authority is Charles Francis
Adams in his "Chapters of Erie" (1871). This book furnishes a full and
accurate account of the regime of Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, James Fisk,
Jr., and the famous "Erie ring," including "Boss" Tweed, and also throws
side lights on the character and career of Commodore Vanderbilt.
Among other important histories of particular railroad systems may
be mentioned "The Union Pacific Railway", by John P. Davis (1894) and
"History of the Northern Pacific Railroad", by Eugene V. Smalley (1883);
but neither of these volumes covers the recent and more interesting
periods in the development of these properties. To get a complete and
satisfactory view of the later development of the Northern Pacific
system, one must turn to modern biographical works, such as the "Life of
Jay Cooke", by E. P. Oberholtzer (1910), the "Memoirs of Henry Villard"
(1909), and the "Life of James J. Hill", by Joseph Gilpin Pyle (1916),
which also recounts at length the rise and development of the Great
Northern Railway system. But in these volumes, as in many biographies of
great men, the authors often betray a bias and misrepresent facts
vital to an understanding of the development of both of these railroad
systems. A recent volume entitled the "Life Story of J. P. Morgan",
by Carl Hovey, although extremely laudatory and therefore in many ways
misleading, contains valuable information about the development of the
Vanderbilt lines after 1880 and also about the financial vicissitudes
and rehabilitation of the many Morgan properties, such as the Southern
Railway, the modern Erie system, the Northern Pacific, the Reading, and
the Baltimore and Ohio.

Some of the railroad companies many years ago themselves published
histories of their lines, but most of these attempts were of little
value, as they were always too laudatory and one-sided and evidently
were usually written for political purposes. The best of this class of
railroad histories was a book issued by the Pennsylvania Railroad many
years ago, giving a record (largely statistical) of the growth and
development of its lines. But this book has been long out of print and
covers the period prior to 1885 only.

For original material on American railroad history, one must depend
almost entirely on financial and railroad periodicals and official and
state documents. By far the most valuable sources for all aspects of
railroad building and financing during the long period from 1830 t