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ambitious, was seriously handicapped
It soon developed, however, that Baltimore, both powerful and
ambitious, was seriously handicapped. In order to retain her
commanding position as the metropolis of Western trade she was
compelled to resort to a new and untried method of transportation
which marks an era in American history.

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appropriation by Congress for extending the Cumberland Road from
the Ohio River to Missouri and the beginning of the Pennsylvania
and the Chesapeake and Ohio canals, reveal the importance of
these concluding days of the first quarter of the nineteenth
century in the annals of American transportation
The completion of the Erie Canal–coupled with the new
appropriation by Congress for extending the Cumberland Road from
the Ohio River to Missouri and the beginning of the Pennsylvania
and the Chesapeake and Ohio canals, reveal the importance of
these concluding days of the first quarter of the nineteenth
century in the annals of American transportation. Never since
that time have men doubted the ability of Americans to accomplish
the physical domination of their continent. With the conquest of
the Alleghanies and of the forests and swamps of the ‘Long House’
by pick and plough and scraper, and the mastery of the currents
of the Mississippi by the paddle wheel, the vast plains beyond
seemed smaller and the Rockies less formidable. Men now looked
forward confidently, with an optimist of these days, to the time
‘when circulation and association between the Atlantic and
Pacific and the Mexican Gulf shall be as free and perfect as they
are at this moment in England’ between the extremities of that
country. The vision of a nation closely linked by wellworn paths
of commerce was daily becoming clearer. What further westward
progress was soon to be made remains to be seen.

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