243 RURAL MICHIGAN 



of the State were arduous and inadequate, the rail- 

 road quickly suggested a remedy for the delays and 

 losses which the frontiersmen suffered because of 

 these conditions. The first charter granted to a 

 railroad in Michigan was that of the Detroit and 

 Pontiac Eailroad under date of July 31, 1830. Up 

 to 1837 nineteen other railroad companies were char- 

 tered with an aggregate capital of $10,000,000. If 

 charters could have built railroads, a contemporary 

 suggestion that the horse would soon become a su- 

 perfluous animal might readily have become a reality. 

 The actual work of railroad-building did not follow 

 immediately on the grant of charters. 



Article XII, section 3, of the Michigan Constitu- 

 tion of 1835, under which the first State government 

 was organized, declared that "Internal improvement 

 shall be encouraged by the government of this state; 

 and it shall be the duty of the legislature, as soon 

 as may be, to make provision by law for ascertaining 

 the proper objects of improvement in relation to 

 roads, canals and navigable waters."^ This section 

 was the constitutional expression of an ardent popular 

 desire. Governor Mason in his message of January 

 2, 1837, definitely brought the subject to the fore. 

 He declared that Michigan was "amply competent 

 to construct her own internal improvements." He 

 would have the State undertake the construction 

 of a trans-state canal beween the lakes to the east 

 and west of the southern portion of Michigan; and 

 he suggested that the headwaters of several streams 

 ^ "Mich. Pioneer & Hist. Soc. Collections," XXXVIII, 597. 



