MARCH
2002 INDEX
Riding The B&O For 175 Years
by Frederick N. Rasmussen
Baltimore Sun Staff
From humble beginnings came the nation's
first common carrier railroad.
Baltimore, MD - February 28, 2002 - It
was conceived out of worry that Baltimore
would lose its commercial preeminence to
the Erie Canal. It was born in the home
of a Baltimore merchant prince.
The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which turned
175 years old yesterday, had a less-dramatic
beginning than you might think.
On Saturday, the B&O Railroad Museum will
begin a 16th-month celebration of that humble
founding and the railroad's long, storied
history. And the public is invited to hop
aboard and go along for the ride.
The B&O Railroad, which linked Baltimore
and Tidewater Maryland with Wheeling, W.Va.,
was the nation's first common carrier railroad.
That means it carried people or cargo from
place to place for compensation.
As the first such railroad, it begat many
other "firsts," including first to publish
a timetable (1830); first to have a government
contract to carry mail (1838); first to
place an electric locomotive in regular
service (1895); and first to operate a completely
air-conditioned car (1931).
"175 Years: America on Track," the name
given to the celebration of the B&O, begins
with Founder's Weekend, this Saturday and
Sunday at the museum, 901 W. Pratt St. The
highlight of the event is Portraits of American
Railroading, an exhibition of paintings,
drawings and images of important railroad
figures from the Smithsonian Institution's
National Portrait Gallery collection, as
well as paintings, portraits and drawings
from the railroad museum's extensive collection
of railroad art.
It will be the first time since 1927 that
the portraits have been seen publicly together.
They were displayed at the B&O's Fair of
the Iron Horse, the railroad's 100th birthday
celebration.
"We were the first railroad in the country,
and now that the technology is changing
toward high-speed and 'magnetic-levitation'
trains, the celebration of the B&O's founding
takes on a new significance and meaning,"
says Edward M. Williams, the B&O Railroad
Museum's deputy director and curator. "After
all, it was the railroad that bound the
nation together. And much of what we use
in our daily lives still arrives by train."
The founding and building of the B&O represented
not only inventiveness on the part of its
builders but also an attempt to preserve
Baltimore's position as an important commercial
center and port.
It was the opening of the Erie Canal in
1825 -- linking the Great Lakes with the
Hudson River and New York City -- that worried
Baltimore's merchant princes. They rightfully
feared the loss of commerce that flowed
through the city to the West.
In the fall of 1826, John Eager Howard,
Revolutionary War hero and Baltimore businessman,
gave a dinner at his home, Belvedere, where
the concept of a railroad was seriously
debated.
One of the guests that night was Baltimore
merchant Evan Thomas, who had just returned
from England. There he had witnessed the
operation of the Stockton & Darlington Railroad,
a small road whose diminutive but effective
steam engines hauled coal from the mines
to the docks and waiting colliers.
It was Thomas who suggested that a railroad
on a grand scale could be built here, and
pointed out that Baltimore, facing an economic
decline because of competition from the
Erie Canal, had no choice but to wager on
such a proposition.
On Feb. 27, 1827, 25 merchants and bankers
gathered at the Holliday Street home of
George Brown, of the financial firm of Alexander
Brown & Sons. Their purpose was to take
"under consideration the best means of restoring
the city of Baltimore that portion of the
Western trade which has recently been diverted
from it by the introduction of steam navigation
and other causes."
In short order, the men came up with a
charter for a railroad, the first line of
which reads: "Resolved, That immediate application
be made to the Legislature of Maryland for
an act incorporating a joint stock company
to be styled 'The Baltimore & Ohio Railway,'
and clothing such company with all the powers
necessary to the construction of a railroad,
with two or more sets of rails, from the
city of Baltimore to the Ohio River."
The railroad's charter remained essentially
unchanged for the next 100 years.
"I don't think 'too much can be said' of
the vision and daring of what those men
conceived. What they were conceiving in
the 19th century was the equivalent of putting
a man on the moon in the 20th century,"
says Herbert H. Harwood Jr., nationally
known railroad historian and author of Impossible
Challenge: The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
in Maryland.
"Nothing was known. They only had crude
and basic technology, yet they conceived
something that had never been thought of
before. They managed to build a railroad
through hostile terrain and across mountains.
Because of New York, the Erie Canal and
the importance of Philadelphia as a commercial
center, this was something they had to do,"
he adds.
"Baltimore had lived off turnpikes and
the National Road that when built in the
1820s was the way to go, but the Erie Canal
made all of that obsolete. They had to try
an untried thing, and they were able to
bring it off."
Time was of the essence. On the same date
that it was drawn up, Feb. 27, 1827, the
charter was presented to the state legislature
by John V.L. McMahon, a lawyer. There was
little opposition to the new railroad, and
the legislature acted quickly. The state
of Maryland incorporated the Baltimore &
Ohio Railroad on Feb. 28, 1827.
Reaction to the sale of stock was swift
-- some 20,000 investors poured nearly $5
million into the enterprise. The city of
Baltimore itself bought 5,000 shares.
The corner of Pratt and Poppleton streets
in West Baltimore was selected as the site
of the first station, which became known
as Mount Clare.
On July 4, 1828, with directors, businessmen,
politicians, members of trade unions, masons
and the simply curious looking on, the frail,
90-year-old Charles Carroll of Carrollton,
the last surviving signer of the Declaration
of Independence, turned over the first shovelful
of dirt that marked the ceremonial beginning
of the railroad.
Plunging a silver spade into the ground,
Carroll turned to the assembled guests and
said that he considered the event "among
the most important acts of my life, second
only to my signing The Declaration of Independence,
even if it be second to that!"
Two years later, the original track line
opened. It ran from Mount Clare to Ellicott
Mills, now Ellicott City. Among those aboard
for that first ride on a horse-drawn car
were the B&O's directors and Carroll. At
Relay, the horse was exchanged for a fresh
animal, and the journey was completed.
Regular rail service began May 24, 1830,
with a round-trip ticket costing passengers
75 cents. In August of the same year, Peter
Cooper's steam engine, the Tom Thumb, operated
over the line, presaging the end of horse-drawn
trains.
As quickly as things seemed to be moving
along, the original plan of the B&O's founders
to build a 379-mile line from Baltimore
to Wheeling in 10 years for $10 million
wasn't realized. It took 25 years and $30
million to get that first train steaming
into Wheeling. The historic date was Christmas
Eve, 1852.
"The B&O established railroad technology
for the United States, and it was truly
the mother of railroads," Harwood says.
"Everyone who came along after the B&O copied
what it had done except for its mistakes."
The noble enterprise that was born in worry
and bankrolled by Baltimore businessmen
eventually linked 13 states. In 1973, it
was absorbed by the Chessie System. Today
it lives on as a major component of CSX,
the successor company to Chessie.
Copyright (c) 2002, The Baltimore Sun
Visit http://www.sunspot.net
