Incorporation
Baltimore grew the faster than any other major American city, and boasted a population 63,000 by 1820. It’s prosperity was aided by the Cumberland Road and the concentration of merchants on both the Susquehanna Valley trade and the coastal commerce. Since Maryland and the city of Baltimore had a shorter route to Ohio than any other northern city, they were optimistic about the success of their canal and railroad projects. Even though they were a little slower than Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in canal building, they made a dual attack. John Quincy Adams (1767-1848), on July 4, 1828 in Georgetown, started the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal with a ribbon-bedecked spade. Not far from them, Charles Carroll (1737-1832) was laying the first stone for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad.
In 1827, a group of merchants and bankers, the most prominent of which were George Brown and Philip Thomas, gathered a total of $3 million and set up the railroad. The Baltimore part comes from the city itself, and Ohio because of the Ohio river, where the railroad would eventually reach, at Wheeling, (now West) Virginia. The incorporation of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad company was in April 24, 1827. With George Brown its first treasurer, the president of the new railroad, merchant-banker Philip E. Thomas (1776-1861), pushed construction and by May, 1830, people would enjoy a thirteen-mile trip by horse-drawn car to Ellicott’s Mills, Maryland.
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Innovation
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Later that summer, Peter Cooper (1791-1883) brought steam power to the Baltimore and Ohio by building an experimental locomotive “Tom Thumb.” Other than its famous race against a horse and the occasional distinguished guest trips, the engine was idle because the railroad used horse-drawn cars. The race between Tom Thumb and one of B&O’s horse-drawn cars was on August 28, 1830, with the horse winning due to mechanical failure in Tom Thumb; however, steam power still showed superiority. The path for steam power in America’s first common carrier railroad was paved by the business that Baltimore was losing to New York’s Erie Canal, even though B&O was intending to use horses. Extensive trials in the summer of 1831 revealed the fully practical and serviceable locomotive, the “York”, and by July 31, 1831 all horses on the B&O Railroad were replaced by steam locomotives. When Thomas retired in 1836, the railroad extended to Harper’s Ferry and there was a 37-mile branch line to Washington. Revenues were over $260,00 yearly and the railroad now claimed 7 locomotives, 1,078 freight cars, and 44 passenger cars.
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