FACTS AND FIGURES
CONCERNING
THE HOOSAC TUNNEL.
By JOHN J. PIPER.
FITCHBURG:
JOHN J. PIPER, PRINTER.
1866.
THE HOOSAC TUNNEL.
In his inaugural address to the Legislature, GovernorBullock says, "There can be no doubt that new facilities andnew avenues for transportation between the West and theEast are now absolutely needed. Our lines of prosperityand growth are the parallels of latitude which connect uswith the young, rich empire of men, and stock, and producelying around the lakes and still beyond. The people ofMassachusetts, compact, manufacturing and commercial, musthave more thoroughfares through which the currents of tradeand life may pass to and fro, unobstructed and ceaseless,between the Atlantic and the national granaries, or decaywill at no distant period touch alike her wharves and herworkshops. Let us avert the day in which our Commonwealthshall become chiefly a school-house for the West, anda homestead over which time shall have drawn silently andtoo soon the marks of dilapidation. Any policy which isnot broad enough to secure to us a New England, having aproper share in the benefits of this new opening era of theWest, be assured, will not receive the approval of the nextgeneration."
This important recommendation is what the public hadreason to expect from a man so keenly alive to the interestsand welfare of the Commonwealth as Governor Bullock,whose close observation and discernment had long sincediscovered the danger, and disposed him to take a deepinterest in any adequate enterprise by means of which itcould be averted. The reasons which have induced His[4]Excellency's convictions on this subject, and caused theapprehensions he has expressed, are very clearly set forth inthe following articles from the Buffalo Commercial Advertiserof November 25th and 28th, 1865:--
"To-day, the Western States are far more bountifully providedwith avenues of transportation than the extreme East.This is peculiarly anomalous and inexplicable when we considerthe boasted enterprise, wealth and shrewdness of NewEngland, and the dependence which always exists upon thepart of a manufacturing district toward that section whichfurnishes it with a market, and from which it obtains itsbreadstuff. It is fortunate for New England that it does notlie in the line of transit between the West and its market,or it would have drawn about its head a storm of indignationwhich it could not have resisted. The State of NewYork has contributed an hundred fold what New Englandhas towards providing the required facilities of traffic, forthe great West. Our Yankee friends have done muchtoward facilitating intercommunication among themselves, butvery little toward direct communication with the West.
It is not a little strange that, with all the ambitious effortof Boston to become a mercantile emporium, rivaling NewYork, and with its vast manufacturing interest, it should havebut a single direct avenue of traffic with the West. Yetsuch is the fact. The Western Railroad between Albanyand Boston is the sole route now in existence except thosecircuitous lines via New