Many of the members of the New Jersey Legislature were farmers. The
management of the Camden and Amboy Railroad was anxious to give these
gentlemen and other prominent citizens an opportunity to examine a
steam locomotive at work and to ride in a railway train.
Sixty years ago to-day, on the 12th of November, 1831, by special
invitation, the members of the Legislature and other State officials
were driven from Trenton to Bordentown in stages to witness the trial.
Among them were John P. Jackson (father of the present general
superintendent of the United Railroads of New Jersey division of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, who afterward took a prominent part in the
affairs of the New Jersey Railroad, whose termini were at New
Brunswick and Jersey City); Benjamin Fish (director for fifty years
for the Camden and Amboy Railroad), afterward president of the
Freehold and Jamesburg Agricultural Railroad; Ashbel Welch, chief
engineer and superintendent of the Belvidere and Delaware Railroad for
many years, and president of the United Railroads of New Jersey during
the years immediately preceding the lease to the Pennsylvania
Railroad; Edwin A. and Robert L. Stevens, afterward managers of the
road.