e old wagon trains
to the lake.

The construction of this railroad was considered at that time a
great undertaking. It was accomplished mainly by the leading
business men of Mansfield, but the road turned out to be a very
bad investment, bankrupting some and crippling others. I was
employed by the company to collect the stock and to secure by
condemnation the right-of-way from Plymouth to Mansfield. Much of
the right-of-way was freely granted without cost by the owners of
the land. As the chief benefit was to inure to the farmers, it
was thought to be very mean and stingy for one of them to demand
money for the right-of-way through his farm. I went over the road
from Mansfield to Plymouth with a company of five appraisers, all
farmers, who carefully examined the line of the railroad, and much
to my mortification, assessed in the aggregate for twenty miles of
railway track, damages to the amount of $2,000. I honestly thought
this an exorbitant award, but the same distance could not be
traversed now at a cost for right-of-way of ten times that sum.

The present admirable roads in Ohio have been built mainly by the
proceeds of bonds based upon a right-of-way.

In the meantime other railroads of much greater importance were
being built, and the direction of the roads, instead of being north
and south was from east to west, to reach a business rapidly
developing west of Ohio of far greater importance than the local
traffic of that state.

Among the most valuable of these railroads was the Pittsburg, Ft.
Wayne & Chicago, now a part of the system of the Pennsylvania
Railroad Company, by which it is leased. This road was built in
sections by three different corporations, subsequently combined by
authority of the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and
Illinois. The first section was the Pittsburg & Ohio railroad from
Pittsburg to Crestline, twelve miles west of Mansfield.

There is perhaps no more remarkable material development in the
history of mankind than that of railroads in the United States
since 1845. The number of miles of such roads is now 171,804.72,
the actual cost of which with equipment amounting to $9,293,052,143.
The value of these railroads and their dependent warehouses and
stations is probably greater to-day than the value of the entire
property of the United States in 1840.

Contemporaneous with railroads came the telegraph, the cable, and
the telephone. The first telegraph wire w