COMPLETION OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 14, Issue 711, 23 August 1869, Page 3

COMPLETION OF THE PACIFIC RAILROAD.

condensed from the Alt* California, 12th May.) Promontory Summit, Great Salt Lake, May 10. TAB preparations for formally uniting the tffo grand divisions of the great transcontinental railway were all completed this morning. Governor Stanford, with his friend from the Pacific Coast, were on the ground impatiently awaiting the arrival of the directors of the Union Pacific from the east to commence the ceremony. At 8.10, an engine, No. 119, with a palace and two passenger cars, and Vice-President purant, Directors Duff and Dillon, General Casement, Celonel Casement, S. W. Coe (Superintendent Pacific Union Express Company), Colonel Cotrswell, with five companies of the lwenty-first U.S Infantry 0 n board, with several ladies and invited guests, arrived, and hearty congratulations we re exchanged between the representatives of the Eartern and Western sections of the Union. The day was clear and beautiful.and the little gathering of less than one thousand people representing all classes of oar people, from the humblest citizen to the highest civil and military authorities of every State from the Atlantic, Pacific, Canada, and Mexico, met to enact the last scene in the drama of peace, on a ijrassy plain, surrounded by green clad hills, with the snow-clad summit of the Wasitch mountains looking down on the placid blue waters of the inland sea of America in the distance, formed a scene which cannot be fitly describod, but can never be forgotten by the beholder. The Occident and Orient, North and South, Saxon, Celt, and Mongolian, each clad in his peculiar costume, mingled on common ground. All personal and sectional animosities, all distinctions of clus«, all prefaces of and nationality were forgotten for the moment in all absorbing interest of the grand event of history and civilization about to take place. Hon. F. A. Trittle, from the State of Nevada, presented a silver spike on behalf of Nevada citizens, with the following remarks : —"To the iron of the east and |old of the west, Nevada adds her link of lilver to span the continent and weld the irons" Governor A. K. P. Stafford, on behalf of the Territory of Arizona, presented a spike composed of iron, gold, and jilver, aas an offering by Arizona, with remarks:—" Ribbed with iron, clad in lilver, and crowned with gold, Arizona presents her off-ring to the enterprise that has banded our contintent and dictated a new pathway to commerce." Hon. Lelan Stanford responded.

At the conclusion of Governor Stanford's jpeech the crowd fell back, at the request of General Casement, and Hart, the artist for the Union Pacific Company, photographed the scene, with the locomotives confronting each other, and the Chinese and Caucasian laborer* completing the work.

It was announced that the last blow was to be struck. Every head was uncovered in reverential silence, and Rev. Dr. Todd, of Pittsfield, Massachusets, offered up a brief and deeply impressive invocation.

The magnificent rail of California laurel, witti the cominemoraiive plate of solid silver, was now brought forward and put in place, and Dr Harkness, on behalf ol the State of California, presented Governor Stafford with the gold spike, with the following address : "The last rail needed to complete the greatest railroad entei prise in the the world is about to be laid. The last spike needed to unite the Atlantic and Pacific by a new line of travel and commerce its about to be driven to its place. To perform the ac!s the East and West have come together. Never since history commenced her record of human evei.ts has »he been culled upon to note the completion of a work so magnificent in concep tion, so marvellous in ex cution. When Venice was mistress of the seas, and her wgosies let go their anchors in every port, it was the custom of her Doges to propitiate the genii of the seas by wedding the Adri atic with a costly jewel. More proudly than Venice can America boast of her "ealth and commerce. N-.»t the sea only but the continent is made thus a pathway. Unlike the Doges of Venice, we have no genii of the sens to propitiate, but in emulation of their example' we may fitly ornament and decorate with gold and silver these iron rails, on which to a large degree the trade and travel of the continent is about to roll ; and it is in this mode that California, within whose borders and by *hoge citizens the Pacific railroad was inaugurated, desires to express her appreciation of the vast importance to her and ber sister States of the great enterprise which, by your joint action, is about to be consummated, From her mines of gold' •be has forged a spike, from her laurel *°ods she has hewn a tif, and by the Wis of her citizens she offers them to become a part of the great highway which K about to unite her in closer fellowship •Ml her sisters of the Atlantic. From »«? bosom was taken the first soil—let "i r > be the last tie and the last spike. "ith them accept the hopes and the wishes 'flier people, that the success of jour en'erprise may not stay short of its brightest pfotuises."

General Podge, on behalf of the Union *»<-'ific, then responded as follows : 'Gentlemen, The great Benton prophesied that some day a granite statue of would be erected on the highest Peak of the Hocky Mountains, pointing wtward, denoting this as the great route Cr o3B the continent. You have made that

Superintendent C >e, on behalf of the " Pacific Union Express," then presented a sledge with which to drive the last spike. Governor Stanford and Vice President Durant now advanced and took in hand the sledge, and drove the last spike, while the multitude stood silent. Edgar Mills, of Sacramento, who was elected chairman of the meeting, then announced that this great work was done, and that we send the messages to President G-rant and the Associated Press : then the silence of the mul titude wns broken, and a great cheer went fortl), which, while it yet quivered on the gladdened air, was caught up bv the willing lightning, and borne to the uttermost part* of the earth. Cheer followed cheer for the Union, the Atlantic and Pacific States, the two Pacific Railroad Companies and their officers, the President of the United States, and all was over. *' Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace and good will towards men,"