Delaware Railroad, the real main-stem of all the railroads south of that point, and thus the productions of Dorchester County, through the Dorchester and Delaware Railroad; of Wicomico, through the Delaware and the Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroads; of Worcester through the latter and the Worcester Railroad, and of Somerset through the Eastern Shore Railroad, will all be poured into Baltimore, while much of the produce of Delaware will follow the same channel; trade always chosing for itself the most natural and expeditious routes. It will thus be seen that through this little railroad only forty miles in length, and which will be constructed at comparatively insignificant cost, all the trade of the purely Eastern Shore Counties, and much of the State of Delaware, will be attracted to our City, the route to Baltimore being shorter by one half than that which now draws a large portion of this trade to Philadelphia.
It is proposed to construct another line of railroad between this City and New York. The New Jersey Southern Railroad, which has recently changed hands it is said, proposes to build a road across the Delaware River, somewhere in the neighborhood of Fort Penn, which will strike the Delaware Railroad at Townsend, and from thence using the Townsend Branch Railroad, and the Kent County Railroad, will reach a point on the Chesapeake Bay near Rock Hall. Here passengers and freight will be shipped direct to Baltimore in steamers constructed for the purpose.
If carried out, this route will prove as effectual in diverting to Baltimore the trade of the Eastern Shore and Delaware as the road mentioned above.
The City by its admirable location, situated in the very heart of the country, at the head of a bay which is superior to the ocean because of the protection it affords to shipping, gives access to a broad reach of territory on either side, from which stores can be drained by water communication, and the receipts of our foreign and domestic commerce distributed at the smallest possible cost to producers.
The great grain fields of the far West are made tributary to her through gigantic lines of railway; the Valley of Virginia, teeming with cereals, mineral wealth and forests of inestimable value, through the same source pours into the City its varied productions; the South, with its inexhaustible resources, lumber, cotton, rice, tar, pitch, turpentine, rosin and tobacco is linked with her by splendid lines of steamers; competing railroad corporations are already struggling for the mastery in their efforts to empty into her lap the riches of the Central West, and the great Mississippi Valley; her enterprising merchants, business men and railroad companies have established, in connection with foreign corporations, magnificent lines of steamers which connect the City with the prominent ports of Europe, and the cheapness of these modes of communication are being practically demonstrated to the satisfaction of the South and West; her inner attractions, her beautiful parks, public squares, refined society, handsome and well ventilated thoroughfares, the high moral tone of her citizens, healthfulness, cheapness of living within her limits, her institutions, and the hospitality which has distinguished her in every period of her history, her iron works, cotton factories, sugar refineries, machine shops, glass works, flour mills, and her other great and important interests, have all been elaborated with care in the progress of this volume.
To predicate the future of Baltimore, with such a combination of resources as a basis, requires neither the use of isothermal lines, nor analytic deduction extending through long cycles of ages. Theories may be true and useful, but facts are stubborn and indisputable. The future of Baltimore depends upon but one hypothesis. The elements of her present and prospective greatness stare us in the face and need only utilization by a proportionate amount of energy on the part of our people to realize a prosperity scarcely exampled in the history of the world.
