But other circumstances played their part in the result which we are about to consider. Some time before 1830 Mr. Cooper had been drawn into a land speculation at Canton, in the suburbs of Baltimore. Failing of support from his partners, he had been obliged to buy them out, and to assume the whole burden of the enterprise. Just at that time there was great popular expectation of the future importance of Baltimore. A little earlier, there had been general despair among the merchants of that city. New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore were seeking the trade of the region beyond the Alleghanies,--then "the West," but now the centre of the population of the United States. New York flanked the mountains with her Erie Canal; Philadelphia got at last a practicable, though less satisfactory, water line; but Baltimore, though nearest of all to the longed-for market, found, through careful examination by eminent engineers, that no canal was practicable for her, at a cost within her means. In 1824 and 1825 the consequent general despondency concerning the future of the city was so strong that Baltimore merchants began to move to New York and Philadelphia.[3] But at this period the world began to hear of railways. A well-known merchant of Baltimore, returning from England, described with enthusiasm the coal trains, drawn by the cumbrous ante-Stephenson engines, which he had seen there. The idea of a tramway (with or without steam motors) found ready acceptance in a community both enterprising and desperate. A town meeting, held in 1826, to consider Western communications, resulted in an application to the Maryland legislature, and the incorporation, in March, 1827, of the Baltimore and Ohio,--the first railroad company thus created in the United States for purposes of general transportation,--the leader of that vast multitude of similar enterprises, the history of which is the history of our nation's marvelous commercial progress. By the legislative charter, the city of Baltimore and the State of Maryland were authorized to subscribe to the company's stock. In the address already cited, Mr. Latrobe, an eye-witness, says of the scenes which followed:-- "Then came a scene which almost beggars description. By this time, public excitement had gone beyond fever heat and reached the boiling point. Everybody wanted stock. The number of shares subscribed were to be apportioned, if the limit of the capital should be exceeded; and every one set about obtaining proxies. Parents subscribed in the names of their children, and paid the dollar on each share that the rules prescribed. Before even a survey had been made, the possession of stock in any quantity was regarded as a provision for old age; and great was the scramble to obtain it. The excitement in Baltimore roused public attention elsewhere; and a railroad mania began to pervade the land."