CHAPTER XXVIII. 1829-1840. Railroad to the Waters of the Ohio.--Adams and Jefferson.-Charles Carroll, --Two Hundredth Anniversary.-Logan and other Indian Chiefs.-Fort Cumberland.-The Meteoric Shower, etc. 1. IN 1827 a company of gentlemen applied to the legis lature to obtain a charter for a railroad from the city of Baltimore to the "waters of the Ohio," and it was granted in less than ten days after the application was formally presented. A lawsuit with the Chesapeake and Ohio canal company with respect to a right of way for the railroad soon followed, but a compromise was effected, by which the railroad was allowed to be built on and near the eastern bank of the canal from the Point of Rocks to Harper's Ferry where it entered Virginia. 2. On the 4th of July, 1828, the corner-stone of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was laid, and the event was signalized by the most imposing procession ever seen by the people in Maryland. On the 4th of July, 1826, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died, and of all the signers of the Declaration of Independence, but one then remained. This one was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, who seemed to stand between two generations as the only visible link connecting the living with the fifty-six "immortal signers." He was then the only representative on earth of the Congress of 1776, and, more than ninety years of age, he still stood erect, transmitting unimpaired to posterity the blessings which had been transmitted to him. He formally com menced the work on this great railroad by the ceremony laying the corner-stone with his own hands, in the of a vast multitude. of presence 3. "I consider this among the most important acts of my life," said he, addressing his friends, "second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence, if even it be second to that." 4. In 1828 Daniel Martin was elected governor of Mary The cars, resembling, in many particulars, the old-style stagecoaches, were put on the track and drawn by horses. freight cars resembled large square boxes on wheels, and they were covered with white cotton material, similar to that used for "wagon sheets" on the turnpike roads. People came from widely distant parts of the United States to see a railroad in operation, and to enjoy a ride on the cars for the gratification of their curiosity. 5. When the road was finished as far as Harper's Ferry, where the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers meet in the Blue Ridge Mountains, steam engines called "grasshoppers were put on the road, in place of mules and horses, and long and heavy trains of cars, coupled together by chains, were drawn along by the "grasshoppers" at the rate of fifteen or twenty miles an hour. These steam engines were so called because they had perpendicular connecting-rods, which worked up and down in front of the engines, making them appear, when viewed from a distance, like huge grasshoppers, hopping along in terrible fright to escape the roaring wheels behind them. 6. In 1829 Thomas King Carroll was elected governor of Maryland. In 1830 Daniel Martin was elected for a second term. In 1831 he was succeeded by George Howard; in 1832 James Thomas was elected, and succeeded by Thomas W. Veazey in 1835. 7. Under the administration of Governor Thomas, in 1834, the Washington branch of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was finished, and Philip E. Thomas, president of the road, the directors, and a large company of invited guests from Baltimore, proceeded to Washington, where they met the mayor and city council of that city, and a large body of distinguished citizens, as well as Andrew Jackson, president of the United States, and other prominent officers of the general government. 8. "Even to the casual observer," said President Thomas, "of the map of the vast empire into which the original thirteen states have expanded under the beneficent influence. of our free institutions, the national advantages of Maryland, upon whose soil we now stand, must be apparent; and, having been once included in the limits of the state, the city of Washington must feel an interest in whatever affects its happiness and prosperity. 9. "You have alluded," said he, "to the change which |