Kevin Ettery wrote: > > The claim is that this gent, Peter CONNELLY, was the man who ran the first > pilot engine over the Ohio Railway. It does not detail which railroad, and > the timeframe is pre 1854 (he was born 1812 in Galway, Ireland and had > emigrated to Australia by 1854). The first major railroad to operate in the US was the Baltimore & Ohio railroad, which started in the state of Maryland. It began operations in 1829/1830, so given the birth date of your relative, it is possible, but I think unlikely that he was operating a locomotive then. By 1854, the state of Ohio had about 2,000 miles (my guess) of rail lines in it, including a number with "Ohio" in their name, such as the Ohio Central. There were other rail lines in adjacent states that also had the word "Ohio" in their names, such as the Chesapeake and Ohio, and the aforementioned B&O, all adding to the total possible mileage. Given the above, your relative could have lived in far too many places to easily narrow down the search without additional information.