s were ahead, but, as said already, he was too
far ahead of his time to be understood and appreciated. Incredulity,
prejudice, and opposition were his portion as long as he lived.
Nevertheless, he went on building good engines and had the satisfaction
of seeing them in extensive use. His life came to an end as the result
of what to him was the greatest possible tragedy. He was visiting
New York City in 1819, when news came to him of the destruction by an
incendiary of his beloved shops in Philadelphia. The shock was greater
than he could bear. A stroke of apoplexy followed, from which he died.

The following prophecy, written by Oliver Evans and published in 1812,
seventeen years before the practical use of the locomotive began, tells
us something of the vision of this early American inventor:

"The time will come when people will travel in stages moved by steam
engines from one city to another almost as fast as birds fly--fifteen
to twenty miles an hour. Passing through the air with such
velocity--changing the scenes in such rapid succession--will be the
most exhilarating, delightful exercise. A carriage will set out
from Washington in the morning, and the passengers will breakfast at
Baltimore, dine in Philadelphia, and sup at New York the same day.

"To accomplish this, two sets of railways will be laid so nearly level
as not in any place to deviate more than two degrees from a horizontal
line, made of wood or iron, on smooth paths of broken stone or gravel,
with a rail to guide the carriages so that they may pass each other
in different directions and travel by night as well as by day; and the
passengers will sleep in these stages as comfortably as they do now in
steam stage-boats."*

*Cited by Coleman Sellers, Ibid., p. 13.

Another early advocate of steam carriages and railways was John Stevens,
the rich inventor of Hoboken, who figures in the story of the steamboat.
In February, 1812, Stevens addressed to the commissioners appointed by
the State of New York to explore a route for the Erie Canal an elaborate
memoir calculated to prove that railways would be much more in the
public interest than the proposed canal. He wrote at the same time to
Robert R. Livingston (who, as well as Robert Fulton, his partner in the
steamboat, was one of the commissioners) requesting his influence in
favor of railways. Livingston, having committed himself to the steamboat
and holding a monopoly of navigation on the waters