THE REALIZATION OF THE DREAM OF GEORGE WASHINGTON,
    THE SURVEYOR ON THE BANKS OF THE KANAWHA.



  The nineteenth day of July, 1869, a party of Engineers,
under Major Channing Moore Bolton, left Richmond, Vir-
ginia, to undertake the location of the extension of the Chesa-
peake  Ohio Railroad westward. Our Division extended
from the mqukth of the Greenbrier River, where it enters the
New River, down New River about forty-two miles, to Bow-
yer 's Ferry, now Sewell Station. Thus my touch with the life of
this great System began one month after I had received my two
Engineering Degrees at Washington College, now Washing-
ton  Lee Universitv, and has continued to this time. There
have been breaks -ir. this toluch, but, when I think of myself,
I must think ever of this Railroad to whose service I have
given my best years. When, after an atsence, I returned to
this service, I caine back as one coming home again.
  The growth of this Road rron an iron-laid line of about
227 miles in 1839, tnen not completed, to its present place of
honor, shoulder to shoulder with the other great Public Carriers
of our Country, is to me as a dream. Its mileage has been
multiplied by ten. Its service to the people, to serve whom is
its duty, has been so increased that it is as a wide-spreading tree,
the child of the little mustard seed, and under its branches are
sheltered great industries, many people. It is as to some-
thing, not all, of this great growth, that I speak tonight. It
is of this as the realization of the dream of the men now called
Fathers of our Nation, that I speak. Although I must deal in
facts possibly dry to some of you, yet my theme might well
challenge the imagination and the pen of an Epic Poet.
  Doubtless this story is not unique. Elsewhere Engineers,
and their bold associates, have been the vanguard of Progress.
Elsewhere they have met and endured hardships and dangers
not nominated in the statement of their accounts. Elsewhere