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Notes
PREFACE
1. Michael C. Garber, Madison Daily Courier, Oct. 10, 1850, quoted in Daniels, The Village at the End of the Road, 61.
PROLOGUE
1. Since the British Proclamation of 1763, colonists had been prevented from settling on lands west of a Proclamation Line (effectively the ridge of the Appalachian Mountain range) in an effort to placate Native Americans and control trade with them.
2. Gen. George Washington, letter to Virginia governor Benjamin Harrison, Mount Vernon, Virginia, Oct. 10, 1784. TeachingAmericanHistory.org.
3. Washington to Harrison, October 10, 1784. In September 1784, James Rumsey (1743–1792) had shown Washington a working model of a boat propelled by a bow-mounted paddle wheel that moved poles to pull a boat upstream. On December 3, 1787, Rumsey successfully demonstrated a steam boiler propulsion system, which propelled a boat by pumping water out of a stern-located opening. See “James Rumsey,” Wikipedia, last modified Feb. 16, 2016.
4. From this area, the states of Ohio (1803), Indiana (1816), Illinois (1818), Michigan (1837), and Wisconsin (1848) would be formed. Portions of what became Minnesota (1858) were also included.
5. Cayton, “The Northwest Ordinance from the Perspective of the Frontier,” 7–9.
6. Ibid., 16.
7. The Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation under which the new United States had operated from 1781 to 1789. Centralized federal government authority was virtually nonexistent under the Articles of Confederation—the populace fearing autocratic or monarchical rule.
8. Goodrich, “The Gallatin Plan after One Hundred and Fifty Years.”
9. Crumrin, “Road Through the Wilderness.”
10. Ibid.
11. Morris, The Dawn of Innovation, 163.
12. Riker and Thornbrough, Messages and Papers Relating to the Administration of James Brown Ray, 294n19.
13. Ibid., 294. Governor James B. Ray indicated such in his message to the General Assembly on December 4, 1827; Crumrin, “Road Through the Wilderness.”
14. Fogel, Railroads and American Economic Growth, 114. Fogel references W. W. Rostow’s controversial work, The Stages of Economic Growth, in which Rostow postulated economic growth as occurring in five stages. The “take-off” stage is the time period in which rapid, self-sustained growth occurs.
15. Ibid., 14–15.
16. Ellis, The Lore of the Train, 45. Engines were required to travel 70 miles without stopping, at a minimum of 10 miles per hour while pulling a 20-ton train. The engine could not weigh more than 6 tons on 6 wheels or 4.5 tons on 4 wheels, could not produce a working pressure of more than 50 pounds per square inch, and were required to incorporate two safety valves and a pressure gauge (Poor, Manual of the Railroads of the United States for 1868–1869, 11).
17. Ellis, The Lore of the Train, 45. The Rocket incorporated a multi-tubular boiler system to increase the surface area of boiler water exposed to the boiler’s heat, which emanated from a new water-jacketed firebox at the rear. This combination of features enhanced steam production at higher pressures.
18. Ibid., 8. Canals had been built in France, Italy, and the Low Countries much earlier, followed by the Bridgewater Canal in England by 1761. Their heyday was well underway by the turn of the new century. As a result, they experienced a much longer productive life than their American counterparts, which were not built in numbers until the 1830s, when rail transportation was beginning.
19. White, A History of the American Locomotive, 3.
20. Wolmar, The Great Railroad Revolution, 16–18.
21. Simons and Parker, Railroads of Indiana, 18.
22. Ibid., 7–8.
23. Ibid., 5. The leading, or pony, truck was a set of nondriven wheels at the front of the engine that could swivel independently of the drive wheels to help the locomotive negotiate curves and elevation changes. The equalizing lever was a suspension system in which the weight of the engine would be equally distributed at three points, thereby helping to maintain traction and stability regardless of terrain. The pony truck was also connected to the equalizing lever suspension system to maintain engine stability when rounding curves or negotiating uneven terrain.
24. White, A History of the American Locomotive, 13–14.
25. Ibid., 7.
THE DAWN OF MIDWESTERN RAILROADING
1. Goodrich, “The Gallatin Plan,” 436–41.
2. “Transportation Developments in the Early Republic,” Conner Prairie Interactive History Park web site.
3. Ibid. Jackson’s opposition, along with the others, was based on the Constitution’s lack of specific language authorizing such projects. To limit federal governmental expansion, many interpreted the Constitution narrowly: unless authority was given in specific terms to the federal go...
