During an 1831 trip to North and South America, Sir James Edward
Alexander (1803-1885) took a detour from riding a “coach (a sort of windmill,
freely admitting the cold air through the leathern sides)” from Washington to
Baltimore to ride on the “Baltimore Railway”. They rode in a "heavy double carriage, drawn by one horse."
"As we approached Baltimore we diverged from the usual road to drive on
the great railway, from the Atlantic to the Ohio. Locomotives had not been then
introduced, and our conveyance for seven miles was a heavy double carriage,
drawn by one horse.
The very enterprising inhabitants of Baltimore seem determined, by
extending internal communications, to make up for the disadvantage they labour
under, of having their harbour closed with ice for some weeks in winter; and
though the foreign trade had ceased for a time, when I visited this, the third
city of the Union and the great flour and tobacco mart, yet the streets were
far from being dull, but men and things wore a bustling, commercial air."
Alexander, James Edward. Transatlantic Sketches. London: 1833
©2018 Patricia Bixler Reber
Forgotten history of Ellicott City & Howard County MD
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