ilSS. 
 
 i;iiiik 
 
 
 i'kF,si:.NTi:i) iiY 
 

 EXCURSION 
 
 ir^i:t0i[s md ^torlikkl^rs 
 
 CENTRAL BRANCH 
 
 Union Pacific Railroad 
 
 November, 1866. 
 
 I 
 
 NEW YORK : 
 
 THE NEW YORK PRINTING COMPANY, 
 
 81, 83, AND 85 Centre Street. 
 
 1867. 
 
/^^^; J art. Z^. 
 
 
EXCURSION. 
 
 The excursion of the diredors and stockholders of the 
 Central Branch Union Pacific Railroad and their friends, 
 numbering about one hundred, started from Jersey City 
 in the special car of the Company at nine o'clock a.m., on 
 Tuesday, November 13, 1866. The Boston party left on 
 the 1 2th, at half-past five o'clock p.m., via Boston and 
 Worcester, Norwich and Worcester Railroad, and Nor- 
 wich boat, for New York. The route to Kansas was 
 over the New Jersey Central (Allentown route) ; Penn- 
 sylvania Central ; Pittsburg, Fort Wayne, and Chicago ; 
 Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy ; Hannibal, St. Joseph, 
 and Platte Country Railroads. 
 
 The incidents and details of the excursion have been 
 so fully and graphically described in the leading papers of 
 the country by the correspondents who accompanied the 
 party, that it will be unnecessary here to give more than 
 
a brief outline of the main fa6ls of the journey. On 
 leaving Jersey City prayer was offered by Rev. Dr. Webb, 
 of Boston, and Rev. C. K. Imbrie, of Jersey City. The 
 party reached Chicago on Wednesday evening, after a 
 ride of thirty-six hours, and stopped at the Sherman and 
 Tremont Houses. Thursday morning, in charge of Mr. 
 E. B. Phillips, President of the Michigan Southern and 
 Northern Indiana Railroad, the party rode in carriages 
 through the principal streets of the city, and then pro- 
 ceeded on the Michigan Southern road to the Stock 
 Yard, outside of the limits of the city. After inspe6ling 
 the yards they sat down to a fine collation, which had 
 been provided at the Hough House. The health of Mr. 
 Tucker, proprietor of the hotel, being drunk, Mr. Tucker 
 introduced Mr. Bryant, superintendent of the stock yard, 
 who gave some interesting statistics in reference to the 
 business done there. Speeches were also made by Col. 
 Hough, in compliment to whom the house received its 
 name ; Mr. Effingham H. Nichols, of New York ; Mr. Geo. 
 S. Hale, of Boston ; Mr. Hale, Superintendent of the Alton 
 Railroad ; Mr. Sergeant, of the Michigan Central Rail- 
 road ; Mr. Dore, President of the Board of Trade, and 
 others. The party returned to Chicago on the Michigan 
 Central road, in the magnificent diredlors' car of that road. 
 After dinner, at the invitation of the Mayor and other 
 officials of the city, they paid a visit in the tugs " A. B. 
 Ward " and " S. V. R. Watson " to the " Crib " in the lake, 
 from which the water runs into the tunnel and supplies 
 the city. In the evenmg a hop was given at the " Tre- 
 
mont," attended by the excursionists and many of their 
 friends in Chicago. On Friday, at 8:30 a.m., the party, 
 with many additions from Chicago, Cincinnati, and other 
 cities, left Chicago by the Chicago, BurHngton, and 
 Quincy Railroad, arriving at Quincy on Friday evening, 
 and remaining there over night. On Saturday morning 
 the Mississippi was crossed, and the Hannibal and St. 
 Joseph Railroad was taken for St. Joseph. At Brook- 
 field an excellent dinner was provided gratis, and a plea- 
 sant speech was made by Rev. Mr. Tyng, of New York. 
 Cheers were given for the proprietor of the hotel and for 
 the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad. After a short 
 stop at St. Joseph the St. Joseph and Platte Country 
 Railroad was taken to the Mississippi river, and the party 
 passed over to Atchison, in the ferry-boat "William 
 Osborn," named after the constructor of the " Central 
 Branch Union Pacific Railroad." Rooms were taken a£ 
 the Tremont, Massasoit, and Planters' hotels. 
 
 On Sunday, sermons were preached by Rev. Dr. Webb 
 and by Rev. Mr. Tyng; and Bishop Vail kindly wel- 
 comed the excursionists to the city. In the evening, the 
 party mostly attended a meeting of the Union Bible 
 Society at the Congregational hall. On Monday morn- 
 ing the excursion over the Central Branch Union Pacific 
 Railroad took place. A large number of the citizens of 
 St. Joseph, Atchison, and neighboring cities, went out 
 with the original party, increasing it to between four^ 
 and five hundred persons. At the last telegraph station 
 the train stopped in the midst of the prairie, and the 
 
party alighted and enjoyed a splendid dinner and picnic. 
 At its close, General Craig, President of the Hannibal 
 and St. Joseph Railroad, invited the excursionists to St. 
 Joseph, and the invitation was accepted. Speeches 
 were made by Gen. S. R. Curtis, of Iowa ; Rev. Mr. 
 Tyng ; Hon. Silas Woodson, of St. Joseph ; Gov. Smyth, 
 of New Hampshire ; Rev. Dr. Webb, of Boston ; Effing- 
 ham H. Nichols, of New York ; Rev. Pardee Butler, of 
 Kansas ; Col. William W. Clapp, of Boston ; Mayor 
 Crowell, of Atchison, and others. 
 
 In the evening a meeting was held in Atchison, at 
 which Hon. A. G. Otis presided, and Judge Adams and 
 Col. Martin acted as Secretaries ; and at which speeches 
 were made by Ralph M. Pomeroy, of Boston ; Senator 
 Pomeroy, of Kansas ; Gen. Simpson ; E. H. Nichols ; 
 Mr. Hale, of Boston ; Judge Graham, of Atchison ; Mr. 
 Glick, of Atchison ; and others. The ladies and gentle- 
 men then adjourned to Price's Hall, where a ball was 
 given, and where dancing continued until a late hour. 
 
 On Tuesday, a meeting of the stockholders was held, 
 at which the name of the road was formally changed 
 from the " Atchison and Pike's Peak R. R." to the " Cen- 
 tral Branch of the Union Pacific R. R." 
 
 On the morning of the same day, the 20th, the party 
 took the train for St. Joseph, where they were escorted 
 in carriages, preceded by music and the Fire Depart- 
 ment of the city, to Brady's Hall, introduced by General 
 Craig to the citizens assembled, and cordially welcomed 
 by Mayor Beattie. President Pomeroy replied in thanks, 
 
and speeches were made by General Curtis, Ex-Mayor 
 Powell of Brooklyn, and Rev. Dr. Webb. They then 
 proceeded to the Pacific Hotel, where a sumptuous din- 
 ner had been provided. At its conclusion Mr. Pomeroy 
 expressed the thanks of the excursionists for the recep. 
 tion, and Hon. Charles Wilkinson, of St. Joseph, respond- 
 ed. At the depot hearty cheers were given for St. Jo- 
 seph and her citizens, and for General Craig ; and the de- 
 parture was made at 5 p.m., by the St. Joseph and Platte 
 Country road for Weston. At that place the party were 
 taken by the Steamer E. Henesly, Captain A. J. Nicely, 
 to Leavenworth, where they arrived at about nine o'clock, 
 stopping mostly at the Planters' Hotel. On Wednesday 
 morning they left by the Missouri Pacific R. R. for St. 
 Louis. Dinner was had at Smithton, and at its close a 
 meeting was organized by the appointment of Hon. Sam- 
 uel S. Powell, ex-Mayor of Brooklyn, N. Y., as Chairman, 
 and J. M. E. Wetmore as Secretary. 
 
 The Committee on Resolutions, consisting of Hon. W. 
 W. Clapp, Charles H. Allen, Daniel Harwood, Lee Claflin, 
 and George D. Baldwin, of Mass., Hon. Frederick Smyth, 
 Governor of New Hampshire, Hon S. S. Powell, A. Park- 
 hurst, and George W. White, of Brooklyn, Isaac Kendall 
 and W. D. Gookin, of New York, Hon. L. B. Otis and 
 Henry Keep, of Illinois, through their Chairman, report- 
 ed the following resolutions : 
 
 Resolved, That we hereby tender to the officers and direflors of the 
 Atchison or Central Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, our 
 warmest and most sincere thanks for the opportunity of visiting and 
 
8 
 
 beholding the vast extent and resources of the West, and for thb 
 enlarged views which we have thus acquired of the future growth 
 and destiny of the American people. 
 
 Resolved, That the enterprise of the Central Branch Union Paci- 
 fic Railroad Company meets our highest expectations, both in the com- 
 pleteness of its structure, the surpassing richness of the rolling and 
 beautiful country through which it passes, and the great national im- 
 portance of the work. 
 
 Resolved, That in view of the fact, that the directors of this com- 
 pany express their determination to complete the road to Fort Kear- 
 ney, or some point on the Union Pacific proper this side of the hun- 
 dredth meridian, provided Congress will grant the necessary aid in 
 bonds and lands, therefore Congress should extend such aid as will 
 enable them to complete the work in the shortest possible time ; and 
 while we are interested in the prosperity and success of all the branches 
 of the Pacific road, that in the opinion of this meeting and in view of 
 the legislation of the last session of Congress by which the Eastern Di- 
 vision or Southerly Branch was permitted to follow the Smoky Hill 
 Valley instead of continuing up the Valley of the Republican, thereby 
 depriving the Atchison or Central Branch of any connexion with 
 the Union Pacific proper, Congress is bound by the highest moral 
 as well as legal obligations to give the Road the relief asked for, so 
 that this central and most important road may truly be a branch of 
 the Union Pacific Railroad, in fact, as well as in name. 
 
 Resolved, That we shall ever remember the courtesy of the man- 
 agers of the various railroads over which we have passed, and shall 
 particularly recall with a deep sense of indebtedness for unexpefted 
 attentions, the mayor and citizens of Atchison, the mayor and peo- 
 ple of St. Joseph, the officers of the Union Stock Yard at Chicago, 
 the proprietors of the Hough House, Col. Hough, General James 
 Craig of St. Joseph, the residents of Leavenworth and other cities 
 and towns whose kindness has given us renewed assurance that 
 we are bound together by the ties of a national brotherhood. 
 
 Resolved, That while we cherish pleasant remembrances of the 
 attentions of those among whom we went as entire strangers and left 
 as friends, we would acknowledge our indebtedness to an overruling 
 Providence that has permitted us to pass in safety over so great an 
 extent of territory, and to enjoy in so brief a space of time so many 
 assurances of the kind proteftion of the Ruler of the Universe over 
 our common country. 
 
Mr. Pomeroy, President of the C. B. U. P. R. R., rose, 
 and in a few fitting words acknowledged the compUment, 
 on behalf of the officers and diredlors of the road. He 
 said the thanks tendered to others were more than merit- 
 ed. Mr. Phillips, especially, was entitled to the warm 
 thanks of every one ; his kindness knew no bounds. 
 He also mentioned General Craig, Governor Smyth, of 
 New Hampshire, and others, and cheers were given for 
 Mr. Pomeroy, Mr. Nichols, Mr, Phillips, General Craig, 
 Governor Smyth, and others. Mr. Nichols, Treasurer of 
 the C. B. U. P. R. R., rose in response to a loud call. 
 He thanked the company for their endorsement of the 
 claim for the subsidy on the additional line of road, and 
 said they asked it as a right, not as a favor, and he 
 expected that Congress would not hesitate to grant it. 
 Indeed it was probable that the subsidy was theirs by 
 legal right, even without additional legislation. 
 
 These resolutions were published in the St. Louis and 
 Cincinnati and other Western papers, as also in the New 
 York, Boston, and Chicago papers. The party arrived 
 at St. Louis at about one o'clock on Thursday morning. 
 They stopped at the Lindell House, which is the largest 
 hotel in the country, and spent the day there. In the 
 evening there was a hop at the Lindell House. The 
 ladies and gentlemen from Chicago and other Western 
 cities here mostly left for home. On Friday morning, the 
 party started for Cincinnati, over the St. Louis, Alton, 
 and Terre Haute Railroad, and Indianapolis and Cincin- 
 nati Railroad, arriving in Cincinnati about two o'clock on 
 
lO 
 
 Saturday morning, and stopping at the Burnett House. 
 The Chamber of Commerce of Cincinnati, during the 
 previous day, had appointed the following committee of 
 gentlemen to escort the party to various points of inter- 
 est, in and about the city : 
 
 Theodore Cook, D. T, Woodrow, S. M. Murphy, Benja- 
 min Eggleston, James McKeehan, Adolph Wood, M. W. 
 Stone, Henry Lewis, Henry Kessler, M. Werk, George 
 Bogen, William Resor, W. H. Davis, C. G. Enyart, and 
 W. H. Gilpin. 
 
 At the invitation of this committee, the party visited 
 the Chamber of Commerce, and were welcomed and ten- 
 dered the hospitalities of the city, by the President of the 
 Chamber, S. C. Newton, Esq. President Pomeroy re- 
 sponded, and was followed by Rev. Dr. Webb, Rev. J. O. 
 Means, of Boston, Col. W. W. Clapp, and Treasurer Nich- 
 ols. The company then, under the direction of William 
 Henry Davis, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Chamber, 
 visited the Suspension Bridge, the Mercantile Library, 
 Spring Grove Cemetery, and some of the beautiful resi- 
 dences at Clifton. At five o'clock the company dined at 
 the Burnett House, where speeches were made by Mr. E. 
 H. Nichols, Isaac Kendall, of New York, and Hon. O. 
 Folott, of Sandusky, President of the Sandusky and Day- 
 ton Railroad. In the evening an elegant entertainment 
 was given at the house of Mr. Ahl, in Pike street. Sun- 
 day was passed quietly, and Monday morning the party 
 left for Columbus, on the Little Miami and Columbus 
 road. At that city, the most of the party for Boston 
 
II 
 
 proceeded by way of Cleveland, Buffalo, and Albany, after 
 a general hand-shaking and hearty cheering. The re- 
 mainder of the party reached New York by way of Pitts- 
 burg and Harrisburg, on Tuesday afternoon at 4 o'clock. 
 In accordance with a suggestion made by one of the 
 speakers (Col. Clapp, of Boston), at the picnic on the 
 prairies of the Kickapoo Reserve, it was agreed among 
 the guests of the road that each should send two copies 
 of his or her carte de visite to Mr. Charles H. Allen, of 
 Boston, to be placed in appropriate albums and presented 
 to the ladies of the President and Treasurer of the road. 
 
12 
 
 THE PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 For the purpose of giving the reader a complete idea 
 of the Pacific Railroad, we copy from the New York 
 Evening Post, of Jan. 2, 1867, the following account of 
 the road and its branches : 
 
 Very few persons are aware of the progress already made on the 
 Pacific Railroad. It is pushed forward as rapidly as skill and energy 
 can do it. During the past summer and autumn three large excur- 
 sion parties went from the East to view the branches of the road, 
 parts of which have already been completed. The initial eastern 
 points of these branches were Omaha, Atchison, and Kansas City ; 
 the excursionists were composed of the leading men of our large 
 cities ; and a popular interest has been awakened in the subject 
 commensurate with its importance. But a few years ago it was 
 deemed the sheerest folly even to suggest the building of a railroad 
 over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada, yet so much has 
 been accomplished by successful engineering that at about the first 
 of December the track of the Central Pacific Railroad of Cahfornia 
 had been laid at the Sierra Nevada ; and at the present time trains 
 are running to its very summit, seven thousand feet above the level 
 of the sea, or as high as Mount Washington. 
 
 A GENERAL VIEW. 
 
 Four distinfl companies are now building the Pacific Railroad. 
 One company is building the Central Pacific of California; another, 
 
13 
 
 the Union Pacific and the Omaha Branch ; another, the Atchison or 
 Central Branch ; another, the Kansas River or Southern Branch. 
 Two other companies are formed to build branches — one from Sioux 
 City and the other from the mouth of the Platte — but have done no 
 work. The main line is from the hundredth meridian of longitude 
 west from Greenwich, at a point some distance westward of Fort 
 Kearney and northward of the boundary line between Kansas and 
 Nebraska to Sacramento, California. This comprises the Central 
 Pacific of California and the Union Pacific, which are to be built 
 one to the east and the other to the west until they meet each other. 
 
 The five branches mentioned start from initial points on the Mis- 
 souri river, and run westward to join the main line at about the 
 hundredth meridian. These initial points on the Missouri are, com- 
 mencing from the northward, Sioux City, Omaha, the mouth of the 
 Platte, Atchison, and the mouth of the Kansas river. The first 
 three points are in Nebraska, the last two in Kansas. A person 
 travelling to the East will first take the Central Pacific of California, 
 from Sacramento over the Sierra Nevada, probably to the vicinity ot 
 Great Salt Lake, then the Union Pacific over the Rocky Mountains 
 to the hundredth meridian, then either of the eastern branches. The 
 Omaha Branch will bring him to Omaha, and thence over the Iowa 
 Branch of the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad to Chicago. 
 The Central or Atchison Branch will bring him to Atchison, and 
 thence over the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad through Missouri, 
 and over the Chicago, Burlington, and Ouincy Railroad, through 
 Illinois to Chicago, or by two connexions eastward through St. Louis 
 and Cincinnati. The Kansas River Branch, unless it should fail to 
 become part of the Pacific Railroad at all, as is suggested hereafter, 
 would bring him to Kansas City, thence by the Missouri-Pacific to 
 St. Louis, and so on eastward through Cincinnati. Sioux City and 
 the mouth of the Platte have no direfl eastern railroad conne<5lion 
 as yet, though the branch from the mouth of the Platte will be an 
 extension of the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad. 
 
 The Pacific Railroad has been roughly likened to a pitchfork with 
 five prongs. The Central Pacific and Union Pacific to the hundredth 
 meridian will be the handle, the eastern branches the tines. Com- 
 mencing at the north the first tine is the Sioux City and Pacific 
 Railroad, the second the Omaha line, the tliird the mouth of the 
 Platte branch, the fourth the Central or Atchison branch, the fifth 
 the Kansas River branch. 
 
H 
 
 HOW FAR THEY ARE BUILT. 
 
 The Central Pacific of California is built about one hundred and 
 ten miles eastward from Sacramento to the summit of the Sierra 
 Nevada. 
 
 The Union Pacific and the Omaha Branch are owned by one 
 company, and the road is built three hundred miles west from 
 Omaha. 
 
 The Atchison Branch is built sixty miles west from Atchison, 
 
 The Kansas River Branch is built one hundred and fifty miles, 
 following Kansas River and the Smoky Hill Fork. 
 
 No work is done on the Sioux City and Mouth of the Platte 
 branches. 
 
 It may surprise our friends in the South to know that the Pacific 
 Railroad was commenced and very far advanced during the war, 
 when the country was apparently straining every muscle in putting 
 down the rebellion. We have obtained from General Simpson, the 
 President of the Board of Commissioners of the Pacific Railroad, a 
 detailed and interesting statement of the present condition of the 
 work. It is now stated that even at the rate at which it is going 
 forward the whole line, from east to west, will be completed in five 
 years from the present time. The limit of time fixed by the law is 
 July 1st, 1877. The Union Pacific, from Omaha, of which General 
 Dix is president, is the one on which the hardest work will be re- 
 quired ; and General Dix expresses his belief that this road will be 
 able to meet the Central Pacific of California by 1871. The work 
 upon it, however, would be greatly facihtated if Congress would give 
 the permission, which will probably be asked during this season, 
 and which General Simpson recommends, which will enable work- 
 men to be employed at each end of it. The law at present only 
 allows them to work three hundred miles in advance of their con- 
 tinuous line of rail ; but the hardest portions of their work are at 
 the other end, and Salt Lake City is nearly eight hundred miles from 
 the point to which the road is at present finished. The " Saints " 
 and the " Gentiles " at Salt Lake City are anxious to be employed 
 on this road, and Congress will be asked to amend the act of July 
 3d, 1866, so that this may be done. 
 
 THE DETAILS. 
 
 The principal a6ls of Congress in reference to the Pacific Rail- 
 
15 
 
 road are those of July i, 1862 ; of July 2, 1864, and of July 3, 1866. 
 By these a(5ls the construaion is authorized of one main line com- 
 mencing at Omaha, Nebraska, the initial point fixed agreeably to 
 law by President Lincoln, and extending westward in the most direfl 
 and pradical line till it meets the Central Pacific Railroad of Cali- 
 fornia, extending eastward from San Francisco. These two roads 
 are unrestrided as to the extent of their lines, except that they are 
 required to meet and join in the most dire6t and praftical manner. 
 
 THE CENTRAL PACIFIC OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 The work upon this road is being pushed forward with the great- 
 est rapidity. Between ten and twelve thousand Chinamen are now 
 employed, and that force will be increased to fifteen or twenty thou- 
 sand in the spring. These laborers receive one dollar per day, and 
 are very tradable and industrious. The road, as we have said, is 
 finished to the summit of the Sierra Nevada. Besides the laborers, 
 three hundred mechanics, nine hundred horses, one hundred oxen, 
 and eight hundred wagons and carts, have been employed in this 
 work. The following is a table showing the distances from Sacra- 
 mento and the elevation above the level of the sea on the line of 
 this road. The first column shows the distance, the second the 
 elevation : 
 
 Miles. Feet. Miles. Feet. 
 
 Sacramento 54 Clipper Gap 42 1,785 
 
 Arcade 7i 76 Colfax 52 2,443 
 
 Antelope 15 180 Cold Run 64^ 3,245 
 
 Jundion 18 189 Dutch Flat 67 3,425 
 
 Hocklin 22 269 Alta 69 3,625 
 
 Pino 25 420 Cisco 82 5,911 
 
 Newcastle 31 989 Summit of the Sierra 
 
 Auburn 36 1,385 Nevada 105^ 7,042 
 
 The rise is constant, and the highest grade used is the maximum 
 authorized by law, one hundred and sixteen feet per mile. Of this 
 grade there are three and a half miles, and no difficulty is found in 
 running the trains on this portion at nearly the regular speed. The 
 alignment is remarkable for its diredness in such a mountainous and 
 broken country. Some of the work on the mountain se6lion of the 
 
i6 
 
 road will be massive and grand, including culverts, tunnels, bridges, 
 etc., and the mountain and forest scenery will surpass that on any 
 line in the country. A correspondent says that the scenery is as 
 grand as the Alps and as glorious as the Andes. It blends the tem- 
 perate and the torrid zones — the extinguished volcano of Shastan 
 seems as if transplanted from the tropics with the appalling sublimity 
 of the glacier-bred Yo-semite. On the railroad towards Cisco are 
 dragways on the side of a canon two thousand feet from the creek 
 below, curling round its dizzy crest four thousand feet above the 
 level of the sea. The towering pines, the mountain peaks, the 
 yawning rifts and chasms, present a sublime panorama. On a clear 
 day, with a glass, the two valleys of Sacramento and San Joaquin 
 are spread out hke a map for three hundred miles, and at sunset no 
 unpainted dream of Claude Lorraine or Turner was ever more mar- 
 vellously enchanting. 
 
 The road passes through a seflion of which the population is 
 constantly increasing. Thirty-five miles from San Francisco there 
 are extensive mines of crystallized iron ore ; and at Crystal Peak 
 large beds of magnetic iron, and also of bituminous coal, have been 
 found within two miles of each other. At Pea-Vine Mountain, five 
 miles from the road, there are extensive copper mines. The mine- 
 ral wealth of the country is enormous. Quarries of granite are also 
 being opened, and the stone taken to San Francisco and other large 
 cities for building purposes. 
 
 The company have received from New York thirty first-class loco- 
 motive engines and six hundred and seventy cars. They are now 
 erefting a machine and repair shop, capable of building cars and 
 locomotives equal to those now received from the Atlantic States. 
 The rails are of the best American iron, as required by law. The 
 bridges are of red fir from Oregon, with sills of red wood, which is 
 as durable as cedar. The culverts are mostly of granite or hard 
 rock. One culvert at the crossing of Canon creek is a noble piece 
 of solid masonry, twenty-eight feet in height and fifty-four feet in 
 breadth. The laborers are now engaged night and day in three 
 gangs, each working eight hours, on two tunnels, one at the summit 
 of the Sierra Nevada, sixteen hundred feet long, and another, seven 
 miles east of the summit, nine hundred feet long. 
 
 The line of the road is between the Big Bend of the Truckee 
 river and Salt Lake City, and will be along the valley of the Hum- 
 boldt, the route recommended by General Simpson. Though it is 
 
17 
 
 not the most direfl route, as it makes a detour to the northward, yet 
 the grade is easy, not reaching over fifty-three feet to the mile. Mr. 
 Leland Stanford, the President of the Company, expe<5ts to reach 
 Great Salt Lake during the year 1870. 
 
 THE UNION PACIFIC. 
 
 The Union Pacific Railroad is properly said to start from the hun- 
 dredth meridian of longitude west from Greenwich, and to proceed 
 westward to join the Central Pacific of California at the most prac- 
 ticable point. But the company organized by Congress to construct 
 the Union Pacific was also authorized by the same a.tl to build a 
 branch from Omaha to the hundredth meridian, and both roads are 
 therefore considered under this title. Starting from Omaha it has 
 been completed beyond the Forks of the Platte to a bridge over the 
 North Fork. This is a distance of over three hundred miles. 
 
 On the third of December last, the route of the California Over- 
 land Mail was changed to this road, so as to go by way of Chicago, 
 instead of St. Louis, saving four days. At the bridge over the 
 North Fork it is taken by Halliday's Overland Stage Line. By next 
 June it is expedled that three hundred miles more of this line will 
 be finished, although work has been suspended for the winter, not 
 to be resumed again until early spring. This road from Omaha will 
 be an extension of the Iowa branch of the Chicago and North- 
 western Railroad. About thirty miles of this road on the east side 
 of the Missouri river, between Woodbine and Council Bluffs, is 
 unfinished ; but when completed there will be direct connection 
 from Chicago over the Union Pacific. 
 
 THE CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN BRANCHES. 
 
 Besides the Omaha Branch, there are two other branches which 
 are being very rapidly built, and which were by the original law to 
 join the Union Pacific proper at the hundredth meridian. These are 
 the Central Branch from Atchison, and the Southern Branch from 
 Kansas City. The last is improperly called the Union Pacific Rail- 
 way Eastern Division, and thus much confusion of names arises. 
 General Simpson suggests that it be called the Kansas River Branch, 
 or the Southern Branch. The Central Branch is now completed for 
 
 2* 
 
sixty miles west of Atchison, running through the splendid country 
 embraced by the Kickapoo reserve, which land has been obtained by 
 the company by a treaty between the government and the Kickapoo 
 Indians. It comprises about one hundred and twenty-five thousand 
 acres of the finest land in the West. 
 
 The Southern Branch is completed from the mouth of the Kansas 
 river, on its south side, up the Valley of the Kansas to Fort Riley, 
 and beyond, a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles. These 
 two branches by the original law, and by the maps filed at Washing- 
 ton, were to join on the banks of the Republican River at about the 
 ninety-seventh meridian, and so proceed together to meet the Union 
 Pacific at the hundredth meridian. During the last session of Con- 
 gress, however, the route of the Kansas River Branch was changed. 
 It was originally projefted to run, after reaching Fort Riley, up the 
 Republican Fork until it joined the Union Pacific at the hundredth 
 meridian. 
 
 By the changed law it was allowed to proceed westward in the 
 most dire6l and practicable way to join the Union Pacific at a point 
 not further west than fifty miles west of the meridian of Denver. 
 They have begun building on the Smoky Hill Fork, which will take 
 them so far southward that the Santa Fe trade will probably accrue 
 to them ; and so that it is not improbable that they may never 
 conne6l with the Union Pacific. By the law, however, the Southern 
 Branch receives the subsidies hereafter referred to for the distance 
 which it would have gone by the original law to join the Union 
 Pacific, while the Central Branch has subsidies only for one hundred 
 miles west of Atchison, at which distance it was expected to join the 
 Southern Branch. It is claimed, however, that by the terms of the 
 original law the road is entitled to the benefits of the Pacific Railroad 
 adl to the point where it will join the Union Pacific. 
 
 The route of the Southern Branch being changed, the Central 
 Branch is left without any connexion with the Union Pacific. The 
 work was proceeded with upon the virtual pledge of such a connec- 
 tion, and Congress, or the proper authority, will be asked this winter, 
 in fulfilment of that pledge, to grant them a subsidy, the same as 
 that of which they would have had the benefit under the original 
 aft. This subsidy obtained, they will run up the Valley of the 
 Republican or the Little Blue to join the Union Pacific at the 
 hundredth meridian or at Fort Kearney. They will then form a very 
 dire6l connexion from the east with the Union Pacific. 
 
19 
 
 PROJECTED BRANCHES. 
 
 A number of branches are projefled on which no aftual work has 
 yet been done. The furthest north is the Sioux City Branch, to 
 extend from Sioux City to join the Union Pacific, probably at 
 Fremont, a place about fifty miles west of Omaha. Mr. John J. 
 Blair, the president of the company, states that surveys have been 
 made for the road, but not definitively fixed. South of the Omaha 
 Branch a road is projefted as a continuation of the Burlington and 
 Missouri River Railroad, to cross the Missouri River at the south 
 side of the mouth of the Platte, to join the Union Pacific not further 
 west than the hundredth meridian. Its route has been fixed along 
 the south side of the Platte and into the Platte Valley, about twenty 
 miles east of Fort Kearney. 
 
 SUBSIDIES. 
 
 The government, to aid the construftion of these roads through 
 unpopulated regions, gives bonds and lands to each company. The 
 Central Pacific of California and Union Pacific, on the completion 
 of sections of not less than twenty miles of their roads, are entitled 
 to bonds from the government to the amount of $16,000 per mile 
 from tlieir initial points to the east line of the Rocky Mountains, 
 and to the west base of the same for a distance of one hundred and 
 fifty miles, and across the Sierra Nevada to the east base of the 
 same for a distance of one hundred and fifty miles, they get $48,000 
 per mile. Between the western base of the Rocky Mountains and 
 the eastern base of the Sierra Nevada they get $32,000 per mile. 
 They are also entitled to ten alternate odd sections of land per mile, 
 on each side of their roads, within limits of twenty miles on each 
 side, not previously sold or reserved, or to which there is no pre- 
 emption or homestead claim. 
 
 The Kansas River Branch is entitled to $16,000 per mile, and 
 lands as above, for a distance from the mouth of the Kansas river as 
 far westward as would be equal to the length of its road, if, accord- 
 ing to the aft of July i, 1862, it had joined the Pacific Railroad at the 
 hundredth meridian. The Central or Atchison Branch gets $16,000 
 per mile, and lands as above, for one hundred miles west of Atchison. 
 The Omaha Branch gets the same. The Sioux City Pacific Railroad 
 gets $16,000, but only five alternate sections of land within ten miles 
 on each side of the road. The extension of the Burlington and 
 Missouri River Railroad is entitled to ten alternate se6tions of land 
 as above, but not to bonds. 
 
20 
 
 THE EXCURSION. 
 
 The following extra6ls are made from the numerous 
 accounts and notices of the excursion. 
 
 A Pic-Nic on the Prairies. — The Pacific Railroad Excursion on 
 the Central Branch. — Pra£lical Views of Katisas. — " The Gate- 
 way of the West.'''' — Atchison. — Grasshopper River. — P^isit to 
 the htdians, etc., etc. 
 
 (From the New York Tribune.) 
 
 Cincinnati, November 28, 1866. 
 
 The officers and stockholders of the Atchison or Central Branch 
 of the Union Pacific Railroad, who mostly reside in New York and 
 Boston, desiring to make a personal inspe6lion of their road just 
 previous to the completion of the third section of twenty miles each, 
 proposed to their friends a pleasant little trip of about three thou- 
 sand three hundred miles from the Hub of the Universe and back ; 
 and in acceptance of that proposition over one hundred ladies and 
 gentlemen started from New York November 13, in an elegant special 
 car, and proceeded by way of Allentown and Pittsburgh to Chicago. 
 Here they were shown the great tunnel, the stock yard, and the prin- 
 cipal streets of the city, and had a hop at one of the hotels. They 
 then went on to the Mississippi, especially noticed because of the red 
 ribbons in their coats bearing the letters " C. B. U. P. R. R." 
 
 The Central Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad starts at 
 Atchison on the Missouri, and proceeds west to join the Union 
 Pacific proper, either at Fort Kearney or at the hundredth meridian 
 of longitude west from Greenwich. The Union Pacific proper, by the 
 a(5ls of Congress of 1862 and 1864, is to start from the hundredth 
 meridian and proceed westward to meet the Central Pacific Railroad 
 of California, which is being rapidly built eastward from Sacramento, 
 
21 
 
 and which has already reached the summit of the Sierra Nevada. 
 Three branches are already being built to conned with the Union 
 Pacific at the hundredth meridian. The Northern Branch is the 
 one from Omaha, of which about three hundred miles are now com- 
 pleted, beyond Fort Kearney and the Forks of the Platte, to a bridge 
 over the North Fork. The Southern Branch, by the original law 
 and by the maps filed at Washington, was to start from Kansas City 
 and follow the Kansas River to Fort Riley, and then the Republican 
 River to the junflion at the hundredth meridian. The Central 
 Branch is a continuation of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, 
 and starts from Atchison, and was to join with the Southern Branch 
 on the Republican River, one hundred miles from Atchison. Each 
 of these branches was allowed by the Government a subsidy of 
 $16,000 per mile, and a grant of land of ten alternate sections per 
 mile on each side, and within limits of twenty miles on each side, not 
 sold, reserved, or otherwise disposed of by the United States, or to 
 which a preemption or homestead claim may not have attached at 
 the time the line of the road was definitively fixed. Congress, how- 
 ever, at its last session, gave the Southern Branch, which is known 
 by the name of the Eastern Division Union Pacific, the privilege of 
 turning oft' at Fort Riley to the valley of the Smoky Hill Fork. The 
 intention of this change is to secure the very valuable Santa F^ trade, 
 and the result will probably be that this Southern Branch will not 
 conne6l with the Pacific Railroad at all. The Central Branch is 
 thus cut off from its connexion with the Pacific Railroad, upon the 
 faith of which the Company has expended over §2,000,000, and upon 
 the faith of which an immense amount of Government lands along 
 that hne has been bought by private individuals, unless Congress 
 will give them, as they intend to ask, or unless they are entitled to 
 the same subsidies as they already receive for the first one hundred 
 miles, to enable them to conned with the Union Pacific, as they 
 would have done if no change had been authorized. 
 
 At the rate at which the main lines and the different branches are 
 being built, it is confidently believed that by 1871 there will be a 
 continuous railroad line to the Pacific. 
 
 The officers of the Central Branch, most of whom were with the 
 excursion, are R. M. Pomeroy, Boston, President; Effingham H. 
 Nichols, New York, Treasurer ; W. C. Wetmore, Vice-President ; 
 Thomas M. Sother, Secretary ; and as Direftors, W. C. Wetmore. 
 E. H. Nichols, John A. Stewart, President U. S. Trust Company ; 
 
22 
 
 Henry Day, Clement B. Parsons, R. M. Pomeroy, Ginery Twichell, 
 President Boston and Worcester Railroad ; George S. Hale, Boston ; 
 E. B. Phillips, President Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana 
 Railroad ; the Hon. S. C. Pomeroy, B. F. Stringfellow, and Richard 
 A. Park. 
 
 On the Mississippi River the young men of the party formed an 
 organization for purposes of amusement, which, in honor of the 
 Kickapoo Reservation, through which we were to pass, was called 
 the Kickapoo Club. The following officers were elefted : The Poist, 
 the Singist, the Speakist, the Writist, and the Demijohnist. The 
 Poist being called on for a few feeble remarks, spoke as follows : 
 " Fellow citizens, thirty years ago, the spot on which we now stand 
 was part and parcel of the— h-o-w-ling wilderness ! " The effedlive 
 portion of this sentence is the word " howling," its sound, as uttered, 
 corresponding with the sound which it is intended to represent, and 
 all the party joining in the chorus of hideous and unearthly howls. 
 "Yes, sir," he continued, increasing in fervor, "thirty years ago, the 
 spot on which we now stand was part and parcel of the — h-o-w-ling 
 wilderness ! " He sat down amid great cheering. The Speakist 
 being introduced, remarked that he fully agreed with the gentleman 
 who had last spoken, and he especially coincided with him in the 
 expression of the sentiments awakened by the consideration of the 
 startling and significant faft that the spot on which we now stood 
 was thirty years ago part and parcel of the — (chorus) — h-o-w-ling 
 wilderness. (Cries " Singist ! Singist ! ") The Singist said that this 
 call was entirely unexpefted, and that he was totally unprepared. 
 As he was on his feet, however, he would throw out a thought which 
 might be new to those before him. He desired to diretl their minds 
 to the interesting and momentous fa<5l that thirty years ago, etc. 
 The Demijohnist desired to propose a toast. He gave them — " The 
 spot on which we now stand. Thirty years ago it was part and 
 parcel of the — (chorus) —h-o-w-ling wilderness ! " The proceedings 
 closed with a song commencing — 
 
 " Mary had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, 
 Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom ; 
 And everywhere that Mary went the lamb was sure to go, 
 Shouting the battle-cry of Freedom. 
 
 C hones — The Union for ever," etc. 
 
 With one day's riding we passed from the east bank of the 
 Mississippi to' the west bank of the Missouri. The eastern half of 
 
23 
 
 Missouri that we saw was wet and poor, infe6led witli fever and 
 ague ; die western half was excellent land. As the night approached 
 we rode upon the prairies — upon vast tracks of land of a perfe6t 
 level, sometimes bounded on every side by the horizon. As it grew 
 darker, as the Kickapoo Club indulged in sentimental songs in which 
 the ladies joined, and as the sleepy passengers settled back in the 
 corners of the seats, there appeared on the edges of the horizon, here 
 and there, the bright gleam of flames against the sky, which lay in 
 the distance so close to the earth that the clouds and the rising 
 columns of smoke were but " part and parcel " of each other. As we 
 whirled along the Plains sometimes the fires were nearer, until, sud- 
 denly, the train burst into a line of burning prairie but a few rods 
 from the side of the track, the flames sweeping the grass before them, 
 waving their tops, and lighting up the cars with a lurid glare. The 
 company involuntarily broke out in cheers, shouts, and exclamations 
 of admiration. The line of fire continued along the track for per- 
 haps a mile, and was decided to be a satisfaftory substitute for the 
 meteoric display which had been promised. Still further on towards 
 St. Joseph the prairies were sometimes blackened with recent fire, 
 sometimes covered with grass about three feet high, and sometimes 
 burning as we passed. From St. Joseph we went to Atchison, 
 going over the Missouri in the ferry-boat William Osborn, owned by 
 the C. B. U. P. R. R., and named after Col. Osborn, the contractor. 
 Landing and going up the hill into the city, the company found them- 
 selves quartered in Kansas for the night and the Sunday to follow. 
 
 St. Joseph is on the Missouri as well as Atchison, but at the 
 former city, as may be seen on the njap, th,e river takes an abrupt 
 turn to the westward. At Atchi&on it turns again to the south-east, 
 and at Wyandotte and Kansas, City moiV^s more diA"€<5lly to the east. 
 St. Joseph, Atchison, Leavenworth, Kausas City, ai>d Wya,ndotte, are 
 situated on the principal points of this; great bend; of the Mis,souri 
 from south to east, and of these cities Atchison is the furthest west. 
 To these places the railroads of the east converge, and passing west^ 
 ward they will again diverge. This seftion is therefore called the 
 " Gateway of the West." It is the neck of the tunnel through which, 
 must go all emigration and all manufaftures poured from the East to 
 populate and supply the West. St. Joseph and Leavenworth are 
 already large cities ; Kansas City and Atchison have just started. 
 To increase the perplexities of the human mind the name of Kansai> 
 City indicates that it is not a city of Kansas at all, just ^s. h% S>t^ 
 
24 
 
 Louis The Missouri Democrat is a republican paper, and The Mis- 
 souri Republican is a democratic paper. Kansas City is on tlie 
 Missouri side opposite the moutli of tlie Kansas River, and Wyan- 
 dotte is on the Kansas side. There is a question as to which of 
 these cities will secure the largest amount of the growth and pros- 
 perity that are sure to accrue to places occuj^ying such important 
 natural positions. 
 
 Services were held on Sunday at Atchison by the Rev. Dr. Webb 
 of Boston and the Rev. Mr. Tyng of New York, and Bishop Vail of 
 Kansas made an eloquent and very graceful and appropriate refer- 
 ence to the visit to the city of so many friends from the East. Some 
 of the party attended a colored church in the evening, and heard so 
 good a sermon that it was the subje6l of general praise. At only 
 one point were they struck with the sense of the ludicrous. 
 The preacher, in reference to the Christian's position in the 
 world, spoke of him as possessing not one foot of land in all this 
 " howling wilderness." If the words " part and parcel " had been 
 used he would, no doubt, have been surprised, not to say terrified, 
 by a sudden and horrid chorus of howls. The church in which he 
 preached was not plastered, and was $300 in debt. So the party 
 atoned for their levity by giving the pastbr $25 for the uses of his 
 church, and by taking up a collection the next day increasing it to 
 $110. 
 
 On Monday morning the company started out for an excursion 
 and pic-nic on the railroad which they had come especially to see. 
 The day was beautiful, the air pure and bracing, the streams spark- 
 ling, the prairies brown and smiling, with shadows of clouds and 
 patches of sunlight flying over them. A goodly number of young 
 ladies from St. Joseph and Atchison, with fair and pleasant faces, 
 had joined us, which, with other accessions, increased our number 
 to about 500. Among them were : 
 
 Bishop Vail and daughters, the Rev. Dr. Webb and wife, Boston; 
 the Rev. Dr. C. K. Imbrie, Jersey City; the Rev. S. H. Tyng, jr., 
 New York ; the Rev. T. O. Rice and wife, Boston ; the Rev. J. O. 
 Means, Gov. Smyth and wife of New Hampshire : Senator Pomeroy, 
 Mayor Crowell and wife of Atchison ; Gen Curtis, Gen. Simpson, 
 Dr. White of Connefticut, U. S. Commissioner ; Gen. James Craig, 
 President of Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, and daughter ; E. B. 
 PhiUips, President of the Michigan Southern Railroad ; Major T. J. 
 Crew, President of the St. Joseph and Denver Railroad ; the Hon. O. 
 
25 
 
 Follet, President of the Dayton and Sandusky Railroad ; the Hon. 
 J. M. Richardson, ex-Secretary of State of Missouri ; the Hon. John 
 Corby, St. Joseph ; the Hon. W. W. Clapp, Boston Evening Ga- 
 zette j Charles H. Allen, Boston ; Wm. R. Osborn, Treasurer of the 
 Inebriate Asylum, Binghamton, N. Y., and daughter ; Col. J. M. 
 Tower and wife ; D. H. Winton and wife ; R. W. Meade and Henry 
 Starring of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad ; Capt. T. J. Ahl, 
 Cincinnati ; Capt. H. W. Jackson, Newark, N. J. ; S. S. Powell, ex- 
 Mayor of Brooklyn ; Geo. W. White, cashier of Mechanics' Bank, 
 Brooklyn ; A. Parkhurst, cashier of St. Nicholas Bank, N. Y. ; Col. 
 Holliday and Judge Bailey of Atchison ; W. P. Libby, President 
 Citizens' Gas Co., Brooklyn ; the Hon. C. B. Wilkinson, St. Joseph ; 
 the Hon. Roswell Marsh, U. S. Commission ; Col. Sanders of the 
 Platte Country Railroad ; the Rev. Pardee Butler, who, it will be 
 remembered, during the first scenes of the settlement of Kansas, 
 was tarred and feathered and sent down the river on a raft because 
 he was a Free State man ; and many others, no less well known, 
 whom I do not call to mind. 
 
 The first river over which we passed was the Grasshopper, run- 
 ning, as is the case with all the streams round about, in a deep 
 gulley ploughed by the freshets and fringed on each side with trees. 
 It derives its name possibly from the prevalence of grasshoppers in 
 the vicinity. Last summer these inse6ls came swarming from the 
 prairies upon Atchison like an invading army. They walked in 
 the streets and entered the houses. The palm of the hand put down 
 at random on the ground would cover a dozen of them. That par- 
 ticular turkey gobbler mentioned by the Kickapoo Club in one of its 
 most brilliant and popular songs, who found a grasshopper sitting 
 on a sweet potato vine, and, coming up behind, yanked him off the 
 sweet potato vine, would have found little mercy at the hands of the 
 grasshoppers of Atchison. Not being good stewed or fried or in 
 soup, or even dried like shrimps, they were simply a nuisance. 
 The only way to exterminate them is to burn the i.rairie grass in the 
 Spring after they are hatched, instead of the Fall, and in that way 
 roasted grasshoppers become very good for the soil. For that 
 matter, however, there is abundance of soil now. It averages cer- 
 tainly over five feet ; and one gentleman was willing to take his oath 
 to convince some incredulous New Englanders, that in digging a 
 well in the prairies he had found the soil seventeen and a half feet 
 deep. Three or four feet of it could be taken off and sold for 
 
26 
 
 manure in New York, providing it could be got there, without at all 
 Injuring the land. 
 
 At Muscatoh the train stopped at a little stone depot — for all the 
 depots are of stone — and a little further on it stopped again at an 
 Indian hut. Here lives an Aborigine known by the white people as 
 Captain Jackson, with two squaws, his mother, a young son, and a 
 papoose. He has two houses, one square and roughly built of 
 boards, with but one room ; the other of bark, with the tent shape 
 that we see in piflures. In the board hut, the low ceiling was hung 
 with bunches of corn and wide thin slices of meat, which you had to 
 dodge your head to avoid. At one side was a cot on which a cat 
 was coiled up, gently purring, and at the other, a rough stone fire- 
 place with a log fire, and the old grandmother sitting at his side 
 with the papoose in her arms. There was also corn in the other 
 hut, a solitary hen roamed about picking up kernels, and there was 
 a fire in the centre of three logs with their points together. A 
 hound with puppies had a comfortable kennel by the side of the 
 board hut. When the ladies heard of the papoose there was great 
 excitement. They all rushed to the hut, and thronged at the door, 
 and every one of them wanted the papoose. But President Pome- 
 roy, who had been chosen Big Injun of the Kickapoo Club, thwart- 
 ed them all. He caught the infant in his arms, laid its tawny cheek 
 caressingly against his shoulder, and came forth with the prize amid 
 cheers and laughter. He marched up and down by the side of the 
 train, soothing its incipient warwhoops, and the ladies said : "It 
 was so cunning. Hi, yi, yi. Bress ze ittle sing. Wat's ze matty ? 
 Look at its eyes." The dilapidated Indian boy, after some instiga- 
 tion from his civilized friends, took up a large colleftion of stamps 
 in his battered felt hat, with which his respefted parent had a high 
 old time in Atchison the next day. At a stopping- place a Httle 
 further on, there were a number of horses, and some fine riding was 
 had on the prairies by Capt. Jackson and Capt. Ahl. The Kickapoo 
 Club continued in excellent spirits, Mr. Bowen, of Chicago, blowing 
 the Kickapoo horn, and leading in various grotesque performances. 
 At last the train arrived at the last telegraph station. This was on 
 the Kickapoo Reservation. A little further on the road is being 
 built at the rate of a mile per day. Here the ladies sat down in 
 circles upon the long dry grass ; and from the baggage car were 
 rolled out barrels and boxes and baskets filled with all things 
 pleasant to the stomach in infinite variety and abundance. 
 
27 
 
 Here we sat, i,6oo miles away from home, yet wonderfully near, 
 for Mr. Nichols, the Treasurer of the road, sent a dispatch to New 
 York as we sat there, and received a reply almost immediately. Just 
 beyond, the wire lay coiled upon the ground, ready to bridge any 
 distance over which it may be stretched. The Rev. Dr. Webb, too, 
 stated that he had occupied the same seat in the same car from 
 Jersey City to this place, as yet unnamed. 
 
 I may say a word here about the land which we saw, and about 
 Kansas. We sat here, with such a rolling and varied and yet uncir- 
 cumscribed landscape around us, such a pure and vivifying atmo- 
 sphere about us, such a clear, bright sky closing over us, that it 
 seemed as though this was the top of the world, which looked 
 straight towards the universal zenith, and over which the sun always 
 shone ; and as though the lands in the distance all sloped off to the 
 sides of the earth. The prairies are rolling and beautiful, cut up 
 into natural seftions by the deep valleys of the streams and graded 
 as by a gardener's skill — as boundless in extent as the prairies of 
 Missouri, but varied and relieved from their painful and monotonous 
 dead level. 
 
 The pioneer of the old pictures is a sturdy workman with axe in 
 hand, clearing away, rod by rod, the wood-incumbered wilderness. 
 The meadows of New England, even after being cleared of the bul- 
 warks and tangles of the forests, have been ploughed and re-ploughed, 
 the harrow has gone over them to level them, loads and loads of 
 stones have been picked from them, boulders have been blasted out, 
 they have been profusely manured, and still the farmers' machines 
 are blunted and broken by stones and hillocks and tangling roots, 
 and the ground must be continually fed with manure. Here the land 
 is cleared, there are no cobble-stones, the soil is five feet deep, and, 
 as Senator Pomeroy remarked, it is not only good soil, but it is free 
 soil. But there are plenty of quarries of fine shelving stone for 
 building purposes all over the State. Looking over the landscape 
 you see the tops of trees rising out of the valleys ; go into the 
 valleys and you find them stocked with excellent timber, some of it 
 the best kind, as for instance, black walnut. Trees do not grow 
 upon the uplands on account of the annual burning of the prairies, 
 but they will grow there ; and as population comes in, it will proba- 
 bly be found necessary to plant them there to give sufficient supply 
 of wood. There is very Httle fruit in the State at present. The 
 settlers have only just commenced to plant trees ; but Bishop Vail 
 
28 
 
 states that he has eaten as fine peaches from Kansas soil as can be 
 got in the New York market ; and there is a vine3'ard near Lawrence 
 in which the very finest quaHties of grapes have been raised, and 
 the owner is making him.self rich by supplying the market with them. 
 Orchards of tender trees will not grow alone upon the uplands ; but 
 by planting about the sides a barrier of some native trees, as the 
 Cottonwood, to proteft them from the winds, it is found that thriving 
 and beautiful orchards may be cultivated. Bishop Vail contends 
 that Kansas is capable of raising nearly everything required for 
 man's use within itself, except sugar. And as a partial substitute 
 for this, sorghum is produced in large quantities, and is in universal 
 use. Almost every farmer raises it, and has his own mill to prepare 
 it. The climate is delightful. Bishop Vail states that there is very 
 little fever and ague ; there is no new State that has so little of it. 
 The State is watered by the Kansas, the Osage, and the Neosho 
 Rivers, all of which empty finally into the Mississippi. The won- 
 derful expanse traversed by the tributaries of this great river is 
 almost too vast for the mind to compass. Coming up almost, it 
 would seem, across a continent, from New Orleans through the 
 Mississippi and Missouri to Atchison, we find that the last-named 
 river is still navigable 2,500 miles above Atchison. There is said to 
 be a point on the Rocky Mountains where two tiny streams of water 
 bubble out, one to the east, and the other to the west, where a per- 
 son taking a cup of water in each hand, and pouring one to the 
 right, and the other to the left, may know that after running hundreds 
 of miles, and joining many currents, the water from the one will 
 finally reach the Pacific, and from the other, the Atlantic. So, also, 
 two of these Kansas streams, the Osage and the Neosho, rise within 
 ten miles of each other towards Fort Riley, and yet stretch apart and 
 empty into the great rivers 1,500 miles apart ; the one into the Mis- 
 souri, and the other through the Arkansas into the Mississippi. 
 Kansas is a young State. All the grown people we see there are 
 emigrants. Only the children under ten and twelve are natives. 
 Mr. Pardee Butler correfted the Kickapoo Club as to its figures. 
 Ten years ago, he said, and not thirt)' years ago, the spot on which 
 we stand was part and parcel of a h-o-w-ling wilderness. But the 
 Kickapoo Chib had a profound contempt for fa6ls and common sense. 
 The first civilized child born in the State is only twenty years old. 
 She is a beautiful and accomplished young lady of Topeka ; and 
 was born at Wyandotte, her father being an Indian agent at that 
 
29 
 
 place. Topeka, as is known, is the capital of Kansas, and its name 
 means wild potatoes, and not " small potatoes," as has been insinu- 
 ated. Kansas is the Central State of the Union. The precise 
 geographical centre of the Union is Fort Riley. The State contains 
 50,000,000 of acres. At the ancient allowance of an acre to one 
 person, it could accommodate comfortably all the population of the 
 United States, with room for about 20,000,000 more. 
 
 As the pic-nickers sat on the grass enjoying their dinner, suddenly 
 they noticed a breath of smoke, and a clear column of flame coming 
 on before the wind directly towards them. Some of the party, regard- 
 less of the fine and punishment assigned by the laws of Kansas as 
 the penalty for such an aft, had set the prairie on fire. The ladies 
 sprang up with little screams and laughter, and the brave Kickapoos 
 ran to the rescue of the fair fawns, glad of an excuse to rescue them 
 from something. All ran to the opposite side of the track, over 
 which the fire did not come. The waiters picked up the barrels and 
 boxes and crockery as rapidly as they could, and nothing was 
 harmed. Then when the eating was through. Gen. Craig, who is 
 the wittiest man in the vicinity of the Missouri River, opened the 
 side of the new and handsome baggage car, and began to call up 
 the speakers of the party to address the assembled audience. 
 President Pomeroy, Treasurer Nichols, Senator Pomeroy, Mayor 
 Crowell, Gov. Smyth, Gen. Curtis, Judge Woodson, the Rev Mr. 
 Tyng, the Rev. Dr. Webb, Mr. Butler, and others, made brief 
 speeches. In the evening, at Atchison, we had speeches from the 
 Hon. A. G. Otis, Gen. Simpson, Senator Pomeroy, Mr. Nichols, Mr. 
 Hale, of Boston, Judge Graham, Mr. Glick, and a hop afterwards. 
 At St. Joseph the excursionists had a splendid reception, being 
 escorted in carriages by the fire department and a band to Brady's 
 Hall, where Gen. Craig introduced them. Mayor Beattie welcomed 
 them in behalf of the city authorities, and where speeches were made 
 by Gen. Curtis, Dr.Webb, the Hon. C. B.Wilkinson, of The St. Joseph 
 Herald, and others, which was all followed by a dinner. They went 
 next to Leavenworth, then to St. Louis, and then to Cincinnati, where 
 they were welcomed by the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, pre- 
 sented with copies of the annual report, and taken in carriages to 
 the principal points of interest about the city, including the great 
 Suspension Bridge, Spring Grove Cemetery, and Clifton. The 
 humble individuals of our party having thus swung round the circle, 
 returned home. 
 
Exairsion to the Central Branch Union Pacific, or Atchison and 
 Pike''s Peak Railroad. 
 
 (From the Chicago Tribune.) 
 
 In the year i860 the American people decided that a railroad 
 should be built to connect the Atlantic States with the Pacific coast. 
 The tremendous develojiment of the State of California had already 
 demonstrated to a people with whom, more than with all others, 
 time is money, it would be cheapest to build a railroad across the 
 continent, and they came to the conclusion that they could not afford 
 to go round by way of Cape Horn, to take the cut-off offered by the 
 Straits of Magellan, nor even to patronize the Isthmus of Panama. 
 And when, in addition to this, the interior of this vast continent was 
 found to be richer in the precious metals than the gold mines of 
 Ophir, and thousands of adventurous hearts and willing hands went 
 out to prospeft, and delve, and pan out in the gullies of the Terri- 
 tories, the need of a railroad was even more stringently felt. Still 
 again, when these men sent and brought home the intelligence that 
 heavy machinery was necessary to successfully prosecute the search, 
 then the demand for a railroad became too urgent to be disregarded ; 
 its constru6lion was authorized by the government, and provision 
 made for aiding in the work. 
 
 In the years 1862 and 1864, Congress passed the Union Pacific 
 Railroad laws, providing for the building of a road running west- 
 ward, to be called the " Union Pacific Railroad," and another run- 
 ning east, to be called the " Central Pacific Railroad," running 
 towards each other. These are now building, and will probably 
 meet near the City of the " Saints " in 1871. 
 
 The Union Pacific Railroad proper commences at the one hun- 
 dredth parallel of longitude west from Greenwich, in latitude about 
 forty degrees twenty minutes, or about that of Keokuk on the Mis- 
 sissippi, and two hundred and fifty miles west of the Missouri river. 
 The original law provided for three branches which should connect 
 with the main line, and granted subsidies, both in bonds and lands, 
 to aid in their construftion. These three branches are : The Omaha 
 Branch, popularly known as the main line, being built under the 
 same organization as the Union Pacific ; the other two branches are 
 
31 
 
 the Atchison and the Kansas Valley branches, distinguished as the 
 " Central," and " Southern." In accordance with the a6ts above 
 noted, the Southern Branch should have commenced at Kansas City 
 (connedling direft with St. Louis via Jefferson City, Mo.), and fol- 
 lowing along the Kansas river to Fort Riley, turned then north-west 
 by north up the Republican river, conne6ling with the Union Pacific 
 Railroad at the one hundredth parallel. The Central or Atchison 
 Branch was to start from the city of Atchison, on the Missouri 
 river, and running in a westerly direction, strike the Southern 
 Branch on the banks of the Republican river, one hundred miles 
 from Atchison. The law provided that the companies proposing to 
 build these several roads and branches should file their assent, with 
 the maps of the route chosen. The Hannibal and St. Joseph Com- 
 pany, of Missouri, filed their assent, with the maps for the construc- 
 tion of the central branches, for one hundred miles in length next the 
 Missouri river. The rights and privileges which they thus acquired 
 were, on June 9, 1863, transferred to the "Atchison and Pike's Peak 
 Railroad Company," the Aft of July i, 1862, giving to the "asso- 
 ciates, successors, and assigns " of the Hannibal and St. Joseph 
 Company, all the rights and powers thereby conveyed to them. By 
 virtue of this arrangement, therefore, the Atchison and Pike's Peak 
 Railroad Company are entitled to the benefits of the Pacific Railroad 
 Aft. They commenced to grade the road in the fall of 1865, and 
 began to lay the iron in May last. The first twenty miles were com- 
 pleted and inspefted about the beginning of August, and the subsidy 
 of $16,000 per mile paid by the government. About fifty miles are 
 now completed ; the second seftion of twenty miles is inspected and 
 approved by the government commissioners. 
 
 At the last session of Congress permission was given to the 
 Southern Branch Company to refile the map of their road, by which 
 they are permitted to pass westward by the Smoky Hill route, cross- 
 ing the one hundredth meridian some ninety miles southward of the 
 Union Pacific Railroad, and of course omitting to supply the 
 required connexion of one hundred and fifty miles between the 
 Republican river and the eastern end of the Union Pacific Railroad, 
 without which connexion the Central Branch would be inoperative 
 as a through route. It is probably with a view to securing the 
 important Santa Y6 trade not only for itself, but for St. Louis, to 
 which city the trafiic of the Southern Branch will be carried. 
 
 The Atchison and Pike's Peak Railroad Company remonstrated 
 
against this change, which would cut them off from the obje6l of 
 their work, but the permission was given, and they now claim that, 
 having been deprived of vested rights by the change, they should be 
 enabled by Congress to build the wanting se6tion of one hundred 
 and fifty miles, by having granted to them the full subsidy for that 
 portion, as it is now allowed for the one hundred miles already 
 authorized. They urge that unless that seflion be built, the one 
 hundred miles will not be a portion of the Pacific Railroad system, 
 but will be an isolated line of road. They claim that it would not 
 be fair, nor indeed possible, for them to build the extra road without 
 the same allowance as that already granted for all the rest. 
 
 An effort will therefore be made to induce Congress, at its next 
 session, to grant the subsidy referred to. The Company will repre- 
 sent the incalculable value to the country at large of a railroad con- 
 nedting Northern Missouri with the great Pacific coast. They urge, 
 too, that it is but justice to the people of Atchison that the road 
 should be carried through, as their trade has materially fallen off in 
 consequence of the opening up of other roads, in the absence of 
 railroad facilities through Atchison, which is the normal outlet for a 
 large and important se<5tion. It is claimed, too, that this is much 
 the most rehable route, as less snowfalls along this line and in 
 North Missouri (on the parallel of forty degrees) than in two or 
 three degrees either north or south of that parallel. 
 
 VISITING THE ROAD. 
 
 The second twenty miles of the Central Branch being completed, 
 the government commissioners went out last week to inspe6l it, pre- 
 vious to the payment of the subsidy of $16,000 per mile. The 
 commissioners are: Brevet Brigadier-General J. H. Simpson, Presi- 
 dent of the Corps of Civil Engineers at Washington ; Dr. W. M- 
 White, of New Haven, Connecticut ; and General Curtis. The offi- 
 cers and stockholders of the road deemed it a good opportunity to 
 go out and see what was being done with the money, and what kind 
 of a country lay around it, and on the way to it. An excursion 
 party was organized, which left New York on the morning of Tues- 
 day, the thirteenth instant, and increased as it went westward. The 
 excursionists arrived in Chicago on Wednesday evening, and after 
 spending Thursday in seeing the sights of the city, left on Friday 
 
morning for Kansas, ina the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, and 
 the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroads. 
 [Here follows a list of the excursionists.] 
 
 THE EXCURSION 
 
 Was a most comfortable one ; carried out with a view to quiet enjoy- 
 ment of the journey. Nothing was omitted which could conduce to 
 the real comfort of the party individually and collc6lively, while no 
 provision was made for boisterous mirth. The railroad companies 
 placed at the disposal of the tourists everything needed, the Michi- 
 gan Southern sending its luxurious direftors' car through to Kansas, 
 and the Michigan Central lending its magnificent new car as far as 
 Quincy. 
 
 The " Union Pacific Car," in which the majority of the Eastern 
 excursionists were bestowed during the trip, merits a short descrip- 
 tion, as it is intended for use on the road in that now far West, 
 carrying thither all the ease, if not all the luxuriance, allotted to tra- 
 vellers by rail on the Atlantic side of the Missouri. It was built by 
 Messrs. Cunningham & Sons, of Jersey City, for the company. It 
 has seats for sixty persons, is forty-three feet long, and has high- 
 deck and " compromise " wheels, being made to run on either the 
 broad or the narrow gauge. It is fitted in oak, with walnut trim- 
 mings, ground-glass deck lights, and gold bands around the ceiling. 
 The seats are upholstered with green Brussels, and the carpets are 
 of the same material. The arrangements for lighting, heating, and 
 ventilating are as near perfect as is usually attained on this sub- 
 lunary sphere. There is no attempt at elegance, but a strict regard 
 to the essentials of comfort and durability. Of the temporary gar- 
 niture, we may note the portrait of the contractor for the road- 
 Colonel William Osborne— and a beautiful flag, the banner of the 
 State of New York, wrought in beautiful taste in woollen embroidery, 
 the work of a lady friend of one of the Directors, and prepared for 
 the occasion. On one end was the inscription (Psalm cxxvii. i), 
 " Except the Lord build the house they labor in vain that build it." 
 The text was chosen with reference to the ceremonial appointed for 
 the Sabbath at Atchison, the commencement of a tabernacle for the 
 service of the Most High in that far Western clime, which ten years 
 ago had scarce been trodden by the foot of the white man, and now 
 
 2* 
 
34 
 
 blossoms as the rose, threatening to rival the well cultivated spots 
 of the East in the claim to be called the " Garden of Eden." 
 
 THE ARRAXGEMENTS 
 
 Deserve more than a passing notice. They were a7( fait. There 
 was no bustle, no confusion ; not even the semblance of it. With 
 the aid of C. R. Allen, Esq., the President and Treasurer marshalled 
 the forces in thorough discipline. They telegraphed forward for so 
 many rooms in each place, and then before the arrival of the train 
 had each member of the party assigned to such and such a room in 
 this or that hotel. The riding was all done by day. At night the 
 ladies took the omnibuses, the gentlemen walking to one hotel. 
 There the names were called off in the office, and each, on respond- 
 ing, was sent to the place allotted, methodically and quietly. All 
 were accommodated, and there was no crowding. 
 
 ACROSS ILLIXOIS, 
 
 The journey from Chicago to Quincy on the Mississippi, a dis- 
 tance of 265 miles, was performed between the hours of 8^ a.m. and 
 10 P.M., nearly twenty miles per hour, including stoppages. The 
 excursionists were much interested in looking out upon the vast 
 prairies of Illinois, and noting the evidences of high prosperity 
 everywhere observable. They questioned particularly about the 
 coal-fields of the State, as they saw the black diamonds piled up at 
 the pits at Princeton and Kewanee. The thriving city of Quincy, 
 with its 20,000 inhabitants, its substantial brick structures, rugged, 
 declivitous streets, and first-class hotels, pleased them much. They 
 bade good-by to Quincy and Illinois with many kindly remem- 
 brances. 
 
 Not the least notable of their remembrances of Illinois will be 
 the golden sunset on the prairies. It was a most magnificent sight, 
 fairly rivalling that well-known, oft-described phenomenon — the sun- 
 set at sea. A flood of golden light illumed the whole Western hori- 
 zon for many minutes ; and prominent amid the swimming, dazzling 
 mass, was one beauteous grouping, a sea of molten gold, with a 
 river of silver brightness flowing into it with meandering course. 
 The resemblance was so perfefl that one was tempted to believe it 
 a mirage, refledling Lake Pepin and a se6lion of the Upper Missis- 
 
35 
 
 sippi from the cloud banks in the firmament. It was a sight whose 
 luxuriance can scarcely be imagined, and would immortalize the 
 painter who could fix the hundredth part of its glory on canvas. 
 
 OVER THE RIVER. 
 
 The bosom of the great Father of Waters was never more placid 
 than when at early morn the party left their hotels for the boat to 
 cross to the Missouri shore. The sun shone brightly, and his rays 
 were reflefted in floods of golden light from the unrippled surface 
 of the Paftolian stream, which washes up greenbacks, if not gold, 
 to tens of thousands of dwellers on its banks, and carries the riches 
 of a great portion of the continent to the far-off lands beyond the 
 ocean's tide. It was rather cold, but we enjoyed it. The cool, clear 
 atmosphere a6led as a powerful tonic, none the less welcome because 
 many of the party were on a tour of relaxation. The exuberance 
 of spirits broke out ere the boat had left her moorings, in the 
 formation of a Kickapoo Club, which, thenceforth, was the life and 
 soul of the party. 
 
 THE KICKAPOOS 
 
 Were not organized from among a band of Indians, but composed of 
 white people, whose express work it was to kick up hitr-rahs on any 
 and every possible occasion for the amusement of the company. 
 They had their singist, poetist, speakist, a few other ists, and lastly 
 a demi-john-ist, the latter office being, however, a sinecure, as but 
 little of the ardent was visible through the trip. Truth compels us 
 to say tliat the Kickapoos were (like Falstaff) not so much witty 
 themselves, as the cause of wit in others. Their singing was very 
 good, and their cheering, if not itispiriiig, was original — in fa6l, siii 
 generis. As an instance of the rattling volleys drawn by the fire of 
 these raw recruits, we may mention a speech made by Rev. Stephen 
 H. Tyng (son of Rev. S. H. Tyng, D.D.) at Brookfield, where the 
 party halted for dinner on Saturday. The Kickapoos called on him 
 for a speech, and he addressed the citizens of Brookfield in a 
 humorous talk of about three minutes, in which he introduced his 
 Indian friends and their squaws, told how they came into existence 
 and to that place, what they came for, and where they were going to, 
 and ended with an exhortation to his hearers not to be imposed on 
 
36 
 
 in the future by such a precious set of hypocrites. The Kickapoos, 
 as in duty bound, sustained their own witness, giving him three 
 hearty cheers in their own expressive faslvion — sh ! sh ! sh ! 
 
 THROUGH MISSOURI. 
 
 About nine o'clock on Saturday morning the party landed in Mis- 
 souri, and took the cars of the Ouincy and Palmyra Railroad, a line 
 of about twelve miles in length, then running into the Hannibal and 
 St. Joseph Railroad, but now forming a branch of that road. Just 
 before the cars got under way, the conversation was suspended for 
 a few moments while the Giver of all good was asked for a blessing 
 on the journey of the day, the devotions being led by Rev. Mr. 
 Tyng, in the Union Pacific Railroad car, and by Rev. Dr. Webb, in 
 the Michigan Southern car. Then the iron horse snorted as if im- 
 patient to be gone, and slowly the excursion train moved on its way. 
 At Palmyra a stop of a few minutes was made, and then : West- 
 ward ho ! to 
 
 " Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea." 
 
 The journey across the State of Missouri, from Quincy to St. 
 Joseph (204 miles), was a most interesting one, the scenery forming 
 a most pleasing contrast with that presented to the eye on the pre- 
 vious day. On Friday the broad prairies of Illinois had been spread 
 out to the gaze of the traveller — an almost ocean-like expanse ; on 
 Saturday, rough crags, ragged bluffs, meandering valleys, and thick 
 forests, while here and there were pointed out the scenes of terrible 
 strife, of guerilla raids, of bridge burnings and house levelhngs, by 
 the rebel hordes during the war. Now the train would plunge along 
 a deep cutting, precipitous banks on each side frowning down upon 
 the spe6lator, and anon the tree-tops were beneath the iron rails, 
 and the traveller looked down wonderingly at the yawing gulf be- 
 neath, like the balloon voyager, who sees the world moving beneath 
 him, and hears the clouds rolling their thunders harmlessly at his 
 feet. Here, for miles, the miniature hills and valleys, the woods and 
 the prairie openings, presented no signs of civilization, the sole 
 visible spot which the altering hand of man had touched, being that 
 long, narrow strip of iron road along which the train was moving ; 
 there, amid the distant trees, the curling smoke gave signs that 
 humanity had marked the spot for its own, and sheep and cattle told 
 
of human owners not far distant. Then the scene would change, 
 and for miles the country exhibited high cultivation. Thousands of 
 acres of corn yet stood in the fields, uncut or in shocks, and horses, 
 singly or in groups, relieved the loneliness of the scene. 
 
 THE PRAIRIE ON FIRE. 
 
 This during the day: the latter third of the Missouri journey was 
 accomplished after the pall of night had fallen, and over a stretch 
 of scarce broken prairie country. The night scene was grand. 
 About six o'clock, the cry, " The prairie is on fire," caused a rush 
 to the windows. Half a mile to the south a line of light flame ex- 
 tended three or four hundred yards across the meridian. The flame 
 varied from a few inches to a couple of yards in height. It seemed 
 to sweep along slowly and steadily, dying out in one spot, and 
 springing up in another. This had been passed but a few minutes 
 when a grander specimen of prairie burning was met. The fire was 
 " swinging round a circle " of nearly half a mile in diameter, one 
 side of which came almost close to the track ; it seemed to be 
 moving in a westerly direction, and it needed but a slight stretch of 
 fancy to conjure up a dark towering form in the centre around which 
 myriads of sprites were dancing in flickering homage. Presently a 
 solid block of flame, apparently several yards in thickness, shot up 
 towards the sky. Scarcely was this passed when a long serpentine 
 wreath of flame was crossed by the locomotive, tortuous as the 
 course of the Mississippi, and extending out on either side of the 
 track to the distance of much more than a mile. Still the train 
 rolled along, and other sheets, and films, and blocks, and wreaths of 
 fire were seen to the right and left almost till the train reached St. 
 Joseph. 
 
 These prairie burnings are frequent in the fall of the year ; when 
 the grass is dry and withering, it burns like tinder. It is easy 
 enough to account for the burning, but not so easy to account for 
 the setting on fire. The theory of the people in that seflion is, that 
 the grass is set on fire by the gun-wadding used by hunters ; but it 
 is difficult to believe that there were enough hunters out on Saturday 
 evening to set the prairie on fire in a hundred different places, and 
 at least so many separate burning spots were visible far and near 
 along the line of travel. We will not endeavor to explain the origin 
 
38 
 
 of the phenomenon, which amply compensated the excursionists for 
 the omission of the grand meteoric display, which did not come off 
 as expe6led. 
 
 The Missouri portion of the trip was most agreeable. The road 
 was in excellent condition, having been recently much improved, the 
 carriages first class, the fare excellent, and the other attentions all 
 that could be desired. The party was joined early in the day by C. 
 W. Mead, Esq., the popular Superintendent of the Hannibal and St. 
 Joseph Railroad, and P. B. Groat, Esq., the General Passenger 
 Agent, and at Macon by General James H. Craig, the President of 
 the Road, whose genial wit kept in a roar of laughter such of the 
 party as could get within talking distance. Mr. Starring, the General 
 Agent, who joined the party at Chicago, was most efficient in the 
 discharge of the duty assumed by him — that of ministering to the 
 general comfort of the wayfarers. We must not omit to mention as 
 prominent among the " attentions" of the officers of the Hannibal 
 and St. Joseph Railroad, the magnificent dinner provided for the 
 entire party by them at Brookfield, the half-way house between 
 Ouincy and St. Joseph. It was " a feast fit for the gods," having as 
 recommendations, not only quahty, but those rare attributes, quan- 
 tity and readiness. The tables were so well served that in less than 
 two minutes from the time the train stopped the whole party was 
 seated and served, and after ample time had been allowed for eating 
 (without waiting), it was found that there was plenty left. It was a 
 most agreeable surprise. It was not a table spread in the "howling 
 wilderness," but it was a most bountiful repast provided so far away 
 from any of the centres of civilization that it far exceeded the expefta- 
 tions of the most sanguine, and at the conclusion the approval of the 
 company vented itself in three hearty cheers for each of the officers 
 of the road, and three more for Mr. Blossom, the proprietor of the 
 establishment. It was a pleasant contrast to the dinner of the pre- 
 vious day, which, by the way, was but a sample of the general run of 
 the dinners at railway stations. There the party seated themselves 
 at the tables, on which were placed a few morsels of bread, one 
 chicken to about a dozen persons, and a few little pats of vegetables. 
 Not a waiter appeared till three-fourths of the stopping-time had 
 expired, and then the " diners " were called on to know whether they 
 would " like roast beef, roast mutton," etc., etc. There was plenty to 
 eat after the time for eating had gone by, and the time for paying 
 came. We refrain from publishing the name of the stopping-place, 
 
because that establishment is entitled to no particular ill-will. It's a 
 way they have in the army, of making money by saving the victuals. 
 There is no use in seleding any one railroad eating-house as the 
 obiea of special animadversion ; it is the rule to which there are but 
 few exceptions, the custom of which we would say, with Hamlet, 
 " Oh ! reform it altogether." 
 
 (A description follows of the portion of Missouri over which the 
 Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad passes.) 
 
 IN KANSAS. 
 
 At ten o'clock on Saturdav night the party reached Winthrop, and 
 took the boat for the other side of the Missouri, which is here more 
 than half a mile wide, and about twenty-two feet deep. The boat is 
 named W. B. Osborne, after the contrador for the building of the 
 Central Branch Union Pacific Railroad. The Kansas shore was 
 quickly reached, and ere long the whole party was safely within the 
 hotels and seated at well filled tables, refreshing themselves after 
 their weary journey in the State that, after years of suffering and ot 
 blood, is at last fulfilling her manifest destiny. The slaveocrats in 
 Kansas " accepted the inevitable when the inevitable came," much 
 sooner than they in the farther South ; and the State, relieved from 
 the curse of their presence, is now taking giant strides in the giant 
 march of the West. 
 
 ATCHISON. 
 
 A pleasant place is Atchison. It is situated on the western bank 
 of the Missouri, at a place on the river called " The Gate of the 
 West." An examination of the map (a good one) will show why. 
 " The Gate " is a graceful sweep of about twelve miles in length— 
 bow-shaped -the crown of the flat arch lying to the west, and 
 Atchison resting thereon. At each end of the sweep the stream 
 doubles under to the east, enclosing a semi-circular promontory of 
 half or three-quarters of a mile diameter ; the whole forming a 
 magnificent echinus, whose axis runs about two points to the west 
 of north. Just above the city is an island containing about two 
 seftions of fertile land, now under cultivation. The river in this 
 stretch is somewhat narrower than above and below, where it 
 
40 
 
 averages three-quarters of a mile, and twenty feet deep at ordinary- 
 low water. In flood times the water has been known to rise twenty- 
 five feet, but without overflow, the banks being high. It is at this 
 natural point that Atchison is located — the key of the whole position. 
 It is here that the travel of that whole se6lion naturally centres, and 
 will centre far more largely as the facilities for travelling are multi- 
 plied. Some idea of the amount of travel here in this part may be 
 gathered from the fa6l that but recently one man had in his employ 
 one thousand men, five thousand oxen, and two thousand mules, all 
 engaged hauhng between the " Gate " and the " Far West." With the 
 opening up of other railroad routes this force is now diminished, but 
 the " Central Branch " will ere long do twenty times the transporta- 
 tion, while the oxen and mules will be employed on subsidiary routes, 
 instead of the main avenue of traffic. 
 
 Atchison stands on the bluff", raised many feet above the water 
 level, which is reached by steep roads and inclined planes. It is a 
 hilly, uneven place, requiring no artificial drainage, having a pure 
 atmosphere, being free from malaria, and having but one disadvantage 
 — muddy water — though the Missouri water is very clear if allowed 
 to settle. It is only twelve years old, having been founded in 1854 
 by the pro-slavery party, who established there a paper to advocate 
 their doctrines, which it did in the most rabid manner. Some three 
 years later the place and paper were bought out by Senator Pomeroy, 
 and the whilom organ of slavery became a Free-Soil advocate. The 
 city of Atchison (it is now incorporated) was comparatively free from 
 the Lecompton, Topeka, and Lawrence troubles, and has grown 
 apace. It has now six thousand inhabitants, six church societies, 
 three fine hotels, two banks, two papers (both Republican), and 
 maintains sixteen lawyers. The Catholic church, when completed, 
 will have cost nearly $100,000 ; attached to it is now a seminary 
 containing about fifty young ladies, and a college, which numbers on 
 its rolls some seventy-five male students. The Baptist, Congrega- 
 tionalist, and Methodist societies, have each a church building, and 
 the Presbyterians a hall. The Episcopalians have laid the foundation 
 for a new church structure to cost about $20,000, and a residence for 
 the Bishop to cost $8,000 more. Atcliison has two large grist-mills, 
 the largest saw-mill in the State, a Masonic Hall, an Odd-Fellows' 
 Hall, and a wide-awake population. There are no public-school 
 buildings. Atchison stands on the school sedlion of the township, 
 and the site was sold when worth but little ; but the citizens stand a 
 
41 
 
 tax of about eight mills on the dollar for school purposes, and have a 
 fine corps of teachers, with a well graduated course. The children 
 are taught in the buildings already enumerated. The place is 
 destined to grow and increase more rapidly in the future than in the 
 past, when the great Pacific Railroad sends one of its branches 
 through the city. 
 
 Land in the central part of Atchison is held at $50 to $60 per front 
 foot ; near the outskirts about $600 per acre. 
 
 In the matter of hotels Atchison takes the lead. The party of 
 one hundred and twenty guests, with many visitors from the sur- 
 rounding country, were all entertained at the hotels without crowd- 
 ing, and with a commissariat fully equal in all respecls to that of the 
 Tremont or Sherman at Chicago. We ought not to omit mention 
 of the wine furnished ; it was the produ6l of Missouri, and a really 
 fine article, much better than the bastard Clicquot so often offered in 
 Chicago in place of the real article. The hotel-keepers of Atchison 
 deserve all praise for the admirable manner in which they catered to 
 the comfort of their guests. We will not make an invidious distinc- 
 tion where each did so well. 
 
 A SABBATH IN THE FAR WEST. 
 
 The Sabbath-day broke on the party at Atchison ; the Sabbath sun 
 welcomed them right royally to a day of rest in that Western city. 
 A bounteous supper and a good bed, a quiet conscience and a 
 healthy constitution, are good invigorators, and the party found it so. 
 Probably half an hour was occupied in sauntering around the streets, 
 mounting to the top of the highest bluff", and scanning the surround- 
 ing country, or taking in the magnificent sweep of the Missouri, 
 whose broad surface eastward reflefted the rays of the morning sun 
 to the eye, dazzling the retina, while the western range shone like a 
 sheet of pure, almost dead white. The return, and the breakfast, 
 and then church, dinner, afternoon conversation, a sacred song 
 round the piano, supper, the evening church gathering, and a subse- 
 quent stroll, or sacred singing, closed the day to the party. It was 
 a regular New England Sabbath, without the Puritanic rigor which 
 deprives it of comfort. It was pleasant to observe, too, that the 
 Atchison people were all of the same mind. The saloons were 
 rigidly closed — it was difficult even to get a cigar. The post-office 
 
42 
 
 was open for one hour only, in the middle of the day. The people 
 all seemed to attend church. We were very favorably impressed by 
 the social aspeft of Atchison, and the more pleased as one is prepared 
 to meet with a little laxity in such a place, if anywhere. Chicago, on 
 Sunday, is a very Babel compared to Atchison. 
 
 It had been announced that the corner-stone of an Episcopal 
 church would be laid on Sunday, but the interesting ceremony did 
 not occur. The Episcopal Society is the only one which has not a 
 building in which to worship God. They have put in the founda- 
 tions of a neat little structure, intended to cost some $25,000; the 
 building will probably be finished early in next year. Episcopal 
 service was held in the morning in a large hall in Price's block, 
 which was attended by a majority of the excursionists and a large 
 number of citizens, the room being very well filled. The prayers 
 were read by the reftor — Rev. John Bakewell — after which Rev. S. 
 H. Tyng, Jr., preached a very impressi\'e sermon, the leading idea 
 of which was that Jesus, who was crucified, still lives — in glory 
 above, and on earth in the hearts of his saints. The sermon was a 
 plain review of the whole plan of Gospel salvation — its beginning the 
 justification of the sinner, its end holiness to the Lord. 
 
 Bishop Vail (of Kansas) then briefly welcomed the excursionists 
 to the State. Mr. Tyng then appealed to the assembly in behalf of 
 the church. It was intended to "build a house" to the Lord of 
 Hosts, and money was needed. A building was also needed for the 
 residence of the bishop. Bishop Vail had offered to subscribe 
 $1,000 towards it out of his own private purse ; but this should not 
 be accepted : it was not just. Subscriptions would be gladly receiv- 
 ed in aid of the cause, and the speaker would make a personal can- 
 vass among the excursionists ere they left the city. 
 
 A number of subscriptions were handed in at the close of the 
 services. 
 
 In the evening, a Union Bible Society was held in the Congrega- 
 tional Hall, which was very largely attended. A. G. Otis, Esq., 
 presided. After a recognition of the Divine presence. Bishop Vail 
 stated the object of the gathering. It was to provide for the placing 
 of a copy of the Word of God in the hands of every adult in the 
 county. The Bishop was followed by Rev. S. H. Tyng, Senator 
 Pomeroy, and Rev. Dr. Webb. Rev. S. D. Storrs (Congregationalist), 
 Rev. W. K. Marshall (Methodist), Rev. E. P. Lewis (Presbyterian), 
 and Rev. J. Blakewell (Episcopalian), were present. About one 
 
43 
 
 hundred dollars were taken up in collection at the close of the 
 meeting. 
 
 Mr. Claflin, father of the Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts, 
 completed his seventy-fifth birthday. 
 
 THE NEW ROAD. 
 
 The real excursion was taken on Monday. At ten o'clock five 
 passenger cars rolled away from the depot of Atchison filled with 
 excursionists, and preceded by another car containing a well ar- 
 ranged commissariat for the journey. The original party had been 
 largely reinforced by residents of the surrounding country, making 
 about three hundred, and including all the prominent gentlemen of 
 the se6tion, with numerous lady friends. A large party came over 
 from St. Joseph in the morning, and the roads in all direftions lead- 
 ing into Atchison presented a very lively appearance, vehicles of all 
 kinds dashing along, bearing those who were about to join the 
 excursionists. Several editors of papers published in and near At- 
 chison were also of the party. 
 
 THE ROAD AND COUNTRY. 
 
 The road over which the train bore the excursionists runs always 
 due west, turning a little here and there to suit the character of the 
 ground, but without any extensive curves or steep gradients. The 
 first twenty miles is marked by numerous cuttings and embank- 
 ments, and a few bridges ; after that the road departs but little from 
 the natural surface. The direftion of the road thus far is across the 
 country, cutting the ridges and valleys at right angles. West of that 
 the furrow lines of the route run in the other dire61ion — across the 
 meridian— and but little cutting or banking up is necessary. The 
 road is well built, the ties being large and of hard wood, running 
 two thousand seven hundred to the mile. The iron is from Troy, 
 N. Y., and Pennsylvania, and a little from Cleveland. The bridges 
 are well built, there being considerable quantities of gray limestone 
 at several points along the route, and station-houses are being 
 erected of the same material. The Commissioners pronounce it 
 excellent work. It is being performed under the supervision of C. 
 Gunn, Esq., Civil Engineer of the Road. A single telegraph wire 
 runs alongside the track, the beginning of a telegraph system 
 
44 
 
 which will ere long flash over the continent the wants, and thoughts, 
 and aftions of millions of people, whose homes will be on the bound- 
 less plains of the Great West, its fertile soil yielding food not only 
 for them but for other untold millions elsewhere. 
 
 As already indicated, the surface of the seftion passed through is 
 rolling, most of it being prairie. It has a good natural drainage, and 
 appears to be sufficiently watered, though that fa6t could not be well 
 ascertained in a trip through it at this season of the year. The soil 
 is deep, showing an average of perhaps a yard in thickness by the 
 sides of the cuttings, and reaching the astonishing depth of seventeen 
 feet eight inches in one bottom where a well was sunk, twenty-five 
 miles from Atchison. It rests on a subsoil of hard pan, the clay 
 being of a good quality for making bricks, being free from limestone. 
 This rests on a bed of grey Hmestone, and this again on shale. 
 Coal is believed to underlie the whole. It is a remarkable fadl that 
 the different strata have little or no dip, they do not even follow the 
 undulations of the soil, arguing an alluvial formation undisturbed by 
 upheavals. At the depth of about twenty feet the well borers find a 
 thin stratum of sand, containing numerous shells, showing that the 
 whole has been at one time under water, perhaps for ages. The 
 chara6ler of the soil may be inferred from the fa6l that the crop of 
 i860 was fully one-fourth of the average yield, though not a drop of 
 rain had fallen for fifteen months. 
 
 There is but little timber along the road, a regular gradation in 
 quantity being observable from east to west. Near Atchison it is 
 moderately plentiful ; grows scarcer to the limit of Atchison county, 
 eighteen miles out ; and on the Kickapoo Reserve shows but little 
 except in thin strips along Nigger creek, and a few smaller streams. 
 Geological research develops the remarkable and encouraging fa6l 
 that the vegetable growth is extending westward at the rate of about 
 two miles per year. The whole country from the Missouri river to 
 Denver was ages ago an arid desert. From four hundred miles to 
 about five hundred and fifty miles west of Atchison it is still barren, 
 and it is only for a few miles west of Atchison that the timber 
 growth has succeeded in establishing itself above the influence of 
 prairie fires. The timber is still creeping west, preceded some three 
 hundred miles by the grasses. Before many years have elapsed the 
 whole country will be grassed and susceptible to timber growth, a 
 result which will be materially aided by the presence of man. In 
 this connexion we may state that the aridity of Denver produces a 
 
45 
 
 very large alkaline spring, which gives forth potash enough to supply 
 the continent. 
 
 Climatologically, the line of the Hannibal and St. Joseph and' Cen- 
 tral Branch Union Pacific Railroad, lying near the fortieth parallel 
 of latitude, is much drier than the country north or south. It is 
 believed that it will be available for travel in winter often when the 
 other roads are blocked up by snow, and in like manner be free from 
 the disasters incident to heavy floods, especially as the line lies high 
 and dry, being well drained from rain and exposed to a wind-scour- 
 ing process sufficient to for ever keep it clear of snow. 
 
 The country is fast filling up. All the lands as far as the west 
 line of Atchison county were entered by private parties before the 
 road was decided on. These are now held at five to fifteen dollars 
 per acre ; good lands near the county line selling at $i,ooo the 
 quarter section. To compensate for this, the company holds 
 125,000 acres of magnificent land in the famous Kickapoo Reserve, 
 which will soon be in the market at from three to ten dollars per 
 acre. The land is at present unoccupied except by a few Indians of 
 the Kickapoo and Potawotomie tribes. The road runs through the 
 middle of the Reserve, which occupies the greater portion of Brown, 
 and parts of Atchison and Jackson counties. 
 
 The Atchison and Pike's Peak Railroad Company has contrafted 
 with Colonel Osborne to build the whole line of one hundred miles. 
 Sixty are now graded, and the iron laid on forty-five miles ; the other 
 fifteen will be covered by the iron rail by the tenth proximo. The 
 company has up to the present time expended about two miUions of 
 dollars, the capital stock being one million, with power to increase 
 to an amount equal to the expense of building the road. It is the 
 intention of the company, when the line is completed to the junftion 
 of the Union Pacific Railroad at or near Fort Kearney, to build a 
 line conne(5ling that point with the Southern Branch, thus striking 
 for the Santa Fe trade. This movement will largely benefit Northern 
 Missouri and Chicago, as the trade of Santa Fe is a great and 
 highly important one. 
 
 In this connection we may note that the " Eastern " branch has 
 now completed about one hundred and forty-six miles of its track 
 from Wyandotte, and it is rumored intends to make application to 
 take up their track at the eastern end, connecting with the Missouri 
 river at Leavenworth instead of Wyandotte, thirty miles distant, so 
 as to make the road run between Leavenworth and Lawrence, 
 
46 
 
 . instead of from Kansas City and Wyandotte to Lawrence as now. 
 Tlie Leavenwortli people are understood to be moving in this mat- 
 ter, deeming it of vital importance to their interests, as a proposed 
 cut-off from Lawrence to Pleasant Hill (about one hundred and 
 twenty-five miles) would leave them " out in the cold " without the 
 compensation of being with New England in that dread dilemma. 
 
 THE TRIP 
 
 Was performed with much interest. It was the culminating point 
 of attention of the whole route — the Ultima Th2ile of the travel. 
 About twenty-two miles out the train halted opposite the quarters of 
 Old Pettiquauk, or Captain Hamilton, the Kickapoo chief, whose 
 wigwam stands just inside the Reserve, opposite two thousand acres 
 of land owned by Major Keith, the Indian agent, who negotiated 
 the treaty for the government by which the Reserve became national 
 property. The cabin was an object of great curiosity, and was 
 thoroughly examined. The old chief had gone over the hill, but 
 his two squaws were there, with some half-a-dozen papooses, the 
 youngest of whom was carried by President Pomeroy through the 
 train, despite his urgent infantile protestations. Nobody kissed 
 him ! They say the two squaws do not quarrel, but are always on 
 the best of terms. We need not attempt to describe the interior of 
 the house, nor of its exafl counterpart — a bark wigwam near it — 
 which the genuine Indian always builds, whether you make him live 
 in a house or not. There was no scalp inside, save the unraised 
 ones on the heads of the women and children. One of the boys got 
 a good supply of greenbacks from the visitors. 
 
 Arrived at the end of the road, the party disembarked and looked 
 round. Track-laying was not in progress, they being short of iron. 
 The President sent a dispatch to Boston, and then ordered dinner, 
 which was scarcely finished ere the answer came, having been sent 
 one thousand five hundred miles each way, and crossed two great 
 rivers in each diredlion. The weather was lovely, like all that had 
 been met with in Kansas, as pretty a specimen of Indian summer as 
 one could wish for, and enough to enamor one of the seftion where 
 they have such charming seasons. The collation was spread, and 
 the party was soon seated in groups around the well-filled baskets, 
 discussing ham, chicken, turkey, biscuit, cheese, sausage, and v/ith 
 milk as a libation, while a few had a seasoning dash of champagne, 
 
47 
 
 of which, however, there was not enough for all. The meal was a 
 hearty one, the long ride over the prairies having given every one an 
 excellent appetite ; and the way the viands were put out of sight, 
 there in the midst of the howling wilderness, was a genuine caution 
 to boarding-house keepers to study the habits of the individual 
 before agreeing on the price. 
 
 An unexpected occurrence interrupted the dinner. The prairie 
 was on fire. A long, broad line of flame was discovered some half 
 a mile to the south, and it swept rapidly down to where the party 
 was sitting, making them vacate in double-quick style. Soon, where 
 they had been sitting was a smouldering plane of ashes. The road- 
 way stopped the progress of the flames, and the people on the other 
 side prepared their dinner in safety. 
 
 The meal concluded, the guests gathered around the rear car to 
 listen to a few speeches. They were short and to the point. 
 
 General Craig, President of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Rail- 
 road, on behalf of the citizens of St. Joe, extended a cordial invita- 
 tion to the excursionists and the people of Atchison to go down to 
 St. Joseph on the morrow and enjoy the hospitalities of the city. 
 
 The invitation was accepted by President Pomeroy, on behalf of 
 the Eastern excursionists, and by Senator Pomeroy, on behalf of 
 the Atchison people. 
 
 John M. Crowell, Esq., Mayor of Atchison, invited one and all to 
 meet at Price's Hall in the evening, for a good time. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Tyng, of New York, was dragged out from the social 
 circle he was mingling with. He delivered a humorous speech, 
 interspersed with stories. 
 
 General Curtis, the hero of Pea Ridge, was introduced and spoke 
 briefly, expressing his high sense of the compliment paid to Kansas 
 by the visit of such a distinguished party. They all desired to see 
 the prosperity of the whole country, but he was particularly inte- 
 rested in the welfare of the West, and looked forward to the time 
 when the people of Montana, and California, and Nevada, will 
 assemble on these rich and fertile prairies ; they will be followed at 
 no distant day by the people of China and Japan, who will use this 
 as the great highway of nations. 
 
 The following was offered by Mr. Allen : 
 
 " The East and the West — clasping hands across a broad terri- 
 tory — may the iron bonds which conneft them be a guarantee of 
 friendship to future generations." 
 
48 
 
 Judge Woodson, of St. Joseph, was called on, and paid a very 
 flattering compliment to the energy of the gentlemen and beauty of 
 the ladies who composed the excursion party. 
 
 Governor Smyth, of New Hampshire, was taken by surprise at 
 having been brought all the way to Kansas to make a speech. It 
 was a fine evidence of the progress of the age that such an excur- 
 sion into the bowels of a continent could be managed so success- 
 fully as was the present one. He never realized the extent of the 
 troubles of Kansas till he heard it on the preceding evening from 
 the lips of the Mayor of Atchison^himself a New Hampshire man, 
 who was a very good specimen of the kind of men and women they 
 raise in the Granite State. They had never seen prairies in his 
 State, but he would try to tell his neighbors what he had seen, and 
 trusted that, to some extent, it would benefit Kansas. 
 
 Dr. Webb, of Boston, had a word to say about the road ; more 
 than fifteen hundred miles from New York the party had come into 
 the heart of the country. He had been much impressed with the 
 significance of the fa6ls he noted on the way. He had especially 
 noted some things told him in Chicago, about her population of 
 225,000 people, all sprung up within the past thirty-five years. From 
 there to Ouincy, with her 25,000 inhabitants, he had been impressed 
 with the greatness of Illinois ; in St. Joseph 1,200 houses had been 
 built during the past year, and room is wanted still. In Atchison 
 they have 6,000 people, although in 1854 there was not a resident 
 there. Through all these cities this great Pacific tide of travel will 
 soon set in and multiply them a hundred fold. The wealth of these 
 prairies, their gold, silver, coal, invites and will attraft millions from 
 Europe and the Eastern States. Within five years an excursion 
 of thousands will take place, to pic-nic at the foot of the Rocky 
 Mountains, while millions will go there to stay. 
 
 E. H. Nichols, Esq., of New York, Treasurer of the road, spoke 
 at length on the inception of the road, the call for a transcontinental 
 highway on the parallel of forty degrees, and the future prospers 
 of the road. The chief fafts in his review will be found in a forither 
 column. 
 
 Pardee Butler was called for. Eleven years ago he came to Atchi- 
 son and went on a " visit of exploration " down the Missouri, and 
 came out in a peculiar dress — tar and feathers. (He was thus 
 branded for his opposition to slavery.) The millennium is here 
 now — not in the future. The Scripture tells us that one of the 
 
49 
 
 marks of the millennium is that the lion shall lie down with the lamb. 
 The little child is scarcely leading them yet, but his mother is 
 doing it, and soon there will be universal and perpetual peace and 
 harmony. 
 
 Colonel Clapp, of Boston, was called for, and spoke shortly and to 
 the purpose. He eulogized the energy and whole-souled conduct 
 of the President of the road, Mr. Pomeroy, and proposed to give 
 him a simple testimonial of their sentiments — each one sending a 
 ca7'te de visite to him, or, rather, to his able Adjutant-General, Allen. 
 
 Senator Pomeroy was the last speaker. He was introduced as 
 the able, energetic, hard-working Senator from Kansas. He would 
 not then detain them, but would only say, as an old darkey said to 
 him twelve years ago, " there is a heap of cleared land in Kansas," 
 and that he would add — it is free soil. They loved Kansas, because 
 it had been consecrated by their labor and their blood. The soil 
 will support as much of a population as they can get in a hundred 
 years to come here. And Nebraska will be in the Union next 
 January. Colorado, Deseret, and Nevada, will soon be in the great 
 arch of States of which Kansas will be the keystone — all of one 
 character — all free. The Senator concluded by exhibiting a sample 
 of the cotton raised in the State, and which was going to the World's 
 Fair in Pans next year ; also some other agricultural produsft. 
 
 The cry " all aboard" was then sounded, and the party took the 
 cars for Atchison, where they arrived in time for the evening meal, 
 all well pleased with the trip into the heart of what was so recently 
 " Bleedins Kansas." 
 
 RECEPTION IN THE EVENING. 
 
 A gathering of the citizens of Atchison was held in the evening, 
 for the purpose of welcoming the excursionists, in Presbyterian 
 Hall. Hon. A. G. Otis was chosen chairman, and Judge Adams 
 and Colonel Martin, of the two Atchison papers, were chosen secre- 
 taries. The chairman stated the objedl of the meeting, and welcomed 
 the excursionists to the city. He referred proudly to the stretch 
 of country which the party had that day visited. It was a magni- 
 ficent section, and had an unequalled country around it. He remem- 
 bered the time when this was indeed an isolated pioneer country, 
 but, thank God, it is so no longer. We are now reversing the old 
 
 3 
 
50 
 
 order of things — building tlie railroad first and letting civilization 
 follow. He only hoped that the excursionists could stay with them 
 always. 
 
 R. M. Pomeroy, Esq., the President of the road, was loudly called 
 for and cheered most enthusiastically. He was proud and surprised 
 to visit the city, and to ride over its prairies seeing what a great 
 country it is. Atchison was a much more cultivated city than he 
 expected; indeed, he felt in walking its streets that he was almost in 
 Boston. The trip was a most pleasant one, not a single incident 
 had occurred to mar its pleasure. 
 
 Senator Pomeroy was the next speaker. He had a word to say 
 of Kansas and her people. It begins to be known now that they are 
 somewhere. When the Nebraska bill was passed it was said by one 
 Congressman that they would have to reach it by way of California. 
 But it is a beautiful country — beautiful as the sight over which the 
 morning stars sang together. Not only is the soil inexhaustible, but 
 it is free, and one of the largest States in the Union. New York 
 has but 47,000 square miles. Kansas has 115,000 square miles ; it 
 is as large as two Pensylvanias. It has a fine central position. It 
 supphes bacon to Colorado, and cotton and wool to the East. In 
 climate, soil, and position, it is second to none. And what of her 
 people ? No big cities, but plenty of work done. Kansas has been 
 in trouble ; first within her own borders, and then during the great 
 war. This had prevented improvement in a great degree. And 
 Kansas did nobly during the war. She had twenty thousand men in 
 the field, furnishing more men than the whole country did to the 
 war with Mexico. And she furnished none for the rebellion, and 
 never was a loyal draft enforced in the State, neither was a Kansas 
 regiment ever surrendered. More soldiers from this State perished 
 in the line of battle than from any other, in proportion to their num- 
 bers. This was why the State had not done more for internal 
 improvement. He had found, in canvassing the State, that nearly 
 every soldier had settled on a quarter section of land, and was 
 engaged in developing the countr)^ What they are doing to-day is 
 only the shadow of the substance of greatness that is to follow. 
 Kansas, too, increased her majorities at the last eleftion. It is the 
 men of the West who have taken hold. The resources of the coun- 
 try have not yet been touched. Our debt of three thousand millions 
 is nothing now, though appalling at the beginning, and is rapidly 
 decreasing at the rate of twenty millions a month, and this on a 
 
51 
 
 reduced taxation, the tax being entirely taken off railroad iron. Yet 
 our resources are undeveloped, as the country is unknown. 
 
 General Simpson, Commissioner of the Pacific Railroads, was 
 then introduced and warmly received. He sketched the substance 
 of the three especial a6ts of Congress bearing on the Pacific Rail- 
 road question (1862, 1864, and 1865). The connexion was seen to 
 be necessary. The gold mines of California demanded a quick 
 mode of transit, and its population pointed the call for quick rela- 
 tionship. A bird's-eye view of the country from the Missouri river 
 to the Atlantic shows it to be chequered wi^i railroads, while inter- 
 vening between the Missouri and California are great deserts and 
 mountains almost impassable. Those difficulties seemed insuperable 
 at first, but have been conquered ; and in the providence of the 
 Almighty the great work was commenced in the midst of the most 
 gigantic war the world had seen. 
 
 The question arose how to meet this want. A great coast line 
 existed, each part of which was interested in having the initial point 
 located to meet its wants. Congress united these confli6ling inte- 
 rests by authorizing a central line west of the one hundredth meri- 
 dian, and five branches on the eastern part of the continent. The 
 speaker then sketched the main features of the Atchison line and the 
 changes made in the direction of the Union Pacific Railroad Eastern 
 branch, as already detailed. The Sioux City branch and the Union 
 Pacific Railroad, from Omaha to the base of the Rocky Mountains, 
 are entitled to a subsidy of $16,000 per mile, and the latter road 
 three times that for one hundred and fifty miles west of the Rocky 
 Mountains. The Atchison line and the Eastern Branch have also 
 the subsidy, and all have land grants. The Northwestern Road has 
 now completed its road to two hundred and ninety-two miles over 
 the Missouri to the north fork of the Platte. The Southerly Branch 
 has reached one hundred and fifty miles from the initial point ; the 
 other two roads have done nothing as yet. The Central Pacific 
 Railroad was begun at Sacramento, and it is in running condition 
 from there to Cisco, a distance of ninety-two miles, attaining at the 
 latter place a height of six thousand feet. They have ten thousand 
 men engaged on the Sierra Nevada in tunnelling and grading. The 
 work is being done in the most durable form. Their iron, sixty- 
 pounds to the yard and sixty-six pounds in the mountain, ties of red 
 wood, and their tunnels open for double tracks. They have sur- 
 veyed six or seven routes, and the Humboldt route is thus far the 
 
52 
 
 most favorable. In 1870 they expert to reach Salt Lake. The 
 Union Pacific has made the most careful surveys, and they find a 
 route praflicable with short grades, none exceeding one hundred 
 and sixteen feet to the mile. The exa6l route will be determined in 
 a few days. A road can be obtained from Salt Lake to the Hum- 
 boldt with a grade not exceeding sixty feet to the mile, or a cutting 
 of more than nine feet. The California Central is also entitled to 
 a subsidy in bonds. 
 
 The law contemplates that this great route shall be finished by 
 1877, under forfeiture. It will be finished in five or six years, but 
 more legislation is needed. Utah abounds with men ready to work, 
 and material, both wood and iron. It only needs the capital. The 
 law, however, only allows working three hundred miles in advance 
 of the iron. This is not enough for the Union Pacific Railroad, 
 which should be permitted to work eight hundred or nine hundred 
 miles ahead of the track. 
 
 Such a law will probably be passed. The people are all wanting 
 it, and the papers are demanding it ; Congress will accede to the 
 request. The laying of the Atlantic cable will be speedily followed 
 by the railroad and the telegraph lines across the continent. 
 
 Effingham H. Nichols, Esq, the Treasurer of the road, thanked, 
 in brief but expressive terms, the people of Atchison for the kind 
 welcome extended. They were proud of it, and were pleased with 
 the country they had visited. They wanted the citizens of Atchison 
 to aid them in the endeavor, at the coming session of Congress, to 
 gain the subsidy of $16,000 per mile for building the one hundred 
 and fifty miles of road which had been vacated by the Smoky Hill 
 Bill. Atchison is a favored place. The Missouri is navigable for 
 two thousand five hundred miles above Atchison, which is located 
 on a great sweep of the river, called " The Gate of the West." 
 
 In aiding the railroad company the people of Atchison would be 
 subserving their own interests, and aiding to build up the country at 
 large, in fulfilling its magnificent destiny. 
 
 Mr. Hale, of Boston, said — The whirligig of time brings about its 
 revenges. The name which, but a few years ago, was associated with 
 stories of bushwhackers, is now the appellation of the noble city in which 
 he then stood, not on the wide prairie, but in a spacious hall, equal 
 to many on the Atlantic shore. He could but revert to the grave of 
 Old John Brown, who was known out here, and now lies among the 
 Adirondacks, with a large boulder at the head of his grave, on which 
 
stone was cut simply, in letters a foot long and an inch deep, the 
 inscription, "John Brown : 1859." The speaker then dwelt at some 
 length on the past history of Kansas, in the times when Senator 
 Pomeroy and others came out with a rifle in one hand, a church 
 under each arm, and a school-house in his breeches pocket. They 
 came to prevent Kansas from being separated from Massachusetts, 
 and he trusted that the iron bands, now being laid down, would bind 
 the two States still more closely together than they even now are, 
 though bound with a cord of Union which cannot be broken. The 
 best way to succeed was to work for the mutual interests of both 
 seftions. The stockholders of the road look to the people of Atchi- 
 son to aid them in a case where gross injustice has been done. 
 Would they do it .'' It were of far greater importance to the people 
 of Atchison than to the stockholders ; to the first it was a question 
 of all time, to the second it is only the question of an hour. 
 
 The meeting was then briefly addressed by Judge Graham, of 
 Atchison, who was followed by Mr. Glick, resident attorney of the 
 road. The latter gentleman gave a graphic account of the condition 
 and prospers of Kansas, with her inexhaustible stores of coal, and 
 stone, and marble, and saltpetre, alum, and alkali. She had increased 
 her population twenty-five thousand the past year, and there is room 
 for many millions. 
 
 The party then adjourned to Price's Hall, where an hour or two 
 was spent very pleasantly in dancing and becoming more intimately 
 acquainted with each other. 
 
 CHANGE OF NAME. 
 
 A meeting of the stockholders of the road was held after the 
 excursion, in Atchison, at which a majority of the stock was repre- 
 sented. It was unanimously resolved to change the name from the 
 " Atchison and Pike's Peak Railroad " to " The Central Branch 
 Union Pacific Railroad." The laws of Kansas allow of this being 
 done at a meeting at which a majority of the stock is represented. 
 
 CONFERENCE WITH THE INDIANS. 
 
 The direftors of the Union Pacific Railroad Company, Central 
 Branch, were visited on Tuesday, at Atchison, by three of the five 
 
54 
 
 great chiefs of the Kickapoo tribe, who came to complain of certain 
 damages sustained from the railroad work, and to demand redress. 
 The following are the names of the distinguished braves, with their 
 English translation : Poh-kan-kah, or John Kennekuk ; Parthee, or 
 the Elk Chief; Pet-ti-quank, or Rolling Thunder. They were 
 accompanied by F. G. Adams, Esq., Agent of the Kennekuk Indians 
 and General Superintendent ; Thomas Murphy, Esq., Central Super- 
 intendent, and their interpreter, a young man of about twenty-two, 
 well educated and of pleasing address. 
 
 The " negotiations " were of a very formal charadler, the Indians 
 comporting themselves with as much dignity as though invested 
 with as much of the " divinity (that) doth hedge a king," as was the 
 usurping autocrat of Denmark. They seated themselves, with their 
 heads covered, while the railroad magnates were required to stand 
 "with sinciput bare," and furnish the cigars into the bargain. Mr. 
 Nichols, the Treasurer, conducted the negotiations on behalf of the 
 company, and so technical were the braves that they would not reply 
 to remarks made by others. The chiefs and interpreter were each 
 presented with a sack of flour, in addition to the agreed compensa- 
 tion for the trifling damages sustained by the red men. 
 
 ST. JOSEPH. 
 
 About noon the excursionists bade adieu to Atchison and its many 
 pleasing associations, not without a feeling of regret at the parting. 
 They crossed the river, the sun shining brightly, and, while on the 
 bosom of the Missouri, added another to the list of their good works 
 in Atchison, taking up a handsome colIe6lion for the benefit of the 
 African church now building in that city. Dr. Webb also announced 
 an anonymous charity, the gift of seventy-five dollars to the Congre- 
 gational Church (Rev. Mr. Storrs). After some delay, arising from 
 the necessity of sending the boat back for a few dilatory ones, and 
 about fifteen of the citizens of Atchison, the train rolled away towards 
 St. Joseph, where it arrived about two o'clock. 
 
 The party was met at the depot by the Mayor of the city, Arm- 
 strong Beattie, Esq., General Craig, President of the Hannibal & 
 St. Joseph Railroad, several of the city ofificials, the St. Joseph Fire 
 Company, and a large concourse of citizens, who received the excur- 
 sionists with loud cheers as they stepped on the platform. Carriage.^ 
 
55 
 
 were provided for the guests, and the long Hne, preceded by a fine 
 band of music and the entire fire department of the city in their 
 simple but picturesque uniform, moved through the principal streets to 
 Brady's Hall, on Felix street, where, after a few introdudions to the 
 citizens, the assemblage was called to order by General Craig, and 
 the hospitalities of St. Joseph were formally tendered to the excur- 
 sionists. The platform was occupied by several distinguished 
 gentlemen, few of whom spoke, and those briefly, there being not 
 much time for talking. President Ralph M. Pomeroy thanked the 
 citizens for the honor conferred on the party, and then General 
 Curtis, the Government Commissioner and the hero of Pea Ridge, 
 was loudly called for. The General had not long since taken mili- 
 tary possession of the city, and he referred to the faft in a good- 
 humored way ; it was easy to tell from the plaudits which answered 
 his remarks, that none of his hearers felt particularly insulted by the 
 capture. The General was indeed the hero of the day. He was 
 followed by ex-Mayor Powell, of Brooklyn, New York. Music by 
 the band followed, and then Dr. Webb delivered a spicy address, 
 which kept the audience in a roar. General Simpson followed, and 
 at the close of his remarks the call of " dinner " was the signal for 
 an adjournment to the spacious parlors of the Pacific Hotel, and 
 thence to the dining-room, where a most excellent dinner was served, 
 and was done full justice to. 
 
 The dinner over, Mr. Pomeroy gave thanks to the citizens for 
 their kind hospitahties. His remarks were eloquently responded 
 to by Hon. Charles Wilkinson, of the St. Joseph Herald. 
 
 The train was in waiting, and was soon reached. Arrived at the 
 depot three hearty cheers were given for St. Joseph and her noble- 
 hearted citizens, and at five o'clock the party moved along towards 
 Leavenworth amid much cheering, waving of handkerchiefs, etc. 
 
 St. Joseph is a stirring city of some twenty-five thousand inhabit- 
 ants, inhabiting about seven se6tions of land, and having a municipal 
 valuation of six millions of dollars. It is situated on the east bank 
 of the Missouri, twenty miles above Atchison, and has a large river 
 front and business, supplying about two-thirds of the Arkansas trade. 
 As an evidence of its prosperity, we may state that one thousand 
 new buildings have been eredled within the past year — a rate of in- 
 crease about proportional to the growth of Chicago ; three of these 
 buildings were substantial brick school-houses, in addition to the 
 four previously in use. St. Joseph contains nine hotels and eight 
 
56 
 
 churches. It has grown up with the Missouri River trade, of which 
 it is a principal depot, since 1843, when it was first laid out, the 
 whole site being then owned by two men — Joseph Reaubedaux and 
 Fred. Schmidt. The principal trade would seem to be in wagons, 
 draught animals, and provisions. 
 
 St. Joseph is an awkward-looking place, having a very irregular 
 site. Some of the streets have been cut down ten or twelve feet, 
 leaving the houses, which once stood on the street level, now perched 
 on a clay bank, a slide of which would bring the structure down into 
 the road. But the houses are well built, a majority being of brick, 
 and appear to be comfortably furnished. The people are enter- 
 prising, energetic, and large-hearted, and deserve great credit for 
 having reared a city so large and so prosperous, where so recently 
 was nothing but a howlins: wildernes. 
 
 DOWN THE RIVER. 
 
 The journey back to Winthrop was rapidly performed, and here 
 the Atchisonians bade good-by to their companions, who proceeded 
 by rail to Weston, a distance of about twenty-five miles down the 
 river, the road running alongside the stream through a wood thickly 
 lining the banks. At Weston, the boat E. Hensley was in waiting, 
 and the captain kindly volunteered to carry the party to Leavenworth, 
 free of charge. The distance of seven miles down the river was 
 soon accomplished. The night was clear, but cold, and those who 
 had the endurance to remain outside were amply repaid by the dim 
 view of the scenery along the banks. The chief objeft noticeable 
 in the trip was a long line of shoaly islands, or, rather, a succession 
 of banks, which rose in the middle of the stream ; a few snags were 
 also met with, and the dim outlines of the Fort were viewed with 
 interest. About nine o'clock the boat arrived at the Leavenworth 
 landing, and the party proceeded to the Planters' Hotel. 
 
 LEAVENWORTH 
 
 is the wonder of the Missouri Valley. Some of the party had been 
 inclined to look on Atchison as the only place of importance in 
 Kansas. They owned their error when they looked upon the fine 
 
57 
 
 streets and noble buildings of Leavenworth, and heard that twelve 
 years ago the first white child was born on the site of this now 
 beautiful city, and that then scarce a hundred persons owned it as 
 their shanty residence. Now it contains an enumerated population 
 of 25,000, stands on an area of nine square miles, has six daily 
 papers, sixteen churches, three of which are Catholic, and a CathoHc 
 cathedral in process of ereftion, has seventeen public schools, with 
 one high school, a property of $20,000 as a school fund, and had 
 last year an interior trade of $110,000,000. Outside the Fort there 
 are employed 14,780 wagons, and an equal number of drivers, 5,000 
 teamsters, and 143,000 catde, a capital of $11,307,200 being invested 
 in the "hauling" business; one man alone employs about 1,000 
 hands. The trade of the city is entirely interior — the supply of the 
 West beyond — and at the proper season an immense amount of 
 material is sent out to New Mexico, Texas, and other points south- 
 west. The city lies in a huge basin, hills rising all around it at the 
 distance of two or three miles, giving a good natural drainage, but 
 subjefling it to rather inconvenient washes in the time of heavy 
 rains, the water from the surrounding hills rushing through the 
 streets in torrents. They have an abundance of first-class stone, 
 and the best of brickmaking clay underlies the entire city, and 
 stretches away out to the prairies beyond. The price of central city 
 property is from $150 to $200 per front foot, and firmly held at that. 
 The hotel accommodations are ample. The Planters' Hotel alone 
 will sleep three hundred people comfortably. It is furnished in 
 excellent style. 
 
 Then outside of the town is the Fort — lying about two miles up 
 the river. It is presided over by Colonel J. W. Potter (now Brevet 
 Brigadier-General), well known in Chicago. The Fort is the supply 
 depot for the whole of that vast stretch of country lying westward, 
 the supjilies sent out last year reaching 60,000,000 pounds. Owing 
 to the short time allotted the party in Leavenworth, the Fort was 
 not visited, and we are unable to describe the interesting place. In 
 the moonlight it appeared pidluresque enough, and considerably 
 scattered, the surrounding buildings being probably the dweUings 
 of the workmen, teamsters, etc., and stabling for their horses and 
 cattle. 
 
 3* 
 
58 
 
 THE LAST OF KANSAS. 
 
 At seven o'clock Wednesday morning the bell sounded, as a signal 
 to begin the swing round the other side of the great circle of their 
 travel. The mail train of the Pacific Railroad of Missouri was in- 
 vaded by the party, a special train not being procurable. The first 
 forty miles of the road lay in Kansas, along the west bank of the 
 Missouri, and most of the way under a high bluff, which effectually 
 shuts out the country from view. The first part of the road skirts 
 the Delaware Reserve, and the Wyandotte Reserve lay a little be- 
 yond, both now opened up to settlement. Just inside the southern 
 boundary of the State, the Kansas River runs into the Missouri in 
 a direction almost due east. It is a wide stream, and is spanned by 
 a fine, substantial suspension bridge. On the north bank stands 
 Wyandotte, a thriving place. Here are located the railroad work- 
 shops, and several substantial private buildings. Rugged nature 
 has been very successfully battled with, high bluffs having been 
 " toned down " and rough places made smooth. The macadam 
 seems to have been plentifully used, the stone being almost granitic, 
 and making an admirable road bed. This place was the last the 
 party saw of Kansas State. The Rubicon was crossed about nine 
 o'clock in the morning, the part)- was once more in Missouri, their 
 faces turned homewards towards the risins: sun. 
 
 FOCAL POSITION OF KANSAS. 
 
 Bishop Vail, of Kansas, accompanied the part}- from Leavenworth 
 to St. Louis, and on the way down discoursed eloquently on the 
 position, condition, capabilities, and prospers of Kansas. He has 
 been in the State about two years, having been elected Diocesan 
 Bishop in 1864, and since that time has given his whole soul to the 
 work. He is a man of genial temperament, eminently practical in 
 his views, and well educated not only in college studies, but in the 
 book of the human heart. His diocese embraces about eleven Epis- 
 copal churches, principally located in the eastern part of the State. 
 
 Bishop Vail has an enthusiastic and abiding faith in the future 
 greatness of Kansas. He considers the State as one of the best in 
 the Union, both in regard to its internal character and external rela- 
 tions. There is no part of the State which is not valuable as agri- 
 
59 
 
 cultural land, not a spot where good building stone may not be 
 obtained within five miles, and no part of it but is well drained and 
 watered, though water power and timber are deficient, the latter, 
 however, being uniformly found along the streams which interse6l 
 every portion of the State. This last lack will be remedied as the 
 process of settlement goes on. He estimates the increase of the 
 population during the past year at one hundred thousand. He spoke 
 of the fa(5l that there are no adult natives in Kansas, the first-born 
 of the State being a young woman of some twenty summers, who 
 first saw the light at Topeka, the present State Capital, her father 
 being Indian Agent there. He looks upon Kansas as destined to be 
 the great (as it is now the geographical) centre of the Union — the 
 monument to the memory of Major Ogden, at Fort Riley, being the 
 exa6l centre of the United States and Territories. The overland 
 communication between the two great lines of settlement on the 
 Atlantic and Pacific slopes, converges midway to that portion of the 
 Missouri River which bounds Kansas and Southern Nebraska, which 
 forms the neck of a great natural hour-glass, through which the 
 sands of human sustenance and wealth now flow, and must flow in 
 the future with an ever increasing volume. Then, too, the State of 
 Kansas being the most westerly of the arable lands of the Atlantic 
 side, will be in the future the last great source from which will be 
 drawn the immense stores of produce needed to feed the dwellers in 
 those vast regions ; and inasmuch as in consequence of the heavy 
 freightage from the East, the States in that sedlion will be unable to 
 compete with the farmers of Kansas, the business of grain and stock 
 raising must always be profitable to a degree not known in the East. 
 This faft, once felt, will draw to that State ever increasing numbers 
 of hardy men, whose toil will be amply rewarded by the rich crops 
 oflfered by that fertile soil to the cultivator. 
 
 The Bishop gives an excellent account of the educational status 
 of the present and coming generations. The people now there are 
 the very best class of emigrants, well educated and enterprising. 
 They are largely American. The school-house is ordinarily the best 
 building in the township, and good teachers are eagerly sought after, 
 with remunerative salaries. 
 
 The great lack of the West is pine timber. In Missouri the hard 
 woods are plentiful, but for finishing purposes they are forced to rely 
 on supplies from other States, the great bulk of their lumber being 
 brought from Chicago. In Kansas the difiiculty is still greater, as 
 
6o 
 
 the sources of supply are more distant, and the expense of transit 
 proportionably greater. Kansas has some very good timber — oak, 
 Cottonwood, and walnut, being the principal varieties, and of good 
 quality, but of pine there is none. Along the bottoms all over the 
 State, and plentifully distributed in the eastern portions, is timber 
 enough to supply the State for centuries to come, with prospers of 
 an increase as the country becomes settled. 
 
 [Here follows a description of the portions of Central Missouri, 
 through which the Missouri Pacific Railroad passes ; and also, an 
 account of the meeting at Smithton, with the resolutions printed 
 above.] 
 
 The party then adjourned to the cars, with cheers, and proceeded 
 on the way to St. Louis. 
 
 ANOTHER CONTRIBUTION. 
 
 In the afternoon another collection was taken up on the cars, in 
 aid of a colored church in Ohio ; the sum of $206 was subscribed. 
 
 IN ST. LOUIS. 
 
 The party landed in St. Louis at one o'clock on Thursday morn- 
 ing after a fatiguing ride of over seventeen hours, and proceeded to 
 the Lindell Hotel, where, by the forethought of the managers of the 
 excursion, rooms had been engaged for all. 
 
 THE CITY. 
 
 The morning of Thursday was occupied in viewing the city of St. 
 Lou's ; some ascended to the magnificent dome of the City Hall, the 
 finest dome in the country save that at Washington, and looked 
 around with much interest on the big city of the Mississippi, which 
 covers an area of some thirty-six square miles. It has a river front- 
 age of nine miles, and an enumerated population of 200,264. Some 
 others visited the Mercantile Institute, whose three thousand five 
 hundred members have the use of a library containing some twenty- 
 seven thousand volumes, in a suite of rooms munificently adorned 
 with works of art — a series of fine paintings, and a colle6lion of 
 superb (that is scarcely the word) statuary, the latter the work of 
 a home artist, the well known Miss Hosmer. We notice, since 
 
6t 
 
 Missouri declared lierself on the side of freedom, more money has 
 been expended in one year in pubhc improvements in St. Louis than 
 in six years previously. Surely no better instance need be adduced 
 in illustration of the truth that " Honesty is the best policy." In 
 dealing honestly vi^ith those whose skins are a little darker than 
 their own, the whites of St. Louis find themselves prospering in an 
 unprecedented ratio. The magnificent hotels of the city are crowded ; 
 the levees, on which St. Louis spreads herself and her merchandize 
 in a way which would be the ruin of Chicago profits, are covered 
 with a busy multitude ; her narrow " French " streets are being inva- 
 ded by the horse railroads ; and she has a lady at the head of the 
 Normal Department of her public schools, with a salary of $2,000 
 per year. St. Louis is going ahead. 
 
 SEPARATING. 
 
 Here the party began to break up, a portion returning to their 
 homes tna Cincinnati, and others returning to Chicago over the St. 
 Louis and Alton Railroad, whose Direftors kindly furnished two 
 special cars for the use of the little knot of excursionists, most of 
 whom belong to this city. Among the exceptions was Governor 
 Smyth, of New Hampshire, who was called to Milwaukee in con- 
 jundion with General Butler to seleft the site for the National Asy- 
 lum for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. The Chicagoans arrived 
 home early on Friday morning, having performed the journey of 
 twelve hundred and fifty miles in two hours less than one week. 
 
 The trip was an exceedingly pleasant one. The weather was 
 delightful during the entire journey, the scenery interesting, the 
 company mutually agreeable, the accommodations good, and the 
 arrangements all through excellent. To E. B. Phillips, Esq., of the 
 Michigan Southern, the Chicago portion of the excursionists are 
 especially indebted, and Mr. Starring, who accompanied them the 
 entire trip, was unceasing in his attentions. 
 
 The Story of a Trip from Boston to Kansas. 
 
 (From the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette ) 
 
 PRELIMINARY AND DISCURSIVE. 
 
 A few weeks since, while seated at our desk, in that capacious 
 sandum with the interior of which so many of our readers are 
 
62 
 
 familiar, a gentleman (omitting to send in his card on the silver 
 receiver held in tlie hands of our faithful outside sentinel) boldly 
 presented himself, and without preliminary introductory remark 
 stated, as he sank into our visitor's arm-chair : " I want to go to 
 Kansas." The proposition, as it first struck us, appeared to indicate 
 insanity on the part of our friend, but when we looked at his classic 
 brow and glanced at his pleasant face, we saw he meant business. 
 Had he proposed that we should at once start to look after the 
 remains of Sir John Franklin, or suggested that a call upon Brigham 
 Young was an imperative duty for us to perform, our surprise would 
 not have been greater than his original proposition. We took a long 
 look at him, to be assured that his equilibrium was correct, and 
 mildly asked : 
 
 " When ? " 
 
 " After eleftion," he replied. 
 
 " What for .'' " we ventured to ask. 
 
 " Railroad opening — tell you more about it another time. Will 
 you go ? " 
 
 As we gave a hesitating " Yes " to his response, he departed, and 
 we attempted to resume an editorial, which we regret to say was 
 never completed, as it would undoubtedly have had a very important 
 influence upon the country, and prevented that panic in the stock 
 market which, in the absence of any other cause, we shall ever attri- 
 bute to the interruption caused by the visit of our friend. 
 
 WHAT KIND FRIENDS PREDICTED. 
 
 Having promised to visit Kansas, we became at once intensely 
 Kansified, and we found " bleeding Kansas," " Stringfellow," 
 " Lecompton Constitution," " Topeka Convention," " Sharpe's 
 Rifles," and other memories of that State flowing so rapidly from 
 the point of our pen, that any attempt to bring our mind to consider 
 home questions was an utter impossibility, and we threw down the 
 pen in disgust, only too happy to welcome our friend Tibbs. 
 
 " You look agitated," said Tibbs ; " a little feverish, perhaps — take 
 four pilules of aconite and alternate with nux." 
 
 " Fudge ! — nothing of the kind. We are going to Kansas," we 
 exclaimed. 
 
 " Kansas ! " reiterated Tibbs, looking astonished. " Going to 
 
^3 
 
 Kansas in November ? The grizzly bears will make a forenoon 
 lunch of you, or you will be buried in a snow storm for six weeks." 
 
 " Cannot help it, Tibbs," we ventured to say ; "we have given our 
 word, and if we knew two hundred Kickapoo Indians were sitting on 
 the top of two hundred wigwams, with scalping implements, ready to 
 make love to our ambrosial locks, we should go." 
 
 " Well, there," replied Tibbs, after a pause of about sixty seconds, 
 " I think you ought to have a guardian appointed. Never heard of 
 a man starting for Kansas in November." 
 
 " Were you ever there, Tibbs .-' " 
 
 " Never, but I know all about it ; and let me advise you to take 
 leave of your family, make your will, and be sure to secure an 
 Accident Policy before you start." 
 
 Tibbs left us, evidently with a decreasing idea of our mental 
 qualifications. Much to our surprise, we found some dozen or more 
 interested friends who shared his sentiments, and before night came 
 we began to feel as the old Crusaders must have felt previous to their 
 pilgrimage. What we considered at first as a pleasant trip, just long 
 enough to get a man out of the ruts of every day quill-driving, others 
 looked upon as quite a formidable undertaking ; and as Tibbs spread 
 the information, we noticed a disposition on the part of several gen- 
 tlemen to have sundry little accounts adjusted. Tibbs must have 
 passed a very busy day, for it appeared to us that everybody knew 
 we were going to Kansas, ere we had really matured our plan for 
 accomplishing the first ten miles out of Boston — which, after all, is 
 the most serious part of any journey, a few thousand miles more or 
 less beyond that point being comparatively of little consequence. 
 
 THE MAIN OBJECT OF THE TRIP. 
 
 The following day we heard of others who proposed to become 
 tripists and visit the Great West, and gradually it became known to 
 us that the obje6l of the visit was the opening of the Central Branch 
 of the Union Pacific Railroad, which commences at Atchison, Kansas, 
 and extends westward towards the far setting sun. The Diredlors, 
 having completed a second division of twenty miles, proposed to 
 have it inspedled by the United States Commissioners, and thus 
 secure the subsidy voted by Congress. Anxious to make their 
 friends participators in the pleasures of a trip which possessed so 
 
64 
 
 much novelty for Do\vn-Easters, and which afforded an opportunity 
 for seeing, under pecuHar, favorable auspices, a section of the country 
 with which few of our citizens are familiar from aftual observation, 
 they concluded to invite as many as their facilities would permit, to 
 join them in making a trip, which, in many of its features, is without 
 a parallel in the history of railroad openings. 
 
 REMINISCENCES OF FORMER OPENINGS. 
 
 There is something suggestive in that expression, "railroad 
 openings." It will carry many a reader back to the days when the 
 completion of a road to any important town was signalized by a grand 
 celebration. Here in New England one of the first railroad openings 
 • — that of the Worcester Railroad to Newton— can be remembered 
 even by those who are not yet grey-haired or bald, for the network 
 of railroads which now covers our country has been the work of the 
 past thirty-five years. The celebrations which took place at Lebanon, 
 N. H., at Windsor, Vt, at Keene, Brattleboro', and Burhngton, will 
 never be forgotten by those who participated in the festivities pro- 
 vided by the inhabitants of the several places. At Windsor the 
 celebration was not even interrupted by the decline of day ; and as 
 the number of visitors exceeded the number of beds, open house was 
 kept by Mr. Belknap, and we can recall Daniel Webster, Governor 
 Paine, P. P. F. Degrand, Gilmore, and a host of worthies, since 
 departed, who at the small hours of the night indulged in predictions 
 of the vast benefits which would flow from railroad communications 
 between the different States of the Union. The hopes they then 
 expressed were regarded as slightly visionary, but we have all lived 
 to see how far below the mark they aimed their arrows, Mr. 
 Degrand, the firm friend of the Western Railroad, was perhaps the 
 most hopeful of his contemporaries, for even in those days he was a 
 believer in a railroad to the shores of the Pacific, and studied the 
 question dihgently. Had he Hved, he would have been one of its 
 warmest promoters. But the openings of those days appear small 
 when compared with the recent opening of the Union Pacific Rail- 
 road to the hundredth meridian, two hundred and forty-seven miles 
 beyond Omaha, which was reached on the 24th of October last, by a 
 party of ladies and gentlemen, who camped on the Plains. The 
 excursion was carried out on a scale of magnificence never before 
 
65 
 
 equalled in the world, costing, it is said, some seventy thousand 
 dollars. The principal events of the trip have been most faithfully 
 preserved by Carbutt, of Chicago, in a series of thirty-seven stereo- 
 scopic views, remarkable for their artistic beauty, and interesting as 
 showing the development of the country. But let us come back to 
 the opening, which more particularly interests us at present. 
 
 THE DEPARTURE FROM BOSTON. 
 
 The day assigned for the departure of the party was the twelfth 
 of November last ; and when the steamboat train via Norwich was 
 made up, a comfortable car was placed at the end, for the accommo- 
 dation of the excursionists. As time and railway trains wait for no 
 man or woman, before the hour of departure some fifty ladies and 
 gentlemen were in their seats. There were representatives of the 
 various commercial interests of the city, several professional gentle- 
 men, members of the clergy, and the Boston direftors of the C. B. 
 U. P. R. Each guest was the bearer of a card, neatly bound in blue 
 cloth, lettered in gold on the outside, bearing on the inner fold the 
 following superscription : 
 
 CENTRAL BRANCH UNION PACIFIC RAILROAD. 
 
 EXCURSION TICKET. 
 
 Mr. 
 
 accompanies the Committee of Directors and Stockholders of this Company on their 
 excursion from New York to Atchison, Kansas. 
 
 WILLIAM C. WETMORE, ) 
 
 JOHN A. STUART, / 
 
 EFFINGHAM H. NICHOLS, V Committee. 
 GINERY TVVICHELL, \ 
 
 E. B. PHILLIPS. ' 
 
 R. R. POMEROY, President. 
 New York, Nov. 5th, 1866. 
 
 Good by Special Car, Westward, and by any Train Eastward, until Decetnber 
 iSth, 1866, on the New Jersey Central (Allentown Route) — Pennsylvania Central — 
 Pittsburg-, Fort IVayne, and Chicago — Chicago, Burlington, and Qnincy — Hannibal 
 and St. Joseph, and Platte Country Railroads ; also Michigan Southern and North- 
 em Indiana Railroad. 
 
 The crowd which usually colle6ls at the depot on the departure of 
 a train was evidently astonished at the expressions of surprise which 
 were exchanged as friend unexpectedly met friend, bound on the 
 trip. " Why, are you going ? " came from a dozen voices as some 
 comer was ushered in, and the ladies especially seemed to rejoice 
 that so few gentlemen came without their wives, while the solitary 
 
66 
 
 gentlemen were no less delighted when some bold man entered with 
 more than one lady. Hon. Ginery Twichell gave his God-speed to 
 the party, and " All aboard ! " was followed by the warning stroke 
 of the bell, and when the train moved from the depot cheers were 
 reciprocated between the excursionists and their friends who came 
 to say Good-by. As the cars rolled out over the Back Bay, parents 
 looked out of the windows, as if through the dark night they could 
 catch another glimpse of those little household treasures left behind. 
 Silence prevailed, for Kansas was sixteen hundred miles ahead and 
 home was only half a mile away. 
 
 ARRIVAL IN NEW YORK. 
 
 There is nothing very novel in a trip to New York. A very com- 
 fortable night aboard the City of Boston prepared the party for a 
 fresh start, and, as usual, when one is in a hurry, the boat had 
 decided objections to entering the dock. The report was circulatea 
 that the train left Jersey City at 7.10, and it was therefore important 
 to reach that point without unnecessary delay. The gangway was 
 laid at last, and there was a general scramble of regular passengers 
 and excursionists, and the prevailing idea appeared to be that Jersey 
 City must be reached in the shortest possible space of time. Some 
 started on foot, some took hacks, but a persuasive driver of a stage 
 induced a dozen or more to enter his vehicle, assuring us there was 
 no hurry. He drove with great rapidity and landed us at the ferry, 
 colle<5led his fare, and departed about two seconds before it was as- 
 certained that the ferry we were seeking was about half a mile 
 behind. As the confidence of the party was somewhat shaken in 
 drivers, a walk was proposed, which resulted in a forced march, 
 through dirty streets, and, much to the astonishment of the butchers, 
 our little procession penetrated a market, which was so closely hung 
 with pigs as to forcibly suggest the idea of a pork tunnel. The right 
 ferry was reached, and the ferry boat started, landing us on Jersey 
 City slip, where later advices informed us that the train would not 
 leave till 9 o'clock. As we were merely tripists this little contre- 
 temps did not produce a ruffle, and so we began a topographical 
 survey of the place. It was not long before we discovered a new 
 car bearing on its exterior the cabalistic initials of our pass, and hard 
 at work giving a polish to the windows was one with whom we sub- 
 sequently became better acquainted. 
 
67 
 
 " Is this car going to Kansas ? " we ventured to ask, as we entered 
 and inspe6led its comfortable and inviting interior arrangements. 
 
 " Well, sir, I should say that you knew it was," replied the at- 
 tendant, " by the way you put your question. People don't often 
 ask for the Kansas cars in Jersey." 
 
 " Are you going to Kansas with this car ? " we asked. 
 
 "That's my intention," replied Hiram, "if nothing breaks. 
 Where's the rest of your party .-' " 
 
 THE NEW CAR. 
 
 That was a question impossible to answer, for, being the advanced 
 guard, it was uncertain where the main body rested, though we 
 afterwards heard that two or three reposed at Delmonico's, where 
 they took their matutinal rations before they crossed the Hudson. 
 Our early arrival in very pleasant company enabled us to inspecSl 
 the car manufactured for the Central Branch of the Union Pacific 
 Railroad, by W. Cummings & Son, of Jersey City. It is a sixty 
 seat coach, forty-three feet in length, with monitor roof, built in a 
 most desirable manner, with compromise wheel, which can, if neces- 
 sary, be adjusted to any gauge wide or narrow. The ornamentation 
 is neat and appropriate, and the upholstering denoted the best of 
 taste. A Brussels carpet on the floor was in keeping with the green 
 covering of the seats, while the ventilation was excellent. One end 
 of the car was separated by green curtains, and this was the boudoir 
 .of the ladies, where they performed their toilet or refreshed them- 
 selves with the washing utensils which were so thoughtfully pro- 
 vided by the Direftors. In one of the panels of the car is placed a 
 photograph of Col. William Osborn, of Waterville, N. Y., Contraftor 
 and Superintendent of the road over which the car is to run, and in 
 another the inscription : " Except the Lord build the house, they 
 labor in vain that build it ; except the Lord keep the city, the watch- 
 man waiteth but in vain." With the exception of a slight delay of 
 five minutes to cool off a hot box, the car proved equal to any we 
 met with, and it carried its full complement from the starting-point 
 to Atchison City, Kansas. 
 
 EN ROUTE FOR KANSAS. 
 
 Hiram had given the last touch to the window and started a fire 
 in the stove — let us be thankful there were not two stoves, as most 
 
68 
 
 cars at the West seem to rejoice in, which are usually kept red hot 
 — when the main body of the excursionists, reinforced by many 
 ladies and gentlemen from New York, arrived on the spot, and not 
 only filled the new car, but ran over into a second, which was pro- 
 vided. It was a slightly chaotic scene for a moment or two, but 
 fortunately Chief Organizer and Honorary. Conduftor Tower at this 
 point burst upon us and soon straightened matters out. He adorn- 
 ed us all with one red ribbon, bearing the initials C. B. U. P. R. R., 
 and, being a mandarin of a higher order, he was entitled to two, 
 while the Direftors and Committee had a variegated badge. The 
 engine soon gave that unmistakable preparatory puff, and we rolled 
 out over Jersey, bound to Chicago, via the Allentown Route, the 
 Pennsylvania Central Railroad, and the Pittsburg, Chicago, and 
 Fort Wayne road. The blessing of God was invoked in the Kansas 
 car, by Dr. Webb, of Boston, and in the second car Rev. Mr. 
 Imbrie, of New Jersey, asked the protection of a kind Providence. 
 
 THE PARTY. 
 
 Our route carried us to Harrisburg, thence to Altoona and Pitts- 
 burg, and via Fort Wayne to Chicago, leaving on Tuesday at 9 
 A.M., and reaching Chicago on Wednesday night at 10 o'clock. 
 As every one who has travelled is aware, thirty-six hours in the 
 cars are apt to prove rather tedious, but we doubt if any one of the 
 tripists experienced such a sensation. Among so large a number 
 there are always those who possess the power of imparting mirth, 
 and supplying the eleftricity which brings such a party into most 
 cordial relations. The incidents, though trivial, create laughter, and 
 those one meets as strangers in the morning become like old friends 
 ere nightfall. Never before had tourists such a General to lead 
 them as President Pomeroy : thoughtful of everybody and attentive 
 to each, he seemed to delight in the responsibilities of his position, 
 which, he discharged with so much ease that one might have thought 
 he was used to the work. Luncheon baskets were brought out at 
 intervals, and their contents discussed, and New England mince- 
 pies never had such flavor as then ; though one must render justice 
 to the refreshment stations and admit that, with rare exceptions, no 
 man need starve if he travels the route we passed over. At many 
 the dinner was excellent, the supper in one or two instances quite 
 
69 
 
 inviting, and the appetite became so keen that breakfast was always 
 relished. 
 
 We regretted that Tibbs was not of the party, for he would have 
 affiliated with Tims, who longed to reach Chicago, that he might 
 introduce us to Wait ; he would also have found the Adjutant a con- 
 genial companion, and we know that he would have formed an inti- 
 mate acquaintance with Slimmer, who formerly owned the Bay State 
 House. Then there was Alvah, and a dozen others who. had seen 
 something of this world and possessed the happy art of taking things 
 quietly, without knowing or caring whether the train was in time or 
 a couple of hours late. How pleasant it is to be thrown with people 
 who don't worry, especially on an excursion. 
 
 THE TRIP TO CHICAGO. 
 
 At Altoona sleeping cars were attached to the train, and some 
 resorted to them, but a few remained faithful to the Kansas car, and 
 passed the night quietly, after two or three gentlemen had been 
 reminded that snoring was prohibited, and a gentleman of genial 
 proclivities, after kicking a hat for an hour, under the idea that it 
 belonged to some one else, discovered that it was his own, and 
 devoted two hours to rubbing out the dents. But sleep came to the 
 eyelids of all just as we reached Alleghany City, when some restless 
 spirit started up to behold the burning furnaces of a place which 
 numbers its foundries and manufafturing establishments by the 
 hundred. Lurid flames belched forth from chimneys, which 
 lighted up the whole place, and reminded one of a monster exhibi- 
 tion of Maelzel's Conflagration of Moscow. Those who indulged 
 in the sleeping cars lost the sight, and they also missed the moon- 
 light view of the Alleghanies, as the iron horse dragged us up the 
 mountain sides, which, on our return, we had an opportunity of en- 
 joying by daylight. The summons to breakfast in the morning 
 brought nearly every one to the table, and the first twenty-four hours 
 of the trip was achieved. A day's ride was before us, but time did 
 not hang heavily. There was much to be seen as we passed through 
 Ohio ; and the fields of corn still standing, and the thousands of 
 hogs rooting round, with many other features, were in marked con- 
 trast with the agricultural portion of Massachusetts. For miles and 
 miles the track of the railroad did not appear to deflect an inch in 
 either direilion, and this peculiarity struck us on many of the roads. 
 
70 
 
 Indeed, so straight is the Hne of railroad in many seflions that a 
 locomotive light at night can be seen at a distance of fifteen miles. 
 
 " Only six miles to Chicago," said the Adjutant, as he passed 
 through the cars, handing to each a card which assigned him to the 
 hotel where rooms had been secured for the accommodation of the 
 party, a portion going to the Tremont House and the remainder to 
 the Sherman. By ten o'clock the names were registered, and each 
 person had his room. At the Tremont House a game supper, which 
 would have made even Taft shed tears, was provided and discussed, 
 and then Tims wanted to hunt up Wait, but it was getting early, and 
 prudence suggested that a good bed would be a most excellent insti- 
 tution to become acquainted with. 
 
 [A description of the different places visited at Chicago follows.] 
 
 BOUND WEST AGAIN. 
 
 The next morning, Thursday i6th inst, the party started for 
 Atchison, Kansas, Mr. E. B. Phillips having kindly added to our 
 train the Direftors' car of the Michigan Southern, which greatly 
 contributed to the comfort of those who had not by the right of 
 squatter sovereignty obtained a claim to a seat in the Kansas car. 
 We made some accessions to the party at Chicago, and Governor 
 Smyth of New Hampshire, and his wife, joined us, adding by their 
 presence very materially to the general enjoyment of all. The route 
 was over the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad, to Ouincy, 
 111., about two hundred and sixty-seven miles from Chicago, which 
 occupied a day. The ride was delightful, and the first glimpse of the 
 prairies was a sight most captivating to Eastern eyes, which looked 
 for the first time upon such an unbroken expanse of nature. We 
 were favored with a gorgeous sunset, so beautiful, that no artist could 
 convey to canvass more than a refleftion of the glory which marked 
 the decline of old Sol on that beautiful afternoon. The clouds 
 appeared as if bathed in crimson and gold ; and as the shades of 
 night came on, they assumed a silver grey, and then broke away like 
 a falling curtain to allow a myriad of stars to shine out on the broad 
 canopy of heaven. The hotel accommodations at Ouincy were 
 somewhat taxed, as our party numbered some hundred and twenty, 
 and Adjutant Allen was obliged to figure carefully and closely in 
 making the rooms hold out. The rule of three, however, did won- 
 ders, and double-bedded rooms are very convenient on such occa- 
 
71 
 
 sions, but as we were "all tired as old horses," as some one 
 expressed it, it did not require much rocking to send the party into 
 the land of dreams. 
 
 QUINCY AND THE KICKAPOO CLUB. 
 
 The nights appeared very short during the entire trip, but all slept 
 soundly, if the hours were few, and the following morning the entire 
 party, bright and early, were on the banks of the Mississippi, wait- 
 ing for the ferry boat to return from the opposite side, where it was 
 engaged in landing the through cars. It was a beautiful morning, 
 the air just sharjD enough to give a tingle to the blood, and everybody 
 was in the best of humor. Slimmer forgot his Bay State House as 
 he lost himself in looking at the muddy water of the Mississippi. 
 He evidently expected to see a broad stream as clear as Farm Pond, 
 and Tims declared that he had rather take a quart of Gunn's Morn- 
 ing Specific than one ounce of such yellow-looking stuff. The ladies 
 were rather disappointed, too, and wondered if people washed in 
 that stuff. As it was dark when they performed their morning ablu- 
 tions they did not notice the sediment in their pitchers, or they 
 would not have asked. The boat returned, " all aboard " was quickly 
 responded to, and as time was precious, the Kickapoo Club was 
 immediately organized, and the officers duly installed. The objeft 
 of the club was clearly stated by the President, who was not aware 
 why it was ever created, but it performed its mission during the trip, 
 and gave variety to the occasion. Even now we think we hear 
 Bowen informing the crowd " that thirty years ago the ground upon 
 which we now stand was a howling wilderness," while it is impossi- 
 ble not to recall once or twice a day the important fa6l so often 
 announced by the Kickapoos that 
 
 " The elephant now goes round, 
 The band begins to play, 
 The boys about the monkey's cage 
 Had better keep away." 
 
 ACROSS MISSOURI. 
 
 The ride across the State of Missouri to St. Jo, over the Hannibal 
 and St. Jo Railroad, carried us through a fertile and attractive sec- 
 tion of country, pleasantly varied by hill and dale, and plentifully 
 
72 
 
 supplied with timber of all descriptions. It is a great State, and 
 now that it is a free State, its growth must be rapid, for its mineral 
 resources will be developed, and emigration must find its way to a 
 spot which is so peculiarly favored. The fruit raised here is very 
 superior, while the climate is favorable for the raising of tobacco ; 
 and indeed anything tliat is planted is sure to thrive. The owners 
 of the Hannibal and St. Jo Railroad are making great improvements 
 in the road, reducing the grades and improving the road bed, and 
 the local travel alone must at no very distant day be sufficient to 
 satisfy the stockholders. Settlers are fast ascertaining the advan- 
 tages of this State, and are arriving in large numbers. Indeed, while 
 gliding on the rail we saw several emigrant trains seeking new 
 places for settlement. The thriving town of Kidder, named in 
 honor of a well known Boston gentleman, is located on this road, 
 and is flourishing. As we approached the Missouri river, the prai- 
 ries were again seen ; and after nightfall a prairie on fire afforded, to 
 those who had never witnessed such a sight, a splendid opportunity 
 of beholding a scene which, once witnessed, can never be forgotten. 
 We passed through St. Jo in the evening, and thence over the Platte 
 Country Road, arrived opposite to Atchison about nine o'clock, and 
 taking a ferry boat, crossed the Missouri River, and gladly sought 
 very comfortable quarters at the three hotels, where ample prepara- 
 tions had been made for the party. 
 
 We thought of Tibbs. No Indians and not a sign of snow up to 
 date. 
 
 KANSAS. BISHOP VAIL. 
 
 Sunday morning — the first day in Kansas, of at least nine-tenths 
 of the excursionists — wore a cloudy and threatening aspe6t, the first 
 we had seen since we left Boston. We had been peculiarly favored 
 thus far with fine weather ; and though it rained during the day for a 
 short time, it cleared away, and not again till we reached the east 
 was there a lowering sky. Was ever a party more signally blessed ? 
 Rev. Dr. Webb preached at the Congregational Church, and Rev, 
 S. H. Tyng, Jr., at the Episcopal Church. After the services, 
 Bishop Vail, of Kansas, who resides in Atchison, made an impres- 
 sive address to the strangers present, and in a most cordial spirit 
 welcomed them to Kansas. It is rarely that words of welcome are 
 uttered which come nearer from the heart, and his kind greeting was 
 
appreciated by all who listened to his eloquent address. The 
 Bishop is working hard to build up his Church in this far distant 
 land ; and the wealthy Episcopalians of the East should not allow 
 his efforts to pass unaided, for aside from any sedlarian success 
 which may be achieved through his efforts, in which we take little 
 interest, we know that his mission must be beneficial to the future 
 of this great State, which is nearly as large as all New England. 
 The Bishop takes a great pride in Kansas, and having travelled over 
 it in every direftion, is sanguine of its ultimate greatness and pros- 
 perity. Its soil is very fertile, it is well watered, and nothing but 
 honest industry is required to reap a rich harvest. Rev. Mr. Tyng 
 made an appeal to the visitors to leave their contributions with him 
 for carrying on the work the Bishop had so auspiciously inaugu- 
 rated, and a handsome sum was the result. 
 
 ATCHISON. 
 
 After church some drove out upon the prairies, and others walked 
 about the place, which is a thriving little city of some six thousand 
 inhabitants, which, from being a pro-slavery place, has become a 
 strong Republican incorporated city. The education of the children 
 is attended to ; an^J judging by the value of real estate, we should 
 think the inhabitants were prosperous and satisfied. The hotels, 
 three in number, are much better than any town of equal size in 
 New England can boast of, and the improvements which are going 
 on denote enterprise and confidence in the future. The Mayor, 
 John M. Crowell, is an a6live and energetic citizen ; and having had 
 experience in the same official capacity in San Francisco, he is 
 enabled to take the lead in a most efficient manner. 
 
 SENATOR POMEROY. 
 
 Atchison is the home of Hon, S. C. Pomeroy, U. S. Senator, who 
 has a large interest in the city, and possesses an immense stock 
 farm some twenty miles west. Of his reeleftion there is not a 
 doubt, for he has done much to make Kansas what it is, and through 
 his influence capitalists have assisted the railroad enterprises of the 
 State, and in many other ways have contributed to make Kansas 
 prosperous. General Stringfellow, whom we met in Chicago, is also 
 a resident of Atchison. He was in his day a first-class border- 
 
 4 
 
74 
 
 ruffian, and as wedded to slavery as any man in the South. He 
 fought the Free State men in every way, but when whipped, he 
 yielded gracefully, and to-day he is much respefted. His brother, 
 the Doftor, liowever, took his leave, unable to accept the situation. 
 His house, which stands on a high bluff, is rapidly approaching 
 decay — a fitting monument of the principles which he defended. 
 Senator Pomeroy enjoys the respecl of the people of his State, and 
 his six years' experience in the Senate has made him an influential 
 leader in the West. 
 
 THE OPENING OF THE RAILROAD. 
 
 The clouds, which had threatened an inclement spell of weather, 
 passed away during the night, and a more beautiful autumnal day 
 than Monday, the 19th of November, is rarely seen. The atmo- 
 sphere was more like September than bleak November. As this 
 was the day assigned for the opening of the railroad as far as com- 
 pleted, the excursionists felt that the duty which they had come so 
 many miles to participate in must be discharged with all proper 
 honors, and a day of rest having materially improved their bodily 
 condition, they were in the best of spirits. The Central Branch of 
 the Union Pacific Railroad was originally knov»n as the Atchison 
 and Pike's Peak Railroad, or the Pacific extension of the Hannibal 
 & St. Joseph Railroad. The route proposed for the road was from 
 Atchison to Republican Creek, where it was proposed to form a 
 connexion with the Union Pacific, Eastern Division, which starts 
 from the mouth of the Kansas River, and thence forming one line 
 to conneft at the hundredth meridian with the Union Pacific Rail- 
 road, which commences at Omaha City. The directors, however, 
 of the Eastern Division, instead of carrying out their original inten- 
 tion, have conceived the idea, it is surmised, that by striking a more 
 southerly course, via the Smoky Hill Valley, they may not only tap 
 the Santa Fe trade, but possibly find a new path to the Pacific shore, 
 entirely independent of any contemplated road. The salubrity of 
 the climate is also taken into consideration, and it is urged that there 
 would be less liability to snow and the rigors of an inclement season 
 by this southerly course. The directors, therefore, at the last session 
 of Congress procured a change of route, not ostensibly to accom- 
 plish the objects we have suggested. They were permitted to aban- 
 don the Valley of the Republic and take the Smoky Hill Valley, 
 
75 
 
 joining the Union Pacific at a point some fifty miles west of Denver 
 City. The change deprived the Central Branch of its connexion, 
 and leaves its terminus in the wilds. The directors, however, pro- 
 pose to complete the road to Fort Kearney, and they reasonably 
 anticipate that Congress, which legislated to their serious disadvan- 
 tage, after its faith had been pledged, will extend the subsidy of 
 $16,000 per mile and alternate seftions of land till it makes a con- 
 nection with the Central Railroad. Its charter only gives it subsidy 
 and lands for one hundred miles of railroad, sixty of which will be 
 completed by the first of February. Congress will no doubt see the 
 policy of enabling this company to bring a rich and fertile se6lion 
 of the country into direft communication with the East by providing 
 the proper legislation. 
 
 THE UNITED STATES COMMISSIONERS. 
 
 The main objeft of the visit of the Directors, as we have stated, 
 was to offer for the acceptance of the United States Commissioners, 
 the second seftion of twenty miles. This Commission consisted of 
 Lieut-Col. James H. Simpson, Corps of Engineers U. S. A. (Brevet 
 Brig.-General), Dr. William M. White, of New Haven, Conn., and 
 General S. R. Curtis, of Iowa, the hero of Pea Ridge. Upon their 
 acceptance of each division of twenty miles, as fast as completed, 
 depends the issue of bonds by the United States, and ere this the 
 favorable report upon the excellent maHner the road has been con- 
 strufted is probably on file at Washington. Thus far the company 
 have expended two million, three hundred and seven thousand, six 
 hundred and fifty dollars, and they have a large amount of rolling 
 stock, an excellent machine shop and blacksmith shop of stone, and 
 are completing a round house for six engines. These buildings are 
 at Atchison, and are of the most durable build. 
 
 THE SOIL. 
 
 As many had been invited to join the party from St. Jo, the 
 train of five cars did not leave till about ten o'clock, when it moved 
 out, carrying a very happy party. The run was through the rolling 
 prairies of Kansas, and here were " oceans of land," so rich that it 
 seemed as if the loam had been prepared for potted plants. The 
 company own thousands of acres of the famous Kickapoo reserve, 
 
76 
 
 which is well watered, and which must become ere long the most 
 noted agricultural se6lion in the West. At the depth of ten feet 
 the soil will bear grain, while it requires only the most delicate 
 handling to make a harvest a<5lually grow before your ejes. We do 
 not wonder that the Free State men fought so boldly to keep such 
 soil free. 
 
 AN INDIAN ENCAMPMENT. 
 
 On the way out, the cars stopped to enable the ladies and gentle- 
 men an opportunity to call upon Old Pettequauh, or Captain Hamil- 
 ton, a Kickapoo Chief, whose cabin and wigwam are located upon 
 the reserve. Captain Hamilton lives in quiet magnificence with his 
 squaws, who appeared indifferent to the unexpected levee which was 
 held inside and outside of their domicile, for they scarcely moved a 
 feature, and only exhibited an interest in the proceedings when Mr. 
 Pomeroy proposed to take a little papoose and show it to the ladies 
 in the cars. They evidently had some doubts of the safety of such 
 a proceeding, but when they received assurances from the President 
 that he would bring it back, they gave a kind of senna and manna 
 smile, and his little papooship was passed round. As a general 
 thing, Indian infants are very damp little things, and we believe this 
 one was no exception to the remark. Old Jack was evidently rather 
 pleased, especially when Jack, Jr., an ugly little cub, was made the 
 recipient of postal currency and nickels. Old Jack was much 
 amused with the crinoline the ladies wore, and pointing to a floating 
 bell skirt worn by a lady of this city, he said, " Ugh — heap wigwam." 
 After a glance at a splendid stone depot now building from limestone 
 found within a few yards of its location, the trip was resumed. A 
 wigwam and a stgne depot were certainly suggestive. 
 
 A PRAIRIE PICNIC. 
 
 At about the fortieth mile, where a Y had been completed, the 
 party alighted on the open prairie, and in a few minutes the stores 
 brought for the occasion by the company were unloaded, and the 
 servants commenced the preliminaries which indicated attention to 
 inward wants. As it was to be a picnic on the plains, the party 
 formed in little groups and gathered around their well filled luncheon 
 baskets, or assembled in knots at a convenient distance from the 
 
n 
 
 public larder. A stove was soon at work supplying hot water for 
 coffee, but there was no J. B. Smith there to show how much can 
 be done when one knows how. The pop of sundry silver heads just 
 commenced to make music in the air, when the cry of " Fire ! " 
 alarmed the party. Some youthful incendiary had accidentally or 
 purposely dropped a lighted match, and the flames spread with the 
 velocity of the wind. As the fire bore down upon the picnic party 
 there was a general scramble and a change of base across the track. 
 In half an hour the flame was sweeping more than half a mile away. 
 
 THE ORATORICAL EPISODE. 
 
 Such an occasion could not be allowed to pass without some 
 public speaking, which was initiated by General James Craig, Presi- 
 dent of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad (may the prairie on 
 the top of his head never grow wider), who gave an invitation to the 
 excursionists to visit St. Jo and accept the hospitalities of that 
 city. Mr. Pomeroy accepted, and General Craig opened the pow- 
 wow, and speeches were made by General Curtis, Rev. Mr. Tyng, 
 Rev. Mr. Webb, Senator Pomeroy, Judge Woodson, E. H. Nichols, 
 Esq., Pardel Butler, who stated that he ■vyent eleven years ago on an 
 exploring expedition down the Missouri river in a coat of tar and 
 feathers, presented him by some pro-slavery men of Atchison. 
 Others addressed the meeting from the open door at the baggage 
 car, and everybody was cheered. 
 
 Among the excursionists was the venerable William Lee Claflin, 
 of Massachusetts, father of our Lieutenant-Governor, who, during 
 the trip, completed his seventy-fifth year. He was probably the 
 oldest man who witnessed the novel scene then presented, and he 
 bore the fatigue of travelhng so well that it is evident in his youth 
 he never drew any drafts upon old age. After enjoying several 
 hours of festivity, during which some took a horseback ride across 
 the prairies, and others scattered shot after wild chickens, the party 
 returned to Atchison, after sending home various telegrams from 
 this outpost in the West. 
 
 TO THE END OF THE ROUTE. 
 
 On a suggestion from one of the Direflors that, if wished, an oppor- 
 tunity would be afforded of extending the trip westward some five or 
 
78 
 
 six miles, we remained with four or five of the officers of the com- 
 pany, and after a brisk walk of half an hour were taken up by a loco- 
 motive ordered for the purpose, and rapidly conveyed to the end of 
 the road, which had reached the sixth mile of the third division. 
 The engine ran till it came within close proximity with what appear- 
 ed at first a very respeftable two-storied tenement house built 
 direftly upon the track. As we alighted and examined the house, 
 we found tliere were two of them, sixty feet in length, and capable 
 of accommodating a large number of workmen. They were on 
 wheels, and as westward the iron track is laid, these movable houses 
 on wheels progress. The families of the workmen were living there 
 in quiet contentment, pursuing their daily avocations with all the 
 apparent regularity of families whose residences are on more solid 
 foundations. The main supper room is quite commodious, and the 
 sleeping apartments, up-stairs, far superior to places in which the 
 respe6lable poor of our large cities too often reside. These humble 
 people certainly represent the progress of the race, and one of these 
 days we may find their perambulating tenements securely located as 
 first-class hotels on the Rocky Mountains. For a long distance 
 ahead the eye could see the ties of the railroad laid upon the ground, 
 ready to receive their iron bands. No road bed is required for miles 
 and miles. The ties are dropped, the hand-car follows, freighted 
 with rails, over the rail which a moment before was on the truck. 
 Six sturdy fellows seize the iron band and place it in position on the 
 ties, and in a moment thug, thug, thug, is heard, and the spikes are 
 driven in and the car is again pulled along. In this way a mile of 
 railroad is laid in a day, where the prairie is flat and no embank- 
 ment is required. Wherever a stream is crossed, the bridges are 
 built in the most thorough manner on this road. 
 
 ABOUT FACE. 
 
 Before the Direflors had completed their examination of the road, 
 the moon was quite high, and night was setting in. The air was 
 crisp and exhilarating, and as the party ascended the locomotive 
 and turned towards Atchison, there was a feeling of regret that our 
 course lay Eastward. We swept along the prairies in that bright 
 night, refledling upon the vastness of our country, for, though we 
 felt we were very far West, we could not but remember that the 
 geographical centre of the United States was several hundred miles 
 
79 
 
 nearer sundown. As we sped on towards Atchison, the burning 
 prairie seemed to spring up before us, when we made a curve and 
 reached the point where it had been set on fire in the forenoon. It 
 had spread for miles and miles, and the flames leapt up on the sides 
 of the rolling prairie like an army marching e7i echelon to the 
 attack. 
 
 In the evening the residents of Atchison entertained their guests. 
 There was a pleasant hop, which Honorary Conduftor Tower man- 
 aged with consummate skill ; and a public meeting was held, where 
 addresses were made by Hon. A. G. Otis, of Atchison, R. M. Pome- 
 roy, Esq., Judge Graham, of Kansas, Mr. Glick, Attorney of the 
 road, and others. The day was one to be marked with " a white 
 stone" in the memory of each member of the party. 
 
 THE ATCHISONIANS. 
 
 We doubt if there was a single member of the party who did not 
 leave Atchison with regret. Although a small place, the inhabitants 
 make up in quality for what they lack in quantity. The only ungal- 
 lant man in the city was unfortunately entrusted with the charge of 
 a newspaper during the temporary absence of the editor, and he had 
 the audacity to compliment the Eastern gentlemen at the expense of 
 the Eastern ladies. The tripists enjoyed the paragraph, but some 
 indignant residents of Atchison will never forgive the author, and 
 ere this he has probably "gone West." The Lady Mayoress of 
 Atchison, Mrs. Crowell, Madame Cheesboro, and others, were most 
 hospitable, not only extending the courtesies of their homes, but 
 exerting themselves in every way to make the sojourn of the 
 strangers most agreeable. The ladies and gentlemen made good 
 use of time. One party chartered a cart drawn by four donkeys, 
 and made a tour of the city at a speed faster than the law allows at 
 the East ; while a large number were on horseback bright and early, 
 and had a most delightful and exhilarating race over the plains, 
 which are just beyond the limits of the city. The Western people 
 were somewhat surprised to find the Down-Easters such proficient 
 equestrians, but several of the party had been through long cam- 
 paigns during the war. The most dashing horseman of the party 
 was acknowledged to be a much respedled clergyman of this city, 
 who was firm in his seat with or without stirrups, and his manage- 
 ment of a horse was so pleasing to the Atchisonians that some of his 
 
8o 
 
 parishioners who were of the party were alarmed lest he should 
 receive a call before he left. Mayor Crowell's horse was at the ser- 
 vice of his friends, and a finer made bit of horseflesh is rarely seen. 
 He was the property of a noted guerilla during the war, who finally 
 became so obnoxious that a squad of soldiers were sent out to cap- 
 ture him. The chief knew of their coming and saddled " white 
 Surrey for the field," and was in the a<5l of flight on his faithful 
 steed, when a minie ball completed his earthly existence, and 
 Prince fell into the hands of his captors, who subsequently sold 
 him to the Mayor, and when His Honor gets through with him 
 there is a stall ready for him in Boston. 
 
 MR. DURANT'S invitation. 
 
 The invitation to visit St. Joseph was extended by General Craig 
 during the Prairie Picnic and accepted. Mr. Pomeroy also received 
 from Thomas C. Durant, Esq., Vice-President of the Union Pacific 
 Railroad, a cordial invitation for the whole party to make a trip to 
 Omaha City and thence over his road to the hundredth meridian, two 
 hundred and seventy. miles westward ; but this addition to the origi- 
 nal programme, which would have been very acceptable to many, 
 was not to be thought of, as the majority of the party felt obliged to 
 be at home by Thanksgiving Day, and Mr. Durant's polite invita- 
 tion was therefore relu6lantly declined. 
 
 A DAY AT ST. JOSEPH. 
 
 The visit to St. Joseph, however, was a fixed fa6l. The City 
 Council extended the freedom of the city to the excursionists, and 
 then there was a general desire to see a little more of General 
 Craig, whose cordial greeting found an open sesame to the hearts 
 of the cold New Englanders. On Tuesday in the forenoon the 
 party re-crossed the Missouri river to take the cars on the eastern 
 bank for St. Jo, giving, as the ferry boat pushed off, cheers for At- 
 chison, cheers for Col. Osborn, and cheers for the Central Branch 
 Union Pacific Railroad. [A description of St. Joseph follows.] 
 
 WESTERN CELEBRITIES. 
 
 The Mayor of St. Jo, Armstrong Beattie, Esq., called the meet- 
 ing to order, and in the briefest but most pertinent speech we ever 
 
I 
 
 listened to, bade the party welcome. General Craig followed him, 
 and the General was received with tremendous cheering. He is a 
 fine specimen of a Western man. During the Mexican war he was 
 Captain of a volunteer company, and subsequently was Circuit At- 
 torney, member of the Missouri Legislature, and in the Thirty-fifth 
 and Thirty-sixth Congress was representative from Missouri. The 
 General made some telling speeches in the House, charafterized by 
 that bonhojiiie and wit which we had a sample of on the prairie. 
 On one occasion the General was advocating adtion upon the Pacific 
 Railroad bill, and as his colleague was a little set in his way, he 
 thus hit him : " No gentleman here will put a higher price upon the 
 value of the services of my colleague upon the floor than I do, and I 
 know what they are worth to his State and his constituents. He 
 has served his district here so long and so faithfully that it has act- 
 ually contrafted his vision when a subjeft which is as broad as the 
 continent comes before the House. I have heard it said, in a jocu- 
 lar way, that if my friend had a friend who was about to start for 
 heaven, he would want him to start at St. Louis and go through 
 Springfield and Albuquerque to get there. My colleague thinks 
 that the nearest route to any given point on earth, or in it, or under 
 it, is by the way of the thirty-fifth parallel, through Albuquerque." 
 
 There were loud calls for Major-General S. R. Curtis, of Iowa, one 
 of the United States Commissioners for the Pacific Railroad, and 
 during the war commander of the United States forces in Missouri. 
 The battle of Pea Ridge was fought under General Curtis, and 
 General Van Dorn retired much discomfited from the fray, general 
 Sigel was then in command under General Curtis. The General 
 made a pleasant speech, alluding to the fa6l that he had once taken 
 possession of the city, and spoke encouragingly of the railroad pro- 
 ject which now attra6led the attention of our whole country. The 
 General has always been a firm friend to the Pacific Railroad pro- 
 jects. He is of good New England stock, having been born in Ohio 
 while his family were moving from Connefticut to the West. He 
 graduated at West Point, and subsequently studied law. During 
 the Mexican war he was Colonel under General Taylor, and was 
 Military Governor of Matamoras, Camargo, Monterey, and Saltillo. 
 He subsequently became connefted with the railroad enterprises of 
 the West as engineer, and settled at Keokuk, in Iowa, and served as 
 Representative in Congress for three terms, resigning his seat in 
 1861 to accept a commission as Brigade General in the Union Army. 
 
 4* 
 
82 
 
 He was also a member of the Peace Convention, when he uttered 
 his sentiments in a manner not to be misunderstood. While a 
 member of the Thirty-sixth Congress, he delivered a very able 
 speech upon the Pacific Railroad bill, then under discussion, and 
 there are few men to-day, perhaps not one, who is so familiar with 
 the legislation and early history of this great enterprise. 
 
 Ex-Mayor Powell, President Pomeroy, General James H. Simpson 
 and others made brief addresses, when the guests repaired to the 
 Pacific House, kept by John J. Abell, where a most excellent repast 
 was provided, for which Mr. Pomeroy, in a most appropriate manner, 
 returned the thanks of the guests. Hon. Charles Wilkinson, editor 
 of the St. Joseph Herald, responded in a very eloquent speech. The 
 hour of departure had arrived, and the cars were again taken, and we 
 retraced the route travelled in the morning, passing Atchison, where 
 we parted with several who had accompanied us to St. Joseph, con- 
 tinued on to Weston, a distance of twenty-five miles, where the 
 steamboat E. Hensley was in waiting to carry the party to Leaven- 
 worth, a distance of about eight miles. 
 
 LEAVENWORTH. 
 
 The ride down the river was very beautiful. The moon was bright, 
 and we realized the poetic description of a scene bathed in the moon- 
 light. The moon did not appear to shine upon the banks, or give to 
 the river a silver hue, but to impart phosphorescence to the atmo- 
 sphere which lighted up the landscape, as if one saw a light thrown 
 upon the mimic stage to bring out the beauties of the scenery. The 
 sparks from the steamer formed a luminous train, and the Kickapoo 
 Club, under the influence of the surroundings, buried the elephant 
 and tuned their throats to more appropriate melodies. The trip was 
 too brief, however ; for, on the western bank of the river. Fort 
 Leavenworth soon loomed up, and we landed at the city and were 
 soon pleasantly accommodated at the Planters' House, kept by J. S. 
 Rice & Co., an excellent house, well kept, and with Rice as mine 
 host, a most agreeable place to stop a week or longer. 
 
 (Some notes regarding Leavenworth, and an account of the meeting 
 at Smithton follow ; also the account of the trip to St. Louis and 
 Cincinnati.) 
 
83 
 
 A very elegant entertainment at a private residence brought the 
 party together in the evening, and on Sunday the party attended 
 church. A number of the ladies and gentlemen were fortunate in 
 selefting the " Church of the Redeemer," where they listened to a ser- 
 mon by Rev. A. D. Mayo, known to our Unitarian friends throughout 
 New England, as he was formerly settled at Gloucester. Mr. Mayo 
 has a flourishing society, not large, but enthusiastic, and he has the sa- 
 tisfadlion of knowing that his work is bringing forth good results. His 
 sermon on this occasion was most able, and its close, with its poetic 
 allusion to the Southern Cross, was very beautiful. After services, 
 during a call upon a member of Dr. Mayo's parish, who came from 
 Boston, conversation naturally turned upon home, and we thought it 
 a graceful compliment paid to her pastor when a lady remarked that 
 if any one thing reconciled her to living so far from friends it was the 
 preaching of Mr. Mayo. 
 
 This brief call was almost hke stepping into a Boston family, and 
 distance seemed annihilated, especially when we glanced at a pidure 
 on the wall and thought we detefted the photographic presentment 
 of a friend. Travelling in the cars is not very beneficial to the eye- 
 sight, and we were obliged to scan the features through a glass, and 
 at once detected a responsive smile on the face of the editor of the 
 Boston Transcript, who seemed to have just stepped out of his 
 sanflum on his way to dinner. 
 
 PARTING. 
 
 The party from Boston separated at Cincinnati, not without regret ; 
 but the larger portion were homeward bound, via Cleveland, Buffalo, 
 Albany, and the Western Railroad, while a few had calls in New 
 York which required attention. Judging from the number of speeches 
 which we are informed were made by those who took the Albany 
 route, we should think the " Hundred Boston Orators " were on that 
 train. There were no efforts at declamation among the few who 
 reached, without fatigue. New York, via the Pan-handle route. Two 
 nights on a sleeping-car and one day (affording an opportunity to 
 enjoy by daylight the trip over the Alleghanies) brought us to Jersey 
 
84 
 
 City, from whence we started, completing the circle of over three 
 thousand miles without a mishap, without the occurrence of even the 
 slightest ripple to destroy the pleasures of a trip, of which we have 
 attempted to tell the story. We all know how much we are indebted 
 to Mr. Pomeroy and the Directors, and to many others, for all their 
 kind attentions, and we all but here comes Tibbs ! 
 
 " Safely home again, old fellow — no snow-banks, no scalping, eh ? " 
 
 " A slight fall of snow, Tibbs, while we were whisking through 
 Indiana, but not a tomahawk or skull-knife." 
 
 " Well, you must have had a great time, seen lots, and feel as 
 though there was a big country outside of Boston." 
 
 " All of that, Tibbs ; but let me say to you, confidentially, and 
 don't for the world let those Chicago or Atchison or Leavenworth 
 or St. Louis or Cincinnati people hear it, there ain't this side of sun- 
 down a better place than old Boston." 
 
 Bm?ich Pacific Railroads. — A Pleasant Co7npany of Railroad Men 
 and Friends in Kansas. — The progress of the Central Branch of 
 the Pacific Railroad. — Photographs of Missouri and Kansas. 
 
 (From the New York World.) 
 
 Atchison, November 23, 1868. 
 A COMPANY of excursionists, numbering about one hundred ladies 
 and gentlemen, from Boston and New York, and who were joined 
 by about thirty persons at Chicago, are now in this city, for the pur- 
 pose of inspefting the branch of the Pacific Railroad which starts 
 westward from this place. We have with us General Simpson, 
 President of the Board of Commissioners of the Pacific Railroad ; 
 General Curtis, of Missouri ; Dr. Wm. M. White, of Connefticut ; 
 Governor Smyth, of New Hampshire ; Senator Pomeroy, of Kan- 
 sas ; Bishop Vail, of Kansas ; R. M. Pomeroy, of Boston, Presi- 
 dent of the road ; Effingham H. Nichols, of New York, the Trea- 
 surer ; General Craig, President of the Hannibal and St. Joseph 
 Railroad ; E. B. Phillips, President of the Michigan Southern Rail- 
 road, and many other railroad men and distinguished guests. The 
 honorary condu6lor of the excursion is Colonel J. M. Tower, for- 
 merly of Governor Seymour's staff. The trip was made here in the 
 special car of the company, elegantly fitted up for the occasion. 
 The car had just been built at Jersey City. On starting out on the 
 
85 
 
 New Jersey Central, prayers were made in the two cars containing 
 the company by Rev. Dr. Webb, of Boston, and Rev. Mr. Tyng, of 
 New York. At one end of the car, neatly written and framed, was 
 the first verse of the one hundred and twenty-seventh Psalm — 
 " Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it ; 
 except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain." 
 The passage to Chicago was made in thirty-six hours. After a 
 pleasant stay of a day and two nights the party proceeded to Quincy 
 on the Mississippi, The next morning they crossed the Mississippi 
 and found themselves in Missouri. There they took the Ouincy 
 and Palmyra road to the junftion with the Hannibal and St. Joseph 
 Railroad, which runs across Missouri, binding the Missouri river to 
 the Mississippi. 
 
 IN MISSOURI. 
 
 The Ouincy and Palmyra Railroad has been purchased by the 
 Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, thus making but a single change 
 of cars from Chicago, and even that will be done away with when 
 the bridge over the Mississippi at Ouincy, which is now projected, 
 is completed. The river is here over a mile wide. By this change, 
 too, an hour and a half or two hours will be saved between Ouincy 
 and St. Joseph. The bridge will be commenced immediately. The 
 Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad during the war was in a very bad 
 condition. Its grade was not good, and its bridges were burned and 
 its rails torn up by guerillas. Since then, however, over a million of 
 dollars has been expended on it in iron ties and rolling stock, and 
 its grade is being regulated throughout the whole length, so that it 
 will be equal to the best railroads in the West. Fifty-two and eighty- 
 one-hundredths feet have been determined on as its maximum grade. 
 Its length is two hundred and six miles, and it runs through some 
 very fine prairie land. In one portion, however, beyond Salt river, 
 it is rather wet and poor. Salt river is the stream up which disap- 
 pointed politicians are popularly supposed to go, and if they do 
 really follow it up, they will certainly get into a region where they 
 will be a good ways out of sight. The bridge over this river was 
 burned several times by the rebels, and by all the bridges on the 
 road block-houses may be observed where soldiers were stationed to 
 prote6l them. In this vicinity a number of wild turkeys flew up 
 here and there as the train passed, and at one of the small stations 
 
86 
 
 two ot three that had been shot were purchased by the party. At 
 one place a stop was made at a coal mine, which is said to yield very 
 richly. The next large river that we crossed was the Grand, a beau- 
 tiful stream, winding in a gully dug out by the force of the spring 
 freshets, with trees along its sides. The Grand river bottom, being 
 the low lands on each side, is sometimes overflowed for five miles in 
 width, and the railroad is built at an elevation with passage-ways for 
 water at short distances. For many miles each side of this river 
 the land is excellent and the country charming. As we rode over 
 the prairies the young men of the party sang grotesque and senti- 
 mental songs in all the cars, led by Mr. Bowers, of Chicago ; Mr. 
 Jackson, of Newark^ and others. Here it was that we reached the 
 two hundred and forty-seventh verse of that remarkable ballad, com- 
 mencing and ending and running all the way through as follows : 
 
 " Two little fishes swimming in the water. 
 Head come first and tail come after. 
 
 Chorus — Two little fishes swimming in the water, 
 Head come first and tail come after." 
 
 Also, that other still more remarkable song : 
 
 " There was old dog lay on a bani floor 
 And Bingo was his name." 
 
 First voice — "B!" Second voice — '"i!" Third voice — "n!" Fourth voice — "g!" 
 
 Chorus " O — o — o — o — and Bingo was his name ! " 
 
 As we neared St. Joseph the prairies were burning, and it was 
 here that many of the party first witnessed a scene of which they 
 had all read glowing descriptions. They passed through St. Jo and 
 arrived at Atchison, on the west bank of the Missouri, on Saturday 
 evening. 
 
 IN KANSAS. 
 
 Atchison is as yet only just started as a city, but is probably des- 
 tined, from its natural position, to be one of the great cities of Kan- 
 sas. It is situated at the westernmost bend of the Missouri, and for 
 this reason, before the building of our railroads west of the Mis- 
 souri, has always been selected as the spot from which emigrants 
 and goods were landed to be taken westward. In 1865 the amount 
 
87 
 
 of assorted merchandise alone started across the plains from Atchi- 
 son was over twenty-one millions of pounds, requiring to transport 
 it five thousand wagons, seven thousand mules and horses, twenty- 
 eight thousand oxen, and over five thousand men. And to show 
 how this business has increased, it is stated that the freighting busi- 
 ness of Atchison for 1865 was seven times larger than in 1861, five 
 times larger than in 1862, and four times larger than in 1863. Be- 
 tween Atchison and Salt Lake the Overland Stage Line employed 
 in 1865, four hundred and fifty men, one thousand two hundred 
 horses, and one hundred and eighty coaches, and on all its connec- 
 tions it employs three hundred and fifty coaches and express wagons. 
 The country from Atchison westward is, in almost all respeCls, one 
 of the richest and most delightful in the United States. Upon the 
 Kickapoo reservation, especially, nature seems to have prepared 
 meadows and gardens ready for the use of the husbandman, without 
 toil or trouble. The soil is rich, and five feet deep. The lands are 
 rolling, and intersefted with streams which are fringed with timber. 
 There are stone quarries giving abundant material for building pur- 
 poses. The climate is charming — there is little or no fever and ague. 
 There is a belt along here where less snow falls than on the country 
 either above or below, and population is coming upon it rapidly. 
 
 PROGRESS OF THE ROADS. 
 
 The Atchison or central branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, 
 which we came to inspeft, is designed to join the Union Pacific 
 proper at Fort Kearney, or at about the hundredth meridian of lon- 
 gitude. The northern branch runs from Omaha, and has now about 
 three hundred miles finished. The southern branch runs from Kan- 
 sas City, and is finished beyond Fort Riley. By the original acts 
 of 1862 and 1864 each of these three branches were to connedl 
 with the Union Pacific proper at about the hundredth meridian, the 
 southern and the central branch to join on the banks of the Repub- 
 lican river beyond Fort Riley. The last session of Congress 
 gave permission to the southern branch, or as it is called the Union 
 Pacific Eastern Division, to d,iverge from the route laid down on its 
 maps and filed in Washington, and to pursue the valley of the 
 Smoky Hill Fork, a river so named because of the smoke that 
 seems to hang over the hills. By turning off in this direftion, they 
 will be enabled to obtain the trade with Santa Fe and the vast and 
 
88 
 
 rich mineral country in that direction, but will, in all probability 
 lose their connexion with the Union Pacific. The central branch, 
 by this a6lion, is left out in the cold. It has already spent more, 
 than two millions of dollars on a pledge that it would have a conec- 
 tion with the Union Pacific, and it will at this season of Congress 
 ask that the subsidies be allowed it, the benefit of which it would 
 have had if the route of the southern branch had not been changed. 
 The subsidies granted to the central branch originally extended one 
 hundred miles, at which point it was to join the southern branch. 
 The subsidies allowed to all these branches are $i6,qoo per mile, 
 and alternate se6lions of land along their route not previously 
 occupied. Owing to the occupation of land along their route, the 
 central branch do not get more than one-half of that to which they 
 would be otherwise entitled to. Their road is now completed nearly 
 sixty miles, and forty miles of it has been inspe6led and accepted by 
 the United States Commissioners. They will push the one hundred 
 miles along which they are already entitled to a subsidy as rapidly 
 as possible, and await the justice of Congress to give them the 
 opportunity of the connection with the Union Pacific to which the 
 a6l under which they commenced work entitled them. At all 
 events, they confidently believe that the local business of their road 
 will sustain it and enable it to pay its way until that connection is 
 had. They form a direft continuation of the Trunk line from New 
 York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and have a double connexion with 
 St. Louis. 
 
 The Omaha or northern branch is progressing very rapidly, and 
 the overland mail between New York and San Francisco is now 
 sent by this route, by way of Chicago instead ot St. Louis, thus sav- 
 ing about four days in its transit from New York across the North 
 Fork of the Platte river. A bridge is now completed over this 
 fork, and the railroad is laid from Omaha to this bridge. At this 
 bridge they deliver mails, freight, and passengers to Halliday's 
 Overland Stage Line on the west side of the river. The work of 
 laying the road will be recommenced about the first of next March, 
 and the company expe6l to lay three hundred miles to Denver, of 
 the meridian of Denver, in about one hundred working days. We 
 have news from the Central Pacific Railroad of California, which is 
 being built east to meet the Union Pacific, that it has already reach- 
 ed the summit ot the Sierra Nevada, and that ten thousand China- 
 men are at work grading and tunnelling the route over the moun- 
 
89 
 
 tain. It is estimated that with good success the Pacific Railroad 
 will be completed in five years, so that we may go to California by 
 rail. 
 
 From here the company go home by way of St. Louis. They 
 will, however, have a reception at St. Joseph, at invitation of the 
 Common Council, and also at Cincinnati. 
 
 [From the St. Joseph Herald.] 
 
 Grand Excursion. — Central Branch Union Pacific Railroad. — 
 Speeches of Distinguished Visitors. — A Gala-Day. 
 
 We were of the opinion when the excursion of the Omaha branch 
 of the Pacific railway occurred, that it was only once in a man's life 
 that such an opportunity for enjoyment presented itself as our 
 Western friends were furnishing those who are laboring to conneft, 
 with an iron link, the Atlantic and Pacific shores. But our experi- 
 ence yesterday has convinced us that the open gateway of the Great 
 West will not be chocked by any host which the East can pour 
 into it. 
 
 Our readers are probably aware that the Central Branch Union 
 Pacific Railroad Company yesterday gave a grand excursion over 
 their road from Atchison westward forty miles. The day was a 
 glorious one, and well calculated to inspire all who were so fortu- 
 nate as to be of the •' merrie companie " with the most favorable 
 ideas of life on the rim of civilization. Kansas has been called by 
 an author the back-yard of civilization ; but could the author of that 
 untoward remark have been in Atchison yesterday, and mingled 
 with the distinguished divines, the fashionable belles, the wise men 
 from the East as learned in the law, and as accomplished in all that 
 pertains to elegant scholarship and the graces of life as ever Butler 
 satirized or Chesterfield hoped to realize, he would have thought 
 the Kansans were swinging upon the front gates of a literary and 
 social Eden. 
 
 [Here follow the names of excursionists.] 
 
 The first thing which attrafted our attention was the magnificent 
 new car manufa6lured for the road by Messrs. Cummings & Son, of 
 Jersey City. This car is a regular sixty seat passenger coach, for- 
 ty-three feet in length, built with the utmost regard to durability and 
 
90 
 
 comfort. It has all the improvements of the day, including high 
 deck and compromise wheel, which will run on any gauge, wide or 
 narrow. 
 
 The interior is finished and fitted up in a very neat and tasty 
 style, with more regard to the comfort of passengers than to an 
 exhibition of gaudiness. The woodwork consists principally of oak 
 with black walnut trimmings, and the whole ornamented with gilt 
 bead, together forming a very pretty finish. The upper and deck 
 lights are of ornamented ground glass, affording a degree of light 
 rarely enjoyed in railroad cars. The upholstering is of green Brus- 
 sels, the carpeting on the floor and the seat cushions being of the 
 same material. One end of the car, for the space of a few feet, is 
 shut off from the other portion by a curtain matching in color with 
 the carpet, and in the rear of this is arranged a dressing-room con- 
 taining a mirror, washing utensils, and other conveniences. Extra 
 attention has been given to ventilation, the most improved method 
 being adopted to obtain that great desideratum — pure air. The 
 painting and ornamentation is plain yet handsome, and in every par- 
 ticular the car reflects great credit on its popular builders. 
 
 The elegant car of E. B. Phillips, Esq., President of the Michigan 
 Southern and Northern Indiana Railroad, was also one of the train, 
 and received the deserved encomiums of all present. The train 
 consisted of five spacious cars, which were filled to repletion. 
 
 About ten o'clock a.m. the train started for the " Far West," and 
 a livelier party never boarded a train of railroad cars than were 
 whiffed out of Atchison yesterday. The " Kickapoo Club," organiz- 
 ed on the ferry-boat on the Mississippi river, through their Chief, 
 Mr. Bowen, of Chicago, blew the Kickapoo horn, saluted each blast 
 with Kickapoo cheers, sang the song of the universal menagerie, 
 declaimed the speech with the immortal refrain of " a howling wil- 
 derness,'''' and otherwise contributed to the merriment and delight 
 of the travel-stained pilgrims with whom they were temporarily so- 
 journing. 
 
 We stepped into the new car of the Company, and found its in- 
 terior decorated with the American flag, a likeness of Col. Wm. 
 Osborn, the contraftor, and also conspicuously displayed the first 
 verse of the 127th Psalm: 
 
 Forty-four miles out from Atchison the train stopped, the ladies 
 
 " Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it. Except the Lord 
 keep the city the watchman waketh in vain." 
 
91 
 
 and gentlemen rushed wildly to an Indian wigwam and crowded 
 into and inspected carefully its interior. An old Indian " Howed " 
 to all who passed, and looking at the expanded crinoline of the 
 ladies, exclaimed, " Heap wigwam," while his squaw looked on stolid- 
 ly till President Pomeroy seized her young papoose, and bore it, 
 squalling and kicking, towards the train. Its wrinkled face might 
 readily have been taken for the spanked plumptitudes of a more 
 favorably born infant, while all were favored with cumulative evi- 
 dence of the strength of lungs inherited by a juvenile Indian. Here 
 the Company are erefting a splendid stone depot building from cut 
 limestone quarried within twenty yards of the foundation. 
 
 About noon we were at the end of the rails, and here the entire 
 party entered heartily into a picnic on the open prairie. The ser- 
 vants of the company opened the capacious baskets, barrels, and 
 cans which were stowed in the baggage car, and an innumerable 
 host of turkeys, quails, chickens, roast pigs, and roast lambs greeted 
 the hungry gaze of the expedant excursionists. Barrels of iced 
 milk, kegs of sweet golden butter, acres of snow-white bread, cans 
 of pickles, preserves, and delicacies, and oceans of champagne, soon 
 made their appearance, and abundantly satisfied the temporal wants 
 of all present. Some person set the dry prairie grass on fire, and as 
 it roared and ran nearer and nearer to the picnickers, there was 
 quite a speftacle among them, but the wind permitted no damage 
 from this cause. 
 
 We may as well say here, that the central branch of the Union 
 Pacific Road starts from Atchison, and is intended to run westward, 
 say 235 miles, where it will be part of the Grand Pacific Railway. 
 The road is the smoothest, best constru6led, and most complete in 
 all its appointments, of any new line we ever rode over. So perfe6l 
 was it as to elicit expressions of praise from every person present. 
 Col. Wm. Osborn is building it, and he will surely push it through 
 to a successful completion. All his life he has been engaged in the 
 construftion of public works. Thirty years ago he was a contrador 
 on the Illinois and Michigan Canal, and Missourians will remember 
 him as the contra6lor of the Hannibal and St. Joseph, and Platte 
 Country Railways. Whatever he undertakes, he pushes through. 
 The road traverses the most magnificent seftions of land which 
 were ever shone upon, or encircled by a surveyor's chain. 
 
 (Here follows a report of the speeches.) 
 
 We returned to Atchison by the light of the moon and the burn- 
 
92 
 
 ing prairies, and had a magnificent supper at the Tremont, which 
 hotel the Company had hired to accommodate the excursionists. 
 At the supi^er-table, General Craig, in behalf of the St. Joseph dele- 
 gation, thanked the managers of the road for the kindness and at- 
 tention shown us, and proposed the health of R. M. Pomeroy, Pre- 
 sident, and Col. Wm. Osborn, Superintendent and Contractor, of the 
 Central Branch of the Union Pacific Railroad, which was drank 
 standing by the St. Joseph people present. 
 
 Thus ended the grandest excursion we ever attended. Whenever 
 another like it occurs on this continent, may we be there to see. 
 The excursionists will all be here about one o'clock this afternoon. 
 Let all our citizens, ladies and gentlemen, be at Brady's Hall to 
 receive them. 
 
 Dinner at the Burnet House, Cincinnati. 
 
 [From the Cincinnati Commercial.] 
 
 November 26, 1866. 
 
 We left the Eastern-Western excursionists on Saturday evening, 
 after their hurried visit to some of our places of interest, seated at a 
 comfortable dinner at the Burnet House, in company with a few 
 friends. After the removal of the cloth at dinner an impromptu 
 meeting was organized by the seledion of R. M. Pomeroy, the Pre- 
 sident of the road, as Chairman. 
 
 IVIr. E. H. Nichols, of New York, the Treasurer, in introducing a 
 toast, said : " Mr. Chairman — We are indebted to the Chamber of 
 Commerce of this city, for the opportunity of visiting the principal 
 points and surroundings of this city, and we desire to express our 
 sincere thanks. Before doing so formally, I wish to call attention 
 to a few statistics in regard to this city, which I obtained from the 
 annual report of the Chamber of Commerce. The imports of this 
 city for the year ending August 31, 1866, were three hundred and 
 sixty-two millions, and the exports during that time were two hun- 
 dred and one millions. These fads go to show how great is the in- 
 ternal trade and commerce of this country. There is one other fa<5l 
 that I would like our Boston friends to bear in mind. It seems that 
 Cincinnati stands next to New York as a grocery market ; that the 
 amount of sugar and coffee imported here last year not only exceeds 
 
93 
 
 considerably the total imports of St. Louis and Chicago combined, 
 but is slightly greater than those of Boston, Chicago, and New Or- 
 leans together. I propose to the ladies and gentlemen present the 
 health of the members of the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce." 
 
 The toast was drank standing, and cheers given for the Chamber 
 of Commerce, Mr. Newton, President of the Chamber, and Mr. 
 Davis, Vice-President, who had taken charge of the party in their 
 ride about the city. 
 
 Mr. Isaac Kendall, of New York, in some complimentary remarks, 
 called upon Hon. O. Follett, of Sandusky, the President of the San- 
 dusky and Dayton Railroad. 
 
 Mr. Follett was received with loud cheering. A person, he said, 
 addressing such an audience as this, must either amuse or instruct. 
 They could not expeft him to amuse them, for he never said a witty 
 thing in his life, except by accident ; and to attempt to instruft such 
 a company was almost hopeless. But to his Cincinnati friends he 
 would like to say a word in reference to their interests in connexion 
 with the Pacific Railroad. He was a Western man and a railroad 
 man, and it had been his business to watch over railroad interests, 
 and to look into the conneftions of the different interests of the 
 country — railroad, commercial, and political. But until this trip, 
 which he had taken west of the Mississippi, he had not realized 
 the different enterprises and their importance, which are to unite 
 the East with the West. 
 
 Mr. Nichols had given statistics of Cincinnati prosperity : it was 
 called, with propriety, the Queen City of the West, but she must be 
 vigilant or her laurels will be shorn, and she might at last be com- 
 pelled to bow to the superior energy and enterprise of Chicago, 
 My Cincinnati friends sometimes laugh at Chicago, and say that its 
 merchants engage in wild enterprises, and sometimes blow up, while 
 the credit of Cincinnati merchants is good in the Atlantic cities and 
 at home. This is true, but you make use of your wealth too much 
 as individuals, and not as a great community charged with large and 
 important interests. Chicago does engage in wild speculations, and 
 some of them blow up, but the work done remains behind them. 
 There have been roads built in the West from which no dividend is 
 derived ; but the roads remain, and will, in the end, bear fruit. 
 These branches of the Pacific Railroad bear an important relation 
 to the interests of different seftions, which you should look into. By 
 the ads of Congress of 1 862 and 1 864 there were three branches 
 
94 
 
 authorized from different points in tlie East to stretch West, and 
 form a jun6lion with the trunk line at the hundredtli meridian. The 
 North Branch, from Omaha, will form a junftion with the Union 
 Pacific proper. The Central Branch, which we have visited, start- 
 ing from Atchison, was intended to join with what is called the 
 Eastern Division of the Union Pacific. Congress, however, has 
 allowed the Eastern Division, which forms the third or southerly 
 branch, to change its diredlion. Its managers are railroad men, and 
 some of the most influential residing in this city. They calculate on 
 a large income from the immediate operations of that road. I am 
 informed that during the last month the local business on that road 
 amounted to fifty-five thousand-odd dollars, which is more than 
 enough to pay the running expenses, and pay a reasonable dividend 
 upon the outlays, saying nothing of repairs which the road does not 
 yet need. But, as they progress, instead of going on and allowing 
 the Atchison or Central Branch of the Pacific to form a junction 
 with them, they turn off to the left at what is called the Smoky Hill 
 Fork, and this will take them so far to the left that they will not 
 form a jun6lion with the Union Pacific proper. The objeft of this 
 we are left to conjefture, though some of the leading men confess 
 that they intend to reach the Santa Fd country. Such an enter- 
 prise is all very well ; it will tend to develop another portion of the 
 country, and provide a means of offence and defence by transporting 
 war materials, and the Government can well afford to pay the sub- 
 sidy and alternate sections of land to this road. They will also be 
 in a right position to branch off to Colorado. In this region there 
 are still tribes of Indians who exhibit a good deal of civilization ; 
 they manufadlure, they weave their own garments, they are a peace- 
 able, pastoral, agricultural people. Whether they are a portion of 
 that Aztec race which formerly settled in this Colorado country, we 
 can hardly determine. They had a seat of government, and there 
 are buildings standing which have resisted the encroachments of 
 time ; and now, if this road should reach this region, we may esta- 
 blish a new civihzation upon this extinft civihzation. Here is a field 
 in which the imagination may revel without limit. Here, also, in 
 this Colorado region, is the seat of the largest mineral wealth known, 
 perhaps, in the world — gold almost with the picking of it up, so that 
 the Indians make their bullets of it. This is the country to be 
 developed by the Santa Fe Railroad, if the Eastern Division of the 
 Union Pacific Railroad shall take that course. It therefore be- 
 
95 
 
 comes no part of the Pacific Railroad. But I want to speak to my 
 Cincinnati friends of the importance of this Atchison or Central 
 Branch to them. It makes no difference to our Eastern friends by 
 what channel the riches of the East reach their ultimate market in 
 the West. As the Dutchman said upon the Mohawk river, before 
 the days of railroads or canals : " When I gets to Albany, it makes 
 no difference what route I came, so my wheat is good ; that is all 
 they want." So of the goods that are carried by these great routes 
 — it won't be asked by what channel they come ; and, unless our 
 Cincinnati friends stir themselves, they will find that the goods 
 from the East will come over the Chicago route. This can be 
 prevented, to a great extent, by giving their influence iA favor of this 
 Central Branch, which, by a short link from Leavenworth and At- 
 chison, and so on to the point of junftion with the Union Pacific 
 proper, will form an almost direfl connexion with the Pacific coast. 
 These gentlemen in Cincinnati who have taken the southerly, or, as 
 it is improperly called, the Eastern Branch in hand, have not taken 
 the pains to let their friends understand how they are going to turn 
 oflFand leave the conneclion with the Pacific. Talking of the Paci- 
 fic Railroad to Cincinnati people, and referring only to this Eastern 
 Division, is like playing Hamlet with the chara6ler of Hamlet left 
 out. If our Cincinnati friends desire to conned themselves with 
 the Pacific, they must expe6l to do it through this Central Branch 
 which we have been out to visit. Whichever route — whether the 
 one by Omaha or the Central Branch — reaches the hundredth 
 meridian will enjoy the benefit of the trade between the East and 
 the West, and it is for the interest of Cincinnati that the Central 
 Branch should obtain it. It should be the duty of our worthy Pre- 
 sident, Mr. Pomeroy, who has been of Cincinnati, and may consider 
 himself to some extent still of Cincinnati, to let his friends here 
 understand this thing. If you have a member of Congress within 
 your reach, you should point out to him the necessity of granting to 
 this Central Branch the additional subsidies to enable it to reach 
 the hundredth meridian and conneft with the Union Pacific proper, 
 as was contemplated by the original legislation on that subjeft, 
 upon the faith of which they have expended two millions of dollars, 
 and so that it may not suffer unjustly by this change of the route of 
 the Eastern Division. This must be done to divide the stream of 
 commerce that is to pass over the continent. There must be more 
 than one outlet. It must not all go by the way of Chicago. It 
 
96 
 
 must be divided and diffused so that all may feel its genial and pros- 
 pering influence. [Loud applause.] 
 
 In the evening, Mr. Ahl, son-in-law of President Pomeroy. gave 
 a reception at his residence, on Pike street. The excursionists 
 leave this morning: en route for the East. 
 
 [From the Boston Journal, Dec. 14, 1866.] 
 
 At Atchison, Kansas, commences the fourth branch of the road. 
 It was originally provided by A(5l of Congress, approved July i, 
 1862, that the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad might extend their 
 line via Atchison for one hundred miles west of the Missouri river, 
 receiving the same compensation from Government that was provid- 
 ed for the Union Pacific road. These rights and privileges were 
 subsequently legally transferred to the Atchison and Pike's Peak 
 Railroad Company, incorporated by Kansas, which by a recent vote 
 of the Directors is now called the Central Branch Union Pacific 
 Railroad. It was proposed to extend the line across the fertile 
 prairies of Kansas, and form a connexion a hundred miles west 
 with the fifth and most southerly of the Pacific Railroad which starts 
 from Kansas City, Mo. At the last session of Congress the latter 
 road procured permission from Congress to abandon the valley of 
 the Republic and adopt the Smoky Hill valley, which leaves the 
 Kansas road without a connexion. Congress will undoubtedly 
 grant permission to continue the road to Fort Kearney, where it will 
 interseft the Union Pacific Railroad, extending the subsidy to 
 $16,000 per mile, and the grant of land for the extension beyond 
 the one hundred miles, sixty of which will be completed in a few 
 weeks. 
 
 Towards the Pacific, 
 
 [From the Chicago Times, Nov. 16, t866.] 
 
 Wednesday evening another excursion party arrived in Chicago, 
 having in view objetls somewhat similar to the first. It consists of 
 the directors, stockholders, and friends of the Central Branch of the 
 Union Pacific Railroad, a tributary of the main line. The occasion 
 of their presence in our midst is the completion of the first three 
 
97 
 
 se<5lions of the branch line, extending sixty miles west of Atchison, 
 Kansas. As the existence of this undertaking, and the objefts 
 which it proposes to accomplish, are comparatively unknown, the 
 following brief resii/ne will aftbrd a comprehension of the 
 
 CENTRAL BRANCH. 
 
 This route was originally known as the Atchison and Pike's Peak 
 Railroad, but when the Pacific Railroad bill was passed by Congress 
 it was denominated the Central Branch, and the branch terminating 
 in Kansas City was called the Eastern Division. The route pro- 
 posed for this road was from Atchison to Republican creek, and 
 there connecting with the Eastern Division ; the converging lines 
 should form one line as far as Fort Kearney, or the hundredth meri- 
 dian, where they were to conne<5l with the Union Pacific Railroad. 
 
 To assist in the constru6lion of the Eastern Division, and Central 
 branches. Congress bestowed a subsidy of $16,000 per mile, the 
 Central Branch proportion being 100 miles. The last Congress, 
 however, permitted a change of route of the Eastern Division, allow- 
 ing them to adopt what is known as the Smoky Hill Fork route, 
 running to the Pacific by way of Santa ¥6. In consequence of this 
 subsequent disarrangement of the original provisions of the charter, 
 the convergence of the lines at Fort Kearney or the hundredth meri- 
 dian is prevented, and the proposed benefits to be derived from the 
 Central Branch were neutralized without an additional subsidy from 
 Congress to enable the branch to conneft with the main line, as ori- 
 ginally intended. The stockholders, however, propose, at the next 
 session of Congress, to request the additional subsidy. This rehef 
 Congress cannot consistently refuse without incurring the responsi- 
 bility of a repudiation of the enaftments of its predecessors, and 
 rendering comparatively worthless the road and the interests which 
 its constru6lion will subserve. The Central Branch, when complet- 
 ed, will be a continuation of the Hannibal and St. Joseph Railroad, 
 and thereby rendered subservient to Chicago by means of the Chi- 
 cago, Burlington, and Ouincy Railroad. Its central position, and the 
 mildness of the climate through which it will run, warrant, when 
 completed, an immense traffic. The region through which surveys 
 have been made contains some of the finest agricultural land in the 
 country, including the celebrated Kickapoo reserve, which belongs 
 to the Company. 
 
98 
 
 Although the aftion of Congress, in permitting the divergence of 
 the Eastern Division, clouds somewhat the prospers of immediate 
 construdtion, yet the names of Erastus Corning, John A. Stewart, 
 E. B. Phillips, Effingham H. Nichols, R. M. Pomeroy, Ginery 
 Twichell, Duncan & Sherman, and other prominent capitalists and 
 railroad magnates, who have large interests in the road, are suffi- 
 cient guarantees of its ultimate completion and success. 
 
 [From the Boston Journal.] 
 AN AGREEABLE REUNION AND PRESENTATION. 
 
 In the month of November last it will be remembered a party of 
 ladies and gentlemen left this city to attend the opening of the 
 second division of the Central Branch of the Union Pacific railroad. 
 Under the guidance of Ralph M. Pomeroy, Esq., President of the 
 road, the excursion party were safely carried without change of cars 
 from Jersey City to Atchison, Kansas, receiving at all the large 
 cities the kindest manifestations of regard, and the most open-hand- 
 ed hospitality. While enjoying a picnic on the rolling prairies of 
 the Kickapoo Reserve, it was proposed that the caries de visite of 
 the guests of the road should be collefted, and presented to the lady 
 of the President. The album having been prepared, the members of 
 the party resident in this city and vicinity were notified, and the pro- 
 posed recipient was also duly warned that a call would be made on 
 Thursday evening. 
 
 In accordance with this arrangement the residence of Mr. Pome- 
 roj', on Chester Square, was last evening the scene of a most agree- 
 able reunion. An acquaintance formed by sixteen to twenty days' 
 daily intercourse in the cars ripens into life-long friendship ; and as 
 this was the first reassembling of the party, the interchange of con- 
 gratulations testified to the pleasant and enduring remembrances of 
 the trip. A few invited guests who were not with the party were 
 present, and, no doubt, regretted their inability to accept the invita- 
 tion which had been extended, when they saw the happy " tribe of 
 Ralph" at headquarters. Mr. Charles H. Allen, in behalf of the 
 donors, presented to Mrs. Pomeroy a very elegant album containing 
 the photographs of ladies and gentlemen of Boston, New York, 
 Pittsburg, Chicago, Cincinnati, etc., who composed the party. The 
 presentation speech abounded in happy hits. 
 
99 
 
 Mr. Pomeroy, in behalf of his good lady, was about responding, 
 when the company, which had formed in a semicircle, fell back, 
 exposing to his view for the first time on a table in the rear parlor 
 an elegant service of silver from the establishment of Messrs. Crosby 
 & Morse. Rev. James O. Means, in a few well chosen words, 
 expressed the desire of the Boston party to present the gift as a tes- 
 timonial of their appreciation of his courtesy, care, and attention. 
 The reply of Mr. Pomeroy was that of a surprised man. He 
 expressed his most grateful acknowledgments for" this most unex- 
 pe6led gift. In the course of his remarks he alluded to the recent 
 death of General S. R. Curtis, who was with the party in Kansas, 
 and recalled the many pleasant incidents of the excursion, conclud- 
 ing his remarks by stating that though his friends had selefted 
 the evening to honor him with a call, they had happily for him 
 and his wife hit upon the thirtieth anniversary of their marriage. 
 
 The following is a list of persons who participated in 
 the excursion : 
 
 BOSTON, MASS. 
 
 R. M. Pomeroy, Pres. C. B. U. 
 P. R. R., and wife. 
 
 Chas. H. Allen and wife. 
 
 Rev. E. B. Webb, D.D., and wife. 
 
 W. H. Cowing and wife. 
 
 Daniel Harwood and wife. 
 
 Geo. S. Hale. 
 
 Col. Wm. W. Clapp, Sat. Even- 
 ing Gazette. 
 
 Geo. B. Brown. 
 
 Amory Leland and wife. 
 
 T. C. Stearns and wife. 
 
 G. D. Baldwin and wife. 
 
 A. C. Mayhew and wife. 
 
 Gen. F. S. Fiske and wife. 
 
 G. W E. Wood and wife. 
 
 A. L. Coolidge and wife. 
 
 C. A. Aldrich and wife. 
 
 Lee Claflin and wife. 
 
 John T. Manny and wife. 
 
 C. C. Esty and wife. 
 
 Rev. T. O. Rice and wife. 
 
 G. W. Cochrane. 
 Rev. J. O. Means. 
 F. W. Henderson. 
 J. H. Putnam. 
 
 A. R. Adams. 
 
 Mrs. E. A. Whittridge. 
 Miss Julia Edwards. 
 Mrs. W. F. Claflin. 
 Mrs. D. N. Skillings. 
 Mrs. A. K. P. Joy. 
 Miss M. O. Leland. 
 Mrs. M. J. Bowen. 
 Miss Emma Clark. 
 Albert Harwood. 
 T. A. Thayer. 
 J. D. Hague. 
 Chas. W. Newhall. 
 
 B. F. Galley. 
 N. P. Coburn. 
 Henry Field. 
 Dr. J. Pratt. 
 James W. Clark, 
 Caleb Norris. 
 A. B. Whiting. 
 
lOO 
 
 NEW YORK CITY. 
 
 Effingham H. Nichols, Treas. C. 
 B. U. P. R. R. 
 
 Wm. B. Nichols. 
 
 Miss Susan W. Nichols. 
 
 V. M. Wetmore 
 
 Dr. John McE. Wetmore. 
 
 John C. Havemeyer. 
 
 H. C. Havemeyer. 
 
 A. Havemeyer. 
 
 Alex. J. Cotheal. 
 
 Mortimer Porter. 
 
 Rev. S. H. Tyng, Jr. 
 
 R. A. Welsford. 
 
 W. D. Gooken. 
 
 C. S. Parsons, Jr. 
 
 Isaac C, Kendall. 
 
 Lewis Morris. 
 
 Nathan M. Heal. 
 
 John A. Stewart, Pres. U. S. 
 Trust Co., and wife. 
 
 A. Carter and wife. 
 
 H. B. Barnes. 
 
 Miss E. B. Leycraft. 
 
 George Wakeman, N. Y. Tri- 
 bune. 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y. 
 
 A. Parkhurst, Cash. St. Nicholas 
 Bank. 
 
 W. P. Libby, Pres, Citizens' Gas 
 Co. 
 
 Samuel S. Powell, ex-Mayor of 
 Brooklyn. 
 
 Geo. W. White, Cashier of Me- 
 chanics' Bank. 
 
 Halsey Mead. 
 
 BINGHAMTON, N. Y. 
 
 Wm. R. Osborn, Cashier of Na- 
 tional Bank. 
 Miss May Osborn. 
 
 JERSEY CITY, N. J. 
 
 Rev. C. K. Imbrie, D.D. 
 James M. Tower and wife. 
 
 NEWARK, N. J. 
 
 B. T. Nichols and wife. 
 Col. H. W. Jackson. 
 Hiram W. Jessup. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE. 
 
 Frederick Smyth, Gov. of New 
 Hampshire, and wife. 
 
 NEWTON, CONN. 
 
 W. J. Dick. 
 
 EASTON, CONN. 
 
 S. S. Rowland. 
 
 CHICAGO, ILL. 
 
 E. B. Phillips, Pres. Mich. South- 
 ern & N. Ind. R. R. 
 Henry Starring. 
 Hon. L. B. Otis. 
 Ira P. Bowen. 
 Geo. S. Bowen. 
 Henry Keep. 
 A. Keith and wife. 
 Gilbert B. Hawes. 
 Samuel Powell. 
 
 E. Colbert and wife, Chicago 
 Tribune. 
 
 CINCINNATI, OHIO. 
 
 Col. T. J. Ahl. 
 Wm. Wiltshire. 
 Mrs. R. J. McKinney. 
 
 CONNECTICUT. 
 
 Miss E. F. Hawes. 
 
 SANDUSKY, OHIO. 
 
 Hon. O. Follett, Pres. Dayton & 
 Sandusky R. R. 
 
 BERLIN, OHIO. 
 
 F. R. Otis. 
 
 ST. JOSEPH, MO. 
 
 Gen. James Craig, Pres. Hanni- 
 bal & St. Joseph R. R. 
 
 Miss Ida Craig. 
 
 Hon. C. B . Wilkinson, St. Jo- 
 seph Herald. 
 
lOI 
 
 Maj. T. J. Crew, Pres. St. Jo- 
 seph & Denver R. R. 
 
 Hon. J. M. Richardson, ex. Sec. 
 of State of Mo. 
 
 Hon. Roswell Marsh. 
 
 Hon. John Corby and wife. 
 
 D. H. Winton and wife. 
 
 Col. Sanders, Platte Country R. 
 R. 
 
 U. Carpenter, Jr., and wife. 
 
 Col. Hitchcock, U. S. Express. 
 
 J. A. Ray nor. 
 
 John S. Kellogg and wife. 
 
 G. C. Barton and wife. 
 
 A. P. Parke and wife. 
 
 Samuel Hays and wife. 
 
 Miss E. F. Carpenter. 
 
 Miss S. F. Carpenter. 
 
 Miss Mollie Park. 
 
 Miss Kittie Munger. 
 
 Judge S. Woodson. 
 
 Col. I. Winton. 
 
 HANNIBAL, MO. 
 
 C. W. Mead, Gen. Sup. H. & St. 
 
 Jo. R. R. 
 P. B. Groat, Gen'l Ticket Agent. 
 Miss H. T. Lulaw. 
 
 ATCHISON. 
 
 Rt. Rev. Bishop Vail, and two 
 
 daughters. 
 Col. Wm. Osborn, Contraftor of 
 
 C. B. U. P. R. R. 
 Hon. A. G. Otis. 
 Rev. John Bakewell. 
 Rev. S. D. Storrs. 
 
 Rev. W. K. Marshall. 
 Rev. E. P. Lewis. 
 Hon. S. C. Pomeroy, U. S. Sena- 
 tor. 
 John M. Crowell, Mayor, and wife. 
 Rev. Pardee Butler. 
 
 Judge Adams. 
 
 Judge Bailey. 
 
 Col. Holliday. 
 
 Col. Martin. 
 
 Hon. J. M. GHck. 
 
 R. B. Morris and wife. 
 
 R. A. Parke and wife. 
 
 LEAVENWORTH. 
 
 J. T. T. Bull. 
 J. T. Herman. 
 
 TOPEKA. 
 
 F. P. Baker. 
 
 CENTRAL CITY, COL. 
 
 Col. S. F. Tappan. 
 
 WASHINGTON, D.C. 
 
 Gen. J. H. Simpson, U. S. Com- 
 missioner. 
 
 IOWA. 
 
 Gen. S. R. Curtis, U. S. Com- 
 missioner. 
 
 NEW HAVEN, CONN. 
 
 Dr. Wm. M. White, U. S. Com- 
 missioner. 
 
 And many others from the prin- 
 cipal western cities. 
 
m