Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 33, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 May 1877 — The Inventor of Railroads. [ARTICLE]

The Inventor of Railroads.

B'range as it may now seem, not farther back than 1820, there was not a railroad in existence. Mow they form an iron net-work over this country and Europe, and have almost annihilated apace, in like manner aa the magnetic telegraph has almost annihilated time. Doubtless most people, in these times of universal intelligence and universal travel, are well acquainted with the progress of railroads; but how few there are who can tell us anything of the author or inventor of that wonder of the nineteenth centuty —the railway system. It too, with the author of the great and useful inventions of the age. How little is generally known of Whitney, the inventor of the cottongin, of Watt, of Fulton, and a hundred other ingenious men, whose inventions have made the age what it is; their works live after them, and are likely to live for centuries; but their names, by a seeming ungratefulness of the age, are suffered to sink almost into oblivion. Neither Whitney nor Fulton have even a statue among us to perpetuate their memories; and as to the author of railroads, there may not be twenty persons in the United States who ever heard his name, although he is still living.

About half a century ago, the exact year is not known, there was born at Leeds, in England, a man named Thomas Gray; scarcely anything more than this is known of his early history. He was, we believe, a poor collier; and being very ingenious, he conceived the idea of facilitating the transportation of coal from Middletown Colliery to Leeds, a distance of three miles, by means of a sort of railway which he constructed of wood. Upon this his cars moved along at the rate of three miles and a half an hour, to the great merriment of a wise and diserminating public, who laughed at tbe idea of a railway as something very visionary, and as the mere suggestion of laziness. Poor Gray thought otherwise. Magnificent visions of future railroads, such as are now stupendous realities, loomed up before him, and he began to talk in public of a general system of iron raiirdsds. He was sf goursc taagboUat, and declared a visionary, moon-struck fool. But the more Gray contemplated his little railway for coals, the more firmly did he believe the practicability and immense usefulness of his scheme. He saw in it all that is now realized, and he resolved, in spite of the ridicule, the sneers and rebuffs that were heaped upon him, to prosecute his great undertaking. He petitioned the British Parliament, and sought interviews with all the great men of the Kingdom; but all this had no effect, except to bring down upon him, wherever he went, the loud sneers and ridicule of all classes. Still he persevered, anir at length he engaged the attention of men of intelligence and influence, who finally embraced his views, urged his plans, and the grand results are now before the world. Thomas Gray, the inventor of railroads, who not longer ago than 1820, was laughed at for even mentioning the idea of them, still lives in Exeter, England, in the full realization of all his grand and noble railroad schemes, for which he was declared ini sane. How much has the world been benefited by his insanity! But the world is still that same ungrateful, soulless thing it always was. What has it done for Thomas Gray ? An English writer thus speaks of him: ‘‘Up to 1846 he had been neglected. While thousands had been enriched upon the consummation of his brilliant schemes, he remained forgotten —forced to sell glass on commission for a living.” Howitt, a few years age, gave a somewhat lengthy sketch of bis career, thus bringing him into public notice. We have seen nothing in print in relation to him lately. Elliott wrote a great truth in these words: How many who lived to bless mankind Have died unthanked? , How many of the railway projectors, agitators, stockholders, etc., have ever heard of the subject of this sketch ?rRailimy Age. ■