Britannica On This Day October 7 2023

This Day in History: October 7

Featured Event

1826







The Granite Railway, the first chartered railroad in the United States, began service.


Granite Railway
American railway




Granite Railway, first chartered railroad in the United States (March 4, 1826). It was designed and built by Gridley Bryant, an engineer, and began operations on Oct. 7, 1826, running three miles from Quincy, Mass., to the Neponset River. The wooden rails were plated with iron and were laid 5 feet (1.5 metres) apart. Horse-drawn wagons with wheels 6 feet (2 m) in diameter hauled blocks of granite along these rails to the river, from where they were taken by barge to Charlestown in Boston, Mass., for use in the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument. In winter the cars were equipped with a kind of snowplow. The Granite Railway later became part of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad.

Featured Biography

John Mellencamp
American musician







John Mellencamp, also called Johnny Cougar or John Cougar Mellencamp, (born October 7, 1951, Seymour, Indiana, U.S.), American singer-songwriter who became popular in the 1980s by creating basic, often folk-inflected hard rock and presenting himself as a champion of small-town values.
Growing up in southern Indiana—with which he is strongly identified—Mellencamp began playing in rock bands as a teenager. His first two albums, released in the late 1970s, disappeared without a trace; however, repackaged as a heartland rocker, he had his first hit, “I Need a Lover,” in late 1979. With two more big hits, “Hurts So Good” and “Jack and Diane,” the album American Fool (1982) made Mellencamp a star. Although criticized by some at this stage of his career as a humourless self-important Bruce Springsteen manqué—patronizing his working-class subjects rather than celebrating them—Mellencamp suddenly matured as a songwriter. His lyrics grew more empathic, and his music acquired an incisive crackling power, largely owing to his supertight backing band. Scarecrow (1985) and The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) were his commercial and artistic high points, exploring the impact of Ronald Reagan’s presidency on Middle America and producing the hits “Small Town,” “R.O.C.K. in the USA,” and “Cherry Bomb.” He also was a chief sponsor of the first Farm Aid concert, in 1985, which benefited distressed American farmers, and remained active on behalf of similar causes.



SEE ALL RELATED CONTENT