capital from abroad, a road was chartered in April, 1849, to run from the Delaware Water Gap to some point on the Lackawanna near Cobb's Gap, called "The Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad Company." The commissioners, Moses W. Coolbaugh, S. W. Schoomaker, Thos. Grattan, H. M. Lebar, A. Overfield, I. Place, Benj. V. Rush, Alpheus Hollister, Samuel Taylor, F. Starburd, Jas. H. Stroud, R. Bingham, and W. Nyce, held their first meeting at Stroudsburg, December 26, 1850, choosing Col. Geo. W. Scranton president.

The northern division of "The Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company," carried by genius and engineering skill for sixty miles over the rough uplands distinguishing the country it traverses from Scranton to Great Bend, was opened for business in October, 1851, thus enabling the inhabitants of the valley to reach New York by a single day's ride instead of two, as before.

Travel and traffic, hitherto finding its way from the basins of Wyoming and the Lackawanna to Middletown or Narrowsburg by stage, and thence along the unfinished Erie, now diverged westward, via Great Bend, sixty miles away, before apparently beginning a journey eastward to New York. This unphilosophical and wasteful manner of groping among the hills in the wrong direction before. starting for New York, directed the intelligence of the mass toward the purpose of Col. Scranton, of planing a continuous roadway direct to New York, via the celebrated Delaware Water Gap.

The original charter of Drinker's railroad was purchased of him in 1853, by the railroad company, for $1,000. Immediately after this, a joint application was made by the "Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad Company," and the "Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company," for an act of the Legislature for their consolidation, which was granted March 11, 1853, and the union consummated under the present name of "The Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad Company."

Of this consolidated road, the late George W. Scranton was unanimously elected President: how well he filled

this position until compelled to exchange it for the invalid's shelf, let the movement of the iron pathway across

DELAWARE WATER GAP FROM THE KITTATINNY HOUSE.

a valley which would be comparatively idle to-day without it-let the mutually satisfactory adjustment of every conflicting interest arising in the progress of this great road-let the spirit of his administration, characterized by qualities both sterling and comprehensive-more than this, let the simple fact that he, inspiring capitalists with the same confidence he himself had acquired and cherished, was able to draw forth the wherewithal to complete a road deriving its origin and vigor from him, bear ample and praiseworthy testimony.

The vast business of this road, which in the year of 1868 carried 1,728.785.07 tons of anthracite, requires one hundred locomotives, about five thousand coal-cars, and gives employment to over 5,000 men. Its total disbursements at Scranton alone, through H. A. Phelps, the courteous paymaster of the road, amounted, during the last year, to over $4,000,000, while a considerable sum diffused itself through the treasury department in New York.

The same efficiency and ability with which Hon. John Brisbin acquired popularity as the president of the great primitive locomotive railroad in the Lackawanna Valley, from 1856 to 1867, has been continued and even augmented by Samuel Sloan, Esq., its present vigilant president, and formerly the presiding officer of the Hudson River Railroad, whose admirable management of the interests of the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western Railroad, has placed it upon a basis reliable and remunerative, and given it a character, even beyond the States it traverses, enjoyed by few, if any, railroads in the country.

The lease of the Morris and Essex road by the Delaware, Lackawanna, and Western, for an almost indefinite term of years, establishes more intimate relations between the Lackawanna Valley and the sea-board than ever enjoyed before, and marks an era in the history of coal transportation, second only in importance to the conception of the original gravity railroad stretched like a rainbow over the Moosic in 1826-8 by Wurts brothers.