or respect.

[Illustration: Conestoga wagon]

XII

It was not long after the close of the Revolutionary War before
Pittsburgh was recognized as the natural gateway of the Atlantic
seaboard to the West and South, and the necessity for an improved system
of transportation became imperative. The earliest method of
transportation through the American wilderness required the eastern
merchants to forward their goods in Conestoga wagons to Shippensburg and
Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, and Hagerstown, Maryland, and thence to
Pittsburgh on packhorses, where they were exchanged for Pittsburgh
products, and these in turn were carried by boat to New Orleans, where
they were exchanged for sugar, molasses, and similar commodities, which
were carried through the gulf and along the coast to Baltimore and
Philadelphia. For passenger travel the stage-coach furnished the most
luxurious method then known.

[Illustration: Stage-coach]

The people of Pennsylvania had given considerable attention to inland
improvements and as early as 1791 they began to formulate the daring
project of constructing a canal system from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh,
with a portage road over the crest of the Alleghany Mountains. In 1825,
the governor appointed commissioners for making surveys, certain
residents of Pittsburgh being chosen on the board, and in 1826 (February
25th) the Legislature passed an act authorizing the commencement of work
on the canal at the expense of the State. The western section was
completed and the first boat entered Pittsburgh on November 10, 1829.
Subsequent acts provided for the various eastern sections, including the
building of the portage railroad over the mountains, and by April 16,
1834, a through line was in operation from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh.
The termini of the road were Hollidaysburg, 1,398 feet below the
mountain summit, and Johnstown, 1,771 feet below the summit. The boats
were taken from the water like amphibious monsters and hauled up the ten
inclined planes by stationary engines. The total cost of the canal and
portage railroad was about ten million dollars, and the entire system
was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in 1857 (June 25th) for
$7,500,000. The importance of canal transportation in the popular mind
is shown by the fact that in 1828, when the Pennsylvania Legislature
granted a charter to the Pennsylvania and Ohio Railroad Company (which
never constructed its road), the act stated that th