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Excerpt from Fulfilment of Three Remarkable Prophecies in the History of the Great Empire State: Relating to the Development of Steamboat Navigation and Railroad Transportation 1808-1908
William C. Rëdfield of Cromwell, Conn., who introduced the system of tugboats on the Hudson as a means of preventing the loss of life from the explosion of passenger boats, wrote a pamphlet in 1829, predicting the rapid settlement of the Western States, the magic development of their agricultural and mineral wealth, and the consequent rapid growth of our great commercial metropolis." The route proposed was substantially that of the New York and Erie Railroad, but his views extended still further and he marked out with prophetic accuracy the course of the railroads which would connect with the Atlantic States the then infant States of Michigan, Indiana and Illinois. Ohio being at that time in a comparatively advanced stage of civilization and settlement These, he foresaw would advance with incredible rapidity the settlement of those regions of unbounded fertility, and would divert no small portion of the trade from Mississippi to the great metropolis of the East. He had even anticipated that after the construction of the proposed great trunk railways connecting the Hudson and the Mississippi, many lateral railways would bind in one vast network the whole great West to the Atlantic States. Said he, "This great plateau will indeed be one day intersected by thousands of miles of railroad communication, and so rapid will be the increase of its population and resources that many persons now living will probably see most or all of this accomplished."
In confirmation of the above another writer says: "The railroad is the pioneer of civilization. It plows its way through the dense forest, the unbroken prairie, or the waterless and almost deserted lands, and at every mile of its onward progress a village springs up, farms are laid out, orchards planted, the fields wave with golden grain, and presently mines, manufactories, schools, colleges and churches are called into existence all along the line. These enterprises increase the national wealth in an almost incredible degree."
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