THE CHESAPEAKE AND OHIO RAILWAY COMPANY.



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  The Chesapeake  Ohio Railway stretches its System from
Norfolk, Virginia, and Fortress Monroe, to Hammond, on the
dividing line between Indiana and Illinois. At Newport News,
Virginia, at the mouth of the James River, is its splendid Port.
Here, with modem facilities, are handled its vast outbound
traffic of coal and merchandise, and its inbound shipments for
a Nation's needs. Thence its line threads its way through the
historic Peninsula of Virginia, a narrow neck of land, bounded
south by the James River, and north by that beautiful stream,
the York River, an estuary in fact.
  The history of Virginia, the story of our Nation, begins
with Old Point Comfort, Cape Henry, the old City of Wil-
liamsburg, where sat the House of Burgesses that declared for
Independence, and William  Mary College, the second oldest
College in our Country.
  On York River, four miles away, is York Town, where yet
remain the battlements, the walls, that could not protect
Cornwallis. Seven miles from Williamsburg is James Town
Island, on the James, where can be traced the homes of the
ancient Capital of the Old Dominion.
  From Old Point to Richmond it is the Battle Ground of two
wars. Here England met its final defeat. Here our Liberty
was determined. Here, later, great Armies fought in 1862.

        "The place whereon thou standest is holy ground.."

  Two lines of track bear the burden of traffic from Richmond
to Clifton Forge, on the Jackson's River, the beginning of
the James, a distance of nearly 200 miles. The first line built
was the northern one, that passes, by tunnels, through the
Blue Ridge Mountains and the Alleghanies, crossing the head
of the Shenandoah Valley, with a maximum grade each way of
80 feet to the mile.
  The southern line follows the banks of James River. sup-
planting the old James River  Kanawha Canal, using, at
times, what was the Tow Path. This is the low, water-grade
line along which goes the heavy traffic of coal and merchandise.
  Thus is linked together the story of the Canal, and the
history of our System.



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