Street Railway Franchises in Massachusetts

Although Massachusetts was not the first state in which rail- ways for the transportation of passengers were laid in the streets, yet it was among the earliest, and the great development in recent years, which has taken place, not alone along physical lines but also upon legal and economic lines, has made the conditions in that state of especial interest.The first street railway was opened in New York in 1852, and in the following year the legislature of Massachusetts granted two street railway charters, one for the establishment of a line between Boston and Roxbury and the other for a line from Boston to Cam- bridge.This latter company organized at once, and in December, 1854, secured a location in the streets.It then undertook to secure subscriptions to its stock but met with little success, only raising a few thousand dollars in this way.A contractor was however found who was willing to build the road and receive his pay in securities, and on March 26, 1856, the road was opened for travel between Bowdoin Square in Boston and Harvard Square in Cambridge, a distance of about three miles.It is curious to note that this first Massachusetts road was of the type known now as interurban, rather than purely urban in its character.It was but a short time before the other cities lying about Boston-Roxbury and Charlestown and South Bos- ton-secured this form of transportation, although the old estab- lished omnibus lines still continued to run.Indeed it was not until early in the eighties that the line of omnibuses which ran to Rox- bury was finally given up.While the Cambridge and Roxbury street railways were to a certain extent interurban in character, and ran for considerable dis- tances over marshes and past long stretches of vacant land, it was plain that in time these lands would all be occupied, and the suburban

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