TRANSPORTATION IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 631 



President Tupper, in his farewell address in 1843, saj^s it was an un- 

 l^opulai- undertaking. Mr. Black and Mr. Allen, in the several reports 

 made by them, from time to time, mention the opposition of the land 

 owners between the Ashley and Edisto to 'the location of the road through 

 that section, which was wealthy and populous, and the Board of Directors 

 in their annual reports refer to the obstacles thrown in the way of bring- 

 ing the road below Line street. 



As late as 1837, the use of locomotives south of Line street was made 

 the basis of an indictment of the company as a public nuisance. 



We can not, therefore, do too much honor to the men who risked repu- 

 tation and the public favor, as well as their private means, in carrying 

 the Charleston and Hamburg railroad through to completion. 



It rec^uired courage as well as skill and labor, and when success was 

 attained, when the public confidence was conquered and public support 

 was ready to attach to an extension of what was quaintly called " The 

 Railroad System," these heroic men resigned to others the leadership and 

 prominence in the enlarged projects that followed. 



The Louisville, Cincinnati and Charleston Railroad, the South Caro- 

 lina Railroad, and the Southwestern Railroad and Banking Company, 

 .were great conceptions, and w^ere eagerly championed by the orators and 

 statesmen of the day; but in no case were the practical results in any de- 

 gree comparable with those achieved by Mr. Black, Mr. Horry, Mr, 

 Tupper, and their associates. 



Mr. \Vm. Aiken, the first president, died on the 5th March, 1831, and 

 was succeeded by Mr. Elias Horry, who brought to the support of the 

 already flagging enterprise a noble spirit, and the financial force of his 

 large private fortune. 



" The mode of construction adopted for, the railroad," says a writer in 

 the Southern Review, of May, 1831, " is to prive piles every six feet apart 

 in parallel lines, the heads of these j5ileg are bound together by trans- 

 verse sleepers; * these are surmounted roy the longitudinal wooden rail, 

 about nine inches square, in various leiigths, from fifteen to thirty-five 

 feet, on the top of which, on the jnnei/ side, the flat bar-iron is nailed. 

 The tracks are about five feet apart." 



Mr. Horry, the president, says, in one of his letters, that " the timl^er 

 was varnished." 



To do justice to those who conceived and executed the building of the 

 Charleston and Hamburg railroad, w^e must fully realize the lack of infor- 

 mation on such subjects generally, and, above all, the utter newness of 

 such an undertaking in the sort of country to be traversed by this road. 



* Hence probably the term " cross-tie," which still adheres to the transverse piece 

 of timber underlying the rails, though the piles -.vhich they tied across are no longer 

 used. 



