The life and times of Henry Gassaway Davis, 1823-1916

Preface

The pages that follow are the record of a remarkable life, a life written in deeds. Henry Gassaway Davis for three-quarters of a century was absorbed in the healthy activities in which a constructive mind naturally found expression. The romance of railway building, the development of natural resources, the creation of industrial communities, all of which marked definite stages in the progress of the country, were one phase of his character. Public service, political leadership, citizenship in its highest sense, were another aspect. Generations that came and went left him pursuing his course with unabated energy.

The source material for this work existed in a mass of contemporary documents relating to public affairs, in newspapers and periodicals extending through more than half a century, and in a large volume of letters and private papers. The thanks of the author are due to the family for the access to these papers and for their assistance in many ways. Personal association in the later years of his career afforded insight into his character and the motives which governed his business enterprises and his support of international projects such as the Pan-American Railway. All this material has been studied with a view to exhibiting his life and times as a whole. In a career which covered so long and so eventful a period and which embraced so many and varied activities the most that can be done is to exhibit it in outline.

PREFACE

Perhaps the reader in following this history will understand why the life of Henry Gassaway Davis is worthy of permanent record. His broadly human sympathies endeared him to his fellow-countrymen, but there was more than this to enlist their enduring interest. His was a many-sided character. In his early struggles against adversity, in his qualities of initiative, in his individuality and self-confidence, in the sentiment which centered in the region that owed so much to him for the development of its resources, in his habit of looking forward, in his abiding faith in the institutions of his country, in his willingness to do his part as a citizen and his readiness to accept political responsibilities, people saw in him the Distinctive American. Such was Henry Gassaway Davis throughout his long and honorable and useful life. It is as such that these pages seek to record him.

C. M. P.

Washington, January, 1920.

Contents

Chapter I p^^gh

ANCESTRY AND YOUTH 3

Leaves from Maryland's Colonial history — Two ancient worthies — The Davises and the Browns — Memories of Goodfellowship estate — Parents of Henry Gassaway Davis — Baltimore at the time of his birth — The child who saw Charles Carroll lay the corner-stone of the first railway — Epochal events — Baltimore and Ohio's test of Peter Cooper's engine — Effect of family reverses on a carefree lad — Earning money at the stone quarry — Plantation steward for Governor Howard — Beginning of railroad career

Chapter II PIONEER RAILWAY DAYS 17

A brakeman on the Baltimore and Ohio — Crude methods of early days — Reasons for Davis's promotion — Washington in the '40' s — Famous passengers — Henry Clay's friendship — The conductor's courtship and marriage — Duties as station agent at Piedmont — Crossing the crest of the Alleghanies — Leaving the railroad service for business — General merchandising — Coal and lumber enterprises — Establishing a bank — Civil War conditions — Supplies for the railway under difficulties — Contractor Davis's interview with Lincoln — Extensive land purchases after the war

Chapter III EARLY PUBLIC LIFE

West Virginia a war-born State— Davis's belief in separation from the Old Dominion — Election to the Legislature as a Union-Conservative — Paucity of lawyers — Status of ex-Confederates—Reasons for test oaths and disfranchisement — Party passions — Committee assignments — Fiscal subjects and internal improvements — Delegate to Democratic National Convention—Election to State Senate — Repeal of test laws — Struggle over enfranchisement legislation — The debt question — Second election to State Senate — Democrats in power — Adventures of legislators in midwinter journey to Charleston — Work of the session — Election to United States Senate

V vi CONTENTS

Chapter IV page

SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES— FIRST TERM . 54

Notable members of the Forty-second Congress — The Democratic minority in the Senate — Partizan measures and sectional issues — Senator Davis's assignment to Claims and Appropriations committees — Speech in support of West Virginia war claims — Financial legislation in the Forty-third Congress — Panic of 1873 portrayed — Mobility of currency advocated — President Grant's veto of the Inflation Bill — Resumption of specie payments — Work as member of Committee on Transportation Routes — West Virginia waterways — Political revolution gives Democrats a majority in the House — Forty-fourth Congress — Senator Davis on treasury accounts and government bookkeeping — National and State Campaigns of 1876 — Reelection to the Senate — Support of Electoral Commission

Chapter V SENATOR OF THE UNITED STATES— SECOND TERM . 73

Parties as affected by President Hayes's Administration — Remonetization of silver — Democratic majority in the Senate of the Forty-sixth Congress — New colleagues — Senator Davis as chairman of the Appropriations Committee — Advocacy of a Department of Agriculture — Modest provisions for the farmers — Camden as a colleague — Treasury accounts again — An unqualified protection Democrat — Defense of the tariff on coal — West Virginia and debts of honor — Business reasons for declining a third term — Resolution of State Legislature — Resume of public questions during twelve years' service — Growth of appropriations — James G. Blaine's tribute to Senator Davis

Chapter VI THE RAILWAY BUILDER 90

East-and-west trunk lines through West Virginia — Undeveloped regions between the north and south systems — The Davis projects — His own story of prospecting trips — Early expeditions into the forest wilderness — Timber observations^ Exploring unknown coal-fields — Surveys for West Virginia Central Railway — Planning the route — Notable statesmen and capitalists enlisted in the enterprise — Horseback trip to White Sulphur Springs — Opening of the line in 1881 — Industrial communities created — Contemporary account of the railway and the region it developed — Controversy with the Baltimore and Ohio — Making the system independent

Chapter VII INTERNATIONAL AMERICAN CONFERENCES ... 105

Awakening of interest in the countries to the south — First Conference at Washington in 1889-90 — Mr. Davis appointed a delegate by President Harrison — Andrew Carnegie a colleague — Secretary Blaine's address of welcome — Organization and work of the Conference — International banks and transporta-

CONTENTS vii

PAGE

tion — Bureau of American Republics — Mr. Davis appointed by President McKinley a delegate to the Mexican Conference in 1901-02 — His associates — High character of representatives from the other Republics — Golden Age of Mexico under Porfirio Diaz — Personnel of Mexican delegation — Tokens of respect for "The Senator" — Reasons for declining to be the presiding officer — Speech on the Monroe Doctrine — Important results achieved — Farewell tributes to Mr. Davis

Chapter VIII THE PAN-AMERICAN RAILWAY i2r

Intercontinental trunk line the concept of men of vision — Mr. Davis's faith shown at the first conference — Activities on the survey commission — Value of engineering reconnaissances — Summary of the route — Support given the project by the Mexican Conference — Creation of permanent Pan-American Railway Committee— Its work— Special commissioner authorized by Congress — His report on status and prospects of the enterprise— Chairman Davis analyzes traffic and other objections—Relation to commerce and national development — Indorsement by subsequent Congresses— Steps to interest capitalists — Approval by International High Commission — Link between Harrison and Wilson administrations

Chapter IX POLITICAL ACTIVITIES AS A PRIVATE CITIZEN . . 136

Support of Senator Bayard in 1884— Cleveland's nomination at Chicago — Talk of Mr. Davis for Vice-President — He urges Hendricks — Campaign work — Visit to Albany— Explanation of his interest in Mr. Blaine — National Conventions in 1888--- Prophecy of Harrison's nomination — Mr. Davis declines to be a_ candidate for Governor — Visit to the President-elect at Indianapolis — Cabinet suggestions — Campaign of 1892 — Disruption in the Democratic party — Support of Bryan and Free Silver in 1896— West Virginia politics— View of national election in 1900

Chapter X SOCIAL LIFE AT DEER PARK AND WASHNGTON . . 152

Building a summer home in the Alleghany wilderness

Glimpses of the mountain farm — Mr. Davis's love of country life — Sowing oats and buckwheat— Shearing the sheep — Evolution of Deer Park into the summer capital — Distinguished visitors—Senatorial guests— Cardinal Gibbons— Ex-President Grant — President Cleveland's honeymoon — Fishing and other incidents — President Harrison and his family — Social side of official life in Washington — White House dinners — New Year's receptions — Entertainments for Senator Davis at the end of his term — Residence in Baltimore— First state dinner of President and Mrs. Cleveland viii CONTENTS

Chapter XI pace

VICE-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION AND AFTER . . i66

State of the Democratic party in 1904 — Revival of conservative forces — Mr. Davis a delegate to the St. Louis Convention — Cleveland elements in control — Mr. Bryan's fight in the Platform Committee for silver — Compromise by omission — Judge Parker's nomination for President — Mr. Davis's story of his own nomination for Vice-President — Welcome by his neighbors at Elkins — Turn given the campaign by Judge Parker's gold telegram — Objections to Mr. Davis on the score of age — Notification at White Sulphur Springs — Speech by John Sharp Williams — Response — Campaigning at eighty-one — Philosophic acceptance of result — Activities during the four years that followed — Urged by his party in West Virginia for various offices — Reasons for declining — Delegate to the Baltimore Convention in 1912 — Support of Wilson and Marshall

Chapter XII BUSINESS ACTIVITIES AT FOURSCORE AND BEYOND 185

A busy man's casual enumeration of his interests — Sale of the West Virginia Central Railway — Looking around for new fields to employ capital — Imprisoned resources in heart of the State — Mineral and timber reserves awaiting an outlet — Coal and Coke Railway projected by Mr. Davis — Route from Elkins to Charleston — Exploring trips at eighty — Progress of the line described — First train when the builder was eighty-four — Communities brought into life — Mr. Davis as active head of the railroad — Looking after the traffic and finances — Local development enterprises — Other business responsibilities

Chapter XIII WEST VIRGINIA 196

Commemorating the half century of a war-born State — Recognition of Henry G. Davis's part in upbuilding the commonwealth — His early exposition of its resources — President of Board of Trade — Tributes to him as a pioneer in development — Head of Bankers' Association — Service on Tax Commission — Memories of epochal events — Speech on anniversary of first battle at Philippi — Semi-Centennial Celebration at Wheeling — Mr. Davis's modest account of his work — Golden Jubilee honors for the Grand Old Man — His review of the moral and material progress of West Virginia — Promises of the future — Poetic interpretation of achievement and aspiration

Chapter XIV BENEFACTIONS AND PHILANTHROPIES 210

The habit of giving — Interest in free schools — Sentiment inspired by higher education — Permanent endowment for Davis and Elkins College — Contributions to religious objects — A home

CONTENTS IX

^ PACT

missionary s illuminating letter — Filial sentiment given expression in church edifice — Family affection exemplified in a memorial hospital— Failure of plans for girls' industrial school — Realization of similar idea in Child's Shelter — Mr. Davis's deep personal interest in the homeless little ones — Belief in organized Christianity — Substantial support of Young Men's Christian Association — Eulogy of its methods

Chapter XV FAMILY AND KINDRED 222

Deeply rooted affections of Mr. Davis — Sentiment for the ancestral home Goodfellowship — Recalling the children of Caleb Davis and Louisa Brown — The four brothers — The tie between Henry and Thomas — A brother's tribute — Friendship for his cousin, Arthur P. Gorman — ^Warm eulogy of Senator Elkins, his son-in-law — Children of Henry G. Davis and Kate Bantz — Marriages, births, and deaths — Loss of eldest son at sea — Fifty years of ideal married life — Death of Mrs. Davis — The final resting-place

Chapter XVI FAMOUS CONTEMPORARIES .232

Colleagues in the Senate — Thurman, the sturdy oak of Democracy — Schurz and Sherman — Windom as Senator and Secretary of the Treasury — Blaine's friendship — Bayard's esteem — Qualities in common with Allison — Vice-Presidents Wheeler and Hendricks — Benjamin Harrison's personality — Porfirio Diaz and Mexico — A page from contemporary history — The Cuban War — W. W. Corcoran, the philanthropist — Andrew Carnegie — Railway men and events — The great strike of 1877 — John W. Garrett as a board of directors — Annual dinners to railway presidents — Estimate of George B. Roberts and A. J. Cassatt — George F. Baer — Presentation of urn to Mr, Davis — Daniel Willard and the younger generation of contemporaries

Chapter XVII A SHEAF OF LETTERS 248

Gleanings from many contemporaries — Political history unfolded in correspondence — Senator Thurman's expectations in the famous Ohio campaign of 1875 — George H. Pendleton on factional politics — Many communications from William Windom — Hopes and fears in the tragedy of Garfield's life — Comment from Paris on parties and candidates in 1884 — European travel — Indignation over Blaine caricatures — Lines from Samuel J. Randall and AnErnstus H. Garland — West Virginia correspondents — Appreciation from the two Goffs — W. L. Wilson's ambition

X CONTENTS

Chapter XVIII page

MORE LETTERS 261

Benjamin Harrison's request for advice on investments — Grover Cleveland's explanation of a misunderstanding — Senator Gorman on prospects and results in 1904 — Thomas F. Bayard's illuminating correspondence — Spoils system responsible for Garfield's assassination — Views on his own campaign for the nomination in 1884 — Tilden and the rise of the literary bureau— Maintenance of principles— Manly comment on the Chicago Convention — Abhorrence of Benjamin F. Butler's labor movement — Tribute to Mr. Davis's work in developing West Virginia's resources — The last letter — Some piquant notes from Andrew Carnegie

Chapter XIX PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS 275

Mr. Davis's journal as an illustration of his character — Intimate record of half a century — The observant traveler at home and abroad — European trip — Shrewd reflections on the Southern States — Mexico and California — Personal thrift and business liberality — Passion for order and detail — Faculty of concentration — Making a bargain — High standard of integrity — Dislike of speculation — In all things an individualist — Austere home life mellowed — Favorite documents of American history — Fondness for biography — Material for speeches — Nature's physical endowment — Horseback rider at ninety — Capacity for sleep — Religious convictions

Chapter XX THE CLOSING YEARS 292

Tranquil activities of Mr. Davis to the end—Slowing up in business affairs not marked — Fraternal associations — Memories of the Order of Odd Fellows — The commemorative jewel — No Ciceronian reflections on Old Age — Reforesting the wilderness for future generations — Anecdotes of contemporaries—Health strategy — Comment on public affairs — Anniversary tributes to his life and works — At ninety-two — Last summer at Elkins — Meditations for the Railway Builder — Winter in Washington — Journal entries — Illness and death — Retrospect of a long life

J

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Henry Gassaway Davis Frontispiece

TACINa PAGE

Reproduction of daguerreotype of Mr. Davis and his

mother i6

Reproduction of daguerreotype of Kate Bantz Davis . . 32

Finance Committee of West Virginia Legislature ... 48

Henry Gassaway Davis in 1868 56

Scene on West Virginia Central Railway 72

Finance Committee of West Virginia Central Railway . 104

U. S. Delegation to Pan-American Conference at Mexico 120

Colonel Thomas B. Davis 152

Railway train in the mountain region — Point Lookout . 184

Davis Child's Shelter at Charleston 200

Davis Memorial Church at Elkins 232

Davis Memorial Hospital at Elkins 232

The Tygart River at Elkins 248

Memorial Church at Gassaway 260

Graceland, Mr. Davis's home at Elkins 272

Mr. Davis on horseback , . 288

THE LIFE AND TIMES

OF

THE LIFE AND TIMES

OF

Chapter I Ancestry And Youth

Leaves from Maryland's colonial history — Two ancient worthies — The Davises and the Browns — Memories of Goodfellowship estate — Parents of Henry Gassaway Davis — Baltimore at the time of his birth — The child who saw Charles Carroll lay the corner-stone of the first railway — Epochal events — Baltimore and Ohio's test of Peter Cooper's engine — Effect of family reverses on a care-free lad — Earning money at the stone quarry — Plantation steward for Governor Howard — Beginning of his railroad career.

MARYLAND'S early history is principally a record of the Calverts, Lord Barons of Baltimore, and the families that settled in their Province. On the Rent Rolls of the several Lord Barons of Baltimore appear the names of the forbears of the Davises and the Browns, to be followed later by those identical names. These families and their descendants bore their part in the transition of the Province from a semi-feudal proprietary possession to a democratic colony. The Davises were of Welsh extraction; the Browns were of Scotch-Irish blood. Two ancient worthies figure in the family records. One was Colonel Nicholas Greenberry, with whom the Davises were kin ;

the other was Colonel Nicholas Gassaway, a progenitor of the Browns.

Colonel Nicholas Greenberry was Deputy Governor of the Province in 1692, and from the documentary history of that period he appears to have filled various positions of responsibility, for the list of the official titles he bore is a long one. From one document is disclosed that, Henry Jowles, Esquire, "Chiefe Judge in Chancery," etc., being afflicted with gout and other indispositions of body, and unable to attend to the duties of his office, Colonel Nicholas Greenberry was one of three persons assigned to sit as Judge in Chancery pending this indisposition of the Chiefe Judge.

The Great Seal of William and Mary, under date of March 2, 1695, attests this appointment. Colonel Greenberry performed various other functions, and, in the troublous times which vexed the Lord Baltimore of that day, his name is frequently mentioned, sometimes as a supporter of the Lord Baron, and sometimes as a leader of the popular element.

Colonel Nicholas Gassaway arrived in the Province about 1650, and at once began to take an active part in its affairs. He was a Captain in the Indian Wars, later with the rank of Major, a Commissioner of Peace, Member of the Quorum, and in 1690 a member of the Committee of Twenty which was formed to govern Maryland. Captain Thomas Gassaway, his son, was High Sheriff of Anne Arundel County from 171 1 to 1714 ; and a son of this Gassaway, John by name, appears in 1740 as one of the principal gentlemen belonging to the Ancient South River Club, ''conveying for and in consideration of the sum of Eighty Pounds" a half acre of land on which the club-house was erected.

Colonel Nicholas Gassaway, the father of John, died in 1730. The minutes of the club meeting held on February 14, 1750, show that Henry Gassaway was chairman. Three years later the minutes disclose that by resolution Mr. John Gassaway was directed to provide a large punch-bowl; so it is clear that the Gassaways continued to be among the leading gentlemen of the Club.

In the direct line Henry Gassaway Davis was descended from Thomas Davis, a gentleman of the City of London, of an ancient Welsh family that had settled in Shropshire. Thomas Davis arrived in Maryland late in 1688, as a factor for several large mercantile establishments in London. He had a son Robert, who had a son Eli, and Eli had a son John, who was married to Sarah Randall. An only son was born of this union, Caleb Davis. Nathan Randall, the brother of Sarah, was a large landowner, and in his will he made his sister's son the sole heir to a tract of land known as Goodfellowship, some two hundred and fifty acres in extent, as recorded in the deed.

This land appears to have been from time to time a common possession on both sides of the family, probably due to intermarriage between the Davises and the Browns. It is certain that the Browns were large landowners, and a considerable tract was patented to them early in the seventeenth century. This patent extended over a considerable section of the hills and valleys that afterward came to be known as Anne Arundel County. Some of it was included in the purchases of Thomas Browne (the family had not then dropped the final vowel), who must have been a landowner with a sense of humor, since the several tracts patented to him are indicated as Browne's Folly, Browne's Chance, Browne's Adventure, and Browne's Increase. The name of

Joshua Brown is entered in the Debt Book of Anne Arundel County from 1750 to 1756 as paying Lord Baltimore quit-rent on one hundred acres of the Goodfellowship tract. Later it appears from the records that John Riggs Brown was the owner of this part of Goodfellowship.

John Riggs Brown was born in October, 1775, the second son of the Revolutionary patriot, Captain Samuel Brown. In December, 1799, he was wedded to Sarah Gassaway, the daughter of Brice J. Gassaway and Katherine Warfield. Brice J. Gassaway was the son of Nicholas Gassaway and a brother of Captain John Henry Gassaway and of Lieutenant Nicholas Gassaway, officers of the Maryland Line, and direct descendants of the original Colonel Nicholas Gassaway.

The Browns occupied and cultivated Goodfellowship. On a gentle eminence sloping down into the glades, a rectangular stone house had been built some time after 1650. There were the outbuildings of the complete plantation, the granary, the milk-house, the barns, which went to make up the estate of a landed proprietor of those days. Part of the stone house still stands, though later occupants covered it with concrete and enlarged it by a frame addition. The old chimney is there, and the mantelpiece and a few other reminders of the solid house furnishings of olden days. The milk-house remains. The granary, transformed in the course of centuries into a big barn, stood until 1918, when it was torn down to make room for a building better suited to the needs of modern farming.

The issue of the marriage of John Riggs Brown and Sarah Gassaway was a large family, principally girls. At Goodfellowship, on the tenth day of March, 1799, was born Louisa Warfield Brown, the mother of Henry

G. Davis. There also was born her sister, Elizabeth A. Brown, the mother of Arthur P. Gorman.

Caleb Davis was born near Baltimore in March, 1792, the only son of John Davis, also an only son, and of Sarah Randall. He was early left an orphan, and was given a home by an aunt. When the British expedition of Lord Ross sailed up the Potomac and destroyed the Capitol at Washington, Caleb Davis was one of those who volunteered for the defense of Baltimore, and he served during the remainder of the War of 1812.

In April, 181 5, Caleb Davis married Sarah Rowles, who died in 1819, leaving him one son, Nathan R. Davis, who died in boyhood. Caleb Davis did not long remain widowed. The family Bible records that he was married to Louisa Warfield Brown on the ninth day of March, 1819, by the Reverend Mr. Linthecomb. Of this union six children were born, John B., Elizabeth, Henry Gassaway, Eliza Ann, Thomas B., and Williami R. The child that was named Henry Gassaway was born in Baltimore on November 16, 1823.

Caleb Davis, at this time, was an enterprising and adventurous young merchant, living part of the time in Baltimore and part of the time in Anne Arundel County at the little settlement among the hills that was known as Woodstock. C Keenan's Baltimore City Directory for 1822 and 1823 designates him as "Caleb Davis, grocery and feed store, 283 Western Row, Baltimore Street, d. w., Paca, W. side S. of Baltimore." Later entries up to 1827 add to his lines of business, but apparently he remained in the same neighborhood. It was from near there that Barnes and Williamson's stages left five times daily for Washington.

Baltimore at this time was the third city in the Union and had sixty-five thousand inhabitants. It was a port of varied nationalities and vied with New York in the number of its great merchants. Foreign governments maintained consuls there, and the Patapsco was filled with the ships of many countries. But it was still a city in the making, with little outward evidence of the magnificent metropolis it was to become. When Lafayette visited it in 1824, the year following the birth of Henry G. Davis, the Washington Monument, which was to give it the name of the Monumental City, was ofif in Howard's Woods, still surrounded by scaffolding.

John H. B. Latrobe, who was identified with the history of Baltimore for more than half a century, said that on the left from the Fort to Federal Hill the only building was the town powder-house, while on the right it was no better. Far off in the distance, where the Philadelphia turnpike crossed Loudenslager Hill, there were some houses. Beyond the Fort and within the harbor proper, were the pungies, or small boats used for the transport of wheat, oysters, and wood.

This was the actual view; but the Baltimore merchants, and even the politicians of that day, had visions of the commerce of the future which its situation on the Chesapeake assured it. Yet they had become disquieted because of signs that this commerce might be lost to them. The cause of their uneasiness was the building of the Erie Canal. It was feared, and with reason, that this waterway would divert to New York the trade from over the mountains which the city had previously held. Another artificial waterway to serve the interests of Baltimore was the natural thought, and this thought bore fruition in the project of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.

There were men in Baltimore at that day who, while not doubting the Canal project, believed that better means could be developed for holding the traffic of the great West. They had heard of George Stephenson's engine, and some of them, the Thomases among others, had even gone so far as to have Evan Thomas visit England and examine the Manchester Railway in operation. A railroad to the Western waters thereafter became the leading idea of P. E. Thomas, and with his associates he mapped out a great national route to the Mississippi which would not only serve to fetch the coal from the mountains to the sea, but also would transport the agricultural products from beyond the Ohio to the Chesapeake Bay section of the Atlantic coast.

The Baltimore and Ohio Company was the first chartered and fully organized company in the United States for the construction of an extended line of railroad. It was distinctively a Baltimore enterprise. Its early difficulties and the resourcefulness of the men who projected and carried it through — even to their extravagance, as it was then considered, in offering Louis McLane a salary of four thousand dollars to tempt him from the presidency of a New York bank to assume the responsibilities of the railway — are part of the history of the development of the country through transportation enterprise. They are referred to here because they concern the subject of this biography; for, as a child, Henry Gassaway Davis lived in the midst of those epochal events.

On July 4, 1828, Caleb Davis took his entire family to witness a great event. All the substantial citizens of Baltimore were there with their families, and the unsubstantial ones also. This event was the laying of the "first stone," the corner-stone, of what came to be historic Camden Station, at the southwest line of the city, for the new railway project, and the address by the surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, lo THE LIFE AND TIMES OF

Charles Carroll of Carrollton. *'I consider this," said the venerable signer, "among the most important acts of my life, second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence, if even it be second to that."

A child of five years was held on his father's shoulder while this memorable address was made. Probably there were many other children of the same age who were held in the same way, but this one lived to recall it after more than eighty years. As he recited the circumstance, the impress left on his mind was that of "a big crowd of people and a very old man making a speech"; but the recollection was distinct, and the child, Henry G. Davis, always had a good memory for faces and places.

Caleb Davis, as a venturesome merchant alive to new opportunities, saw what the building of the railway would mean to the Western Shore through which it was to pass. The line was to run along the narrow valley of the Patapsco to Ellicott Mills, and then, following the course of the river, through Anne Arundel County and beyond to Frederick. This would mean increase in land values and contracts for enterprising men. He moved his family back to the farm, and began to put up houses and to develop some small factories.

The laying of the first stone of the railway line was truly an epochal event, but Henry G. Davis, a child of five, was not likely to appreciate its eventfulness, although it was to have much to do with his career. Another epochal event about which he heard his elders talk, and concerning which he preserved some recollections, was the test of motive power. When the Baltimore and Ohio project was undertaken, the feasibility of steam, or rather its superiority to animal power, had not been fully tested. The line, or rather a double line, was built

HENRY GASSAWAY DAVIS ii

to Relay, and from there on to ElHcott Mills, which was fourteen miles from Baltimore City. When the first division was opened in 1830, horse and mule power were employed. Evan Thomas built a car rigged with sails, which was fittingly called the "Eolus," and this was tested and declared to be a success on windy days, but it hardly could be considered seriously as permanent motive power.