Part 35 (1/2)
Railroading
First of the railroads of any description chartered in connection with Cleveland were the Cleveland and Newburgh and Cleveland and Bedford Railroad Companies. The first named was incorporated in 1835, built soon after, and for some time run by horse power, hauling stone and timber, and occasionally pa.s.sengers. It was eventually abandoned. The Cleveland and Bedford was never built. Another local road, run by horse power, with wooden rails, was, about the same time, constructed between the city and East Cleveland, pa.s.sing up Euclid street.
The Ohio Railroad was of a different character. It was intended to run along the lake sh.o.r.e from the Pennsylvania line to Toledo, mostly to be built on piles. Considerable work was done, though no iron laid, when the financial crisis overwhelmed it and its kindred schemes. The piles driven for the track are yet visible in places between Cleveland and Sandusky.
The rights of the company, as far as they existed, afterwards became the property of the Junction Railroad Company, now the Cleveland and Toledo.
Of the same period, was the Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburgh. This was chartered in 1836, the act of incorporation authorizing the construction of a railroad from Cleveland, in the direction of Pittsburgh, to the State line of Pennsylvania. At the point of intersection with the State line, the charter provided for the union of the road with any other road which the State of Pennsylvania might authorize from Pittsburgh, or any other point below the Ohio river, running in the direction of Cleveland, in order that a continuous route might be perfected from Cleveland to Pittsburgh, under the authority of both States. The charter was very loose in its provisions, allowing the president and directors to create and sell stock as in their judgement occasion might require, without limit as to the amount issued, except that it should not exceed the needs of the company. Plenary powers were granted to the company in the selection of a route, the condemnation of land, and like ”full and discretionary power” was granted to the company in ”the use and occupancy of the road, in the transportation of persons or property, either by the force and power of steam, or animals, or any mechanical or other power, or any combination of them, which the company may think proper to employ.” The cost of the line was estimated to be less than $7,000 per mile. The road was to be an extension of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, a branch of which was to extend to Pittsburgh, and thus would ”give the whole vast region of the western lakes an opportunity of marketing their products in, and receiving their foreign produce from Philadelphia and Baltimore, at least rive weeks earlier in the season, and at much less expense,” than was accomplished at New York.
In the same year a charter was obtained for the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad, connecting Cleveland and Cincinnati by the way of Columbus.
None of the roads were built under these charters. The financial panic of 1837 swept them all into oblivion, together with a mult.i.tude of other roads projected throughout the country. Some of them were heard of no more, and others were revived in after years, the charters greatly amended, and the roads eventually built. The design of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad Company was eventually carried out to the extent of building a line to Columbus and there connecting with railroads extending to Cincinnati. The Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburgh charter was dug up, amended, and made authority for organization of the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad, whilst the original route was mainly occupied by the new Cleveland and Mahoning Railroad.
The Cleveland and Bedford was at last rendered unnecessary by the Cleveland and Pittsburgh pa.s.sing over its route, whilst the Cleveland and Newburgh reap-pears as a street railroad, for pa.s.sengers only, the original design of a local railroad for freight being abandoned thirty odd years ago.
In 1845, the lapsed charter of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad Company was revived, revised, and a new company organized, with John W. Allen, Richard Hilliard, Jolin M. Woolsey and H. B. Payne as Cleveland directors, and John W. Allen as president. Between the organization of the company and the construction of the road there was a wide gulf of difficulties, jealousies and enmities, bridged over at last by untiring perseverance and unwavering faith in the final success of the undertaking. The story of the struggle is told incidentally in the biographical sketches of those connected with the enterprise. All that we have to do here is, to briefly sketch the leading features in the narrative as it has been already told, after a careful examination of the doc.u.mentary history of the company. That account says the incorporation of the company had been obtained in the year 1845, with a proviso authorizing the city of Cleveland to subscribe two millions of dollars to the stock. The bonds of the city were promptly given, but before any money could be obtained upon these bonds it was necessary that a further subscription should be made by the citizens, not only to meet the current expenses, but to give a.s.surance to capitalists abroad that the people here were really in earnest, and would not suffer the undertaking to fall through. After a thorough canva.s.s of the city, by two well known and respected citizens, it was found that not more than twenty-five thousand dollars could be obtained. There was both a scarcity of cash and a lack of faith in the enterprise.
John M. Woolsey was sent to Cincinnati to negotiate the city bonds with the Ohio Life and Trust Company; to Pittsburgh to ascertain upon what terms iron could be obtained; and to Philadelphia and New York to enlist the sympathy and help of capitalists. The mission was a failure. The common strap iron of that day could not be obtained without cash on delivery, and the money could not be procured on any terms. Cleveland was too far off, and entirely unknown to the moneyed men of the eastern cities. Thus, in the Spring of 1847, one of the very darkest periods in our history, it was determined to abandon the enterprise for the time, and await a more favorable season.
In this desperate extremity Mr. Hilliard and Mr. Payne volunteered another and last effort of three months personal labor to arouse their fellow citizens to a proper sense of the importance and ultimate value of this grand undertaking. By patient perseverance they succeeded in securing a leading subscription of five thousand dollars from Leonard Case, who also consented to become a director of the company. The ultimate result of the solicitations was the subscription of about $40,000 additional to the amount previously pledged. About the same time an accession of the utmost importance was made when Alfred Kelley, of Columbus, accepted the presidency of the road, contrary to his inclination to retire from further public duties and to the strong remonstrances of his personal friends.
Through the influence of Mr. Dwight, of Springfield, Ma.s.s., the directors secured the services of Captain Childs, well known among Eastern capitalists as a skillful engineer, and his endors.e.m.e.nt of the company did much to advance its credit abroad. But it was still necessary to secure a large disposal of stock at home, and to effect this, a liberal additional a.s.sessment upon the friends of the road was made and accepted. Mr. Childs finally recommended Mr. Harbeck, who, in company with Stillman Witt and Amasa Stone, Jr., undertook and carried out the building of the road to its completion.
In February, 1851, the first through train arrived from Columbus, bringing the State authorities and the Legislature, to celebrate the union of the two cities. Thus the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad was the pioneer of the series of the now enlarged, and most important enterprises so clearly identified with the growth of the city. The chairman of the building committee stated at the opening of the new depot, that during the entire building of that road, there was not a dollar paid as a bribe to either the Legislature or the City Council, to receive their favors.
The terminus of the road at Cleveland was originally intended to be on Scranton's Flats, but it was afterwards determined to bring the road across the river to the site of the old New England House. Appreciating the importance of extending it to the lake sh.o.r.e, the contractors agreed to grade the road free of charge from that point to the lake, and it was accordingly carried forward to its present terminus.
In 1869, the road was consolidated with the Bellefontaine line, thus placing its western terminus in Indianapolis. Its southern stem had previously been extended by way of the Delaware Cut-Off to Springfield, thus opening another connection with Cincinnati.
We have already said that the charter of the Cleveland, Warren and Pittsburgh Railroad, after sleeping for several years, was dug up, amended, and the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad Company organized under it. The resuscitation of the charter took place in March, 1845, when the route was changed from ”the most direct in the direction of Pittsburgh,”
to ”the most direct, practicable, and least expensive route to the Ohio river, at the most suitable point.” The company organized at Ravenna, in October of the same year, with James Stewart, of Wellsville, as president, A. G. Cattell, as secretary, and Cyrus Prentiss, as treasurer. The route was surveyed, meetings held in aid of the project, and in July, 1847, the first contracts let from Wellsville northward, and the work of construction commenced. The northern end dragged, owing to the slow coming in of subscriptions, and the work was not fully let until 1849.
In February, 1851, the line was opened from Cleveland to Hudson, and the General a.s.sembly and State officers who had come to Cleveland to attend the celebration of the opening of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad, accepted an invitation to ride over the new railroad to Hudson.
A short supply of provisions at Hudson, and the ditching of the train on the return trip, made the weary and hungry legislators long remember their pioneer trip over the unfinished Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad. In March following, the track was completed to Ravenna, in November to Hanover, at which time free pa.s.ses for ”each stockholder and his lady,”
and ”landholders through whose land the road pa.s.ses, with their wives,”
were issued, good for one ride over the line and return, that they might see the whole of the stupendous undertaking and admire it. In January 1852, connection was made with the Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad at Alliance, and a route thus opened to Pittsburgh, and in March, of the same year, the line was opened to Wellsville, and connection with the Ohio river perfected, thus completing the work laid out in the amended charter.
At different times, subsequently, authority was granted by the General a.s.sembly for the extension of the line and the construction of branches.
In this way the River Division was built, connecting the Wellsville end with Pittsburgh by a junction with the Ohio and Pennsylvania at Rochester, and with the Baltimore and Ohio and Central Ohio, by a line to Bellair.
The Tuscarawas Branch was built to New Philadelphia, and there stopped, though its original purpose was to form a connection with the Steubenville and Indiana Railroad. Authority was also given to build a branch from Hudson towards the Ohio and Pennsylvania and any line running in the direction of Columbus. A separate company afterwards constructed this ”Akron Branch,” or Cleveland, Zanesville and Cincinnati Railroad, so far as Millersburgh. The Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad has had a serious financial struggle to go through, but it has come out as an important and prosperous line. It is now working under a consolidation of earnings with the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago, formerly known as the Ohio and Pennsylvania.
The Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad Company, now, after several consolidations and changes of t.i.tle, forming part of the Lake Sh.o.r.e and Michigan Southern Railroad Company, was part of the general plan of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad, was built under much of the same influence, and has always been intimately connected with it in its working. The charter was obtained by special act in 1848, and empowered the corporators to build a line by way of Painesville, through Ashtabula county, to the Pennsylvania State line, and to continue their line into that State to any point authorized by the Pennsylvania Legislature. That part of the road extending to Erie, in the State of Pennsylvania, was constructed under the charter of the Franklin Ca.n.a.l Company, pa.s.sed by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, the 21st day of May, 1846, and amended April 9th, 1849, giving it authority to construct a railroad.
The company was organized August 1st, 1849, by the selection of Alfred Kelley, Samuel L. Seldin, Heman B. Ely, George E. Gillett, David R. Paige, Laphnor Lake and Peleg P. Sanford as directors, and Heman B. Ely as president, and the surveys from Cleveland were made under the superintendence of Frederick Harbeck as chief engineer, and from the State line to Erie he acted as consulting engineer, filling both situations until his death, which occurred in the month of February, 1851. A contract for the construction of the road from Cleveland to the State line of Pennsylvania was made with Frederick Harbeck, A. Stone, Jr., and Stillman Witt, on the 26th day of July, 1850, but the work progressed slowly for six months after the contract was concluded, princ.i.p.ally for the reason that there was no confidence in the ability of a railroad from Cleveland to Erie or Buffalo to compete with the lake in the transportation of persons and property, and the contractors expended more than $100,000 of their means before a like amount could be raised through all other sources. In the month of January, 1851, the Hon. Alfred Kelley was appointed general agent of the company with unlimited authority to raise funds and press forward the work of completion. He entered upon his duties with his usual indomitable perseverance and energy, fully seconded by the directors and contractors, and they had the satisfaction of pa.s.sing a locomotive over its entire length late in the autumn of the year 1852.