A HISTORY OF CHAPTER I A SUMMARY OF THE GENERAL FEATURES OF THE SUBJECT AND AN INDICATION OF THE METHODS AND PURPOSES HEREAFTER FOLLOWED IN ITS DISCUSSION THE HE story of the upbuilding of our present methods of travel and transportation is not a record of the development of a system for the carrying of commodities. It is a history of the devices originated by the people primarily for their personal use and comfort in moving from place to place. Only after the early population had occupied some new region by means of the crude and primitive travel methods then in use were there any commodities to move or men to move them, and not until then, after each successive surge of population into fresh territory, were existing methods of human travel expanded, or new ones brought into being, for the purpose of also transporting the material wealth those pioneers had created. The pioneer, no matter of what date or locality, was always a traveller before he was a producer or shipper of goods, and the common experience of the people, gained on their journeys, was save in one instance - the basis on which future permanent routes and methods of travel were planned and created. The one exception to this manner of evolution lay in the memorable demonstration that steam could be successfully used for the propulsion of travel vehicles. It was an instance wherein genius and reason overshadowed experience and precedent. America has witnessed the introduction and development of much that has been permanently adopted into the travel methods of the world. That this is so is not, in all probability, due chiefly to the genius or inventive ability of the nation as a first cause. Its underlying reason, rather, can be traced to the extent and configuration of the country, to the period during which its population assumed goodly size, to certain political events of its history, and to a universal restlessness and desire for haste which for a long time has been so characteristic of its people. For nearly a hundred and fifty years from the establishment of the first permanent settlements along the Atlantic coast there were practically no improvements made in the manner of moving over the face of the land. Almost all progress, in that respect, was confined to improving Indian trails which led into the wilderness, joining a newly-established farm or settlement to its neighbors, or turning old pack-horse paths into crude wagon roads as the settlements gradually grew into towns. During all that time the trend of travel, generally speaking, was north and south. True, there were a few adventurous spirits who plunged into the unknown and sometimes came back, bringing tales of distances beyond comprehension, of never-ending woods, of unknown mountains, rivers or lakes. But that was not travel. That was adventure, hunting or sheer folly, and the population, clinging to its little strip of a hundred and fifty miles in width along the coast, never seriously considered giving battle to the vastness which brooded beside them. Yet those early Americans were commencing the conquest, though they did not know it. Each new farm established a little farther on, each new child born, helped toward the far-distant victory; but their chief contribution to the contest in which nature was at last to be defeated by man's demand for movement in speed and comfort lay in a gradual change in the character of the people themselves. As generation after generation slipped by, the separation of related families and an increase in the petty business affairs of the population multiplied the small journeys between different settlements and colonies. The time of the individual man became more valuable. The restlessness and hurry of the modern American, his desire for speed and a short-cut to his destination, found its small beginning. Gradually, also, the attitude of the people toward the wilderness changed. It still remained as do its present fragments a thing of awe, but it was better comprehended and less feared. Then was introduced into the problem a political element which had no visible relevancy at the time, but whose relationship to the subject, from this latter-day standpoint, is apparent. The revolution against England, the confederation of the colonies that followed its success, and the acquirement of the immense region known as the Louisiana Purchase gave to the people a lesson in the necessity of united action, a better understanding of the common welfare, and a gradual realization that they had, for a task, the subjugation of a continent. The period during and immediately following these political incidents in America marked the beginning of a new social, intellectual and industrial era throughout the |