THE DEVELOPMENT OF STREET RAILWAYS 
IN THE 
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
In the early part of 1853 the Massachusetts Legislature 
granted a charter to a company, empowering it to lay rails in 
the streets of Boston and Roxbury, for the purpose of carry- 
ing passengers between these two cities in cars drawn by 
horses, and a charter was also given a little later in the same 
year, to a company organized to build a line from Boston to 
Cambridge. These were the first street railway companies 
organized in Massachusetts ; the first in the United States — 
a line in New York city — having been started in the previous 
year. 
There were the usual delays incident to the organization of 
a new enterprise, and it was not until December, 1854, that 
the Cambridge road obtained a location in the streets. After 
securing this right, an attempt was made to induce the public 
to subscribe for the stock and bonds of the new company, but 
there was very little response, only a few thousand dollars 
being‘ raised in this way. A contractor was found willing to 
build the road and to receive his pay in the securities of the 
company, and on March 26, 1856, the road was opened to 
travel between Bowdoin Square in Boston, and Harvard 
Square in Cambridge, a distance of about three miles. 
The opening of this road was soon followed by the organi- 
zation of several other companies which proposed to connect 
outlying portions of Boston with the centre of the city, or to 
furnish means of communication between Boston and neigh- 
boring cities and towns. In ı8 56 the line connecting Roxbury 
with Boston was opened, the next year Charlestown secured 
this form of transportation, and in 1858 the peninsular of