In 1826 arose one Philip Evans Thomas, sometime known as the father of American railroads, son of a Baltimore banker, and living, as we may thus notice as a curious fact, near to that early abiding-place of the star that marked the center of American population, that Ararat from which the Western civilization started outward. Early in his life Philip Evans Thomas saw how excellent it would be if only water could be made to run up-stream. He had seen the use of railroads in England, and had, moreover, noted the beneficial effects upon the trade of Eastern cities of the traffic that was carried by canals. He had the far-reaching mind of the world-merchant, whose problem is ever that of transportation. He saw that railroads can go where canals can not, and he presently resigned his directorship in the Maryland Canal, because he saw that a canal can not climb a hill, and that mankind could not forever go around the hills or up and down the streams. It was on February twelfth, 1827, that Thomas called together twenty-five of the leading citizens of Baltimore. Comment of the time says that he seemed touched with the spirit of prophecy as he spoke of the enterprise that was to cast aside the mountains, to unite the streams, and to discover what there might be in that mysterious land, the West—the West that was west of the Alleghanies and in or near the Mississippi valley. Beyond the Mississippi, of course, the mind of man might not go! The minutes of this notable railway meeting are preserved in a pamphlet known as “Proceedings of Sundry Citizens of Baltimore, convened for the Purpose of Devising the Most Efficient Means of Improving Intercourse between Baltimore and the Western States.” There were two opinions as to the wisdom of Mr. Thomas’s project, and these were the opinions of the North and of the South; for again the South was to be the pioneer into the West, and again the North was to follow. The cities of the North made loud outcry against the Baltimore prophet, and said that this railroad, if built, would divert from them forever the traffic that was then coming to them from the West. This was ever the typical attitude of the upper East toward the West. None the less the enterprise went on, and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company was duly organized, an act for its incorporation being passed on February twenty-seventh, 1827. The stamp of success was upon the idea before the ink had dried on the records. By April twenty-fourth of the same year stock was subscribed to the figure of four million one hundred and seventy-eight thousand dollars. The first railway planned for the West—planned because there was a West and because that West was wanted as a part of the East—was promptly elevated into one of the most important commercial enterprises of the time. The stock was coveted by all, and the struggle was for first place in the line of purchasers.