TRANSPORTATION IN THE UNITED STATES. 



By lewis M. HAUPT. 

 (Read April 19, 1907.) 



When, in the early dawn of Friday, October 12, 1492, the 

 natives of the Isla Guanahani, saw three phantom caravels bearing 

 down upon their homes, it is said, they were so amazed that they 

 ran to cover and exclaimed, " Nous sommes Decoiirert:' 



Possession was immediately assumed by Columbus in the name 

 of Spain and the possibility of thus acquiring- great wealth and 

 dominion by the right of discovery, stimulated many adventurers 

 to cross the Atlantic, but no permanent settlements were effected 

 until the Spanish established a colony at St. Augustine, Florida, 

 August 28, 1565, and the English at Jamestown, Virginia, under 

 Captain John Smith, in April, 1607. 



Then followed several centuries of colonial governments with 

 their incidental contests for trade and territory and confiscation of 

 native right until the conditions became so intolerable as to com- 

 pel a confederation for mutual defense which finally led to the for- 

 mation of the republic on the seventeenth day of September, 1787. 



Up to this date, the resources of the country being exhausted 

 by war, and the population greatly scattered, little attention could 

 be given to any general plan for the conduct of domestic commerce 

 although a few of the states had made explorations and granted 

 charters for the building of canals and the improvement of rivers. 



One of the earliest of these was the project endorsed by the 

 American Philosophical Society, for the creation of a waterway 

 between the lakes and the seaboard, which was surveyed and recom- 

 mended by Provost Wm. Smith and David Rittenhouse, both of 

 this Society, in 1770, leading to the construction of the Schuylkill 

 and Susquehanna Canal some years after. In 1785 Washington 

 was made President of the Potomac Company to connect the Chesa- 

 peake Bay with the Ohio River and on January 5, of the following 

 year, the James River and Kanahwa Canal was incorporated. 



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