ure were persons
interested in the Manhattan Elevated system of New York, on which
experiments were repeatedly tried later, but which was not destined
to adopt a method so obviously well suited to all the conditions until
after many successful demonstrations had been made on elevated roads
elsewhere. It must be admitted that Mr. Edison was not very profoundly
impressed with the desire entertained in that quarter to utilize any
improvement, for he remarks: "When the Elevated Railroad in New York, up
Sixth Avenue, was started there was a great clamor about the noise, and
injunctions were threatened. The management engaged me to make a report
on the cause of the noise. I constructed an instrument that would record
the sound, and set out to make a preliminary report, but I found that
they never intended to do anything but let the people complain."

It was upon the co-operation of Villard that Edison fell back, and an
agreement was entered into between them on September 14, 1881, which
provided that the latter would "build two and a half miles of electric
railway at Menlo Park, equipped with three cars, two locomotives, one
for freight, and one for passengers, capacity of latter sixty miles an
hour. Capacity freight engine, ten tons net freight; cost of handling
a ton of freight per mile per horse-power to be less than ordinary
locomotive.... If experiments are successful, Villard to pay actual
outlay in experiments, and to treat with the Light Company for the
installation of at least fifty miles of electric railroad in the wheat
regions." Mr. Edison is authority for the statement that Mr. Villard
advanced between $35,000 and $40,000, and that the work done was very
satisfactory; but it did not end at that time in any practical results,
as the Northern Pacific went into the hands of a receiver, and Mr.
Villard's ability to help was hopelessly crippled. The directors of the
Edison Electric Light Company could not be induced to have anything
to do with the electric railway, and Mr. Insull states that the money
advanced was treated by Mr. Edison as a personal loan and repaid to
Mr. Villard, for whom he had a high admiration and a strong feeling
of attachment. Mr. Insull says: "Among the financial men whose close
personal friendship Edison enjoyed, I would mention Henry Villard, who,
I think, had a higher appreciation of the possibilities of the Edison
system than probably any other man of his time in Wall Street. He
dropped out