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all-rail line from the seaboard to the interior. The disconnected roads, which were subsequently consolidated into the New York Central, terminated at Buffalo, where they connected with a line of steamers which ran to Chicago, stopping at Detroit. From Detroit the State of Michigan had some years before, during the mania for railroad construction which made part of the financial crisis of 1837, built a line to Kalamazoo, in the direction of Chicago. The State had then become insolvent, and the incompleted road, which was laid with strap rails only, gradually wore out. Its sale was accordingly agitated in the ublic prints, and the discussion attracted the attention of John W. Brooks, who was then superintendent of the road between Auburn and Rochester. Mr. Brooks was a native of Massachusetts, born in the town of Stow, in 1819. He learned what engineering he knew in the office of Loammi Baldwin, and subsequently on the Boston & Maine, but had removed to the State of New York in 1844. Being young, ambitious, and very active-minded, he now concluded that it would be worth his while to go to Detroit and look into the situation there. He soon became satisfied that if the railroad to Kalamazoo was extended through to New Buffalo, on the south-eastern shore of Lake Michigan, it would, as a link in a mixed land-and-lake through-line to Chicago, become a valuable property. He accordingly returned to the East with a view to there effecting some combination to buy up the worn-out and incompleted road, and to renew and finish it. He went first to Boston, where he met with no encouragement. Nor was this surprising. Mr. Brooks at the time was but twenty-six years old. He had almost no acquaintance among men of wealth. Hardly more than a boy, he appeared asking, for the purchase of an unknown railroad in the bankrupt West, a sum of money larger than that which but a few years before Boston had in reality failed to raise to build its long-talked of line to Albany, failed to raise, too, after Faneuil Hall meetings and resolutions, and speeches from Governor Everett, and much canvassing by committees. Fortunately Mr. Brooks was a man who not only understood his business, but who understood himself likewise; accordingly he was not easily turned aside from his purpose. Though he could get no assurance of aid from Boston, he did get letters to John C. Green and others in New York; and, going there, found that the Farmers' Loan & Trust Company held a large amount of defaulted securities of the State of Michigan. This fact made that company very desirous to have the State sell its public works in order to restore its credit; and to effect the sale it was necessary to provide a purchaser. Here, therefore, Mr. Brooks found something on which to base securely the combination he proposed to effect.

Returning to Michigan, he caused the necessary legislation to be prepared. His counsel was Mr. James F. Joy, then a lawyer in active practice at Detroit. The measure now prepared was submitted to the Michigan Legislature at its next session, and an act authorizing the sale of the State road, and incorporating the Michigan Central Railroad Company, was finally passed in March, 1846. The price of the existing one hundred and fifty

miles of road was to be two million dollars; it was to be completed through to Lake Michigan within three years, and equipped throughout with sixtypound rails. Six months' time was allowed for the formation of the company and the acceptance of the charter.

Having secured his legislation, Mr. Brooks again went East. He now met with much better success in Boston. The fact that he had powerful

backing in New York aided him greatly, and John M. Forbes had become interested in the project. The thing moved, however, very slowly. It was the first considerable venture of the kind which castern men had made at the West, and, feeling a natural doubt as to its outcome, they went into it slowly and with great hesitation. It took nearly the entire six months. to effect the necessary combination. The principal Boston partics finally concerned in it were John E. Thayer and John M. Forbes; with whom, also, was Captain David A. Neal, of Salem.

The road was purchased within the time allowed by the act, and the new company organized. Its principal office was in Boston. Mr. Forbes was chosen president, and Mr. Brooks superintendent; John E. Thayer was the financial representative. The combination was a powerful one. Mr. Forbes. was then in the prime of life, and he brought an inexhaustible resource, energy, and knowledge of men to bear on the new enterprise. The success. which followed was, however, mainly due to Mr. Brooks. Naturally gifted with quick insight and unfailing courage, he combined with great organizing capacity a remarkable executive ability. He thus carried the undertaking through with insufficient means and against obstacles of the most formidable character. More probably than any other man he opened the way to the investment of eastern capital in the railroad development of the West. It was not, however, until 1849 that he succeeded in completing the Michigan Central to New Buffalo. That point continued to be its terminus until 1852, all freight and travel crossing Lake Michigan by steamer. In 1852 all-rail connection was at last made with Chicago.

The Michigan Central now became what the Western Railroad should have been, the nucleus around which Boston capital centred, and the base from which it expanded. Founded on individual enterprise and private capital, — unhampered by the necessity of perpetually looking to a Legislature for assistance from the public purse to accomplish a given result and no more, this enterprise was instinct with the spirit of development. That spirit, too, was continually asserting itself. The completion of the road through to Chicago was looked upon as an end, as much an end to that enterprise as the completion to Albany was to the Western. Scarcely, however, had the Michigan Central reached Chicago, when Mr. Brooks and Mr. Joy, in looking the situation over, concluded that it would be for its interest to have a connection with the Illinois Central, running north and south, at Mendota, fifty miles further west. They accordingly purchased a little road called the Aurora Branch, thirteen miles in length, and got its charter so amended as to authorize an extension to Mendota. Their plan then included nothing more. It looked merely to securing the business of the north-western portion of the Illinois Central for the Michigan Central. In it, however, lay the germ of a great railroad enterprise.

While Mr. Joy was at Springfield, securing his amendments to the charter of the Aurora Branch, he met there other parties on a similar errand. They were trying to get the Legislature to alter the charter of a road known as the Central Military Tract Company, so that under it a connection could be built east from Galesburg. A road was already building from Burlington in Iowa to Peoria, which would pass near Galesburg. Mr. Joy had a boundless faith in the future of the West. Instinctively taking in the possibilities of the situation, he secured the legislation he wanted, made a verbal arrangement with the Galesburg interest, and then started at once from Springfield for Boston. He there laid his project for the new enterprise before those interested in the Michigan Central, but received no encourage

ment. In New York he was somewhat more successful, getting subscriptions to the amount of $150,000 from Mr. Green and George Griswold. Returning to Boston he now induced the Thayers, Mr. Forbes, and others to subscribe, though for a less aggregate amount; and in the West he and Mr. Brooks raised further sums. In all about $500,000 was gotten together. The Central Military Tract charter was then secured; and with $500,000 of stock subscriptions only to rely upon, Messrs. Joy and Brooks undertook the construction of the first one hundred and thirty miles of what afterward became the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy Railroad.

The subsequent extension of this system in the hands of the able men who originated it is a narrative by itself. It is beside the present purpose to enter upon it here. It only remains to add that in 1875 the ownership of the Michigan Central having passed into New York hands, the offices were removed from Boston. The company then owned and operated eight hundred and three miles of track, representing in all forty millions of securities. Unlike the Michigan Central, the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy continued to be chiefly owned and managed in Boston. At the close of 1880, and as the result of less than thirty years of expansive development, it had become a system by itself, serving a vast extent of country. It owned, leased, and operated over three thousand miles of road, or eleven hundred more miles than there were at the same date within the limits of Massachusetts. Having crossed the Mississippi at Burlington, it crossed the Missouri at Plattsmouth, and extended several hundred miles toward the Rocky Mountains on the west; while towards the south it reached Kansas City. At this point it connected with the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fé, and at Omaha with the Union Pacific.

Both of these last named lines also had been mainly constructed by Boston enterprise, and were largely owned and controlled in that city. The history of the Union Pacific does not need to be recounted. It was built, when it was, wholly through the almost reckless energy of Oakes Ames; and Oliver Ames was its first president. Its general offices were removed from New York to Boston in 1869. In 1872 the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fé was an incompleted enterprise, with a road two hundred and eighteen miles in length, extending from Atchison to Hutchinson in the western part of Kansas. At about that time it attracted the attention of certain leading business men of Boston, among whom were the banking firm of Kidder, Peabody, & Co., and Thomas and Joseph Nickerson. Obtaining control of the company, these gentlemen carried the road through to Pucblo in Colorado in 1876; and after the business revival, which took place two years. later, the enterprise in their hands became one of the most brilliantly successful in the business history of the country. Joseph Nickerson had died in 1880, and the same year Thomas Nickerson retired from the presidency of the company, being succeeded by T. J. Coolidge. Kidder, Peabody, & Co. had disposed of their interest in 1878. The company's securities were, however, still held in greatest part in Boston hands, and the whole manage

ment of the property was there. In March, 1881, a connection of this road with the Southern Pacific was effected, and it thus became a portion of the second trans-continental line. At that time it owned, leased, or operated two thousand two hundred miles of track, representing over fifty millions of securities. The three combinations, the Chicago, Burlington, & Quincy, the Union Pacific, and the Atchison, Topeka, & Santa Fé, —all of which in whole or greatest part originated in the private enterprise of Boston, and, having been constructed by the city's capital, were controlled from thence, -represented in 1880 no less than ten thousand miles of railroad and three hundred and forty millions of securities. At the same time the nine corporations owning railroads having independent termini in Boston itself controlled a little over seventeen hundred miles of track, represented by one hundred and twenty millions of securities. Much the larger Boston railroad development had thus been west of Chicago. The local Boston system - that making the city its point for radiation - never overstepped the narrow boundaries of New England.

Of the influence which its railroad system, at home and abroad, exercised on the subsequent growth and municipal character of Boston but little needs. to be said. In these respects the city's experience has been in no respect peculiar. And yet the subject cannot be dismissed without particular reference; for here, as elsewhere, the year 1835 marked an historical dividing line. The world we now live in came into existence then; and, humanly speaking, it is in almost every essential respect a different world from that lived in by the preceding six generations. Down to 1835 Boston was still the provincial New-England capital. So far as intercourse with Europe or with the interior was concerned, the motive power in use was the same that had been in use when in 1632 Winthrop first visited Plymouth. He then sailed across the bay to Weymouth, and on the return journey Governor Bradford loaned him his horse. So in 1835, except on interior waters, the sail and the horse were still the only agencies of commerce and travel. As respects population, Boston it is true had since the Revolution very considerably increased; and the ancient form of town government had been laid aside. In all essential respects, however, the place was still only a large town. Territorially it was confined to the old natural limits, within which dwelt not the residents of the city alone, but those also who were regularly engaged in business in it. The range even of country abode and summer resort was limited to neighboring towns, such as Roxbury, Brookline, Dorchester, Cambridge, and Watertown, now suburban, though then rural enough, — within the distance of an easy noon-day drive. Of modern seashore residence it may be said that there was almost actually none. home had to be near the place of business. The office or the countingroom, it is true, was no longer in the dwelling-house, but it was in some street conveniently near to it. Every one, too, had some calling by which he was at least supposed to earn a living; and to have none was looked

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