9, 1869, admits that of the
43,415 barrels of flour which came into Boston in the
month of May, 1869, 3,200 barrels only came by the
way of Ogdensburg. The entire quantity of flour
which came by way of Ogdensburg $nd reached Bos¬
ton over the Northern and Fitchburg, and Boston
and Maine roads in 1868, was but 90,004 barrels,
9
against 704,070 barrels over the line of the Western
(now the Boston and Albany) Railroad. In 1863, the
northern roads delivered 326,900 barrels of flour into
Boston, coming from Ogdensburg, against 543,227
barrels by the Western Railroad. In the same year,
1863, 271,530 barrels of flour were sent from Port¬
land into Boston, and in 1865, 454,421 barrels of
flour were sent into Boston by the Portland route.
These figures illustrate the tendencies, of western
trade.
Our railway from Portland to Montreal was pro¬
posed in 1844 as an outlet for western produce, a
• direct connection by the shortest line of railway be¬
tween the navigable waters of the St. Lawrence and
an open Atlantic port in a distance of 203 miles on
an air line. The work of construction was entered
upon in 1846, and the railroad line estimated at 250
miles in length. As built, it deflected materially from
the most direct route, after it had reached north-west
from Portland to Island Pond, making the distance
292 miles from Portland to Montreal. A connection
between Quebec and Montreal, and the necessity of
keeping so far east of the direct line from Montreal
to Boston, as to prevent diversion of trade to that
city, no doubt influenced its location. Without this
10
deflection, the means for building the line could not
at that time have been obtained.
The pressing and immediate necessity of Portland
to-day is a direct line from Island Pond to Montreal,
saving 46 miles over the present route by way of
Sherbrooke and Richmond. This is fully admitted,
and no one now fears Boston competition.
Attempts have been made in former years to secure
this Island Pond cut-off, but without success, —the
funds of the Grand Trunk Railway having been ab¬
sorbed by extension of other lines further west. If a
direct line of railway was extended from Island Pond
to Montreal, it would cheapen, at least by one-fourth, •
the cost of transit between Montreal and Portland.
At no very distant day, as I believe, this will be ac¬
complished, as a necessity to Montreal and the Grand
Trunk Railway, to retain their present importance.
The railway from Montreal to Portland f the first
great international undertaking of this character)
has given Portland commercial importance, with
favorable results upon the social, political, and com¬
mercial notions and relations of the two countries. It
was the beginning of that new order of things de¬
veloped by our international lines of railway and
steamer, that is making the English speaking people
11
of this continent one in sentiment., and in commercial
undertakings. And it is pleasant to meet on this
platform, to-day, a gentleman from Ontario, in the
Dominion of Canada, representing one great link in
this chain of iron that is to bind the people of this
continent in bonds of perpetual peace.
But the progress of improvements in twenty-five
years has somewhat modified our opinions as to the
future of trade. Great changes have taken place in
the navigation of the St. Lawrence and the lakes
since 1844, and our views as to the value of the navi¬
gation of the St. Lawrence, below Lake Erie, some¬
what modified.
The Welland Canal, begun in 1824, and opened in
1832, was found insufficient to pass the largest vessels
navigating the upper lakes, and in 1841, the enlarge¬
ment was undertaken by the government of United
Canada, and completed in 1848, or 1849, with eight
and one-half feet of water on the mitre sills of the
locks, one hundred and fifty feet of chamber between
the gates, and twenty-six and one-half feet in width
in the clear. The locks would allow the passage of
any vessel that could then pass the St. Clair Lake
and the flats in that river, but less than 500 tons in
burden.
12
Mr. Thomas C. Keefer, an accomplished engineer,
in his Prize Essay on the canals of Canada in 1850,
says : u The depth of water provided for in the St.
Lawrence and Welland Canals is ample, being more
than is afforded in many of the harbors upon the
upper lakes, more than there is over the St. Clair
flats, and as much as the general features of the St.
Lawrence navigation will warrant." But since then
the United States Government has opened a ship
channel through the St. Clair flats, 300 feet in
width, protected on each side by heavy walls raised
five feet above the highest waters of the lake, carry¬
ing fifteen feet of water from Lake Huron into Lake
Erie. Propellers of over 1400 tons burden now pass
from Buffalo to Chicago.
Freight formerly taken off at Collingwood and
Sarnia, now goes through to Buffalo, which has be¬
come the great depot of the grain trade of the north¬
west.
The result witnessed within the last few years was
not foreseen in 1844, nor in 1852 when the Grand
Trunk Railway scheme was inaugurated, and our
line, the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad, absorbed
into, or annexed by perpetual lease to the Grand
Trunk Railway of Canada. The theory on which our
13
railroad to Montreal was built has, in one respect at
least, proved erroneous.
It was predicted, too, in 1844, that Moni real would
become one of the three great cities of the continent,
from the commercial advantages of its position, no
one at that time anticipating the possibility of this
deep ship channel between Lake Huron and Lake
Erie. Montreal has great advantages as the commer¬
cial metropolis of Canada, and grown to be a great
city, her population has risen from 57,715 in 1850, to
101,602 in 1860, and to 160,000 at the present time.
Yet Montreal has not kept pace with the city of
Chicago.
The growth of Chicago is without example. Settled
in 1822, in 1850 it had a population of 29,963 ; in
1860, 110,793, and in April of this year, 265,000.
In looking over the Chicago Directory for 1868,1
found it contained 94,000 names. The New York
City Directory of this year, 1869, contained 189,443
names, or twice the number only of those found in
the Chicago Directory for 1868. Her trade, wealth,
and commercial importance have gone forward in
greater proportion than the population.
Compilers of commercial statistics put flour for¬
ward as a representative of trade, and it will be in-
14
teresting in this connection to look at the progress
of the grain trade of Chicago.
The following table shows the shipments of grain
from Chicago for the past thirty-one years, reduced
to bushels.
Shipments of flour (reduced to wheat) and grain
from Chicago for the past thirty-one years, the com¬
mercial year closing at the end of March.
1838
1839
1840 n
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852
1853
78 bushels.
3,678
10,000
40,000 "
586,907 "
688,1)07 "
923,494 "
1,024,620
1,599,919
2,243,201
3,001,740 "
2,769,111 "
1,830,938 "
4,646,291 "
5,873,141
6,412,181 "
1854.,
1855..
1856..
1857..
1858..
1859..
I860..
1861..
1862..
1863..
1864-5
1865-6
1866-7
1867-8
1868-9
12,932,320 bushels.
16,633,700 "
21,583,221 "
18,032,678 "
20,035,166 "
16,771,812 "
.31,108,759 "
50,481,862 "
56,484,110 "
54,741,839 "
47,124,494 "
53,212,224
66,736,660
54,716,186 "
67,896,700
It is noticeable that the quantity of grain shipped
from Chicago the year ending March, 1867, was
12,020,474 bushels more than were shipped in the
year ending March 31, 1868.
The President of the Chicago Chamber of Com¬
merce said, in a late commercial convention this pres¬
ent year, " When railroads shall carry grain cheaper
15
than lakes and canals, and when these go out of use,
the grain from a great country, which is now diverted
to Chicago, will seek a direct route to the seaboard."
He had reference, no doubt, to the lines of railroad
terminating at Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York,
competing for the grain trade of the West, of which I
shall hereafter speak, which took off a portion of the
Chicago trade of 1867-8. The recovery in 1868-9 is
due to the great enlargement of trade on account of
better crops the past year.
In 1860 the quantity of grain moved eastward by
all routes 78,632,486 bushels, according to the figures
furnished me by the Hon. D. S. Bennett, of Buffalo,
member of the present Congress. From his statement
it appears that in 1862 the movement of breadstuffs rosé
to 137,667,870 bushels, the highest point yet reached.
The following table gives the receipts at the places
named, in 1862:
Flour, brls. Grain, bush.
Received at Buffalo 2,846,022 58,574,078
Oswego, 235,382 16,978,917
Montreal, . 1,174,602 12,156,497
Dunkirk, 1,095,365 271,888
Ogdensburg, 576,394 1,828,971
Cape Vincent, 48,576 612,819
Rochester, 1,000 156,622
Suspension Bridge, 875,000 2,750,000
Western terminus Penn. Central R. R. 890,696 1,622,893
" . " Baltimore & Ohio " 690,000 550,000
Total, 8,433,037 95,502,685
Flour estimated as wheat, 42,165,185
Total, 137,667,870
16
We cannot give as full statistics for the year 1868.
The cost of shipping a bushel of grain from Chicago
to New York, according to statement of the Chicago
Tribune in May last, was 32\ cts., divided as follows, viz. :
Inspection (in and out), , i
Storage, 2£
Commissions, 1£
Freight to Buffalo,
Insurance, 1£
Elevator at Buffalo, 2
Handling, \
Commissions at Buffalo, 1£
Freight by canal to New York, 13£
Expenses in New York, 3
Total expenses, 32£
It cost, therefore, I62 cents a bushel to transport grain
by canal from Buffalo to New York City, somewhat less
than the charges by railway, showing an actual cost of
$11,029,690 to the grain tradg of Chicago, for the
transportation of its products from Buffalo, or by other
routes, to New York City, in 1868-9, which weré as
high in 1868 as in 1869.
The great practical question, therefore, at Chicago and
Buffalo is, how can we reduce the cost of transit to the
Atlantic seaboard.
According to the census of 1850, the large Western
and North-western wheat-growing States, in the pre¬
vious year, ranged thus in production:
Ohio, 14,487,351 bushels. Illinois,... 9,414,575 bushels.
Indiana, .6,214,458 " Michigan,... 4,925,889 "
Wisconsin, 4,281,131 "
17
No other State reached three millions of bushels.
In 1859, ten years later, according to the census of
1860, the principal wheat-growing States were,—
Illinois, 23,837,023 bushels. Indiana, 16,848,267 bushels.
Wisconsin, 15,657,458 " Ohio, 15,119,047 "
Iowa, 8,449,403 " Michigan,.. 8,336,368
The wheat crop raised in the United States in 1849
was 100,485,944 bushels; that of 1859, 173,104,924
bushels. The wheat crop of 1862 was 181,133,089
bushels, the greatest amount ever raised in one year
prior to 1868.
The following table gives the entire grain crop of the
United States for the several years named :
1850. 1860.
Wheat, 100,485,944 bushels 173,104,923 bushels.
Bye, 14,188,813 " 21,101,380 "
Oats, 146,584,179 " 172,643,185 "
Barley, 5,167,015 " .15,825,898
Buckwheat, 8,956,912 " 17,571,818
Peas and Beans, 9,219,901 " 15,061,995 "
.Indian Corn, 592,071,104 " 838,792,740 "
Total, 876,673,868 " 1,254,101,940 "
1862.
1863.
1864.
Wheat,
..181,133,089 bushels. .179,404,036 bushels. .160,695,823 bushels,
Corn,
. .586,226,305
. .451,969,959
«
. .530,581,403
Bye,
.. 21,239,451
" .. 20,782,782
«
.. 19,872,975
Barley,
.. 12,488,032
.. 11,467,155
«
.. 10,716,328
Oats,
. .171,463,405
* . .173,800,575
it
. .176,690,064
Buckwheat,.
... 18,703,145
.. 15,806,455
a
.. 18,700,540
Total,...
. .991,253,427
" . .853,228.962
a
. .917,247,153 "
The indications this year are favorable for a full grain
2
18
crop, and it is to be hoped that the seven years of
famine have passed, that seven years of plenty will
continue,—for the most attentive observers of times and
seasons believe that there is an alternation every seven
years in the bread crop, and that the cycles are very
nearly uniform for the period of seven years.
The increased production of wheat in the United
States from 1849 to 1859, as you perceive, was seventy-
three per cent, and if we are favored with as good crops
•in 1869 as in 1859, we may expect an increase of sev¬
enty per cent in the returned wheat crop for the census
of 1870 over that of 1860, or a crop equal to 300,000,-
000 bushels of wheat. If two-thirds of this crop is
required for home consumption, 100,000,000 bushels of
United States wheat will be left for export to foreign
countries. Other grain crops coming to market, includ¬
ing Indian corn, will exceed in quantity the wheat
coming forward, and of the crop consumed in the coun¬
try, one-third, at least, if not one-half, will have to be sent
forward from its place of production, to the non-pro¬
ducing States of the Atlantic sea-board, so that it is not
too much to expect that 200,000,000 bushels of grain
will be moved toward, and to the sea-board, for the year
ending in March, 1870, the production of the United
States alone, to say nothing of the crops of British
19
North America. The condition of Canada West is in
many respects like one of our Western States. The
wheat crop of Canada W est in 1851 was 12,692,852
bushels, with a population of 952,204. In 1861 the
wheat crop of Canada West was 24,620,425 bushels,
with a population of 1,395,222.
The bulk of the grain crop moved to market will
not come upon Lake Erie this yëar, as in former times,
to find its way to the sea-board through the Erie Canal
and Weiland Canal. It now seeks in addition the
various lines of railway from the West to the sea-board
(Portland being supplied almost exclusively by the
Grand Trunk line).
Of the 2,713,817 barrels of flour sent off from Chi¬
cago during the year ending March 31, 1869, more
than two-thirds, or 1,849,267 barrels were sent for¬
ward by railway, against 874,556 barrels shipped by
the lake.
The Pittsburgh, Port W ayne, and Chicago Railroad
took from Chicago the largest quantity of any one line,
640,525 barrels of flour. (This line is a link in the
Pennsylvania railroad chain.) Chicago shipped to Buf¬
falo in all forms equal to 36,509,056 bushels of grain
for the year ending March 31, 1869, or more than one-
half her entire export for the year, while Ogdensburg
20
received but 1,205,962 bushels from Chicago in that
year. The shipments from Chicago to Buffalo in
1867—8 were 23,046,121 bushels, an increase of 13,-
463,935 in 1868-9 over 1867-8, while there was a fall¬
ing off in the shipments to Ogdensburg in 1868-9 of
82,964 bushels below those of 1867-8. These figures
deserve the attention of the advocates of the Ogdensburg
route. Since the termination of the Reciprocity Treaty,
the course of trade has materially changed. The United
States' tariff imposes a duty of twenty per cent upon
Canadian flour. This amounts to a virtual exclusion of
it from American consumption. Canada at first put a
duty of fifty cents per barrel on flour after the termi¬
nation of the treaty ; subsequently she reduced it to
twenty-five cents per barrel, then made it free, by one
of the first acts of the Dominion Government. .We
\
exclude Canadian flour for the benefit of the western
farmer, Canada admits ours free. This state of things
favors the St. Lawrence trade, and great activity is
witnessed this year on the Canadian waters. American
wheat and flour go through the St. Lawrence to Europe,
and the lower Provinces free, while Canadian flour for
consumption, is shut out of New York and Boston
markets.
The lower Provinces took from Canada 139,923 bar-
21
reis of flour by water-borne craft through the St. Law¬
rence in 1868, and 127,452 barrels in 1867.
The quantities transported over the Grand Trunk to
Portland, and thence by water to the lower Provinces,
amounted to 151,859 barrels in 1866, 228,345 barrels
in 1867, and 324,600 barrels in 1868. This is a stead¬
ily increasing trade.
The most surprising of all the changes in the course
of trade in fifteen years is the development of the
flour and grain trade of Portland, as shown by the fol¬
lowing figures.
The following table gives the amount of produce
#
received at Portland by the Grand Trunk Railway for
the several years named, as follows, namely :
Flour, bbls. Grain, bush.
1864 457,700.. 967,200
1865 619,700 ...1,158,400
1866 663,700 944,000
1867 564,400 704,400
1868 658,600 849,600
This shows a volume of business in excess of what
is generally supposed.
Many who hear me no doubt remember the incre¬
dulity, not to say contempt, with which the intimation
that Boston would receive supplies of flour by way of
Portland was received in the city of Boston, twenty
22
years ago; and by the friends of the Boston roads,
stretching northward toward the St. Lawrence.
In this connection it may be interesting to give some
facts in reference to the flour trade of Boston, published
annually by the Board of Trade.
The following table shows the quantities of flour de¬
livered at Boston for the last twelve years, and the
sources from which the same were received :
RECEIPTS OF FLOUR AT BOSTON.
Year.
Western
Railroad.
Northern
Railroad.
Fitchburg
Railroad.
Boston & Maine
Railroad.
Portland. Tot^s.aU
1857
217,231...
.110,232..
.. 27,750.
...117,346...
....1,049,023
1858
278,438...
.159,111..
.. 53,209.
... 15,694...
. 15,032....2,127,639
1859
268,452...
. 96,469..
.. 45,908.
6,808...
. 74,173. ...1,049,186
1860
302,462...
. 60,587..
.. 35,737.
... 14,808...
.217,897 ♦..1,164,172
1861
641,824...
.101,680..
..127,301.
... 28,549...
.167,994. ..1,433,999
1862
543,227...
.186,437..
.. 96,299.
... 36,833...
.271,530.... 1,365,832
1863
541,752...
.129,517..
..187,424.
9,960 ..
.289,894 ...1,444,053
1864
571,449...
.100,844..
..115,256.
... 8,438...
.227,527....1,345,403
1865
383.900...
. 83,204..
.. 85,872
... 8,323...
.454,421.... 1,426,373
1866
568,282...
. 60;737..
.. 41,125.
... 5,157...
.273,380. ...1,504,253
1867
644,629...
. 79,467..
.. 21,287.
3,766...
.123,816.... 1,402,681
1868
704,071...
. 49,937..
.. 24,529.
... 15,o38...
. 54,369...'.1,467,681
The falling off in the receipts of flour at Boston from
Portland is very striking, but this is accounted for, not
so much by any falling off in the receipts by the Grand
Trunk line at Portland, as by the new direction the
trade has taken.
The following table shows the total receipts of flour
and grain into Bangor from outside the State for the
several years named, with the quantity brought to it by
23
rail, coming from the Grand Trunk Railway, in each
year :
TOTAL.
By Water and Rail. By Rail.
1863... 295,300 Bushels Corn 95,000
" 108,300 Barrels Flour 31,500
" Bushels Oats 10.000
1864 259,500 Bushels Corn 110,000
" 102,045 Barrels Flour 38,543
1865 300,000 .Bushels Corn 195,000
u 88,822 Barrels Flour 51,850
" Bushels Oats 10,100
1866 260,738 Bushels Corn 72,335
" 78,694 Barrels Flour. 29,258
" Bushels Oats 55,800
1867 345,667 Bushels Corn 63,000
" 59,694 Barrels Flour 32,560
" Bushels Oats 35,000
1868. 384,273 Bushels Corn 63,000
" 91,923 Barrels Flour 32,560
" Bushels Oats 35,000
The supply of Western produce for Maine comes by
way of Montreal, and if we had free trade in bread-
9
stuffs, this supply could in a few years equal the wants
of New England.
Montreal is now a great city. She has secured a
deep ship channel to the sea through Lake St Peter.
Yessels of light draft only came to Montreal from the
sea in olden time, or prior to 1851. But in 1865 a
depth of twenty feet was obtained, with a three hun¬
dred feet channel, while there was only a dppth of
eleven feet originally in the flats ; so that after fourteen
24
years of labor, from 1851 to 1865, the largest steamers
of the Trans-Atlantic Montreal mail line came regularly
to the wharves in Montreal during the season of navi¬
gation. This work is similar to that executed by our
government through the St. Clair Flats and Detroit
River, already spoken of. The effect of this measure
on Montreal is shown in the fact, that the exports from
Montreal have risen from $2,319,228 in 1851, to $7,-
792,776 in 1867 ; her imports from $9,178,840 in
1851, to $28,378,117 in 1867.
The Montreal Ocean Steamers known as the "Allan
Line/ 3 commenced in 1856 with four steamers, having
a.capacity of 6,536 tons, and now increased to sixteen
steamships in number, with an aggregate of 32,606 tons
register.
Portland owes everything to her harbor, but her
present commercial importance to the Grand Trunk
Railway, and she should be jealous of all attempts to
disparage or underrate the Grand Trunk line. I am
sorry to say, advantage, has been taken of its trials
during our civil war, and others consequent on it to
disparage and injure it in public estimation, in which
some of our public officials have been but too promi¬
nent. Jhe claims of the Portland and Ogdensburg
Railroad have been urged in hostility to that great
25
line, whose fault lies mainly in an inadequate amount
of local business travel, and an insufficient supply of
equipment or rolling stock for the autumn trade.
She has passed through her troubles as other roads
have done, and is coming out all right.
What has the Grand Trunk line done for Portland ?
Portland in 1844 was literally a deserted village, rich
in retired capital, but poor in enterprise and public
spirit. The suggestion of a railway to Montreal was
like an alarm bell in the night, struck by the hand of
a stranger. It aroused her sleepy ones to a conscious¬
ness of their condition, and drew into active energy
whatever of dormant, or of patent public spirit there
was left in the entire population. With generous
emulation, forgetting past differences, men vied with
each other, not only in extravagant hopes and predic¬
tions of its success, but in hard work and substantial
aid, and it went through in its own way in spite of
those most interested in its success. Portland has
risen into wealth and comparative commercial impor-
♦
tance since 1844,—her valuation from $4,865,788 in
1844, to |18,962,514 in 1854, to $26,953,939 in 1864,
and to $28,572,748 in 1868, and in business and
wealth in vastly greater proportion. Her valuation
has kept up notwithstanding she lost $10,841,525 by
26
fire in 1866, with a return of $3,528,180 only from
insurance. Portland is comparatively free from em¬
barrassment, with an inevitable scarcity of money,
which comes of such a vast loss. Insurance, pub¬
lic and private generosity have done much to re¬
lieve the distress attendant on such a calamity, and
her courage and activity are greater than ever before.
In their impatience for new business, some of the
people of Portland, or the more hopeful of them, were
encouraged to look for it in the building of a line of
railroad through the White Moun^in Notch, by way
of St. Johnsbury and the La Moille Yalley to Rouse's
Point, aiming to make Ogdensburg the objective
point of their scheme upon the St. Lawrence waters.
You know the history of this project. St. Johnsbury
wanted an outlet independent of the Passumpsic Rail¬
road, and proposed a railroad to Montpelier, for which
a charter was granted. Montpelier declined to bond
her town as St, Johnsbury had done, and the measure
hung fire. - The St. Johnsbury interest started off to
Portland in advance of the Montpelier people, and
proposed a line from Portland west, agreeing to
build it, if Maine would give them a'charter. The
Vermont Central were standing ready, as they said,
to take a lease of the line to Portland at six lier cent
27
on its cost. Afterwards, finding the scheme impracti¬
cable, they cut loose from the Central line, and started
a new scheme,—a line from Portland to Ogdensburg
by the way of the White Mountain Notch.
To the support of this project I could never bring
the convictions of my judgment, and I have met no
little opposition, as some of you well know, for stand¬
ing out in opposition to the Notch route. I do not
believe the line an easy one to build, and I do not
think it will bring an adequate return of business for
the outlay, if it is built. Hence I cordially fell in
with your scheme and with the views presented by
the President of this Convention,, who, with his friend.
Gen. Washburn, and other influential citizens of Ver¬
mont, visited Portland, for this purpose, in February,
1868. 1 shall never fail to thank you, Mr. Chairman,
.in behalf of Portland and of Maine, for your broad
statesmanship and enlightened views on this question,
and for bringing the claims of the Rutland and Port¬
land line to the knowledge of our people.
To understand the value to Portland of the Rutland
route, over other projected lines to the West, I have
said to our people, it is essential to know something of
the physical geography of the country between Lake
28
(Jliamplain and Hudson River Valley, and the terri¬
tory of New England.
From New York City to Montreal, a distance of
abont 400 miles along the « route of the Hudson
River and Lake Champlain, is a comparative level,—
Lake Champlain being but 90 feet above tide-water ;
and the highest summit between Hudson River and
Lake Champlain is 132 feet above tide-level. The
Green Mountain range, running nearly north and
south, parallel with Lake Champlain, extends from
the south line of Massachusetts to the St. Lawrence
waters, forming a continuous ridge, with occasional
depressions,- but without any of the deep gorges and
pointed summits which characterize the granitic for¬
mation lying east of the Connecticut River in New
Hampshire. Three lines of railway now cross the
Green Mountain range, the Western Railroad of Mas-,
sachusetts, now the Boston and Albany line, with
long-continued heavy grades ; the Rutland Railroad?
over Mt. Holly summit; and the Vermont Central
Railroad, by way of Roxbury and Northfield.
The Rutland and Central Railroads cross the State
of Vermont diagonally by means of long ascents,
over lofty summits, the exact height of which are
29
not known to me. The proposed Ogdensburg line,
further north, is understood to be surrounded with a
still greater engineering difficulty in reaching the
Lamoille Yalley.
The most favorable route for a railroad across your
State, south of Island Pond, as far as grades are con¬
cerned, is by way of Montpelier, where the Green
Mountains can-be passed, by easy grades, at an ele¬
vation of 1340 feet only, above the level of the sea.
The Nulhegan and Clyde summit, on the Grand
Trunk line, is only 1158 feet above tide-water.
Neither the Rutland or Central lines, already built,
or the Montpelier and St. Johnsbury lines proposed,
afford, or can afford a direct line across the State. If
«
(gie of jour representatives wants to reach Rutland
from Montpelier, the State capital, he must either go
north-west to Burlington 40 miles, thence south 67
miles to Rutland, 107 miles in all ; or run down 104
miles to Bellows Falls, thence 53 miles to Rutland, a
total of 157 miles, when the distance between Mont¬
pelier and Rutland is only about 40 miles.
A,line directly across the State from White River
Junction to Rutland, would shorten, by one-half the
distance by railway to the State capital, and alford a
natural and easy connection between all the railroads
30
in that State. It would concentrate at Rutland a
large amount of business, making it a great commer¬
cial town. I am told, among other projects in con¬
templation here, is the building of a canal from Lake
Champlain.
The experience of the last twenty years, in con¬
nection with railroads, has demonstrated the fact, that
Rutland is a point, if not the only point in the State
of Vermont, capable of becoming a great inland
town, by force of natural laws. Such, at any rate,
is my conviction.
One feels, on reaching Rutland, that he has got out¬
side or beyond the commercial drift of New England,
and that Rutland belongs to the New York system
of railroads, and within reach of Western connection*
Trains of cars from New York City at 8 o'clock,
a. m., reach Rutland at 5 o'clock, p. m., and there is a
great movement, both of passengers and of freight,
north and south, as well as across Mt. Holly to the
Connecticut River and the east.
It is obvious, therefore, that Rutland is the objec¬
tive point for all successful railway movements from
Portland, west. Such a line would follow the natural
route from Portland to Lake Chajmplain, and on
reaching Whitehall, the nearest point from Lake
31
Champlain to the Atlantic, would not only meet the
present wants of business, but be prepared to receive
the accumulations which are sure to come to it by the
extension of a line on the western shore of the lake
from Plattsburg, and of a direct line of railway to
Oswego, on the completion of ship canals from Lake
Erie into Ontario, and from the St. Lawrence into
Lake Champlain, the favorite project of Chicago, and
the exporters of western produce.
The Northern sea-board cities have strongly sym¬
pathized with the West in their desire for the Niagara
Ship Canal, and this idea has at times had great ap¬
parent strength throughout the country. Six years
ago, or in 1863, a call for a convention at Chicago to
aid the canal project was numerously signed by mem¬
bers of Congress, near the head of which, the name of
our present Minister to France, the Hon. E. B. Wash¬
burn, of Illinois, a native of Maine. In 1869, Mr.
Washburn led off in the movement to postpone and
defeat the canal project, and it seems far less likely
of accomplishment now than it did six years ago.
The great Middle States, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and
Missouri, and all the country south of them, oppose
the grant of money from the National Treasury to
aid the building of this canal. The State of New
32
York is opposed to it, and insists if money is expended
by the General Government for canal purposes, it
should be applied to the enlargement of the Erie
Canal,—-giving it sufficient capacity to float the largest
propellers upon the upper lakes. The expense of
such an enlargement would be enormous, and the
canal could not compete with the railroads in trans¬
portation.
If such a canal had an unbroken level, so that boats
or vessels could cover its entire surface, it could carry
cheaper than the railroads ; but the delay of locks
destroys the efficiency of canals, and they could never
compete successfully with railroads with large quan¬
tities of business. The capacity of a canal is limited
by its locks. A railroad is a canal without locks, and
you may cover the whole length of the lines with
trains, provided there is an adequate supply of
business.
Looking, therefore, at the canal question in its
economical aspects, as a practical one, it is obvious
that the day for the enlargement of canals is far off
if not already gone by. While serving useful pur¬
poses in connecting by short links great basins of
navigable water, like Lake Huron and Lake Superior,
or Lake Huron and Lake Erie, canals can never com-
33
pete with lines of railway in long transportation. The
canals of Ohio, connecting Lake Erie with the Ohio
River, serve a useful purpose in their own neighbor¬
hood, but they cannot compete for a moment with
railroads.
It is obvious, therefore, to my mind, that railroad
plans based upon the idea of the early completion of
the Niagara Ship Canal must fail,—that a line of
railroad from Ogdensburg to the sea-board at Boston
or Portland must, as in the past, prove a failure.
It will be cheaper to take freight from Buffalo to
Portland by a direct line of railroad, than to pass it
through a canal into Lake Ontario to Ogdensburg,
and then transport it by rail to the sea-board ; or, at
any rate, cheaper to transport it by way of Oswego
to Portland, by a continuous line.*
Produce once put upon a railroad, should follow
that track to the sea-board, without further handling,
and if moved slowly at only twice the speed of a canal-
boat, it can go about as cheaply, if not cheaper by
rail than by water, and be landed at the most conven¬
ient point at its place of destination. It is a knowl¬
edge of this that moved Buffalo and Chicago to desire
an independent railroad, and a shorter line from Buf¬
falo to the sea.
3
84
Cheap navigation is now found between Buffalo and
Chicago in summer, and could a series of canals be
provided, free to all the world, from Lake Erie to the
ocean, allowing the largest vessels now known upon
the lakes to pass from Chicago to the open sea, the
St. Lawrence route might in time grow into favor ;
but the St. Lawrence navigation below Quebec is an
object of dread in autumn; at the West many be¬
lieve it impossible to make use of the St. Lawrence
below Montreal to any great advantage, when the
grain crop is pressing forward to market, owing to the
early closing of navigation. The Portland outlet by
railway is the great feature in the commercial policy
of Canada.
if a ship canal, equal to the passage of propellers
carrying 1500 tons burden, could be constructed from
Lake Erie into Lake Ontario, and from the St. Law¬
rence into Lake Champlain, making Lake Champlain
an inland basin, the produce of the West would un¬
doubtedly flow into it in unmeasured abundance to be
drawn off by railway, as wanted, for shipment or home
consumption, to Portland, Portsmouth, Boston, and
New York, in distances varying from 180 to 240
miles,—-such a canal policy might solve, in some meas¬
ure, the question of transportation for Western prod-
35
nee. A long line of canal of 322 miles from Buffalo
to Alban y, or of 70 miles from Lake Cliamplain at
Whitehall into the Hudson at Troy, cannot now, and
never can compete in transportation with railroads
along its route. Here, then, comes the answer to the
question, how can we reduce the cost of transit from
Buffalo to the Atlantic sea-board ?-—by building a new
line of railroad from Buffalo by the most direct route
to the Atlantic at Portland. This line will serve as
the cheapest outlet for produce from Buffalo to the
sea-board at the present moment,, and meet the further
wants of trade, when ship canals are constructed from
*
Lake Erie into Lake Cliamplain.
But the most formidable of all the obstacles to a
canal policy on the part of the government is the
opposition of the great railroad companies and great
railroad combinations, the mere statement of which
excites a feeling of alarm. These recent combina¬
tions are an object of jealousy, almost of terror, at
the West, as they are sapping the trade of the west¬
ern towns for the benefit of the Atlantic cities.
The first of these great combinations terminates
at Baltimore, of which the Baltimore and Ohio Rail¬
road forms the base. It owns a continuous line from
Baltimore to Wheeling, a distance of 379 miles, with
36
a branch of 104 miles from Grafton to Parkersburg,
on the Ohio River, which is being spanned by a
bridge,—giving a continous line to Cincinnati by way
of Marietta, a distance of 205 miles. This Company
is constructing another bridge across the Ohio at
Benwood, between it and Bellaire, to accommodate
the Ohio Central Railroad, extending from the Ohio
River to Columbus, 137 miles, which is a part of her
chain ; and they have recently purchased the inter¬
secting road from Newark to Sandusky, 116 miles in
length,—giving them a hold upon Lake Erie, as well
as upon the Ohio at Cincinnati. The nearest outlet
from Cincinnati to the Atlantic is at Baltimore, by
way of Marietta, Parkersburg, and Grafton, a distance
of 588 miles.
The second grand consolidation rests upon the Penn¬
sylvania Railroad, with its various absorptions and com¬
binations, including the Pittsburg, Port Wayne, and
Chicago line ; and the Chicago and Rock Island and
Pacific road, reaching to the Missouri River,—already
embracing 1530 miles of completed railroad, with a
capital equal to §122,110,164, whose gross earnings
in 1868 amounted to §36,260,213. It is now under¬
stood that, this company have also secured the con¬
trol of the line from Columbus to Indianapolis, and
37
of the Miami Railroad, from Columbus to Cincin¬
nati.
At Cincinnati, a company under their control is
bridging the Ohio from the Miami station to Newport,
which owns the new line from Cincinnati to Louis¬
ville, a distance of 104 miles opened for traffic in
June the present year.
These movements have excited alarm among the
business men and the people of Cincinnati, which
city has lost almost the entire trade of the country
lying east of it,—goods being freighted through from
the Atlantic sea-board to all intermediate towns as
cheaply, or even cheaper, than to Cincinnati ; while
the railroads running east, north of Cincinnati, and
between it and the lakes, have carried the great
stream of travel east and west, away from her city,
and taken from her a large portion of the trade of
Northern Ohio, Indiana, and Central Illinois, which
formerly made Cincinnati their market. Cincinnati,
aroused to the most determined action in an effort to
restore her lost advantages, has voted to use the credit
of the city, under authority of an act recently granted
by the Legislature, to thé amount of ¡$ 10,000,000 to
build a railroad on the most direct route from Cin-
cinnati to Chattanooga, in the hope, if not with the cer-
38
tainty, of bringing the trade of Eastern Kentucky
and Tennessee, and of the whole country lying west of
the Blue Ridge, to her city,—a measure long in con¬
templation, and recommended by President Lincoln
«
as a measure necessary to the carrying on of the war.
But nothing could arouse Cincinnati to the necessary
measures to complete this work, but the recent diver¬
sion of her trade to other places.
Coming to New York, the next great consolidated
scheme is that of Erie Company, whose line on the
six feet gauge, extends north-west to Dunkirk and
Buffalo, and by means of the Atlantic and Great
Western Railroad to Cincinnati, from Salamanca on
the Erie line, 415 miles from New York,—a distance of
448 miles, on the same gauge, where, in a distance
of 863 miles from New York at Cincinnati, it "con¬
nects with the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad, extend¬
ing 840 miles from Cincinnati to St. Louis,—forming
an unbroken broad-gauge line from the Mississippi
River to New York, 1203 miles. On this line cars
now run for the entire distance without change. The
plans of this company contemplate a line to Chicago,
which was a portion of the scheme of Sir Morton
Peto, interrupted for the time' by his disastrous fail¬
ure, when the great railroad revulsion took place in
39
England^ from which that country has not yet re¬
covered.
But the greatest of all the combinations is that
formed and carried on under the guidance of a single
mind, that of Cornelius Vanderbilt, president of the
New York Central Railroad; who has practically united
into one company the Hudson River Railroad; the
New York Central, the Buffalo and Erie, the Lake
Shore, Cleveland and Toledo, the Michigan Southern
(from Toledo to Chicago), and the Chicago and North¬
western, reaching to Omaha, the eastern terminus of
the Union Pacific Railroad,—embracing a length of
2480 miles of lines in operation, costing $164,485,056,
whose income in 1868 was $44,820,893 ; and other
plans are on foot for still further absorptions and com¬
binations.
These great railroad combinations in a measure
control the trade, the public men, and the politics of
the country.
It is now understood that the Pennsylvania Rail¬
road combination, under the lead of J. Edgar Thomp¬
son, are looking toward the Northern Pacific Railroad
project, and this same Mr. Thompson, with Mr. Benja¬
min E. Smith, of Columbus, Ohio, are prominent con¬
tractors in the building of the European and North
40
American Railway from Bangor, Maine, to St. John
City, New Brunswick. When they come into control
of the lines east of Bangor, they may turn their
thoughts and their labors to the Northern Pacific, by
a direct route from Bangor.
$ The operations of the men engaged in these com¬
binations are as vast and as unfathomable as the great
deep,—the result of them, no man can estimate, fore¬
see, or conjecture. They defeated the Niagara Ship
Canal. To hold control of their present business,
against all interference on the part of the National or
State governments, they may possibly be compelled
to reduce the cost of railroad transportion.
Of one thing we may be assured, that while the
demands of trade and the necessities of business call
for additional outlets, the building of this shortest
practicable line from Chicago to the sea, will be called
for before any great reduction of freights will or can
take place.
What direction shall this new line take ? New
Yorkers claim that they can find a new route as favor¬
able as ours.
But let the business men of Rutland take this ques¬
tion home to themselves, and they can now determine
the route.
41
You, Mr. Chairman, have had experience in man¬
aging a railroad, in working a line with heavy grades,
and large expenditures. At present, your business is
limited, yet you must charge enough to pay for doing
this business, and giving a return of profit on the capi¬
tal of your company. This business you can enlarge.
In addition to great advantages of situation, suffi¬
cient to make you a great town, you are favored with
treasures of wealth, as valuable as the coal deposits
of Pennsylvania, in your marble quarries, a visit to
which we have enjoyed to-day. Such a sight as I
have witnessed is worth a visit of thousands of miles,
and, to me, the most instructive lesson I have had for
years.
These marble quarries are enough to justify an ex¬
penditure equal to half your valuation, as shown by
the grand list, or $2,000,000 of money to open the
Trans-continental Railway, and give you the market
of Chicago, and other cities in the West, and the open
market of the world by a railway to the sea-board at
Portland. Your line to Boston is inadequate to your
wants. The elegant Post-office and United States
*
Court-room, in Portland, in process of construction, is
of Vermont marble, taken from some of the quarries
north of you, and if we had the direct line finished to
42
Portland, this beautiful material would come largely
into use for building purposes, not only in Portland,
but in all the other Atlantic cities, as soon ' as the
cost of transportation would justify it.
There is room enough and space enough to work
up here the material into public and private edifices,
so that it could go forward to market, in the most
valuable form, shaped by the hands of your own arti¬
sans. The great labor should be expended here.
You have in employ, probably, 1000 laborers in the
working of marble to-day. In a few years you will
have ten laborers for every one now engaged, and
*
a city of 50,000 people will be gathered within the
limits of Rutland.
I have been speaking of a line of railway from
Rutland to Portland in connection with the necessities
of local trade. Is it not wise to go further, and ex¬
amine into its claims as a portion of the Trans-continen¬
tal Railway, or of that link of it which more imme-
4
diately concerns us, the section between Portland and
Chicago ? The fact that flour would bear transporta-
*
tion by railway for 1000 miles in competition with
water-carriage by canal, was first demonstrated on the
Grand Trunk line, extending from Lake Huron to
43
Portland, since the completion of the Victoria Bridge
at Montreal without a break or delay. This demon-
«
strati on has forced competing lines to combine, and
the rapid development of railway traffic against water
transportation has been one of the great facts of the
last ten years. In 1858, the New York canals carried
3,665,192 tons of merchandise, against 3,473,725 tons
carried on the railroads of New York. In 1867, the
tonnage of the New York canals has increased to
5,688,325 tons, against 10,343,681 tons carried by the
railroads of New York, the canals now being worked
to their full capacity. The increase and value of ton¬
nage sent by canal and railway amounting to $486,-
816,505 in value in 1858,—increased, in 1867, to
$1,723,330,207.
A great item of transportation is breadstufls, and
the question that the American farmer, whether Can¬
adian or Republican, more especially the producers
of western wheat must now consider, is,—what will
be their condition when the surplus produce of the
West exceeds our necessary home consumption, and
the demands of the English market !
Great Britain requires, annually, 150,000,000 bush¬
els of wheat to supply the needs of lier own popula¬
tion. Over one-third of this amount, or 53,000,000
44
annually, for the last sixteen years, were received from
foreign countries. But the importations from the
/
United States and British North America has been
comparatively small.
The average importation from the United States, for
the last sixteen years, has been but 13,526.519 bush¬
els per year, and from British North America 2,398,-
586 bushels per year.
The capacity for production has been very con¬
siderably increased in England in the last twenty
years. England contains 32,342,000 acres. In 1847,
10,500,000 acres were under cultivation. In 1867,
11,432,000 acres of land were cultivated ; and in 1868,
the amount of cultivated lands was 11,659,000 acres.
In 1847, known as the great famine year, 88,581,003
bushels of grain were imported into the British Isles,
an amount vastly in excess of the importations of any
previous year. The Act to repeal the Corn Laws was
passed in 1846, to take effect in 1849. But the Corn
Laws were suspended by Parliament for 1847, on ac¬
count of the famine of that year.
From 1853 to 1868 inclusive, there was an average
importation of breadstuffs into Great Britain equal to
53,140,395 bushels. The greatest quantity imported
in any one year, 1862, was 93,412/69 bushels. Of
45
this quantity 40,628,161 bushels came from the United
States, 9,554,903 from British North America, a total
of 50,173,064 bushels from this continent) leaving, as
the importation from all other countries into Great
Britain for 1862, 43,229,405 bushels. In 1868, Great
Britain imported 68,144,617 bushels of grain. Of this
quantity 12,792,993 came from the United States,
1,490,543 from British North America, and from all
other countries, 53,861,081 bushels. The bulk of the
importations of 1868 came from the Baltic and Black
Seas. The figures above given are significan! and
should teach us how precarious is the European market
for American breadstuffs. Still more striking are the
returns for other years. In 1859, Great Britain im¬
ported only 803,607 bushels of grain from the United
States, 318,866 from British North America, or 1,122,-
423 bushels from this side the water, against 50,173,064
in 1862.
The importation of breadstuffs from the United States
fell to 2,797,347 bushels in 1865; the importations
from British North America to 986,451 bushels, or a
total of 3,783,798 bushels from the continent of North
America in 1865. In 1866, our exports of grain to
Great Britain fell to 1,840,966 bushels ; those of British
North America to 111,255 bushels, or a total of 1,952,-
46
216 bushels of grain imported into England in the
year 1866, from America. The importations of grain
into England in 1865 were 48,241,297 bushels, showing
that 44,457,846 bushels of grain were imported from
other countries than United States or British North
America. And in 1866, her total importations were
54,827,134 bushels, showing that 52,874,918 bushels
were consumed in Great Britain, imported from other
countries than North America.
In 1855, England imported but 26,021,934 bushels
of grain, the smallest amount in any one year for the
last sixteen years; and if we deduct 26,021,934 from
150,000,000, it will leave 123,797,066 bushels, as the
greatest crop raised in England for the last sixteen
years. If we suppose the quantity required in 1862,
when she imported 93,412,469 bushels, to be the same
as in 1855, when she imported 26,021,934 bushels, we
may fairly estimate this difference, 56,587,531 bushels,
as the total of the smallest crop produced in any one
%
of the last sixteen years. And it is easy to see that
the production of grain in the United States will rap¬
idly outrun, not only the demand for home consumption,
but be greatly in excess of the entire importations or
necessities of Europe, especially of our exports of grain
4
into England, in years of her greatest need. So that, in
47
order to command the grain market of England, we
must be prepared to produce it at less rates than the
cost of production and transportation from the Baltic
and Black Seas. The experience of the last four years
tends to show how little value there is to us, in the
market of England for our grain crop.
The whole of this exportation for the last four
years, 1865-8 inclusive, amounted to but 26,835,869
bushels in four years, or an annual average of 6,708,-
968 bushels.
There is no great market for our breadstuffs outside
the British empire and our own country.
France raises her own bread. The statistics of the
empire recently published, with comparisons between
the years 1851 (the first of the reign of Napoleon)
with 1868, shows the most remarkable progress, more
especially the exports and imports, the value of inland
\
trade, and personal property throughout the empire, in
the valuation of houses in Paris, and increase of its
population. France has an area of 211,160 square
miles of territory, equal to 135,142,400 acres.
In 1851, France had 82,668,111 acres of land, nearly
two-thirds of her entire surface, under cultivation,
yielding 884,682,793 bushels of grain. In 1868, she
had 83,800,062 acres in cultivation, producing 975,-
48
428,239 bushels of grain, a slight increase only in the
acres under cultivation or crops raised ; while the value
of imports and exports in 1868 were 8,126,000,000
francs, against 2,614,000,000 in 1851, or more than
300 per cent increase. The value of inland trade in¬
creased 500 per cent, or from 1,241,000,000 francs in
1851, to 6,574,000,000 in 1868, and the valuation of
personal property more than 300 per cent also, over
1851, throughout the kingdom.
The population of Paris increased from 1,053,262, in
1851, to 1,875,274 persons in 1868, or 75 per cent in
seventeen years, and the valuation of houses over 200
per cent in that period ; a development much more
rapid than that of the British Isles. Yet France buys
of us no bread.
In order, therefore, to maintain our bread crop, our
first duty is to cheapen the cost of transit to the sea¬
board, not only from Buffalo and Chicago, but from the
farm of the producer, 200 miles west of Chicago, from
the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers, to the northern
Atlantic sea-board ; while wTe devote our energies along
the sea-board, and among the hills of New England, to
the development of manufactures, as the necessary,
natural, and only reliable market for the surplus pro¬
duce of the West, and the proper employment of our
49
native population. If we shall be able for the next few
years to keep out of our market the cheap products of
European labor, until our manufactures shall become
established in New England, we may draw around our
water-falls a busy population, and plant in every valley
of New England, thriving villages, Avith an industrious,
independent, and highly educated people.
Public enterprise, and commercial necessity, look
upon this continent as one great field open to devel¬
opment, regardless of national boundaries or State
lines. They conform their plans to physical facts
alone. Lines of railway, starting from great commer¬
cial centres, or important commercial points, rely
upon the level and the transit as the only safe guide
to open the way to profitable investments. The re¬
straints which hereditary customs and arbitrary laws
throw in the way of railroads in the European coun¬
tries, are here comparatively unknown ; and the enor¬
mous burdens which the people of the most favored
of the European States are compelled to bear, are
scarcely known to the people of this land, or those of
British North America.
In the discussion of railroad questions, as well as of
all commercial undertakings, we are bound to look
forward to the time not far distant, when intercourse
i
50
shall be free, among all the English-speaking people
of the continent, as it is between different States of
the Union under our Federal Constitution, and among
the several Provinces now living under the new Do¬
minion of Canada. Hence the necessity of looking
at commercial considerations alone, in projecting our
means of communications, whether of canal or railroad.
And the great practical question meets us at the
outset, as to what is the cheapest method for bring¬
ing western produce from Lake Erie to the open sea.
If it is cheaper, or if it can be made cheaper, to send
produce to Europe through the St. Lawrence by the
building of ship canals, so as to allow sea-going ves¬
sels of the size suited for economical ocean naviga¬
tion to pass in and out of Lake Erie, and to the head
of Lake Superior, fully laden,—I must admit such a
work will yet he accomplished. But I am not pre¬
pared to admit that it will ever be found cheaper
to take produce from the level of Lake Erie, 565 feet
above tide-water, to the open sea through ship canals
into Lake Ontario, and along the St. Lawrence, than
it will be to bring it all the way by rail, when we
shall have a line by the most practicable route, thor¬
oughly constructed and fully equipped, with or
á
even three sets of tracks, from Lake Erie, at Buffalo,
51
\
to the harbor of Portland, touching Lake Champlain
at Whitehall.
This brings me directly to the question of the cost
of transit by railway. This question was put to me
at Chicago by the President of the Board of Trade.
" What will ultimately be the cost of moving a bushel
of wheat or a barrel of flour, per mile, or per one
hundred miles and more, between great commercial
points ?" I sought to make the question plain by re¬
peating the statements made to me years since by
Moncure Robinson, Esq., of Philadelphia, for many
years the most eminent railroad engineer of the
country. He projected the Reading Railroad, about
one hundred miles in length, from Philadelphia, as
an outlet to the coal trade, whose head-quarters are
at Reading. After thorough survey, he took his plans
and estimates to England, and laid them before rich
capitalists of London. His proposal was, a level line
of railway, one hundred miles in length, capable of
moving 8000 tons per day, or 1,000,000 tons per an¬
num,—with an inexhaustible supply of traffic for
all time to come,—moved at the rate of thirty-seven
cents per ton, for one hundred miles. This, he con¬
tended, would pay a six per cent dividend on the
entire cost of the road,—its equipments, stations,
wharves, and other business accommodations.
52
These plans and estimates were submitted by the
capitalists, at his request, to the leading railroad
engineers of England. After careful examination,
these engineers reported the correctness of all the
calculations; but declared the propositions absurd,
as no such state of facts could possibly exist. Mr.
Robinson showed them that his great line was so
adjusted as to form a level or descending grade in
the direction of the traffic,—so that a locomotive
would haul as many loaded cars from Reading to
Philadelphia, as it could take back empty, from Phil¬
adelphia to Reading. This demonstrated the charac¬
ter of the line. The supply of business could only
be ascertained by careful examination.
The capitalists then proposed that if the facts
should sustain the theory, they would furnish the
capital. A contract was executed on the terms above
stated, and the most competent men selected from all
England by the capitalists themselves, were sent over to
examine the ground. If they reported adversely, Mr.
Robinson and his friends were to pay for their time and
all the expenses of the exploration and examination.
Parties came over, reported the correctness of Mr.
Robinson's representations, and under this agreement
the Reading Railroad was undertaken. The Company
was chartered on the 4th of April, 1833, and the work
53
commenced in 1836 ; but the great revulsion of 1837
embarrassed some of the English parties^ so that it did
not go through as rapidly as contemplated. But it was
finally accomplished, and was the first great work of
the kind opened, and enjoys to this day the pre-emi-
nence of being the most important work engaged in the
coal-trade of the country. It made a profit on carrying
coal at 37 cents per ton, and John Tucker, for many
years president of the company, has declared that
they have carried coal at a profit at 25 cents per ton.
At this time they charge somewhat more ! [In 1861,
their receipts for coal transportation were at the rate
of f 1.12 per ton, and in 1862, $1.12 ;• in 1863, $1.75 ;
in-1864, $2.75; in 1865, $2.82 ; in 1866, $2.25; in
1867, $1.85; and in 1868, $1.77 per ton.] In 1866,
this company carried 3,714,684 tons of coal, receiving
therefor $8,245,696. This business slightly dimin¬
ished in 1867 and 1868 from causes purely temporary
and accidental. The stock of this company averaged
$140 to the $100 in 1864,—was as high as $117 in
1866, and is at par, at the present time. The mileage
of the road, with its branches, being equivalent to
374 miles of single track, costing $35,253,553, with
gross earnings of $10,902,218 in 1866, and $8,791,937
in 1868, according to their published returns. This
54
company employed, in 1868, 16,604 coal-cars. Tlie
average weight of coal-trains 779 9-100 tons; the
weight of empty cars, per load, per train, 266 tons,—
showing a net load of 513 tons of coal moved per
train, with a dead weight of return cars 266 tons
only,—showing conditions of trade unknown upon
any other line of railway in the world.
It never had a commercial success like the Penn¬
sylvania railroad, chartered April 13,1846, now embrac¬
ing a mileage of 538 miles, operated as a single com¬
pany, costing |54,143,746, with an income in 1868 of
$20,037,748.
These two companies, from their favorable position
and location through productive regions and abundant
business, and under systematic management, may be
cited as examples to illustrate the working capacity
of railroads. But there is no means of determining,
either in this country or in Europe, the precise cost of
moving freight under the most favorable circumstances.
A railroad should be economically built, provided with
suitable means of handling freight, and prudently
managed, to accomplish the highest results.
In our inexperience, the cost of construction has
been greatly in excess of what is now required to
build a good line, and we have experimented on the
55
various methods of workings till we begin to see more
clearly the errors of former years. Give railroads
enough to do, and they will do your work cheaply.
Where the business is small, cost of transportation is
necessarily high, as the same machinery and equip¬
ments are required to do a small business as a large
one. An increase of business increases, of course,
the cost of working a road, but by no means in pro¬
portion to the increase of business. The additional
cost of handling merchandise being the principal
addition to the expense of moving freight upon a
railroad, with favorable gradients.
We can learn something practical, by looking at
the coal-trade of England,-—the coal-trade of the
United States, at present, being small, compared
with that of Great Britain. In 1843, 2,663,114 tons
of coals were brought to London, and entirely by
ships. In 1848, 3,418,341 tons of coal came to Lon¬
don by ships, beside some small quantities brought by
inland conveyance not thought worthy of notice in
the annual statistics of the city. The entire quantity
of coal raised in that year, 1848, was but 32,000,000
of tons. In 1867, 105,177,443 tons of coal were
raised in Great Britain, from 3,195 mines, employing
333,116 men, of which, only one-tenth, or 10,415,778
56
tons were exported ; leaving 94,062,265 tons for
home consumption.
In 1868, 3,291 coal-mines were worked, employing
346,824 men, raising 104,500,000 tons of coal.
In 1867, 6,329,550 tons were brought to London.
A large portion of this, or more than 3,000,000 tons,
was brought by railway.
Transportation of coal by railway has all been de¬
veloped in"the last twenty years. Coal is now brought
to London from Staffordshire, a distance of 150 miles,
for one shilling, or twenty-four cents per ton ; the
miners, or mining companies owning, loading, and
unloading their own cars. We may anticipate as
favorable rates in this country, with the progress now
witnessed in improved machinery, and greater skill
in management. We may, with profit, take lessons
from England, where her railroads cost five times as
much as ours per mile, and are operated for about
one-third the cost of working lines in this country.
#
Looking at the continent of North America in its
physical aspects, we are impressed with the belief,
that it is best fitted by nature of any of the great
divisions of the earth for the abode of man ; and that
here will be achieved the highest results of a true
57
civilization. It has all the elements of wealth and
material power in convenient proximity, by the con¬
figuration of its mountain ranges, and the drainage of
its great rivers.
Europe is broken up into small sections by moun¬
tain chains, naturally leading to several and separate
States and nationalities. The centre of Asia is one
vast desert, so elevated above the level of the sea, as
to preclude the possibility of communication across it.
The great empire of Russia at the north, of China at
the east, and of India at the south, are completely
separated from each other, having no available means
of intercourse, except by distant voyages outside the
surrounding seas. Africa and South America are pro-,
hibited, by the laws of climate, from great intellectual
development, or active participation in the affairs of
the world.
The most marked features of the North American
continent are the great basins of the St. Lawrence
and the Mississippi, the best grain-producing regions
of the earth. The Valley of the Mississippi and its
tributaries has 1,244,000 square miles of territory,
about thfe same area as China. The St. Lawrence
basin has an area equal to 470,471 square miles. All
of this territory, amounting to 1,714,471 square miles,
58
is within the limits of the United States, with the ex¬
ception of 357,812 square miles of the St. Lawrence
basin, which belongs to Great Britain, within the Do¬
minion of Canada. The markets of Canada alone are
sufficient to concentrate a vast business, and build up
a great metropolis at Montreal ; and it would soon ac¬
complish this result but from the fact, that the St.
Lawrence, below Montreal, is closed by ice for the
several months of winter, compelling her to make use
of Portland harbor for her winter business.-
But while Montreal remains under a different com¬
mercial system from our own, she can never expect to
equal the commercial cities of the United States, or
.realize the great destiny that awaits her.
If goods could be imported in bulk into Montreal,
and sent to all the Western and Southern States as
now sent from New York City, Montreal would at once
become the great rival of New York, and compete
successfully for the north-western trade. Her growth
is now limited by the narrow confines of Canadian
trade. She would become imperial, if her trade were
continental.
Canada is comparatively well supplied with railroads,
while Maine and the lower Provinces are suffering for
lack of them. But railroads are springing up at the
59
east, and promise to grow into importance and into
mileage, in Maine, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia,
equal to what has been reached in the five other States
of New England. Maine has now in operation 652
miles of railroad, and 218 miles more in process of
construction, with 200 miles of additional line char¬
tered, the construction of which will be entered upon
at an early day. New Brunswick has 236 miles of
railroad in operation, and 125 miles more in progress,
without including any portion of the Intercolonial
Railway line.
Nova Scotia has 145 miles of railroad in operation,
and 200 miles more in process of construction.
In projecting our great lines of communication, we
are relieved of the restraints of unfriendly physical
laws. We can extend a line or lines of railway from
the ports of the Atlantic to the ports of the Pacific.
But our line will be the most valuable and the most
commanding of all, for it will span the continent
at its widest part, and, for its entire distance, pass
#
through a region filled with elements of wealth, await¬
ing development, whose business shall equal any sec¬
tion of this continent,—portions of it already occupied
by a busy and prosperous people. Great physical facts
control its location. It may cross narrow straits more
60
effectually to lengthen the land-route at the extreme
east, because the whole idea rests upon the theory, that
land conveyance is more expeditious than water car¬
riage,—but if is compelled to touch Bangor, Portland,
Rutland, and Whitehall on its way, before it reaches
Rochester, Buffalo, and Chicago, the great center of
continental trade.
This question has received the attention of the busi¬
ness men of the West. The Board of Trade of Chicago,
after full consideration by the most active and saga¬
cious men of the country, adopted a series of resolu¬
tions on this subject on the 21st day of May, 1869,
and communicated their action to the City Government
of Portland, in the form following, namely :
BOABD OF TBADE TO THE CITY OF CHICAGO.
Secretary's Office, }
Chicago, June 15, 1869, i
To the May or, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of Portland, Me. :
Gentlemen,—I have the honor to transmit for the information of the
City Government of Portland a copy of the doings of this Board, in refer¬
ence to the Trans-continental Bailway.
*
The immediate object of this Board is, to secure the most direct practi«
cable line of railway from Chicago to Portland.
With distinguished consideration,
I have the honor to be your obedient servant,
J. M. BICHAEDS,
President of the Board of Trade, Chicago.
61
CHICAGO BOARD OF TRADE.
Extract from the records of its proceedings.
Chicago, May 20, 1869.
The President laid before the Board on change, the following resolu¬
tions, namely :
Resolved, That the construction of a line of railroad from Chicago to
the Pacific Ocean, invites attention to the necessity of securing a direct
line of railway from Chicago to the most eastern shore of the Continent
of North America, at its widest part, so as to secure the shortest practi¬
cable line of transit between the commercial centers of Europe and Asia.
Resolved, That the immediate advantage to the commerce of Chicago,
of a direct line of railway to the most eastern shore of the continent,
touching the unrivaled harbor of Portland, Maine, running along the south
shore of Lake Ontario', and from thence by way of Whitehall and Rut¬
land, due east, to Portland, over a route recently chartered by the States
of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, calls upon the Chicago Board
of Trade to take action in favor of this line with a view to encourage the
preparation at Portland of facilities for the receipt, distribution, and ship¬
ment of merchandise to and from Chicago, without the delays attendant
on other Atlantic ports.
Resolved, That the City of Chicago, at the heart of the continent,
midway between its eastern and western shores, at its widest part over
any practicable route for a railroad, can only realize her greatest destiny
by adhering to the policy of avoiding the circuitous route by way of New
York for the transit of passengers, mails, and valuable merchandise, which
by means of the longest land conveyance and the shortest sea-voyage, can
be transported from Hong Kong to London in thirty-eight days, and from
Yokohama to London inside of thirty-five days.
Resolved, That the citizens of Chicago and of the central portions of
the continent will welcome the completion of a line of railway by the
most direct route from Chicago to Portland, to Halifax, Nova Scotia, to
St. Johns, Newfoundland, already projected, built, or in progress, as a
portion of the Trans-continental Railway,—an event of the greatest
importance to this city, second pnly to the line to the Pacific,—enabling
pleasure tourists, men of business, and emigrants from Euroxie to reach
the heart of the continent, and future seat of empire in the New World,
without any of the delays, restrictions, or detentions, which come of circui¬
tous routes, multiplicity of companies, and governmental intervention.
Resolved, That the laws of commerce disregard national or artificial
boundaries; that the free transit of passengers, mails, and goods over all
natural and artificial routes in possession of the English-speaking people
upon the continent of North America, is the finality of American states¬
manship; that canals, in connection with our great chain of lakes, must
ultimately be provided, and of sufficient capacity to allow steamers suita-
62
ble for economical ocean-navigation to pass from tlie ocean by way of the
lakes, to the heads of Michigan and Superior, with inward and outward
cargoes,—while the immediate duty of the hour is to secure ship-canals
between Lake Erie and Lake Champlain of sufficient capacity to trans¬
port the produce of the West, seeking an Atlantic market, without trans¬
shipment between Chicago and Whitehall.
time and distance.
The following tables show the distance from London to Hong Kong, via
Newfoundland, Portland, Chicago, and San Francisco; also, the time
consumed:
FROM LONDON TO CHICAGO.
Station.
Miles,
Days.
Hours.
London to Holyhead, rail
. 263
00
10
Holyhead to Dublin, steamer
. 63
00
4
Dublin to Gal way, rail
. 125
00
5
Galway to St. Johns, Newfoundland, steamer.1656
4
10
St. Johns to Cape Ruy, rail
. 280
00
14
Cape Ray to Cape North, steamer
. 45
00
3
Cape North to Pictou. rail \
. 120
00
5
Pictou to St. John, New Brunswick, rail
. 250
CO
10
St. John to Bangor, rail
. 196
00
8
Banger to Portland, rail
. 138
00
6
Portland to Rutland, rail
. 168
00
8 ,
Rutland to Schenectady, rail
. 85
00
4
Schenectady to Buffalo, rail
. 287
00
10
Buffalo to Detroit, rail
. 230
00
8
Detroit to Chicago, rail
284
00
10
Total
.4180
8
20
CHICAGO TO HONG KONG.
Chicago to Omaha, rail
. 494
00
18
Omaha to Promontory Summit, rail
.1086
1
10
Promontory Summit to Sacramento, rail
. 690
1
00
Sacramento to San Francisco, steamer
. 140
00
6
San Francisco to Yokohama, steamer
4520
20
00
Yokohama to Shanghae, steamer
.1085
3
00
Shanghae to Hong Kong, steamer
, 800
2
10
Total
8815
28
20
Grand Total 13,005 37 16
4
The same having been read by the Secretary, they were laid upon the
table, under the rules of the Board, until to-morrow afternoon.
Attest, Charles Randolph, Secretary.
Chicago, May 21,1869.
The resolutions offered on change yesterday, were unanimously adopted
at the meeting of the Board of Trade to-day.
Attest, Charles Randolph, Secretary.
A true copy of record.
Attest, Charles Randolph, Secretary.
63
And it is proper in this connection to sa y, that these
resolutions were adopted on full consideration, to meet
in some measure the suggestions of Portland, in pro¬
posing increased harbor accommodations, and ample
facilities for handling Western produce, as shown by
the Commissioner's report and map, made under the
direction of the Superintendent of the United States
Coast Survey.
The present commercial business of Portland is all
transacted within the inner harbor. The improve¬
ments contemplated will be an entire addition, giving
us two and one-half miles of additional water front,
with docks sufficient for the lying afloat of forty
ocean steamers, of 400 feet in length, at the same
time. And the extension of Commercial street com-
t
pletely round the city along side of tide-water, for the
distance of six miles, will give us such facilities for
commerce, as can nowhere else be found north of
Norfolk, Virginia.
A leading New York paper stated a few years since
that it was the opinion of the best commercial men
in New York city, that she could well alford to pay
$300,000,00, or an annual rental on that sum, if she
could secure thereby a deep ship channel to the open
sea.
64
She was annoyed that the Great Eastern, without
lighterage, could not enter her harbor, for want of
the same depth of water as at Portland.
Let us look at it, then, in its practical aspects.
One line of railway, from the Pacific to Chicago,
is completed. The Northern Pacific Railroad, pass*
ing through a better country, over lower summits,
with easier grades, is an admitted necessity, and will
shorten, by 500 miles and more, the distance from
Chicago to Japan.
From Chicago, in latitude 41° 52 , and in longitude
87° 35', to Portland in latitude 43° 39', and in longi¬
tude 70° 15', ihe distance is 871 miles, conforming,
in its route, very nearly to the principle of great
circle-sailing, adopting the lines already in contem¬
plation.
From Chicago to St. Clair River, by the Michigan
Air-line Railroad and its connections, already in prog¬
ress, the distance is but 280 miles, over a route with
easy grades, in a distance that does not exceed by
2 1-2 miles an air line. From the St. Clair River to
Buffalo, by the chartered route of the Erie and Niag¬
ara Extension Railway Company, represented here
to-day by Wm. A. Thompson, Esq., of Canada, the
distance to Buffalo will be but 170 miles, over a most
65
favorable line, making the entire distance, by rail, but
450 miles from Chicago to Buffalo.
Buffalo is the great city of Lake Erie. Its natural
advantages gave it importance, but it received its
great impulse of growth, as it became the western ter¬
minus of the Erie Canal. The country has outgrown
the canal, and the ideas of Buffalo have not kept pace
with the progress of railways. She failed to secure,
at the right time, a bridge across the head of the
Niagara River, at her own door, and is now compelled
to witness, from a distance, the great stream of travel,
east and west, across the Suspension Bridge, instead
of through her own city.
From this apathy Buffalo may yet recover, and by
uniting with the friends of the Erie and Niagara
Railway, restore her lost advantages. By a direct
route from Buffalo to Oswego, uniting with the friends
of the Lake Ontario Shore Road, she can secure a line
to Whitehall, which shall make her independent of the
New York Central, and a greater city than Montreal.
The Chamber of Commerce of Buffalo, more inter¬
ested than Chicago, in the Trans-continental Railway,
or in the section from Chicago to Portland, adopted
resolutions on the subject on the 27th of May, 1869,
as follows :
5
66
Resolved, That the Board of Trade of Buffalo have observed, with
satisfaction, the measures in progress in the States of Maine, New Hamp¬
shire, and Vermont, to secure the construction of a line of Railway from
the unrivalled harbor of Portland, Maine, to Buffalo, by the most direct
and practicable route, by way of Rutland, Vermont, Whitehall, and south
of Lake Ontario; that such a line of railroad will command the trade of
' , •
the lakes beyond any line practicable or possible, running from Portland
west, and, operated in connection with lake steamers and sailing vessels
from Buffalo, upon Lake Erie and the upper lakes, will give such addi¬
tional facilities as are now required to take off the produce of the great
West which accumulates at Buffalo, coming from Chicago and other lake
ports.
Resolved, That the opening of a line of railroad from the commercial
centre of New England, at Portland, to the West, touching the grand
chains of lake and railroad transit at Buffalo; giving a new and more
direct route for pleasure tourists, men of business, and emigrants, must
attract the bulk of travel by this route from the East, not only from New
England and the lower British Provinces, but from Europe, on the com¬
pletion of the chain of railways now built, in progress, or projected, ex¬
tending from this city east, to the most eastern shore of the continent,—as
contemplated by the projectors of the "Trans-continental Railway,"
which, by means of the longest land-route and the shortest sea-voyage,
will reduce the transit between the commercial centres of Europe and
Asia to the lowest limit of time and cost,—by traversing the continent at
its widest part, by an unbroken line of iron rail from the Atlantic Ocean
to the shores of the Pacific Seas.
Resolved, That, while as citizens of the State of New York, we have a
just and becoming pride in the growth and commercial importance of the
City of New York, we, at the same time, recognize the right and the duty
of opening new outlets to other Atlantic ports, for the better and cheaper
transit of the accumulating products of the North-west, upon the great
lakes,—that we recognize the advantages of Portland harbor as a natural
outlet and shipping-port for Buffalo, from its depth of water, ease of
access, and completeness of shelter,—where facilities for handling mer¬
chandise can be indefinitely multiplied, as called for by the demands of
trade, on the completion of a direct line of railway from the navigable
waters of Lake Erie, at Buffalo, to the deep water of Portland harbor,—
which harbor will be reached in a distance of 540 miles by way of Sche¬
nectady and Rutland, as against 457 miles to New York City by the Central
and Hudson River lines,—while, by straightening the line from Whitehall
to Buffalo, the distance from Lake Erie to Portland will be reduced to 480
miles, insuring low rates of freight, from the cheaper cost of construction,
over the existing lines of railway from Buffalo to New York City.
Resolved, That Messrs. be a Committee, on behalf of this Board,
to have charge of all such measures as may be called for to aid the carry-
67
ing out of the plans herein named, with authority to fill vacancies, add to
their number, call meetings of this Board, and take such actions in the
premises as may be required to secure the accomplishment of the objects
herein considered and recommended.
S. -S. Guthrie,
Cvrus Clarke,
G. S. Hazard,
D. S. Beknett,
i Committee.
On motion of the Hon. D. S. Bennett, the Chairman was requested to
fill up the blank in the last resolution, which he did by naming John
Wilkeson, Esq., the Hon. James O. Putnam, and Hon. Ascher P. Nichols.
And the gentlemen of this committee at Buffalo
have written letters, already read to you to-day, ex¬
pressive of their hearty concurrence in the measures
you have now under consideration.
From Chicago to Buffalo will be but 450 miles;
from Buffalo to Whitehall 280 miles, by the Lake
Shore Railroad to Fulton, 10 miles south of Oswego;
thence due east, north of Oneida Lake,—making a
total of 730 miles from Chicago to Whitehall. From
Whitehall to Portland the distance is but 151 miles
on an air line, and if you add 33 miles more, on ac¬
count of deflections, it would make the distance 914
miles from Chicago to Portland.
The great feature of our line from Portland to
Chicago is, its advantages as a natural route for immi¬
grants to the West, so well stated in the resolutions
of the Buffalo Board of Trade.
68
There is a great emigration annually from the New
England States and the lower British Provinces to
the West.
For the thirteen years from 1856 to the year 1868
inclusive, 2,565,644 alien immigrants came to the
United States to be adopted as citizens. The bulk of
these were from the British Isles, who sent over 1,215,-
600 emigrants in the last thirteen years,—560,831 of
them from Ireland. The largest number, however,
from any one country was from Germany, furnishing
us in thirteen years 845,479 immigrants. British
North America sent us 108,531 during this period,
and 65,943 came from China,—attracted mainly by
the high price of labor in the building of the Pacific
•f
Railroad.
This stream of immigration from Europe will touch
the nearest American shore, and distribute itself along
the line of the railroads to the West., according to the
attractions held out to them. The manufacturing pop¬
ulation, mechanics, miners, mariners, weavers, and
spinners, forming an aggregate of 291,771 persons
which came from Europe for the last thirteen years,
will naturally find employment in the Lower Prov¬
inces and in the Eastern States, which are to be
rapidly developed under the new order of things,
69
which the European and North American Railway
is certain to introduce.
One line of ocean steamers has already proposed
to deliver five hundred immigrant passengers per week
to the railroad at Halifax, on the completion of their
&
line to the United States; and the railroad companies
will be able to send a thousand immigrants per
day from Halifax west, after suitable preparation,
cheaply and more expeditiously than by any other
means.
What, then, is the duty of the people on the route
from Portland to Rutland ? At this time they can
determine the route of the first line built from Port¬
land to the West. The distance. from Rutland to
Portland on an air line is only 136 miles. A railroad
line will be probably at least twenty per cent longer,
following the openings through the mountains, which
the God of nature in his wisdom has provided; and
if this line exceeds in length our previous estimates,
it will probably only require a line as long as that of
the present one from Rutland to Boston. A line from
Portland west is a necessity that admits of no delay,
and probably no event has or can occur to Rutland
so great in importance as that which shall make her
a leading station on that trans-continental chain,
70
that shall first sweep the long line of four thousand
miles with the highest speed of'the locomotive, and
command the choicest traffic of the world. From
Portland, east, the line is in progress. The eyes of
the world are already turned toward the east, by way
of the west, and we already perceive, in the move¬
ments of business, a foreshadowing of the great future
that awaits the American republic.
Every portion of the world is becoming subject to
the influence of railways ; and as nations become ad¬
vanced in civilization, they secure and enjoy their
advantages. Those who make the most use of rail¬
roads surpass, in the same proportion, other nations
and peoples in the race of progress. The States of
Massachusetts and Connecticut, in the United States,
and the kingdom of Belgium, in Europe, are exam¬
ples worthy of especial note in illustration.
Mr. It. Dudley Baxter, an able English engineer, in
a paper read before the Statistical Society of London,
in November, 1866, illustrates the influence and value
of railroads in the creation of wealth and the enlarge¬
ment of business, by comparing the railways of Bel¬
gium and Holland. He says,—
" Belgium is one of the most striking instances of the benefit of railways.
In 1830 she separated from Holland, a country which possessed a much
larger commerce and superior means of communication with other nations
71
by sea and canals. Five years later, the total exports and imports of Bel¬
gium were only £10,800,000, while those of Holland were double that
amount. But in 1833, the Belgian government resolved to adopt the rail¬
way system, and employed Geo. Stephenson to plan railways between
all the large towns. The law authorizing their construction at the expense
of the State passed in 1834, and no time was lost in carrying it out.
Trade at once received a new impetus, and its progress since that time
has been more rapid than in any other country in Europe."
In 1839,185 miles of railroad were opened ; in 1845,
335 miles; in 1853, 720 miles; in 1860, 1039 miles;
in 1864, 1350 miles; and in 1868, 1703 miles.
In 1868, Belgium, with 11,403 square miles of ter¬
ritory, about the size of Vermont, and one-third the
size of Maine, had a population of 4,940,570 persons,
or 442 persons to the square mile,—more dense than
that of any other country of Europe.
The commerce of Belgium advanced from 15,680,-
000 pounds sterling in 1839, to 72,120,000 in 1860,
and to 97,280,000 in 1864.
Mr. Baxter says,—
"This enormous increase of Belgian commerce must be ascribed to her
wise system of railway development, and it is not difficult to see how it
arises. Before railways, Belgium was shut out from the continent of Eu¬
rope by the expensive rates of land-carriage, and her want of water-com¬
munication. She had no colonies, and but little shipping. Railways gave
her direct and rapid access to Germany, Austria, and France, and made
Ostend and Antwerp great continental ports.
" One of her chief manufactures is that of wool, of which she imports
21,000 tons, valued at £2,250,000, from Saxony, Prussia, Silesia, Poland,
Bohemia, Hungary, Moravia, and the southern Provinces of Russia; and
returns a large portion in a manufactured state. She is rapidly becoming
the principal workshop of the continent, and every development of rail¬
ways in Europe must increase her means of success and add to her trade."
" How look at Holland, which, in 1835, was so much her superior. Hoi-
72
land was possessed of immense advantages in the perfection of her canals,
which are the finest and most numerous in the world; in the large tonnage
of her shipping; in her access by the Rhine to the heart of Germany; and
in the command of the German trade, which was brought to her ships at
Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The Dutch relied on these advantages, and
neglected railways. The consequence was, that by 1850 they found them¬
selves rapidly losing the German trade, which was being diverted to
Ostend and Antwerp.
" The Dutch Rhenish Railway was constructed to remedy this loss, and
was partly opened in 1853, but not fully till 1856. It succeeded in regain¬
ing part of her former connections. But now observe the result. In 1839,
the Dutch exports and imports were £28,500,000, nearly double those of
Belgium. In 1862, they were £59,000,000, when those of Belgium were
£78,000,000. Thus, while Holland had doubled her commerce, Belgium had
increased fivefold, and had completely passed her in the race."
My advocacy of railroads has been devoted mainly
to their moral, social, and commercial value, rather
than as means of money-making or the investment of
capital ; while railroads have been the means of in¬
fluence and wealth to those who built and managed
them, and the foundation of fortunes to many, their
great benefits have been received by the community
at large,—adding more wealth to the holders of real
estate than to any other class, while they have con¬
ferred its blessings to a greater or less extent upon
all.
No man has yet lived since the advent of the rail¬
way adequate to conceive, much less to describe in
words the true greatness of its mission. While sim¬
plest of all the agencies of progress, it is the grandest
of man's inventions. It gives to one community the
73
opportunities, the enjoyments, and the refinements of
every other : it equalizes the burdens which come of
diversity of condition ; and lifts individuals and com¬
munities alike in the scale of being. While genius,
»
talent, and persistent enterprise grasp the highest
rewards, the race is open to all, and those who win,
are those who try.
It is no stretch of the imagination to cover the
broad plains of the beautiful valley in which we are
assembled, with myriads of habitations of men, in the
far-oif future. A few years only will be required to
change these sloping hill-sides now clothed in the
deep verdure of the summer forests, into cultivated
fields and smiling farms ; the rich treasures emboweled
in the mountains brought forth, for the uses of com¬
merce and of art, and a busy population engaged in
various departments of human industry, enjoying in
this healthful climate, in the land of their birth, sur¬
rounded by this magnificent scenery, the richest deli¬
cacies, the most costly refinements, and the proudest
exhibitions of art.
Laying aside lesser considerations,—looking only to
the highest welfare of the community in which we
live,—let us do all that in us lies to carry forward this
great work.
74
Our beneficent Creator, by giving man the railway,
has endowed him almost with powers of creation, in
addition to those of development and improvement.
If we cannot, in the shortness of our own earthly
duration, enjoy in full measure all,—that those who
shall come after us may,—we can, at any rate, enjoy
much, and do much to bring to ourselves and to our
children the richest of earthly benefactions.
Our friend, Mr. Cain, President of your Railroad
Company, told us at Portland, that he witnessed in
1830 the opening of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railroad, where England's colonial minister, Huskis-
son, terrified by the fearful spectacle of a railroad
train in motion, rapidly approaching him, threw away
his life by an act of insane fear,—strangely in contrast
with our calmness, at this day, in witnessing the flight
of trains at a speed outstripping the bird upon its
wing,—with its precious freight, sitting in the same
security as around the family fireside.
It is most wonderful to note the changes worked
out by the railway in less than forty years, since Hus-
kisson's death, or the first locomotive train was started.
But I should weary you if I should attempt to describe
the prodigious increase of commerce, the wonderful
diffusion of wealth, the vast advance of human intel-
75
ligence, and the spread of civilization, traceable to the
railway, during these last forty years.
We are now entering the fourth stage of our exist¬
ence as a nation. One hundred and fifty years were
required to plant our people in North America, and
expel therefrom other races that struggled for its
dominion. The colonization period terminated with
the capture of Quebec, in 1759, the overthrow of the
power of France in the new world was peacefully con¬
summated by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. To give
us independence of European control, fifty years
more were required, terminating at the close of the
last war with Great Britain in 1815. The last fifty
years have been profitably spent in vindicating the
principles of the Declaration of Independence, put¬
ting an end to chattel slavery, endowing all men
with equality of political rights. This age of internal
political conflict terminated with the overthrow of
the slave-holders' rebellion, and the election to the
presidency of the hero of that war, General Grant.
The fourth stage in our national career, on which
we are just entering, is the age of material develop¬
ment, the limits of which no finite mind can foresee
or comprehend.
76
Kote. Several paragraphs, printed as part of the foregoing speech,
as also the statistical tables, and details of figures, were omitted at the
time of its delivery. They are here printed at length, in order to a
clearer understanding of the facts passed rapidly in review at the time
of speaking.
Additional Kote. Since the foregoing pages were printed, the
Agent of the Grand Trunk Railway Company informs me that the
quantities of flour and grain brought to Portland by that line, as
stated on page 21, is exclusive of, or in addition to the quantities
shipped to Europe by the lines of ocean steamers running to and
from Portland in the winter months, amounting in 1864 to 155,792
barrels of flour, and 22,586 bushels of grain ; in 1865, to 49,118 barrels of
flour, and 428,657 bushels of grain ; in 1866, to 48,348 barrels of flour,
and 400,361 bushels of grain ; in 1867, to 26,910 barrels of flour, and
767,442 bushels of grain ; in 1868, to 19,003 barrels of flour, and 163,080
bushels of grain.
APPENDIX.
From the Montreal Gazette, of March 18, 1845.
Having been informed that an earnest effort is being made to satisfy the
people of Canada, and more particularly the gentlemen composing the
Provincial Parliament, that it is for their interest that the communication
proposed between Montreal and the Atlantic Ocean by railroad, should
strike the ocean at Portland, Maine, to communicate at that point with
the line of British steamers; and that this line of route is represented to the
citizens of Canada, by Judge Preble, as generally approved by the capitalists
and business men of the city of Boston ; we, the undersigned, citizens of Bos¬
ton, would respectfully represent, that we consider these positions as erro¬
neous.
Without undertaking to state the various reasons why the Portland
route, so called, is not the one calculated to promote the interest of the
Canadas, to find support in Boston, or likely ultimately to succeed, we
would respectfully represent, that if a communication is to be opened by
railway between Montreal and the Atlantic Ocean, as we have no doubt
it will be at no distant day, it must be from Boston through New Hamp¬
shire and Vermont to Montreal; and, so far as we are able to judge, this
is the sentiment of the citizens of Boston generally.
Any grant by the Provincial Parliament giving preference to a different
route, we believe would be calculated to defer, if not ultimately defeat the
object so much desired by business men in Canada and the United States.
Boston, March 7, 1845.
H. Gr. Otis, Abbot Lawrence,
Wm. Lawrence, Josiah Quincy,
Henry Cabot, George B. Blake,
John Bryant, P. T. Jackson,
Nathan Appleton, Bobert G. Shaw,
Samuel Hens haw, Gardner Colby,
Joseph Ballister & Co., Addison Gilmore,
P. P. F. De Grand, N. F. Frothingham,
Geo. A. Simmons, Henshaw, Ward & Co.,
J. P. Bradlee, W. F. M. Weld,
John T. Heard, Samuel Appleton,
Alpheus Hardy, John G. Nazro,
Wm. Savage, Mark Headley,
John D. Williams, IVÍoses Williams,
J. Ingersoll Bowditch, James Savage,
C. O. Whitmore, Richardson, Burrage & Co.
Edward S. Tobey, Samuel Lawrence,
Gardner Brewer, Nathaniel Greene,
and 296 others.
City of Boston, Mayor's Office, March 8,1845.
The gentlemen whose names are affixed to the foregoing statement are
among the most wealthy capitalists and business men of this city. I en¬
tertain no doubt that they express the sentiments of the citizens generally.
Thomas A. Davis, Mayor.
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