ts
moorings at the upper end of the lower Market in fine style, having on
board about 40 passengers. The Road is completed entirely only about one
mile and a half from its termination in this city. Other portions are in
a state of great forwardness and will be ready for the Car in a few days
which will make the whole distance completed about 3 miles. The Car
travels at the rate of about 10 miles an hour."

* * * * *

How eagerly they longed for its completion, using it for pleasure trips
when only a mile and a half was finished! And how quaintly they spoke of
it leaving "its moorings" as though they were still thinking in terms of
rivers and flat boats and steam boats, and could only describe it in
river terms! And how they dignified it with capitals, it was always the
Rail Road and the Car--as if the very immensity of the undertaking
demanded capital letters. To them the "Rail Road started" or "returned,"
or was "kept running," as in the article in the Observer of August 25th,
1832, which says:

"Two miles of the Lexington and Ohio Rail Road are now completed, and
the splendid car, "Lexington and Ohio," is kept constantly running this
distance to gratify those who feel an interest in Rail Roads, and are
desirous of testing their utility. The Car is sufficiently large to
accommodate 60 passengers and this number is drawn by one horse, with
apparently as much ease and rapidity as the same animal would draw a
light gig. The delight experienced at the sight of a car loaded by sixty
passengers and drawn by one horse at the rate of ten miles an hour
through a country where heretofore five miles per hour with one
passenger to a horse has been thought good speed, is sufficient of
itself to repay the beholder for the trouble of a journey of fifty
miles. We understand a locomotive steam engine is now being constructed
to be placed upon the road as soon as the distance is opened on the
whole of the First Division."

* * * * *

Having always heard the Old Lexington and Ohio Road referred to as "the
first rail road built West of the Alleghany Mountains," I was greatly
surprised at this juncture to see how close the question of priority
between it and the old Pontchartrain Railway really was and being unable
to decide the question myself, I beg leave to lay the evidence before my
readers and let them decide the matter according to their own judgment.

Mr. J. H. Ell