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 The road as opened was, like the original Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road, merely a new sort of road-way, on which horses drew cars on rails (instead of on a flat road-bed) between the inclines. A rush of business at once overwhelmed the road. Between the middle of March and the middle of April, 1834, the number of cars tripled in number and were then entirely inadequate to the trade. Much "portaging" was done in the old way on the old-time portage path by wagon. The business was done by transportation firms or by individuals, the commonwealth furnishing the road-bed, and a motive power only on the inclined planes.

It was in October, 1834, that the keelboat "Hit or Miss" from the Lackawanna, Jesse Crisman owner and Major C. Williams commander, first of all craft to leap the Alleghenies, was taken from Susquehanna waters at Hollidaysburg and laid safely in Allegheny waters at Johnstown. Crisman expected to sell his boat at Hollidaysburg—as his ancestors had ever done; but John Dougherty of the Reliance Transportation Line, constructed a car calculated