With Asa Packer's energy, honesty, and broad thinking, the business grew to good-sized proportions. Then he realized that they must have steam for quicker transportation. He urged the Lehigh Coal and Navigation Company to build a railroad along the banks of their canal; but they refused, thinking that coal and lumber could only pay water freights. In September, 1847, a charter was granted to the Delaware, Lehigh, Schuylkill, and Susquehanna Railroad Company; but the people were indifferent, and the time of the charter was within seventeen days of expiring, when Asa Packer became one of the board of managers, and by his efforts graded one mile of the road, thus saving the charter. Two years later the name of the company was changed to the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, and Mr. Packer had a controlling portion of the stock. So much faith had he in the project that no one else, apparently, had faith in, that he offered to build the road from Mauch Chunk to Easton, a distance of forty-six miles, and take his pay in the stocks and bonds of the company. The offer was accepted; and the road was finished in 1855, four years after it was begun, but not without many discouragements and great financial strain. Mr. Packer was made president of the railroad company, which position he held as long as he lived. Already wealth and honors had come to the energetic carpenter. In 1842 and 1843 he was elected to the State Legislature, and became one of the two associate judges for the new county of Carbon. In 1852, and again in 1854, he was elected to Congress as a Democrat, and made a useful record for himself. So universally respected was he in Pennsylvania for his Christian life, as well as for his successful business career, that he was prominently mentioned as a presidential candidate, Pennsylvania voting solidly for him through fourteen ballots; and when his name was withdrawn the delegates voted for Horatio Seymour. In 1869, Judge Packer was nominated for governor; but the State was strongly Republican, having given General Grant the previous year 25,000 majority. Judge Packer was defeated by only 4,500 votes, showing his popularity in his own State. Two years before this, in the autumn of 1867, his great gift, Lehigh University, had been opened to pupils. It has now considerably over four hundred students, from thirty-five various States and countries. It was named by Judge Packer, who would not allow his own name to be used. After his death the largest of the buildings was called Packer Hall, but by the wording of the charter the name of the University can never be changed. The Packer Memorial Church, a handsome structure, is the gift of Mrs. Packer Cummings, the daughter of the founder. To the east of Packer Hall is the University Library with 97,000 volumes, the building costing $100,000, erected by Judge Packer in memory of his daughter Mrs. Lucy Packer Linderman. At his death he endowed the library with a fund of $500,000.