Wm; Prescott Smith 
Book of the Great Railway Celebrations of 1857 [PDF ebook] 

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. The author of this record of the Great Railroad Celebrations of 1857, formed one of the army of participants in the celebration of the opening of The American Central Railroad Line, from Baltimore, Maryland, continuously to St. Louis, Missouri, in June, 1857, and through his official connection with one of the Railroad Companies, was cognizant of the interesting proceedings attending the return visit of the Western guests from St. Louis, Cincinnati, Chillicothe, and other cities, to Baltimore and its vicinity in the following month of July, 1857 by the Great National Route. Looking upon these events – which marked the completion of the shortest and most direct line of communication between the Atlantic seaboard and the great centres of the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys – as of transcending importance, whilst the interchange of social courtesies between the people of a widely extended section of country was of a marked and impressive character, lie proposes to put upon record a detailed account of these celebrations, and a brief general history of the several enterprises which together constitute the line in question. In fulfilling this agreeable task it bus been his constant effort to make the book an agreeable as well as a useful addition to the Railroad literature of the day – to present to those who took part in these celebrative ceremonies an interesting daguerreotype, recalling to their memories scenes in which all participated with so much pleasure, and at the same time to preserve in appropriate connection therewith tho important facts belonging to the inception, progress, completion and operation of the links of the great chain of railroads which, running nearly on one parallel of latitude, reach from the 76th to the 90th degree of longitude, – constituting the hack bone of our railroad system, and vertebrated with an infinity of connections which penetrate and unite to it, and with one another, the congeries of States lying We