Boston & Worcester Railroad begins regular service.

The first steam railroad to offer regular passenger service in Boston, it runs initially from downtown Boston over a 170-foot-long trestle called the “Dizzy Bridge” across the Back Bay, then along Stony Brook to Davis’ Tavern in today’s West Newton. The company was incorporated in June 1831 to carry freight, but becomes one of the first passenger railroads in the U.S. in 1834 (the first was the Baltimore & Ohio in 1830), and employs the first a steam locomotive in New England, the English-built Meteor. The line is extended to Worcester on July 4, 1835, and to Albany in 1841.*