The Greatest Works of Charles Carleton Coffin. Charles Carleton Coffin
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many others observant of the physical geography of the continent had arrived at the same natural conclusion. Seven years later the government surveys were made along several of the parallels, that from Lake Superior to the Columbia being under the direction of Governor I. I. Stevens. Jeff Davis was then Secretary of War, and his report set forth the northern route as being virtually impracticable. It was, according to his representation, incapable of sustaining population. A careful study of Governor Stevens's Report, and a comparison with the reports along the more southern lines, showed that the Secretary of War had deliberately falsified the statements of Governor Stevens and his assistants. While the surveys were being made, Mr. Edwin F. Johnson, of Middletown, Conn., the present chief engineer of the Pacific Railroad, published a pamphlet which set forth in a clear and forcible manner the natural advantages of the route by the Missouri.
In 1856 the British government sent out an exploring expedition under Captain Palliser, whose report upon the attractions of British America, the richness of the soil, the ease with which a road could be constructed to the Pacific through British territory, created great interest in Parliament.
"The accomplishment of such a scheme," said Mr. Roebuck, "would unite England with Vancouver Island and with China, and they would be enabled widely to extend the civilization of England, and he would boldly assert that the civilization of England was greater than that of America."
"Already," said the Colonial Secretary, Lord Lytton, better known to American readers as Bulwer, "in the large territory which extends west of the Rocky Mountains, from the American frontier and up to the skirts of the Russian dominions, we are laying the foundations of what may become hereafter a magnificent abode of the human race."
There was a tone about these speeches that stirred my blood, and I prepared a pamphlet for circulation entitled "The Great Commercial Prize," which was published in 1858. It was a plea for the immediate construction of a railway up the valley of the Missouri, and down the Columbia to Puget Sound, over the natural highway, giving facts and figures in regard to its feasibility; but I was laughed at for my pains, and set down as a visionary by the press.
It is gratifying to have our good dreams come to pass. That which was a dream of mine in 1846 is in process of fulfilment in 1870. The discovery of gold in California and the building up of a great city demanded the construction of a railroad to San Francisco, which was chartered in 1862, and which has been constructed with unparalleled rapidity, and is of incalculable service to the nation.
The charter of the Northern Pacific was granted, in 1864, and approved by President Lincoln on the 2d of July of that year. Government granted no subsidy of bonds, but gave ten alternate sections per mile on each side of the road in the States and twenty on each side of the line in the Territories through which it might pass.
Though the franchise was accompanied by this liberal land-grant, it has been found impossible to undertake a work of such magnitude till the present time. Nearly every individual named as corporators in the charter, with the exception of Governor J. G. Smith, its present President, Judge R. D. Rice, the Vice-President, and a few others, abandoned it under the many difficulties and discouragements that beset the enterprise. The few gentlemen who held on studied the geography of the country, and their faith in the future of the Northwest was strengthened. A year ago they were fortunate enough to find other men as enthusiastic as themselves over the resources and capabilities of the region between Lake Superior and the Pacific, — Messrs. Jay Cooke & Co., the well-known bankers of Philadelphia, whose names are indissolubly connected with the history of the country as its successful financial agents at a time when the needs of the nation were greatest; Messrs. Edgar Thompson and Thomas A. Scott, of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad; Mr. G. W. Cass, of the Pittsburg and Fort Wayne; Mr. B. P. Cheney, of Wells, Fargo, & Co.; Mr. William B. Ogden, of the Chicago and Northwestern Road; Mr. Stinson, of Chicago; and other gentlemen, most of whom are practical railroad men of large experience and far-reaching views.
Mr. Cooke became the financial agent of the company, and from that hour the advancement of the enterprise may be dated. It required but a few days to raise a subscription of $5,600,000 among the capitalists of the country to insure the building of the road from Lake Superior to the Red River, to which place it is now under construction. The year 1871 will probably see it constructed to the Missouri River, thus opening easy communication with Montana. The gentlemen who have taken hold of the work contemplate its completion to the Pacific in three years.
The line laid down upon the accompanying map only indicates the general direction of the road. It is the intention of the company to find the best route across the continent, — direct in course, with easy grades, — and this can only be ascertained by a thorough exploration of the valley of the Yellowstone, the passes at the head-waters of the Missouri, the valley of the Columbia, and the shores and harbors of Puget Sound.
The engineers are setting their stakes from Lake Superior to the Red River, and laborers with spade and shovel are following them. Imagination bounds onward over the prairies, across the mountains, down the valley of the Columbia, and beholds the last rail laid, the last spike driven, and a new highway completed across the continent.
I think of myself as being upon the locomotive, for a run from the lakes to the western ocean.
Our starting-point on the lake is 600 feet above the sea. We gain the height of land between the lake and the Mississippi by a gentle ascent. Thirty-one miles out from Duluth we find the waters trickling westward to the Mississippi. There we are 558 feet above Lake Superior. It is almost a dead level, as the engineers say, from that point to the Mississippi, which is 552 feet above the lake at Crow Wing, or 1,152 feet above tide-water. The distance between the lake and Crow Wing is about a hundred miles, and the country is so level that it would be an easy matter to dig a canal and turn the Mississippi above Crow Wing eastward into the waters that reach the sea through the St. Lawrence.
The Leaf Hills are 267 feet higher than the Mississippi, and the ascent is only seven feet to the mile, — so slight that the engineers on the locomotive reckon it as level grade. These hills form the divide between the Mississippi and the Red River. Straight on, over the level valley of the Red River, westward to the summit of the rolling prairies between the Red River and the Missouri, the locomotive speeds its way. Gradually we rise till we are 2,400 feet above tide-water, — the same elevation that is reached on the Union Pacific 250 miles west of Omaha.
A descent of 400 feet carries us to the Missouri. We wind up its fertile valley to the richer bottom-lands of the Yellowstone, over a route so level that at the mouth of the Big Horn we are only 2,500 feet above tide-water. The Yellowstone flows with a swifter current above the Big Horn. We are approaching the mountains, and must pass the ridge of land that separates the Yellowstone from the upper waters of the Missouri. It lies 950 miles west of Lake Superior, and the summit is 4,500 feet above the sea. Through the entire distance, thus far, there have been no grades greater than those of the Illinois Central and other prairie railroads of the West. Crossing the Missouri we are at the back-bone of the continent, depressed here like the vertebra of a hollow-backed horse. We may glide through the Deer Lodge Pass by a grade of fifty feet, at an altitude of only 5,000 feet above tide-water.
Mr. Milnor Roberts, civil engineer, approached it from the west, and this is his description of the Pass: —
"Considered as a railroad route, this valley is remarkably favorable, the rise from Deer Lodge City to the pass or divide between the waters of the Pacific and Atlantic being quite gentle, and even on the last few miles, the summit, about 5,000 feet above the sea, may be attained without employing a gradient exceeding fifty feet to the mile, with a moderate cut. The whole forty miles from Deer Lodge City to the summit of the Rocky Mountains by this route can be built as cheaply as roads are built through prairie countries generally. A little more work will be required in passing to the east side from this side, down Divide Creek to Wisdom or Big Hole River; but the line will be highly favorable on an average all the way to the Jefferson Fork of the Missouri River. This favorable pass comes into connection more particularly with the Yellowstone Valley route to the main Missouri Valley. A remarkable circumstance connected with this pass will convey a very clear view of its peculiarly favorable character. Private parties engaged in gold mining, in the gold-fields which exist abundantly on both sides of the Rocky Mountains,