Globalization of the United States, 1789-1861

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Otis, Fessenden N. Isthmus of Panama: History of the Panama Railroad: and of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1867.

Fessenden N. Otis. Isthmus of Panama: History of the Panama Railroad: and of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. New York: Harper and Brothers, Publishers, 1867. Title page.

Writing as a company booster, Otis recorded the milestone of American railroad engineers managing to transform a foreign space far beyond the United States: Panama.

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In ancient or in modern times there has, perhaps, been no one work which in a few brief years has accomplished so much, and which promises for the future so great benefit to the commercial interests of the world, as the present railway thoroughfare between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans at the Isthmus of Panama. A glance at its geographical position can not fail to discover to the most casual observer that, situated as it is midway between the northern and southern, and alike between the eastern and western hemispheres, it forms a natural culminating point for the great commercial travel of the globe. Wise men in every enlightened nation had seen this for centuries, and had urged the importance of free interoceanic communication at this point; but its lofty and rugged mountain ranges, its deep and pestiferous morasses, seemed almost equally to defy the skill of the engineer and the physical endurance of the laborer. Even the possibility of opening such a communication by the government exercising jurisdiction over that portion of the isthmus through which it should pass had never been seriously entertained; but New Granada had long and earnestly challenged the more powerful nations of the world to break down this barrier to commerce and civilization, and reap the richest benefits which might result therefrom. England had looked toward the project I with longing eyes, but quailed before the magnitude of the labor. France had done more — surveyed and entered into a contract to establish it; but too many millions were found necessary for its completion, and it was lost by default.

Events at last occurred which turned the attention of the American people to this transit, viz., the settlement of the northwestern boundary, by which we came into possession of Oregon, and the war with Mexico, which added California to our possessions. But, while the accession of these territories was of the highest importance to us in a national point of view, their distance rendered them almost inaccessible to the class of emigrants who usually settle our new domains, as well as inconvenient to the proper administration of law and government. Still, urged on by that pioneering spirit which seems inherent in the blood of the American, and invited by the prolific soil and genial climate of these distant possessions, and a prospect of a new and enlarged field for commercial pursuits, large numbers of our people migrated thither around Cape Horn. Congress, however, in 1848, in order to render these countries more accessible, authorized contracts to be entered into for the establishment of two mail lines of steam-ships, the one from New York and New Orleans to Chagres, and the other to connect with this by the Isthmus of Panama, from Panama to California and Oregon. The inducements to invest in these projects were not sufficient to attract the favorable attention of capitalists, and the contracts were taken by parties without means, who offered them for sale, and for a long time without success.

Men were at last found bold enough to venture upon the enterprise. Mr. William H. Aspinwall secured the line on the Pacific side, and George Law that on the Atlantic. In the Atlantic contract there was comparatively little risk, and a promise of almost immediate remuneration, as it connected with the cities of Savannah and New Orleans, and terminated at the portals of the Pacific Ocean. But the Pacific contract was looked upon by the generality of business men as a certain sequestration of a large amount of property for an indefinite time, with a faint prospect of profit; and the wonder seemed to be that so sound a man as Mr. Aspinwall should have engaged in it. But it soon became evident that he expected no great profit from the steam-ship line per se; but that, with those enlarged and far-reaching views for which he is so justly noted, this line was only a part of the great plan which he had conceived, the remainder being embraced in the bold design of a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama; and at this time he, with Mr. Henry Chauncey and Mr. John L. Stephens, entered into a contract with the government of New Granada for the construction of that work. Mr. Chauncey, like Mr. Aspinwall, was a large-minded and public-spirited capitalist, whose integrity and straightforwardness were undoubted. Mr. Stephens possessed an experience in the country through which the road was to pass, and a knowledge of its geography and its inhabitants, gained by practical study and observation. These three gentlemen were associated together for the prosecution of this great enterprise, and shortly after, Mr. Stephens, accompanied by Mr. J.L. Baldwin, a skillful and experienced engineer, made an exploration of the route, and decided upon its entire feasibility, dissipating the fears entertained by many that no line could be established without such heavy grades as would interfere materially with the paying character of the undertaking by the discovery of a summit gap no more than three hundred feet above the ocean level.

A formal contract was then entered into with the government of New Granada, on the most favorable terms, for the exclusive privilege of constructing a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama....