of American transportation were much alike in essentials--they
were all optimistic, self-congratulatory, irrepressible in their
enthusiasm, and undaunted in their outlook. Dickens, perhaps,
did not miss the truth widely when, in speaking of stage
driving, he said that the cry of "Go Ahead!" in America and of
"All Right!" in England were typical of the civilizations of the
two countries. Right or wrong, "Go Ahead!" has always been the
underlying passion of all men interested in the development of
commerce and transportation in these United States.

During the era of river improvement already described, men of
imagination were fascinated with the idea of propelling boats by
mechanical means. Even when Washington fared westward in 1784, he
met at Bath, Virginia, one of these early experimenters, James
Rumsey, who haled him forthwith to a neighboring meadow to watch
a secret trial of a boat moved by means of machinery which worked
setting-poles similar to the ironshod poles used by the rivermen
to propel their boats upstream. "The model," wrote Washington,
"and its operation upon the water, which had been made to run
pretty swift, not only convinced me of what I before thought next
to, if not quite impracticable, but that it might be to the
greatest possible utility in inland navigation." Later he
mentions the "discovery" as one of those "circumstances which
have combined to render the present epoch favorable above all
others for securing a large portion of the produce of the western
settlements, and of the fur and peltry of the Lakes, also."

>From that day forward, scarcely a week passed without some new
development in the long and difficult struggle to improve the
means of navigation. Among the scores of men who engaged in this