The First Freight Train

 The Marietta Register, November 13, 1873

Tuesday morning [November 11], about 11 o'clock, the Marietta and Pittsburgh Railroad sent the first train of freight cars over the new bridge. It consisted of five carloads of coal from the Ohio Coal Company for the Rolling Mill, one box car, band of music, and about one hundred passengers, anxious to take the first ride. (All freight.) No timidity was felt about the bridge, and indeed none should be. It bears every appearance of security. 

Perhaps two hundred citizens gathered along the bank to see the train pass. One elderly businessman, standing near, remarked, "Business must revive now, since we have a railroad passing through town."

Whether it revives or not, all feel a deep interest in the road, and much credit is due to the men who have secured it for us. From this on, there will be progress. We cannot go back. No one will ever live to see the time when the Muskingum river will not be spanned by a railroad bridge. But there were those who witnessed the first train, Tuesday, who doubtless will live to see the time when it will bear a hundred trains a day.