Story of Erie, The by Edward Harold Mott Between the Ocean and the Lakes 1908 HC

Description: Story of Erie, The by Edward Harold Mott Between the Ocean and the Lakes 1908 HC The Story of Erie by Edward Harold Mott Hard Cover - some damage in the front cover and corners but overall in great shape. Includes a post card that seems pretty old. 524 pages Copyright 1899, 1907 1908 on title page CONTENTS CHAPTER I. IN EMBRYO-1779 TO 1831. A Great Wagon Road between the Hudson River and Lake Erie, over the Route now Covered by the Erie Railroad, Suggested more than too Years Ago by Gen. James Clinton - Thirty Years later a State Road to Connect the Great Lakes with Tidewater, Through the Same Part of the State, Demanded - First Suggestion for a Railroad Over the Route-The Redfield Pamphlet and its Wonderful Prophecies and Projects - A Government Survey of a Railroad Route that this Pamphlet Outlined in 1829 - How the Project of a Railroad between the Hudson and Lake Erie was Influenced by a Railroad in South Carolina - the Project Abandoned, and a Canal Advocated CHAPTER II. TAKING FORM -1831 TO 1832. New York Railroad Fever of 1831-32 - First Public Meeting Advocating a Railroad from the Hudson River to the Southern Tier held at Monticello, Sullivan County, N. Y. - The Marvin Notice of Application for a Charter for a Company to Build a Railroad between the Hudson and Lake Erie - The Church Notice of Application - The General Convention at Owego to Discuss the Railroad Project - Birth of the New York and Erie Railroad 9 CHAPTER III. ORGANIZING ERIE - 1832 TO 1833. An Unsatisfactory Charter- A Government Survey Ordered and Discontinued - Charter Amended - The New York and Erie Railroad Organized - Eleazar Lord the First President - First Board of Directors 15 CHAPTER IV. FIRST ADMINISTRATION OF ELEAZAR LORD- 1833 TO 1835. Bidding for Contributions and Donations - Opposition in the Western Counties - Philip Church's Protest - Demanding a Survey - State Aid Asked and Engineers Appointed- The Survey-The Light it Throws on the Knowledge of the Science of Railroad Construction Sixty Years Ago- Inclined Planes, Tunnels, and Careful Consideration of the Interests of the Canals . . 20 CHAPTER V. ADMINISTRATION OF JAMES GORE KING- 1835 TO 1839. State Aid Asked for and Refused - Subscription Books Opened and $2,382,100 Subscribed - Ground Broken at Deposit and Contracts Let - First Annual Report of the Company- President King's Efforts to Construct the Railroad - Eleazar Lord Appears with a Plan which President King Does Not Approve - He Wants the State to Take the Work off the Company's Hands- A Bill to that Effect Almost Becomes a Law- President King Resigns . . . . . . . . . . . 32 CHAPTER VI. SECOND ADMINISTRATION OF ELEAZAR LORD-1839 TO 1841. Building a Railroad on Stilts - How 15o Miles of Piles Came to be Driven, at a Cost of Upwards of $I,000,000, to Prove Utterly Useless - Another Effort to Have the State Assume Charge of the Work Fails - The First Erie Legislative Investigation - Lord Retires 48 CHAPTER VII. ADMINISTRATION OF JAMES BOWEN -1841 TO 1842. How all the Present Great Terminal Possessions of the Vanderbilt System at Forty-second Street, New York, Might Have Been the Erie's at an Outlay of Less than $9o,000- The First Train on the Erie - The Company's Treasury Again Empty and in Debt $3,000,000 to the State - The Company Makes an Assignment, and the Railroad is Advertised For Sale - The Sale Postponed. 52 CHAPTER VIII. ADMINISTRATIONS OF WILLIAM MAXWELL AND HORATIO ALLEN - 1842 TO 1844. The Southern Tier and Western Counties Demand a Release of the Company from Wall Street Influences - William Maxwell, of Elmira, Succeeds Bowen as President - Maxwell Retires, and Horatio Allen Succeeds to the Place -His Plans Result in Dismal Failure - Eleazar Lord Again President 67 CHAPTER IX. THIRD ADMINISTRATION OF ELEAZAR LORD - 1844 AND 1845. Work Resumed in Time to Save the Road from Sale - Asking the Legislature for Relief, which is Held up Until the Company Agrees to Build a Branch to Newburgh - Trouble in the Management Over Changes in Route - Eleazar Lord Resigns 74 CHAPTER X. ADMINISTRATION OF BENJAMIN LODER - 1845 TO 1853. $3,000,000 Loan Asked for and Subscribed in a Few Weeks-Opening of the Road to Port Jervis- The Change of Route into Pennsylvania and Trouble that Came from It - The Fortunate Circumstance of the Scranton '1' Rail - Railroad Opened to Binghamton - The Treasury Empty Once More-Dark Outlook for the Railroad to get any Farther on its Way-The Difficulty Overcome - Triumph, 1851 - Final Link in the Chain - The Last Spike Driven - Opening of the Road from Piermont to Dunkirk, May, 185t-The First Through Excursion Train and its Distinguished Passengers - The Ocean United with the Lakes - Insufficiency of the Piermont Terminus Apparent - The Coming of the Ramapo and Paterson Railroad into the Field - The Ultimate Terminus at Jersey City Inevitable - The New Jersey Railroads Pass to the Control of the Erie - The First Dividend 86 CHAPTER XI. ADMINISTRATION OF HOMER RAMSDELL-1853 TO 1857. Homer Ramsdell Succeeds Benjamin Loder- Charles Minot Retires, and D. C. McCallum Comes in as General Superintendent and Precipitates a Serious Strike on the Railroad - Ramsdell's Master Stroke in the Matter of the Long Dock Franchises and Land for Terminal Facilities - Another Disastrous Strike - The Erie in a Crisis - Ramsdell Retires 114 CHAPTER XII. ADMINISTRATION OF CHARLES MORAN -1857 TO 1859. A President Whose Salary Was $25,000 a Year - Resignation of Daniel Drew as Treasurer -President Moran Assumes the Duties of the Whole Executive Force- Fruitless Efforts to Raise Money-The Company Goes into the Hands of a Receiver 123 CHAPTER XIII. ADMINISTRATIONS OF SAMUEL MARSH, PRESIDENT, AND NATHANIEL MARSH, RECEIVER AND PRESIDENT - 1859 TO 1864. Wages Months in Arrears, and More than a Million of Other Overdue Claims - The New York and Erie Vanishes Forever, and the Erie Railway is Born-Bergen funnel Finished, Pavonia Ferry Established, and Piermont Ceases to be the Terminus of the Erie, Except in Legal Fiction - Erie During the Early Years of the Civil War - Death of Nathaniel Marsh , . 130 CHAPTER XIV. ADMINISTRATION OF ROBERT H. BERDELL- 1864 TO 1867. The Hand of Vanderbilt - Robert H. Berdell Elected President - Daniel Drew Becomes the Controlling Influence-The Drew-Erie Loan, and How it Helped Drew Worst Vanderbilt in a Wall Street Operation - Eldridge and the Boston, Hartford and Erie Scheme - Election of John S. Eldridge as President - The Coming of Jay Gould and James Fisk, Jr, 139 CHAPTER XV. ADMINISTRATION OF JOHN S. ELDRIDGE -1867 AND 1868. Vanderbilt Undertakes to Capture Erie by Buying up its Stock, and Runs Against Daniel Drew and the Erie Printing Press - The Famous Conversion of Millions of Bonds into Stock - The Long Series of Suits, Cross Suits, Injunctions, and Counter Injunctions - Flight of President Eldridge, Drew, Gould, Fisk, and the Erie Treasury to New Jersey- The Erie Scandal Reaches the Legislature - The Surrender of Drew, and His $5,000,000 Settlement with Vanderbilt 147 CHAPTER XVI. ADMINISTRATION OF JAY GOULD-1868 TO 1872. Jay Gould Made President- He Amazes Wall Street-Drew Enters into a Bold Coalition with Him, Plays Him False, and Joins an Opposing Clique-Gould Pushes Them to the Wall- Wall Street Wild -Daniel Drew on His Knees to Gould and Fisk, but They Spurn Him - Gould Surprises and Alarms the Pennsylvania Railroad Company by His Moves Toward Making Erie the Nucleus of a Great Through Line-The " Classification Bill" and its Story- Foreign Shareholders Have Experience with the Methods of Gould and Fisk - Gould's Plan to Change the Management of Erie and Why It Failed - The Shadow of the Fisk Tragedy - The Influence of James McHenry Brought to Bear Against Gould-Gen. Daniel E. Sickles Moves Against Gould in the Interest of McHenry-The Incident of Lord Gordon-Gordon-The So-Called "Sickles Coup "-Betrayed by His Friends, Jay Gould is Overthrown-The Inner History of It All 161 CHAPTER XVII. ADMINISTRATION OF JOHN A. DIX-1872. McHenry, Barlow, and the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad Company the Power Behind the Throne- The Erie's Floating Debt $5,000,000, and no Money in the Treasury - Barlow Appeals to Bischoffscheim for Aid and Gets It - The Extraordinary Contract with the London Bankers to Place the $30,000,000 Loan - Dix Retires 201 CHAPTER XVIII. ADMINISTRATION OF PETER H. WATSON- 1872 TO 1874. Dividend Declared - The Gould " Restitution "- How Gould Brought it About, and Plucked Victory from the Jaws of Defeat - Story of the " Restitution "- Again Under Legislative Investigation - Watson Declares that the Erie Must Spend $40,000,000 at Once in Improving the Road - The Directors Order an Issue of $40,000,000 Consolidated Mortgage Bonds, and Send Watson to Europe to Borrow Money on Them - Barlow Antagonizes Dunan, General Auditor of the Company - Dunan Resigns, and Declares Publicly that all the Watson Dividends Were False -McHenry Secures a Lease of the Atlantic and Great Western to the Erie on His Own Terms, and the Seed of Much Future Trouble is Sown- Beginning of the Angell Suit by Attorney-General Pratt - Melancholy End of the Watson Administration 208 CHAPTER XIX. ADMINISTRATION OF HUGH J. JEWETT- 1874 TO 1884. Engaged at a Salary of $40,000 a Year, $15,000 of It Each Year for Ten Years to be Paid in Advance in One Sum of $150,o0o, Mr Jewett Takes Hold to Rescue Erie- The Rising Clouds of the McHenry-Atlantic and Great Western Entailment - Something Rare in the History of Erie Occurs : The Truth is Told - The Company Utterly Bankrupt, and the Jewett Management Saved by the Lawsuit that Was Begun to Destroy It - President Jewett Made Receiver of the Erie Railway Company - Receiver Jewett Early Recognizes the Fact that Even Complacent English Shareholders may be Aroused to Action, and Moves Toward Their Conciliation and Cooperation - The Erie Railway Company Succeeded by the New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad Company- Ten Years of the Jewett Management - Failure of the Marine National Bank and the Firm of Grant & Ward Complicates Erie Affairs and Embarrasses the Management - Passing of the June Interest, 1884- John King Elected Assistant President-Mr. Jewett Retires 230 CHAPTER XX. ADMINISTRATION OF JOHN KING (PRESIDENT) AND J. G. McCULLOUGH, RECEIVERS- 1884 TO 1895. A Stubborn Floating Debt - Ex-President Jewett Resents His Snubbing by Worrying the New Management in the Matter of Western Connections- The Trouble Settled - A Dividend, and the Last - Erie Again Tottering Under Its Burden-The Floating Debt Asserts Itself - Interest Money Used to Quiet It Compels Default - Receivers Appointed - The Drexel-Morgan Plan to Rescue the Company from Its Dilemma - The Efficacy of a $100,000,000 Blanket Mortgage - Sale of the Road - The Erie Railroad Company Rises from the Ruins 270 CHAPTER XXI. ADMINISTRATION OF EBEN B. THOMAS-1895 (IN OFFICE, 1899). The New Erie Strengthened by Consolidation - End of the Atlantic and Great Western-New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio Corporation, the Long-time Disturber of the Erie's Peace and Prosperity-For the First Time in Its History the Erie Pays as It-Goes-What the Rehabilitated Erie Owes After all Its Years of Tribulation - Over $300,000,000 of Debt Represented by Its Stocks and Bonds -A Study in the Growth of Erie 282 FIGHTING ITS WAY 1832 TO 1850. Story of Erie's Long Struggle in the Legislature for Corporate Existence and Power to Complete the Work it Had Undertaken - The Erie Charter and its Amendments - The First Relief Bill - Details of All the Legislation in New York and Pennsylvania that the Erie had to Fight for Almost a Score of Years to Get 295 THE BUILDING OF IT 1832 TO 1851. Early Talk About the Best Way to Build the Railroad - Work Begun in 1835 - Suspended in 1837 - The Resumption of 1838-40, and the First Contractors - Driving the First Spike at Piermont - Manipulating the Stock to Raise Money - How Contractors Enforced Settlements- How the First Rails Were Bought in England - Opening of the First Section of Railroad in 1841 - Bankruptcy - Work Resumed in 1846 - The Shin Hollow War- Pioneer Trains and Incidents- Tragedy and Comedy-Getting the First Train 'Through the Delaware Valley and to Binghamton - The Cascade Bridge and Starucca Viaduct - Bloody and Fatal Riots- Driving the Last Spike - The Newburgh Branch - The Long Dock and Bergen Tunnel - Getting to Buffalo and Rochester- Jefferson Branch - War of the Gauges- Nypano - Bradford Branch .. . . . 310 THE TURNING OF ITS WHEELS. 1841 TO 1898. The Story of the Time-tables - Some Rare Old Time-tables in Facsimile - Development of Traffic - Henry Fitch, First General Passenger Agent - Beginning of Milk Transportation - Original Locomotives - The Strange Career of " The Orange " - Joe Meginnes and Other First Erie Engineers - Story of the " Diamond Cars," Sleeping Cars Built for the Erie Nearly Sixty Years Ago- Worden, the First Conductor - " Poppy " Ayres and " Hank " Stewart -First Superintendents - Erie's First Tragedy of the Rail and Its Sequences - Amusing Incidents, Strange Accidents -Story of How the Erie Brought the Telegraph into Service for the Running of Trains - Original Railroad Telegraph Operators - Notable Strikes on the Erie, and Historic Accidents - The Side-tracking of Piermont and Dunkirk 373 UNDER THE LEGISLATIVE PROBE. Insinuations and Charges against the Management inquired into as Long Ago as 1841- The Search for the Truth in the Days of Daniel Drew - How the Action of a Senator Who Had Helped Investigate Erie Led to an Investigation of Himself - After the Classification Bill in 1870, 1871, and 1872- Seeking Truth About the Watson Dividend of 1873 - Erie Secrets Come to Light-The Hepburn Investigation of 1879 Throws Light on Various Things . . . . . . . . 446 FATHERS IN ERIE (Biographical) 458 PRESIDENTS OF ERIE (Biographical) 459 RULERS OF ERIE : Boards of Management from 1832 to 1898- Treasurers-General Passenger Agents-General Freight Agents-General and Division Superintendents, from 1841 to 1899 473 TABLES: Mileage, Showing Growth of Erie, etc.. 483 Earnings, Expenses, etc., since 1841 484 Quotations of Erie Stock, Common, since 1848 485 Quotations of Erie Stock, Preferred, since 1861 486 FAMOUS CHARACTERS IN ERIE : Daniel Drew- James Fisk, Jr. - S. L. M. Barlow487 ERIE GRADUATES OF NOTE : Hugh Riddle - John N. Abbott - Benjamin Thomas - Edgar Van Etten - Frank S. Gannon- W. J. Murphy - J. H. Rutter - J. B. Morford - G. P. Morosini -A. S. Whiton 493 GAZETTEER OF CITIES AND TOWNS 500 ADDENDA. ADMINISTRATION OF E. B. THOMAS (Continued) 515 PRESIDENTS OF ERIE (Continued) 518 OFFICIAL ROSTER 558 INDEX 519 THE REASON FOR IT WHY the history of a railroad ? Particularly, why a history of the Erie ? Many times during his work in the production of this Story of Erie the author was asked those questions. They were apt, and it was but natural that they should have been asked, for, at first thought, it is difficult for the average person to understand what there might be of interest or general importance in the details of the conception or building of a railroad. To-day there could be but little more than local interest or importance in such an undertaking, for the land is thick with railroads, and the purpose of none now constructing or to be constructed can be broader than that of local benefit. But when the idea for a railroad through the region and over the route now occupied by the Erie first found expression, seventy years ago, railroads were so strange in this country, so almost unheard-of, in fact, that in but three States of the Union had there been any movement made toward a practical application of them as a means of transportation-in Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania, and in Maryland ; less than sixty miles of railroad, or of what then passed for railroad, in all the broad land. The Massachusetts railroad was built to haul stone on, from a quarry, by horse-power. The Pennsylvania railroads were used and to be used for hauling coal from the mines, the cars running by their own gravity, or being hauled by stationary engines up inclined planes. The Maryland railroad alone had been designed for the carrying of passengers as well as freight, with the hope that some day it might extend as far as the Allegheny Mountains of Virginia-and the cars were drawn by horses. The idea of the railroad as the one great factor in the development, the expansion, the civilization of the country had not inspired any of the undertakings named, and had found no expression until William C. Redfield evolved it and called public attention to it, before the sound of a locomotive whistle or the whirr of a locomotive's wheels had been heard on the American continent ; and from that idea came the Erie, the first projected link of all the links of railroad that have been welded into one great chain of connection between the Atlantic and the Pacific, making not only possible, but creating, the marvellous development of theretofore unknown regions, and peopling them with industrious millions. When the movement toward the construction of the Erie began, Missouri was the only State west of the Mississippi; Chicago was a small village clustered about Fort Dearborn, and yet unnamed ; Buffalo was a Western village, and Detroit a frontier post. Summer and winter saw the poor emigrant, with his whole household in a hooded wagon, which often served for vehicle, stable, and tavern, moving toilsomely to the distant West, or what was then called the distant West, and it was rarely more distant than Illinois. Beyond the Mississippi was virtually a land unknown to emigration. Redfield's idea for such a railroad as he advocated involved even more than the project of those who at last acted upon it. He planned for the construction of a railroad from the Hudson River to the Mississippi, but that was a project beyond the power of his contemporaries to grasp the magnitude of. . They said : " Let us reach Lake Erie with our railroad. Then other railroads will come from the West to meet us." And railroads did come from the West to meet them, brought into existence by the advance of the Erie westward. Then, as the Erie project took on form and substance, its purpose aroused the East to action, and Massachusetts began the pushing of a railroad westward, to share in, if not rule, the prospects brought to view by the Erie idea. If the building of the Erie had not been begun when it was, New York City and Central New York would have been without railroads for years, for it was the prospective uniting of the Hudson with Lake Erie by such a railroad that spurred the interests between Albany and Buffalo to the building of the local lines that were consolidated as the New York Central Railroad soon after the Erie was completed to Dunkirk. Boston's connection by rail with the West was hastened a decade or more by the Erie undertaking. It was because the Erie was advancing toward Lake Erie that all that system of railroads now known as the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern came into existence as early as they did, and that lines of railroad from the South and from the North were projected, and their building was begun and carried forward to meet the advancing Erie at some point along its route. Thus it may be said, truthfully, that the history of Erie is indirectly the history of the railroads of the country; and as the prosecution of the work of building and finishing the Erie between the ocean and the lakes, and the early operations upon it, were fraught with stirring and exciting incident without precedent here or elsewhere ; involved so much of personal sacrifice, and enlisted in it the efforts of men so prominent socially and financially ; brought into the commercial life of the country so much that was new and of universal benefit ; evolved so many ideas in the science of railroading that became the basis of the future great development of that science, to the general good ; and gave such opportunity, then and later in its existence, for the enhancement of individual interests and schemes, which opportunity was so eagerly seized and acted upon as to bring into the records of Erie events as startling and dramatic as any that enliven the pages of fiction, the story of it all stands unique among the chronicles of the time, and appeals not alone to one locality, nor simply to one particular class of readers. It is not alone the history of a railroad. It is a history of men, and measures, and methods that for two generations were potent in the social, financial, and commercial affairs of this country and Europe ; and every page of it is of human interest. This had long been in the thought of the author. Hence " The Story of Erie." To tell of the task the compiling of such a narrative entailed would require a chapter as long as any in the book itself. It was begun more than five years ago, and has been in almost constant prosecution. The records of three-quarters of a century, many of them long forgotten and hard to find, had to be examined ; musty files of newspapers, old a generation ago, carefully scanned, number by number and year by year ; old publications bearing on the subject, rare, and of obscure possession, hunted up and read ; railroad reports for nearly seventy years past inspected, volume by volume, and the Erie's showing in them analyzed and digested ; the records of Wall Street for half a century compiled ; the survivors of Erie's departed days, few and widely scattered about the country, unearthed, and interviewed as to their reminiscences of those days-all these things, and many more, had to be accomplished before the Story of Erie could be told. It may well be expressed in the words of quaint Thomas Wood of old : " A painfull work, I'll assure you, and more than difficult ; wherein what toyle hath been taken as no man thinketh, sq no man believeth, save he that hath made the trial." In the preparation of this work the author has had the earnest coof Mr. John S. Collins, to whose encouragement of the undertaking, and tireless and persistent efforts in its behalf, are due its completion, and the superior style in which the book has at last been brought to publication. E. H. M. NEW YORK, June, 1899. All pictures are of the actual item. There may be reflection from the lights in some photos. We try to take photos of any damage. If this is a railroad item, this material is obsolete and no longer in use by the rai

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