The Baltimore and Ohio was completed to Frederick, 61 miles, 1 Dec. 1831; to Point of Rocks, 69 miles, 1 April 1832; and to Harper's Ferry, 81 miles, 1 Dec. 1834. The initial move toward Washington was the letting of the con tract in May 1833 for the construction of the Thomas Viaduct spanning the Patapsco at Re lay. This remarkable granite structure, de signed and erected under the personal super vision of Benjamin H. Latrobe, was built for the carrying of six- or seven-ton engines draw ing from 15- to 20-ton trains, and meets with equal safety the demand of 170-ton locomotives at the head of 12- to 15-hundred ton trains. It was the marvel in the world's railway circles when constructed. The longest, highest and generally most imposing railroad crossing known, it was the first on a curve and regarded, therefore, as the boldest of departures from the rule.
Two years were required to complete the. Washington branch, and it was not until 25 Aug. 1835 that the echoes of the national cap ital resounded back the locomotive's shrill awakening. With the opening of the branch, the railway postal service came into being, its earliest form the boarded-up end of a baggage car, the two keys of which were held by the postmasters of Washington and Baltimore.
The declaration of the first railroad dividend in history, a semi-annual of the Baltimore and Ohio, was made simultaneously with the open ..
ing of the Washington branch, and the securi ties of the latter were the first of American railway issues marketed abroad.
The greatest of eventualities, however, with which the Washington branch's history is linked was the birth of the telegraph. ((What Hath God Wrought,o the first four words transmitted by wire over a public line, were sent from Baltimore to Washington via the roadbed of the Baltimore and Ohio branch.
Hancock, 123 miles from Baltimore, was reached by the Baltimore and Ohio on 1 June 1842; Cumberland, 178 miles, on 5 Nov. 1842; Piedmont, 206 miles, on 21 July 1851; Fair mont, 302 miles, on 22 June 1852; and the last spike, finishing the great undertaking from Bal timore to Wheeling, 379 miles, was driven on 24 Dec. 1852. The formal opening of the road
was marked by a notable demonstration 10 Jan. 1853. There being no rail connection beyond, and the prospects bright for Cincinnati and Louisville business in the one direction and Pittsburgh in the other, a company was organ ized and a daily steamboat service established ((superior to anything floating upon western waters)) With the completion of the Parkersburg branch from Grafton—or the mouth of Three Forks, as it was then known— to Parkersburg, 1 May 1857, the Ohio was reached at another point, and a very important one, as through rail connection had been perfected thence to Cincinnati, 10 days before, 20 April. The opening of the Parkersburg bridge, 7 Jan. 1871, was the last link in the continuous rail from the Chesapeake to the Mississippi.
The old Marietta and Cincinnati, the Ohio and Mississippi and other railways, once sep arately conducted companies, long since became component parts of the Baltimore and Ohio system, which, since the finishing of the Chi cago division, 10 Nov. 1874, has been among the foremost in the metropolis of the northwest, as, through being the pioneer into Cincinnati and Saint Louis from the East, it has ever been in those centres.
At Pittsburgh, as well, the Baltimore and Ohio's position is a commanding one. Reaching the great central point from Cumberland in July 1860, later building and acquisitions led to radiating lines to Cleveland, Chicago, Cincin nati, Wheeling and other points of traffic con centration. Eastward from Baltimore the con struction of the extension to Philadelphia and its opening, 19 Sept. 1886, together with secu rity holdings in lines through to New York assured important place among the railways centring in the country's leading city.
30 June 1915 the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad proper consisted of the fol lowing lines: