| From the Raleigh Register |
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| December 4, 1861 |
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| Railroad to the Coalfields {the
Chatham RR} |
| We are glad in having good reasons for
believing that the Convention will take the necessary steps to secure
the construction of a railroad from some point on the North Carolina
Railroad to the Coalfields in Chatham and Moore {Counties}.
Such a railroad, always a great desideratum, has now become an
imperious necessity. It is absolutely indispensable to our military
wants, and will open for the use of the State a mine of mineral wealth
unsurpassed in any part of the world. With Coal and Iron lying side by
side in inexhaustible abundance, and with a plenty of the finest
timber, there is nothing wanting but an outlet to make the Deep River
region the seats of the largest and most useful manufactories. This
outlet will be furnished by the road, and while that is in the process
of being graded, the rails for it can be made at the mines. We hope,
therefore, that by the end of 1862, if our life is spared, to have the
pleasure of announcing that North Carolina has availed herself of
treasures as rich as were ever bestowed on any people by a beneficent
Providence, and that manufactories of everything to which iron is
essential are in full blast on Deep River. The existing Railroads, but
for which our military operations would have been fatally delayed and
embarrassed, are especially interested in this road to the Coal and
Iron region, for independent of the valuable freights which it will
contribute to them, the manufacture of rail road iron, and a vast deal
of railroad machinery, for which we have hitherto looked abroad, will
be carried on in the heart of our own State, and thus we shall supply
our own wants, as well as those of such States of the South as have
not been blessed with mineral treasures. The rails on our existing
roads will, under the present heavy and constant pressure of
transportation, soon require to be substituted by new ones. The
present rails were imported from Wales. Should the war last a year
longer, these rails will cease to be available for purposes of
transportation, and it is easy to see how deplorable our condition
would be, should our railroads cease to be available, or be reduced to
the condition of the old Raleigh & Gaston Road. A manufactory of
railroad iron then is not only indispensable to our prosperity, but to
our safety and liberty as a people. It is difficult to estimate the
wealth of the Deep River region, or to calculate fully the effects of
its development on the State. That it will render it one of the most
prosperous on the continent of America we have not the slightest
doubt. The Convention, then, will signalize its zeal in the service of
the State by lending a helping hand to a road so indispensable to
North Carolina as the one to Deep River. |
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