When the Railroad Reached Columbia

“On the 28th we are to have a great Barbecue in honor of the completion of the road,” statesman James Henry Hammond wrote in his diary 21 June 1842. The “road” was the rail line that would provide service between Columbia and Charleston. If his dour journal entries are an accurate suggestion, Hammond was not merely unimpressed; he was sarcastic bordering on vitriolic. Although he was a member of the Committee of Arrangements for the affair, he stated flatly, “I take no interest.”

The Robert Y. Hayne steamed into the capital city one week later. Hammond made two journal entries that day. In the morning, he acknowledged, “It is to be a much larger affair than I expected. Three hundred persons came up from Charleston yesterday, among them an uniform Company. As many more are expected to-day. The surrounding Country furnishes a full quota. I am very sick of it and wish I was at Silver Bluff [Hammond’s plantation in what is now Aiken County]. . . . I expect to take no part but must be there. I hate a crowd. But 2000 persons at 4 o’clock and the Ther. 90º in the shade, it is awful to think of.”

Hammond’s evening report deprecatingly dismissed the occasion. “The celebration is over and no body hurt,” he penned. “The cars arrived about 3 o’clock. The Intendant Myers addressed the President of the Road, Col. Gadsden, in a most ridiculous strain of commonplace and flattery, dragging some very unnecessary remarks about nullification. Gadsden replied in better taste but feebly. Gen. Schnierle, Mayor of Charleston, who with all the Aldermen was present, responded at the table to the toast to Charleston in a very respectable manner. That and another were the only set toasts. The volunteers will all appear in the papers to-morrow. They were very properly omitted at the dinner. Baker the cuisiner made the best speech. When all had nearly finished, he mounted the table and requested the waiters to bring back the empty dishes as there was 1500 lbs of meat yet untouched. The dishes or rather trays were then full. The crowd was immense. Probably not less than 3000 persons in all, women, children and negroes included. Perhaps more, about 800 came from Charleston. I do not think I ever saw so many persons assembled together. So the Rail Road is finished.”

Thus expressing his relief that the ordeal was done, Hammond added a dry personal postscript. “I cut no figure. It was expected by many that I would speak and appeals were made to me to do so. But I would as soon have stood on the Seashore and harangued the waves. Nothing could be heard, save the cannon, by all.”

Perspective: This was less than 13 years after the Best Friend of Charleston made its historic debut. It was less than nine years after completion of the South Carolina Railroad from Charleston to Hamburg (near modern-day North Augusta), a 136-mile line which at the time was the longest railroad in the world. Soon, rails would link Columbia and Charleston with Greenville and other parts of the state . . . and with destinations far beyond. In the public mind—at a time when 35mph was an incomprehensible pace—rail travel truly was a modern marvel.

Perhaps Hammond’s troublesome health, which had caused his resignation from Congress in 1836, ruined his mood. Now he complained of “a dull pain in my right side . . . my liver thumping my ribs.” Nevertheless, he went on to serve as governor and U.S. senator and lived until 1864.—Daniel Elton Harmon

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