On this site in Dunkirk, New York, on May 15, 1851, the first train on the New York and Erie Railroad arrived, linking the Atlantic Seaboard with the Great Lakes. From Piermont on the Hudson, the train carried President Millard Fillmore, Secretary of State Daniel Webster, Stephen Douglas, congressmen, other public officials, and railroad president Benjamin Loder. The completion of this trunk line, which was at that time the longest in the world, was acclaimed as the "work of the age."