Paxson—Early Bailways of the Old Northwest. 
249 
and inexperience, prostrated by general bankruptcy, and re¬ 
vived only in another decade. 
By the end of 1847, there were 3205.70 miles 2 of railroad in 
the United States, of which 660 were operating in the Old 
Northwest,—or ought to have been if none of them had been 
worn out or washed away by the last spring flood. Each west¬ 
ern road stood for an ideal which had not yet reached fulfill¬ 
ment. No lines connected the waters of the lakes with any part 
of the Ohio River. The nearest approach to a complete line 
was in Indiana, where from Madison, on the Ohio, the earliest 
Hoosier railroad ran to Indianapolis. It had taken seven la- 
2 Tenth Census, 1880, Transportation Volume, 309. According to 
these tables the mileage of the five northwestern states was 613.85, 
whereas my own tables give 660. The difference is due to the fail¬ 
ure of the Census to mention the Lake Erie and Mad River Ry., 
which was in operation from Sandusky to Bellefontaine, Ohio, and to 
the fact that it credits the Sandusky, Mansfield, and Newark Ry., 
which actually operated only 56 miles to Mansfield, with 116.25 miles 
I am unable to verify this mileage allowed to the S., M., & N. 
