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British Railroads and Engineers and the Beginnings of American Railroad Development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Robert E. Carlson
Robert E. Carlson
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History atUniversity of Pittsburgh
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Abstract

Practical demonstrations in Great Britain led some observers to conclude that the railroad would soon introduce “a new era in the business and arrangements of Society.” Thus inspired, promoters of the first American rail ventures began to draw heavily, both for practical information and equipment, upon the resources of the British pioneers, whose response was magnificently cooperative.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , Summer 1960 , pp. 137 - 149
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1960

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References

1 Edward H. Robbins and James Hayward, Report, Dec. 15, 1829, in Report of the Directors of Internal Improvement on the Subject of Rail Roads (Transmitted to the [Massachusetts] Legislature, Jan. Sess., 1830, Boston, 1830), p. 26Google Scholar.

2 Printed in full, among other places, in Liverpool Mercury, Vol. XIV (Nov. 26, 1824), p. 175Google Scholar; and Booth, Henry, An Account of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (Liverpool, 1830), pp. 9–14Google Scholar.

3 Letter, Alexander Brown & Sons to W. & J. Brown, March 1, 1825, in Alexander Brown & Sons Papers, Library of Congress.

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5 First Annual Report of the Acting Committee of the Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvement in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1826), p. 10Google Scholar.

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7 Letter, William Strickland to the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvement, June 16, 1825, in Strickland, William, Reports on Canals, Railways, Roads, and Other Subjects (Philadelphia, 1826), pp. 23–31Google Scholar.

8 Letter, William Strickland to the Pennsylvania Society for the Promotion of Internal Improvement in the Commonwealth, Oct. 20, 1825, in First Annual Report of the Acting Committee of the Society, pp. 41–44.

9 Clark, T. C., “Railway Engineering in the United States,” Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II (1858), p. 645Google Scholar. See the Journal of the Franklin Institute, Vol. I (1826), pp. 11–15, 71-77, and 134–138 for extracts of the Pennsylvania Society's first annual report and its instructions to Strickland.

10 These letters are part of the Alexander Brown & Sons Papers, Library of Congress.

11 Letter, Abbott Lawrence to Orson Kellogg, Feb. 20, 1827, in Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company Papers, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore. See also James, Alfred R., “Sidelights on the Founding of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad,” Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. XLVIII (1953), p. 277Google Scholar.

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14 Allen, Horatio, The Railroad Era, First Five Years of Its Development (New York, privately printed, 1884), p. 14Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., p. 15.

16 Letter, Jervis to Allen, Jan. 11, 1828, in Kessler, William Conrad, “The Private Library of John Bloomfield Jervis,” Railway & Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin No. 52 (May, 1940), p. 45Google Scholar. Letter, Jervis to Allen, n.d., in Kessler, William Conrad, “Letters of John B. Jervis,” Railway & Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin No. 53 (Oct., 1940), p. 12Google Scholar. See also letter, Jervis to Allen, Jan. 16, 1828, in Finch, J. K., “John Bloomfield Jervis, Civil Engineer,” Transactions of the Newcomen Society, Vol. XI (1930-1931), pp. 109–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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20 Allen, Railroad Era, p. 17.

21 Ibid., p. 28. See also letter, Allen to the President and Directors of the South-Carolina Canal & Rail Road Company, Jan. 10, 1830, in Allen, Horatio, Reports to the Board of Directors of the South Carolina Canal & Rail Road Company (Charleston, 1831), pp. 3–6Google Scholar.

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23 Letter, J. Knight, Wm. G. McNeill, and Geo. W. Whistler, to Philip E. Thomas, Dec. 9, 1828, in Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company Papers, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore.

24 Letter, Knight, J., McNeill, Wm. G., and Whistler, Geo. W., to Thomas, Philip E., Jan. 26, 1829, in “Rail Roads,” Niles' Weekly Register, Vol. XXXVI (Apr. 4, 1829), pp. 92–93Google Scholar.

25 Long and McNeill, Narrative, Pt. II, pp. 205n–206n.

26 Third Annual Report, of the President and Directors, to the Stockholders of the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company, Oct. 12, 1829, p. 11.

27 Ibid.

28 Report of the Directors of Internal Improvement on the Subject of Rail Roads, p. 8.