he, between the years 1861 and 1870 projected and completed the Detroit, Lansing and Northern; Detroit and Bay City; Air Line, from Jackson to Niles; Jackson, Lansing and Saginaw; Chicago and West Michigan; Kalamazoo and South Haven, and the Wabash from Detroit to Chicago.

He is at present the president of the Detroit union depot and its railway connections, and planned the present union depot buildings in Detroit, which are pronounced to be the most complete of any west of New York.

From 1846 to the present, Mr. Joy has been the chief factor in the construction of over two thousand three hundred miles of railroads in Michigan, and the promoter of over six thousand miles of the railroads and their connection entering the city of Detroit.

Mr. Joy was born at Durham, New Hampshire, Dec. 2, 1810. A kind providence has permitted him to live and retain his mental and physical powers in vigor as full as that of his early manhood, and to, contemplate the changes which have taken place through his instrumentality, to view the forests disappear and to be replaced by prosperous cities and towns, and the great highways constructed which connects and promotes their growth, to witness the progress of art and the advance of learning and the increase of an intelligent population.

It cannot be regarded as fulsomeness when we say that both the present and future generations of Michigan should recognize Mr. Joy as one of the prominent factors in promoting many of the changes which have occurred within fifty years in Michigan, as well as in the states west, directly through his agency.

The characteristics manifested by both Captain Ward and Mr. Joy are similar in respect to their great undertaking, for what seemed to others boldness in conception, were to them the product of careful thoughts and well matured plans, while neither permitted ordinary obstacles to interfere with their consummation, at the same time both recognized that personal interests should be subordinate to public good, while doubtless personal gain entered into their calculations, still the ruling motive with them was to meet the demands of general business necessities.

Both found in Michigan and its surroundings a field for the exercise of their power to conserve, perfect and complete large enterprises, where millions of money was required but where millions of men and women would be correspondingly benefited.

While Captain Ward was covering the waters of the great lakes with his fleet vessels, Mr. Joy was reducing distances with the iron rail,

thus coöperating, they afforded the workingman compensating employment; the farmer and manufacturer ready sale for their products; and commenced the facilities for transportation and paved the way for the development of all the natural resources of this great State.

Thus, while we have referred to these few names of Michigan's pioneers as demonstrating and exemplifying, in their lives and acts, the possession and assimilation of those elements which form what we have sought in our introduction to define as constituting character, there are hundreds of the pioneers of Michigan whose names and lives remind us as having manifested the possession of these attributes, to whom Michigan is greatly indebted for its development of material wealth as well as in literature, and an educated and refined population. Gladly would we refer to them and detail the evidences of their influence in bringing our State to its present condition, but time and space will not permit it.

RAILROAD HISTORY OF MICHIGAN.

BY JAMES F. JOY.

The territorial legislature of Michigan, as early as 1833, passed an act to incorporate the Detroit and St. Joseph railroad company. The object of the company was to build a railroad from Detroit to St. Joseph, on Lake Michigan. This was the first mention in the legislation of the State of any railroad to Detroit. There was, at that time, but little railroad constructed in the whole country. The Boston and Lowell, and the Boston and Worcester were all in New England. Albany to Schenectady and a commencement of the road from Schenectady west only, were about all the railroads in the United States north of Mason and Dixon's line. What a difference between now and then! The Detroit and St. Joseph railroad company was commenced and under great difficuties was in progress and some work done between Detroit and Ypsilanti, in 1836, when the State determined to undertake to build that road through to St. Joseph, to be called the Central

road, and also one from Monroe, and one from the foot of Lake Huron, also, to Lake Michigan. The terminus of the Central road was fixed on the Campus Martius, where the city hall now stands. It came into the city along Michigan avenue, then called the Chicago road. At one time it extended from the Campus Martius along down through Woodward avenue to the border of the Detroit river, and that part of it was constructed by Thomas Palmer (father of the Hon. Thomas W. Palmer) under a contract with the railroad commissioners representing the State. It was a singular movement and illustrates how little the business to come was understood. To build a railroad through the middle of the street and on to the river at the foot of a hill, with no station or station grounds upon which to do business, and with no plan to acquire any, and with no possibility of doing so for such an approach, would hardly commend itself to the judgment of a railway man of the present day. It is needless to say that that part of the road was never used for any purpose and was soon taken up.

In March, 1837, the legislature passed an act, under which it undertook the construction of the three railroads above mentioned across the State, and authorized a State loan on the bonds of the State for $5,000,000 to enable it to build them.

Both the amount of money which was thought adequate for the construction of about six hundred miles of railroad, and the history of the negotiation of the bonds, proves how little the cost of railroads was then understood, and how unfit the then authorities were to manage such negotiations. The parties with whom the business was transacted failed, and as the sale was on the credit of the State, it never received but a portion of the money, and was involved in many difficulties, both embarrassing its own work, detrimental to its credit, and causing it to be treated as a repudiating State, because it refused to pay bonds upon which it had never received the money agreed to be paid for them.

The State, however, had undertaken the work of internal improvement. But it soon became bankrupt. It did not build a mile of the northern road. It built but a few miles of the Michigan Southern from Monroe (now Lake Shore and Michigan Southern). In the course of about eight years it did build the Central to Kalamazoo. It was built with strap rail, so called, about half an inch thick, laid upon wood stringers, which in turn were laid on cross beams or ties sunk or buried in the ground. To accomplish even this the whole means and credit of the State were exhausted. It used its credit abroad where it had any. It then resorted to forced loans .in the form of

bills or notes of the State, similar to bank notes, in which it paid for materials and labor till even they could not be used. In 1846 it had become so utterly without credit that it was compelled to negotiate the sale of all its public works, and among them the Central road from Detroit to Kalamazoo. What a difference again between the condition of affairs then, and the credit and ability of the very prosperous and great State of Michigan of the present day!

The Michigan Central charter, proposing a sale to a corporation, to be formed to take and complete the road as provided and agreed in the charter, was passed in 1846. The company was to finish it through to the lake at New Buffalo, instead of St. Joseph, within three years; to relay the already built road as well as the new with sixty pound iron rail; to change its eastern terminus from the Campus Martius and the entrance by the Chicago road (as it was then called), over a new line to the river, where it should acquire adequate yards for its business.

The company which took the road was a strong one. It complied with its charter, and within the three years the road was built to New Buffalo and a harbor constructed there, and the through business by water and rail between Chicago and New York and New England commenced over the road. It was the first considerable road built in the west. The business then begun has been every year increasing in magnitude, though there are five or more roads from Chicago east, all competing for the through business. In three years more it was extended to Chicago, and the first great railroad from the east entered that city, then containing from 8,000 to 10,000 inhabitants, hardly as large as Detroit at the same time.

The sale of the Central road to the corporation and the resulting construction of the road, gave great impulse to the progress of both the city and State. The Southern was sold and also constructed through to Chicago.

The Detroit and Pontiac railroad was chartered in 1834 to build a road between Detroit and Pontiac. It was undertaken with inadequate means, and it was many years, even, before it reached Pontiac. It originally came into the city on the north side of the Campus Martius, where the Detroit opera house now stands. In 1850 it was authorized to extend to the river, and also to extend through Pontiac and connect with the Oakland and Ottawa road, which, when built, was to extend to Lake Michigan. This plan was carried through, and the two roads consolidated constitute the present Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee railroad.

A charter had been passed by the legislature for the construction of a railroad from Detroit to Toledo at the session of 1846, to be called the Detroit and Monroe railroad, and some efforts were made to build it, but all failed, and the charter by its limitations expired. In 1855 the first general railroad law was enacted, and under it the Detroit, Monroe and Toledo Railroad Company was organized in the same year, and the road constructed by the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern stockholders in the interest of that company, which now is in control of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad Company.

It is a valuable piece of the property of that prosperous company. Now came on a panic and but little was done in the way of building railroads for several years.

In 1871 the Detroit and Lansing railroad was organized under the general law and was built through to Lansing. It was afterwards, in 1876, consolidated with the Ionia and Lansing, and now constitutes the Detroit, Lansing and Northern railroad. It is an important and valuable road to both city and county.

In 1871 the Detroit and Bay City was organized, and quickly built through to both Saginaw and Bay City, and now constitutes a portion of the line from Detroit to Mackinac. These two roads were built largely by those interested in the Michigan Central Company.

About the time of the construction of these two roads, or perhaps earlier, the Canada Southern, and Chicago and Canada Southern had been undertaken by capitalists living in New York, with the purpose of erecting a shorter line between Chicago and Buffalo, as well as one of the easiest grades to cross the Detroit river at Grosse Isle. The enterprise proved a failure and the company became bankrupt.

The whole plan fell through. The Chicago and Canada Southern being partly built from Trenton west, was extended from Trenton to Detroit, and subsequently from Trenton to Toledo, and became the property of the Michigan Central Company.

The Canada Southern, also in Canada, having been insolvent for some years, was acquired by the Michigan Central and extended from Essex Center, in Canada, to Detroit, and now constitutes a part of the through line of the Michigan Central from Chicago to Buffalo, all the business crossing the river at Detroit.

Next to the Michigan Central the most important road for Detroit for many years was the Great Western of Canada, extending from Windsor, opposite Detroit, to Niagara Falls.

The Michigan Central had been completed to Chicago, and had been