In 1852 a railroad charter had been obtained for building a road from Racine to Beloit. Also, one from Southport to Beloit. The incorporators of each road came to me to assist them to build, and I chose the road to Racine and made enemies of the incorporators of the Southport road for the time being. It was through my influence that it was built. Fisher, Keep & Tolcott contracted to build it from Fox River to Freeport, and built it from Fox River or Burlington to Durand, when the financial crisis of 1867 failed the company and the work was suspended one year. I was appointed a receiver by the court and ran it a short time when it was restored to the directors and I became a director and the company built it to the Mississippi and sold it out to the bondholders. Before this, in 1848 the Chicago and Galena Railroad had been built to Elgin and the funds of the company were exhausted, and William B. Ogden and other directors came to Beloit and offered to build a branch of their road from Rockford to Beloit, when their road reached Rockford, if the people of Beloit would subscribe $75,000 to the main line. I was selected by our citizens to take the subscription and in one week I got it--part of it without conditions, and part with my guarantee that if they would subscribe and pay five per cent, that I would guarantee the stock to be par when the second installment was called for. The installments were to be five per cent each month. Mr. Keep, Mr. Cheney, and myself took $30,000 and I took $15,000 for General Kearney. When the second installment was called for I had to take several thousand more that was given me on my agreement to take it if not at par. Before the third installment was due the stock was at five per cent premium and I sold most of it. The company built the road from Belvidere instead of Rockford, which gave us a shorter line. The next year the Beloit and Madison Railroad was begun, and I was elected a director in that and remained on the board until it was sold to the Chicago & Galena Company, which company soon after sold out to the Northwestern Railroad Company. I was a contractor on the Chicago & Northwestern Air Line between the Rock and Mississippi rivers. In 1856 I was one of the contractors for building the railroad from Clinton, Iowa, to Council Bluffs. The contract was for grading, ironing, and ballasting the road and amounted to about $13,000,000. The pay was a land grant of every other section ten miles in width, some cash, and some bonds and some stock. When we had expended about $400,000 in grading, the company failed in 1857. We got the first 100 sections of land and the franchise of the road, which we sold to Mr. Blair of New Jersey and got even with the company. We took the land grant and built the road some years after; Morris K. Jessup, Dean Richmond, Charles Reed of Erie, and Messrs. Morris & Courtright of New York were partners, also H. S. Durand and Wm. Allen of Racine. I also had a