20. Philadelphia and 

 Columbia Railroad 



Work on the Pennsylvania improvements started 

 in 1826. 177 Stirred to action by the evident 

 advantages to New York of the Erie Canal, and 

 fearing loss of western trade that funneled through 

 the seaport city of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania 

 legislature had in 1824 formed a canal commission 

 whose duty it was to determine a route for a 

 continuous canal from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. 

 Reporting back to the legislature early in 1825, 

 the commission recommended a crossing of the 

 Allegheny mountains that required, in addition 

 to innumerable locks, a tunnel some four miles 

 long. By 1826, the possibility was being con- 

 sidered of a portage railroad over the mountains. 

 After several surveys had been made by various 

 engineers, construction of a system of inclined 

 planes with connecting graded railways was 

 undertaken in 1831. 



Meanwhile, portions of the canals of the central 

 and western portions of the Pennsylvania works 

 were placed under contract. In 1828 the legis- 

 lature authorized construction of a railroad over 

 the eastern division, from Philadelphia to Colum- 

 bia, on the Susquehanna River. Locating parties, 

 under the direction of Maj. John Wilson (1789- 

 1833), 178 completed location of the line during that 

 same year. 



When the entire Pennsylvania system of im- 

 provements was opened for traffic in 1834, it was 

 in four divisions, as follows: 



(1) Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, a 

 graded railway with inclined planes near each of 

 its terminals, in Philadelphia and Columbia 

 (total length, 82 miles). 



(2) Eastern Division Canal, commencing at 

 Columbia, proceeding north through Harrisburg 



177 The Pennsylvania works, from Philadelphia to Pitts- 

 burgh, arc described in J. Elfreth Watkins, History of the 

 Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 1846-181)6, 3 vols. (Philadelphia, 

 1896), vol. 1, pp. 53-201. This work was never formally 

 published, although the text was set in type and engravings 

 were made of the illustrations. Copies (of bound page proofs) 

 are in Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and in Association 

 of American Railroads, Bureau of Railway Economics Li- 

 brary, Washington, D.C. There are several published memoirs 

 by engineers who built parts of the original works: Motes on 

 the Internal Improvements of the State of Pennsylvania, by W. Hassetl 

 Wilson, C. E., and Reminiscences of the First Railroad over the 

 Allegheny Mountain, by Solomon W. Roberts, C.E. (Philadelphia, 

 1879, reprints of articles appearing in Railway World during 

 1878; Solomon Roberts's Reminiscences were published also 

 in Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, 1878, vol. 2, 

 no. 4, pp. 370-393); W. Milnor Roberts, "Reminiscences 

 and Experiences of Early Engineering Operations on Rail- 

 roads, with Especial Reference to Steep Inclines," Transactions 

 of the American Society of Civil Engineers, (August 1878), vol. 7, pp. 

 197-216. See also W. Hassell Wilson "Notes on the Phila- 

 delphia and Columbia Railroad," Journal of The Franklin 



Institute (May 1840), vol. 29, pp. 331-341. A useful summary 

 of the eastern portion of the works is in John C. Trautwine, 

 "The Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad of 1834," Phila- 

 delphia History (City History Society of Philadelphia), 1925, vol. 

 2, no. 7, pp. 139-178. A monograph on the Pennsylvania 

 works from an economic standpoint is Avard L. Bishop, The 

 State Works of Pennsylvania (New Haven, 1907, reprinted from 

 Transactions of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, No- 

 vember 1907, vol. 13, pp. 149-297). Descriptions by visiting 

 foreign engineers are in David Stevenson, Sketch of the Civil 

 Engineering of North America (London, 1838), chapters 6 and 9; 

 Michel Chevalier, Histoire et description des voles de communi- 

 cation aux Etats-Unis, 2 vols. (Paris, 1840-1841); and Franz 

 A. R. von Gerstner, Die inneren Commumcationen def Vereinigten 

 Staaten von Nordamerika, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1 842-1 843). An in- 

 telligent analysis of the Pennsylvania works by Julius Rubin is 

 in Carter Goodrich et al, Canals and American Economic 

 Development (New York: Columbia LIniversity Press, 1961), 

 which appeared after I had completed this passage. 



> 78 John Wilson was born in Scotland, attended the University 

 of Edinburgh, emigrated to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1807, 

 and after serving in the War 181 2 was appointed a major in the 



147 



