The industrial progress of the United States was little affected by the political dissensions during Jackson's first Presidential year. On July 4, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was opened. The first trip of an American locomotive was made on the Carbondale and Honesdale road. Throughout the country many canals were opened; to wit, the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal, the Delaware and Hudson, and the Oswego in New York; the Farmington in Connecticut, and the Cumberland and Oxford Canal in Maine. Among the literary productions of the year were a collection of minor poems by Edgar Allan Poe, Parkman's earlier essays, Cooper's "Wept of the Wish-ton-Wish," Sparks's "John Ledyard," and Washington Irving's "Granada."
In England the first successful experiments with steam-propelled stage coaches were made by Sir Goldsworth Gurney. These machines were the precursors of the latter-day automobile vehicle. This account of a ride in the Gurney stage coach was published by the "United Service Journal":
"We numbered four in a coach attached to the steam carriage, and we had travelled without difficulty or mishap as far as Longford, where they were repairing the bridge over the Cambria. On this was a large pile of bricks, so high as to conceal what was happening on the other side. Precisely at the moment we began to cross the bridge the mail-coach from Bath arrived on the other end. As soon as we perceived it we shouted to the driver to take care; but, as he was not aware of the extraordinary vehicle he was going to meet, he did not slacken speed. To avoid a collision, Mr. Gurney guided our steam carriage into the pile of bricks. Some damage to our apparatus resulted, but was repaired in less than a quarter of an hour. As to the horses of the coach, they had taken the bit between their teeth and had to be cut loose.
"Upon our arrival at Melksham, we found that there was a fair in progress, and the streets were full of people. Mr. Gurney made the carriages travel as slowly as possible, in order to injure no one. Unfortunately, in that town the lower classes are strongly opposed to the new method of transportation. Excited by the postilions, who imagined that the adoption of Mr. Gurney's steam carriage would compromise their means of livelihood, the multitude that encumbered the streets arose against us, heaped us with insults, and attacked us with stones. The chief engineer and another man were seriously injured. Mr. Gurney feared we could not pursue our journey, as two of his best mechanics had need of surgical aid. He turned the carriage into the court of a brewer named Ales, and during the night it was guarded by constables."