Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895 edition. Excerpt: ... the area covered by its municipality are to be found all the comfort, culture and progressiveness of the most favored spots on this continent. Its growth was slow. In 1840, although it had felt the influence of the locomotive "Robert Ralston," its population did not number 1000; in 1860 it increased to 5664; in 1870 to 16,023; and now, in 1898, it boasts a population of 35,000. Improvements came apparently late, but not before it was prepared to receive them. The development was slow, but permanent, and is so because the pluck and energy necessary to reduce the wilderness was brought to its doors, and produced a superior citizenship morally, intellectually and physically, and one intense in its practicability. In 1855 the portion of the road from Sunbury to Milton was completed, opening the whole line of forty miles from Sunbury to Williamsport. Early in 1856, the financial outlook for the Sunbury and Erie Railroad being very discouraging and the project threatened with disastrous failure, its friends turned to Samuel Vaughan Merrick as the one man who could retrieve its affairs. Mr. Merrick had been the first President ot the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and was one of the most prominent and most public-spirited citizens of Philadelphia. In the crisis, those interested in the success of the road called upon him to accept the Presidency of the Company. This tender would have been declined but for the receipt of the following letter from twenty-one of the leading citizens of Philadelphia: "Ph1ladelph1a, February 21, 1856. "To Samuel V. Merrick, Esq. "Dear Sir: We have learned that the Presidency of the Sunbury and Erie Railroad Company has been tendered to you under such circumstances as render it reasonably certain that your character...
