The Mountain Sentinel

The Author of the Railway System.

The following sketch of Thos. Gray, the author of the Railway system, we take from the Painesville Telegraph:

Thomas Gray was born in Leeds, England, about a half century, or more ago—and this is all we know of his early history.

The Middletown Colliery had a railway for carrying coal to Leeds, a distance of three miles. The cars moved along it at the rate of three and a half miles per hour. It was laughed at—not by Gray—but by the wise public.

Gray saw in this little work something that might be augmented into greatness; and he thought upon the subject and forthwith became a visionary!

He talked and wrote upon his project of 'A General Iron Railway' until people declared him insane. He petitioned Parliament; sought interviews with the lords and other great men; and thus became the laughing stock of all England. He received nothing but rebuffs wherever he went.

All this took place in 1820, or thereabouts.

But he succeeded at last. The railways were laid. The world has been benefitted by the madness of Thomas Gray.

Well, what became of him, the reader will ask.

We do not know; but believe he still lives, in Exeter, to which place he removed.

Up to 1846 he had been neglected. While thousands have been enriched by the consummation of his brilliant scheme, he remained forgotten—forces by poverty to sell glass on commission for a living.

Howitt, in the People's Journal, a few years ago, gave a somewhat lengthy sketch of his career; thus bringing him into public notice.

We have seen nothing in print in relation to him lately.

Elliott wrote a great truth in these words:

"How many men who lived to bless mankind, Have died unthanked."

How many of the railroad projectors, agitators, stockholders, &c., have ever heard of the subject of this brief sketch.