CHAPTER XXV

DOCTOR BARLOW, PIONEER IN TRANSCONTINENTAL RAILROAD EXPLOITATION—ASA WHITNEY'S EXPLORATIONS AND HIS PLANS FOR LINE TO COAST-GEORGE WILKES BECOMES PROMINENT AS PUBLICIST-EDWIN F. JOHNSON APPROVES PLANS-JEFFERSON DAVIS OPPOSES BUILDING BY NORTHERN ROUTE, BECAUSE OF POSSIBLE EFFECT ON SLAVERY-MC CLELLAN AIDS IN ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT WHOLE SCHEME-STEVENS' REPORT A BOMBSHELL-PRESIDENT BUCHANAN'S IDEAORGANIZATION OF NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY-CANFIELD AND OTHER ACTIVE RAILROAD MEN BECOME INTERESTED JAY COOKE & CO. UNDERTAKE TO FINANCE THE ENTERPRISE-TACOMA IS CHOSEN AS TERMINUS-WHAT OTHER CITIES OFFERED.

The question with whom did the idea of building a transcontinental railroad originate always will remain unanswered. Ever since that day upon which primitive man discovered the principle of the wheel and its axle, more and better means of transportation has been the marching song of civilization. It was a momentous discovery, one leading to the construction of the first rude twowheeled cart. Early in the eighteenth century the steam driven locomotive was invented and was followed, almost immediately, by the steam railroad.

Dr. Samuel B. Barlow, of Granville, Mass., is given credit for having first publicly advocated a trans-continental railroad. In the early '30s he began a series of newspaper and magazine articles in which he urged immediate construction, by the General Government, of such a line from New York to the mouth of the Columbia River. The first American railroad had just been completed. That others besides Doctor Barlow had discussed the question is shown by one of Barlow's letters in which he states:

"An able writer in the Emigrant, a paper published in Washtenaw County, Michigan Territory, in a series of numbers, of which it has fallen to my lot to see only the first, is endeavoring to draw the attention of the public to the scheme of uniting the City of New York and the mouth of the Columbia (Oregon) River, on the Pacific Ocean in about 46 degrees N. Lat., by a railroad, and also endeavoring by facts and arguments to prove the utility and practicability of the project."

Some ten years later, Asa Whitney, after ten years' residence in China, returned to the United States and almost immediately began agitating the building of a railroad from the Atlantic coast to Puget Sound. Whitney had made world shipping a study; he was armed with facts and figures and in his advocacy of the project he pointed out the great advantage such a line would give the United States by reducing the length of the New York-to-China route of travel. Gathering a company of young men, Whitney, in 1845, ascended the Mis

souri River, which he explored for about fifteen hundred miles. In December he laid before Congress his plan for building a railroad from Lake Michigan to the Pacific Ocean. He proposed to built it at his own expense, provided the Government would give him a land grant extending thirty miles on each side of the line. The ridicule with which his plan was greeted sent Whitney before the people with an appeal for their support.

Traveling over eastern and middle western states Whitney held meetings; explained his plans, pictured the benefits to be derived from the road and appealed for Congressional action. Commercial and legislative bodies adopted resolutions endorsing Whitney and his scheme, but Congress continued to refuse to make the land grant. Whitney's fortune was consumed and the first promoter of a land-grant railroad scheme became the keeper of a small dairy. He died impoverished.

About the time Whitney began his agitation, George Wilkes, a New York editor, came prominently before the public with a plan for building the National Pacific Railroad. Whitney was a talker and depended upon the spoken word to arouse interest. Wilkes was a writer and carried on his campaign through newspaper and magazine articles and the publication of books and leaflets. Becoming interested in the published letters of Peter Burnett, Oregon pioneer of 1843, Wilkes wrote a descriptive history of Oregon, Burnett furnishing most of the data. It was published in 1847 and aided in arousing interest, not only in Wilkes' plan, but also in Whitney's. The National Pacific Railroad was planned to run "from some eligible point on the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. The said road to be build and owned by the Government, and its construction and subsequent management to be placed under the superintendence and direction of a board of sworn commissioners to be selected from the different states by the United States Senate."

December 6, 1846, Wilkes presented a memorial before Congress in which was laid out a complete plan for the construction of the road; its grades, character of country traversed-it followed closely the Oregon immigrant road—its probable cost and possible income. That the author of the petition had a fairly correct vision of future events is shown by the arguments presented and in which

he says:

"By the superior facilities conferred upon us by our position and control of the route, we should become the common carrier of the world for the India trade. 'Britannia rules the waves' would soon dwindle to an empty boast.

"Experience has proven that no direction which can be given to human enterprise is so active in developing the resources of a country as that devoted to facilitating rapid intercourse between its extreme points."

The railroad would turn the boundless prairies into smiling farms; Oregon would be settled; manufacturing stimulated and trade extended. Tourists from all over the world would travel over the line and would leave some of their money in the country. That the road should be owned by the Government Wilkes considered necessary for the following reasons: Because the Government owned all the right of way and as this laid within territories the question of states' rights and constitutional prohibitions could not arise. Because it would become the international highway between two oceans. Because the immense revenues

derived from its operation would create a monopoly.

Because the large number

of employes might become a political power over Congress and because the road would be of prime importance in time of war.

"The object of a democracy," wrote Wilkes, "while it secures to enterprise and talent, their rewards, is to equalize the benefits of heaven to all, and the act which would avowedly confer special facilities for the amassment of enormous wealth on any body of men, is in derogation of its own comprehensive scheme. A bounteous Providence has made the productions of the earth equal to the wants of all his creatures, and it is a demonstrable rule that every usurpation of an excess is followed in some quarter by a corresponding loss. This tendency, through the peculiar construction of society, cannot be helped at present, nor can it be corrected in a day, but it is incumbent upon us, whom a wise director has delegated to work out a system for the elevation of mankind, to interpose no obstacle to its consummation by specially encouraging an infraction of the plan.

"The first results of a private grant of the nature of the one proposed to the last Congress, would doubtless be as follows: As soon as the route had been surveyed, maps would be prepared, dividing the whole into sections for sale. Then a formal and ostentatious opening of the road would follow. A vast collection of people would gather together to see the show, and amid the thunder of cannon, the waiving of colors, and the swell of martial music, some public spirited gentleman would strike a spade into the ground while the wild huzzas of the admiring multitude would make the welkin ache again.

"This herculean effort over, the company * * * would felicitate themselves over the vast advantages they had cozened from the Government. From that time out their attention would be devoted entirely to land speculations." Newspapers would be used to advertise the advantages of this new country. Speculators would rush into it. "The poor man would hasten with the tribute of his hard won gains to cast a golden anchor in the future. After this course of things had been pursued long enough to swell the pockets of the company with a plethora of millions, we should have no stronger guarantee than what exists in the fallibility of man that the work ever would be prosecuted. The whole result would be that the company who had simply assumed for a time the United States ownership of the public lands (for none but the sixty mile strip would sell during this delusion) would good naturedly pocket the people's money till they fell off from very surfeit; and then, declaring themselves incapable, for want of means, of carrying out the objects of the grant, they would either sell out their privileges to others, or Government, impelled by the complaints of distresses of those who had been their victims, would have to complete the object after all herself."

Assuming that the intentions of the directors of the company were honest and that they fully intended to live up to the terms of their contract, Wilkes found an objection to the grant in his belief that British money would be necessary in building the line. He feared that under the direction of the British "minister, funds might be placed in private hands for purchase of stock." This would afford the British Government "a pretext for interference on the score of protecting the property of her subjects" and would lead to the "introduction into our very bosom of a foreign influence that will pierce our continent from shore to shore."

"Alarmed at our astonishing progress, the monarchial governments of Europe

are preparing to bring their centralized force to bear upon the genius of republicanism, and when the collision takes place, we, as the grand promoter and defender of the latter, will have to sustain the whole brunt of the shock. Let us, therefore, arm ourselves against the crisis in time!" Government should, in his opinion, lose no time in starting the work. Every available man should be employed in the construction of the line; 20,000 or more men should be set at the task so that it might be completed within five years. These men, having arrived in the new country opened up by the road, would become settlers and Oregon would be saved to the Union by the men who had built the road. Withdrawing these railroad builders from the cities would, Wilkes thought, solve the labor problem, which even in that early day, seems to have been causing some trouble.

"The rights of labor would be vindicated by a more equal division of its returns between it and its mercantile deputies, and a great step would be taken towards elevating it to its true importance in the social scale."

Asa Whitney's land grant scheme was a "single farm of 92,160,000 acres," his commission of supervision was merely for the purpose of "presenting an imposing front to the nation." Carver's plan, one devised to fill the promoter's pocket with $3,000,000 at the expense of the Government. Thus, it will be seen that Wilkes, more than twenty years before the building of the Union Pacific, foresaw the dangers of a great land grant. Few pages of Western history are so besmirched by records of political wrong-doing and private graft as are those telling the sordid story of the grants, bonds, subsidies, failures and receiverships of the transcontinental railroads.

In reply to Whitney's insistence that he was the originator of the transcontinental railroad idea, Wilkes said that honor belonged to Simon Bolivar, the liberator of South America, who, in 1827, planned a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama. "The claim, therefore, of being first to originate it seems to be of secondary importance, and only worthy of a mere struggle of personal conceit."

Schemes for railroads developed in all directions and in such number that a railroad convention was held in St. Louis in the fall of 1849. Here Whitney presented a plan for building a line from Chicago to Fort Nisqually by way of Council Bluffs, the South Pass, Fort Walla Walla and over the Cascade Mountains. This followed closely the Wilkes' route. Thomas H. Benton's plan was for a line from St. Louis southwestward by way of New Mexico to San Francisco with a branch line to Oregon. To these J. Loughborough, of St. Louis, added a compromise plan for a road from Independence, Mo., to the South Pass with branches extending to California, Yaquina Bay, Ore., and Fort Nisqually. In 1852 Edwin F. Johnson, one of the foremost engineers of the time, while chief engineer on a line of railway that later became known as the Chicago & Northwestern, took up the study of Whitney's plan and Johnson became impressed with its great possibilities. He worked out a plan which he presented to Thomas H. Canfield and Robert J. Walker, capitalists interested in the Wisconsin road. Canfield was from Vermont; Walker an ex-senator from Mississippi. Canfield became so much interested in Johnson's plans that he encouraged him to publish them. Walker read the manuscript of Johnson's booklet and insisted on taking it to Washington and showing it to Secretary of War Jefferson Davis. Other Southern men were taken into the confidence of Walker

and Davis with the result that plans were made to fight the building of any railroad line lying north of thirty-five degrees north latitude.

Davis, deciding to become master of the situation, laid plans for the immediate survey of the different routes. Such surveys, he thought, would prove the Northern route impracticable and thus aid the building of the Southern line and the extension of slave territory to the Pacific coast. March 3, 1853, Congress appropriated $150,000 for the survey of four routes, the money to be expended by the secretary of war under the direction of the President. Davis was in the saddle and the surveys were turned over to army engineers. Major Isaac I. Stevens was placed in charge of the Northern route, and with an appointment as governor of Washington Territory and superintendent of Indian affairs. set to work assembling his force of engineers and supplies at St. Paul.

Upon the request and recommendation of Stevens, Capt. George B. McClellan was placed in command of operations on the western end of the line. In McClellan's party were Lieut. J. K. Duncan, astronomer, topographer and draughtsman; Lieut. H. C. Hodges, quartermaster and commissary; Lieut. S. Mowry, meteorologist; George Gibbs, geologist and ethnologist; J. F. Minter, assistant engineer; Dr. J. G. Cooper, surgeon and naturalist; A. L. Lewis, assistant engineer and interpreter packers, soldiers and laborers, the whole party numbering sixty-six Horses and mules to the number of 173 provided transportation for men and supplies.

men.

McClellan arrived at Vancouver June 27 and spent almost a month in preparing for the field. How he failed to perform the duty assigned to him in connection with the building of the Nachess Pass wagon road and the expending of the $20,000 which Congress had appropriated for that purpose, has been told elsewhere. Superficial examinations were made of the Cascade passes, from the western side, the party then moved up the Columbia and Yakima rivers and began the work of surveying the passes from the eastern side.

In his report to Stevens, prepared in Olympia and filed February 23, 1854. McClellan appears to have stretched himself to discredit the whole railroad project. He said he found but little good land in any part of the country examined, each of the passes through the Cascades presented almost insurmountable obstacles, the Columbia River gorge offering the only pass which he thought practicable. Indian testimony regarding the country always received first consideration with McClellan, who seems to have discredited the views of both the American settlers and Hudson's Bay men who had traveled over it again and again and knew something of its character. Some writers profess to see in McClellan's report the influence of Davis and his desire to discredit the Northern route, and even go so far as to accuse the captain of having made two reports one to Stevens and one to Davis. Others find the cause for McClellan's lack of enthusiasm in his well-known dilatory way of doing things.

At St. Paul Stevens organized his party with Lieut. Cuvier Grover, Lieut. Beckman DuBarry, Lieut. A. W. Tinkham and Fred W. Lander, civil engineers; Dr. George Suckley, surgeon and naturalist; Isaac F. Osgood, disbursing officer; J. M. Stanley, artist; John Lambert, topographer; George W. Stevens, secretary and astronomer; James Doty and A. Remingi, astronomical and magnetic observers; Joseph F. Moffett, meteorologist; T. S. Everett, quartermaster and commissary clerk; Elwood Evans, Thomas Adams, F. H. Burr, Max Stro