Mr. C. F. Adams remarks:—“During the periods of discouragement which, a
few years later, marked certain stages of the construction of the Western
road, connecting Worcester with Albany—when both money and courage seemed
almost exhausted—Mr. De Grand never for a moment faltered. He might
almost be said to have then had Western railroad on the brain. Among
other things, he issued a circular which caused much amusement and not
improbably some scandal among the more precise. The Rev. S. K. Lothrop,
then a young man, had preached a sermon in Brattle Street Church which
attracted a good deal of attention, on the subject of the moral and
Christianizing influence of railroads. Mr. De Grand thought he saw his
occasion, and he certainly availed himself of it. He at once had a
circular printed, a copy of which he sent to every clergyman in
Massachusetts, suggesting the propriety of a discourse on ‘The moral and
Christianizing influence of railroads in general and of the Western
railroad in particular.’”