818 
Chandler—Early American Railways. 
already strenuously advocated. Early in 1829 preliminary sur¬ 
veys and estimates of expense had been made and were being 
urged upon the attention of the Massachusetts legislature in the 
interest of roads from Boston to the Hudson River and from 
Boston to Providence; and in February of that year the legisla¬ 
ture appropriated $250 to pay for a survey from Plymouth to 
Wareham, a distance of perhaps a dozen miles on a line where 
no road has as yet been built, nor is apparently likely to be. But 
at about the same time the same body refused to order the Com¬ 
mittee on Railways and Canals to consider the expediency of 
constructing a railroad from Boston to Lowell at the expense 
of the Commonwealth. The Senate, however, voted that it was 
expedient for the Commonwealth to contribute funds for the 
construction of the proposed roads to the Hudson River and to 
Providence. Thus early the problem of state ownership came 
to the front, it being a fiercely debated question whether the 
construction of railroads was the proper work of the Common¬ 
wealth, or should be left to private enterprise, a third party ad¬ 
vocating the latter method supplemented by gifts from the 
public treasury, a by no means unfamiliar desire at the present 
day. 
The message to the Legislature of Gov. Levi Lincoln in June, 
1829 (for at that time the Legislature met semi-annually), 
urged that earnest attention should be given to the subject, al¬ 
though he avoided all expression of opinion in respect to the 
ownership question; nor did he commit himself on the more 
fundamental question whether railroads really offered the best 
and most practicable improvement of the means of inter-com¬ 
munication. Still he had no doubt that the proposed road from 
Boston to the Hudson would sometime be built. If at that 
time they were not yet prepared, he was sure that a not remote 
generation would build it. It seems a little strange that lines 
to what were then distant regions found more favor with the 
public than proposed shorter lines for local convenience. Dur¬ 
ing this June session $250 were appropriated fora survey of the 
Boston and Lowell route; and to the line between these places 
most of the remainder of this paper is devoted. 
At that time there were 44 miles of completed railroad in the 
