ide of the aid granted them by the Government. It took
nerve and good Yankee grit to undertake and carry out the project. How
it was done it is hoped the succeeding pages may show.

Fair Oaks, California, 1906.

Poem read at the Celebration of the opening of
the Pacific Railroad, Chicago,
May 10th, 1869.

Ring out, oh bells. Let cannons roar
In loudest tones of thunder.
The iron bars from shore to shore
Are laid and Nations wonder.

Through deserts vast and forests deep
Through mountains grand and hoary
A path is opened for all time
And we behold the glory.

We, who but yesterday appeared
But settlers on the border,
Where only savages were reared
Mid chaos and disorder.
We wake to find ourselves midway
In continental station,
And send our greetings either way
Across the mighty nation.

We reach out towards the golden gate
And eastward to the ocean.
The tea will come at lightning rate
And likewise Yankee notions.
From spicy islands off the West
The breezes now are blowing,
And all creation does its best
To set the greenbacks flowing.

The eastern tourist will turn out
And visit all the stations
For Pullman runs upon the route
With most attractive rations.

--_From the Chicago Tribune, May 11th, 1869._

The First Trans-continental Railroad.

CHAPTER I.

_The Project and the Projectors._

President Jefferson First to Act on a Route to the Pacific--Lewis and
Clark Expedition--Oregon Missionaries--Railroad Suggested--Mills
1819--The Emigrant 1832--Parker 1835--Dr. Barlow's Plan--Hartwell
Carver's--John Plumbe's--Asa Whitney--Senator Benton's National Road.

It would appear that Thomas Jefferson is entitled to the credit of
being the first to take action towards the opening of a road or route
between the eastern states and the Pacific Coast. While he was in
France in 1779 as American Envoy to the Court of Versailles he met one
John Ledyard who had been with Captain Cook in his voyage around the
world, in the course of which they had visited the coast of
California. Out of the acquaintance grew an expedition under Ledyard
that was to cross Russia and the Pacific Ocean to Alaska, thence take
a Russian trading vessel from Sitka to the Spanish-Russian settlement
on Nookta Sound (Coast of California) and from there proceed east
overland until the settlements t