Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 October 1879 — Only Forty-Nine Years Ago. [ARTICLE]

Only Forty-Nine Years Ago.

Baltimore American. Just forty-nine years ago—that is, September 15, 1830 —the first passenger railroad in England, the Liverpool apJ Manchester railway, was opened with great ceremony. A year before a prize of £SOO had been offered for the best locomotive engine, which had been .won by Robert Stephenson’s Rocket, Upon which were subsequently modeled the old grasshopper engines of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad, their appearance being suggestive of- their name. Eight* 1 locomotive engines had been completed and placed upon the line, and all had been tested with entire success. To every engine was attached four passenger carriages, each containing twenty persons. The first engine, the Northumbrian, drew the most distinguished guests—the Duke o f Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, aud other members of the Ministry. It had one line of the double track to itself. The other seven locomotives, with their carriages, followed each other on the other Mne. The procession started from Liverpool at 11 o’clock, with flags, music, fine weather, and great enthusiasm. Seventeen miles from Liverpool they stopped to take in water, and hi order to afford the Duke of Wellington an opportunity of seeing the procession. the seven locomotives, with their carriages, were ordered to pass slowly by the Northumbrian standing on its track Several gentlemen had alighted while the locomotives were taking in water, and one of them, Mr. Huskisson, member of Parliament for Liverpool, and an earnest supporter of the railroad cause, catching sight of the Duke of Wellington, between whom and himself there had been some po-

litical coolness, ran eagerly across the track to shake him by tbe band. At that moment the order wasgiven for the seven engines to move forward. Mr. Husklsson was bewildered. The Rocket, which was the leading engine, struck him while he was still in doubt where to flee. The wheels went over bis leg and thigh, and he expired that evening. The accident cast a deep gloom over the day’s festivity. The trip was concluded, that people waiting along the line might not be disappointed, hut all rejoicing and gayety was at an end. The next day the railway was opened for passenger traffic, aha carried 140 persons froin Liverpool to Manchester in two hours. The brigin&l calculations of the construction had been based on probable returns from heavy merchandise traffic—coal, cotton, and iron. They had formed no high expectation of any great emolument from transporting

passengers. But tbe railway was hardly opened before an average of 1,200 persons daily were willing to trust it with their lives. In a few years it was found that the enonnous traffic was too heavy for the original rails, and it befan«e necessary to relay the road at considerable expense. But though September" 15,1830, is the greatest day in railroad annals, being that on which the world’s first 'railroad was opened complete, our own Maryland railroad preceded the Liverpool and Manchester in Utility. The first sod of the Baltimore aud Ohio railroad was broken for its construction July 4,1828, aud by the next year horse cars, assisted by one locomotive engine, were carrying passengers and traffic between Baltimore, the Relay House, and Ellicott’s Mills.