History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 69

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340

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"In the meantime rivalries between the west and north sides of the river had sprung up, and some of the North-Side directors became suspicious that Mr. Ogden did not want to extend the road across the North Branch into the North Division, because his greater interest was on the West Side. The temporary depot was then there. Some of the directors proposed to the writer to accept the presidency of the road. Upon this being declined; it was pro- posed to make him treasurer and hnancial agent. This was also declined, for the reason that it would too much interfere with pro- fessional work, which the writer was unwilling to give up. Mean- while, certain officers of the road had been busy misrepresenting Mr. Ogden's actions and intentions to Mr. Scammon and Mr. Scammon's to Mr. Ogden, until the latter was led to believe that there was a conspiracy to turn him out of the presidency and elect the writer in his stead. A counter movement was therefore under- taken by Mr. Ogden and the few who were in his confidence. This movement was not discovered until a few days before the election. Nine of the directors were very much surprised to learn it, and all of these nine sided with the writer. What combinations had been made, and how many proxies were held by the parties in this move- ment, were unknown. We started for Elgin, where the meeting was to be held. MIr. Ogden's party, with Mr. Arnold as their attorney, went in one car, the other Chicago directors in another. On the way out, the writer said to the directors who were in the car with him, that he had been thinking over the matter, and had come to the conclusion that inasmuch as we did not know how strong the other party were, and what they intended ultimately to do, the better way would be to propose to them that the writer would decline a re-election upon condition that all the other directors should be re-elected without opposition ; and he said he would name, as his successor, Mr. Knowlton, of Freeport. That the other party would be obliged to accept this, or lose Mr. Knowlton's and the other Freeport votes, which would certainly defeat them. That we could not afford to have an open quarrel, which might hurt our credit and embarrass the progress of the road. 'The directors with the writer replied, if Mr. Scammon is willing to make this proposition they thought it would succeed, but no nne could ask it of him. He replied, that he was more interested in the completion and success of the road than in any personal question; that he had worked solely in the interest of the road as a public improvement demanded by the country, and had no selfish axes to grind, and he would make that proposition, and trust to time for his justification. It was made, much to the surprise of the other party, and after some hesitation or consideration, as it ' broke their slate,' it was accepted. Mr. Ogden was re-elected president ; but no sooner was AIr. Scammon out of the directory than all the bat- teries of the conspirators were turned against Mr. Ogden, and his place was made so uncomfortable that at the end of the year he left the road. Immediately after the election, the nine directors called the conspirators lo account ; and there was a confession that the

writer had been grossly misrepresented and improperly treated, and a promise made that a proper explanation should be made. It was never done. But William B. Ogden acted otherwise. When he learned the facts, and that we had both been made the victims of ambitious and designing men, who wished to get rid of the writer, because he had nipped in the bud their first attempt at speculation in the location of the road, and prevented its repetition, and be- cause they knew that they were watched, and so long as he was in the board such movements were likely to be detected and defeated, Mr. Ogden came directly to the writer, and, on learning what state- ments these parties had made to the latter, relative to Mr. Ogden. at once frankly acknowledged that in his action he had been misled and imposed upon by those he trusted, and that the writer's con- duct, to which he had taken so grave exception that he felt justi- fied in self-defense to enter into combination to defeat his re-elec- tion, was entirely in the path of right and duty, if the writer believed the representations made to him, as he was bound to do within the circumstances."

THE ILLINOIS CENTRAL RAILROAD COMPANY .- Judge Breese's stupendous project, which had been ly- ing dormant, but not dead, since the bursting of the internal improvement bubble in 1839, was taken up with renewed energy in 1848. John S. Wright, who had early taken a deep interest in public enterprises, and was a man of great foresight, energy and enthusiasm, was actively employed in circulating petitions and docu- ments in favor of a land grant from the General Govern- ment to assist in the construction of the road, while the father of the enterprise, Judge Breese, was giving his time and energies to it in the Senate of the United States. Mr. Wright flooded the country with documents laying the matter before every class of people. He is said to have distributed at his own expense six thousand copies of petitions to Congress for a grant of land in aid of a railroad from the Upper and Lower Mississippi to Chicago. Three different ones were prepared-for the South, Illinois and the East. Judge Douglas said they came to Washington by the hundreds, numerously signed and had much influence, being the earliest move- ment for this object outside of Congress, except by the Cairo company. Arrangements were then (January, 1848), being made to continue the Michigan Central Railroad from New Buffalo to Chicago, sixty miles, which, with the road then building across Canada, would connect the city with the East. The Galena & Chicago Union Railroad had been surveyed. The proposed Buffalo & Mississippi road via Chicago to the mouth of Rock River was to be extended, in time, to Council Bluffs. An ardent admirer of this project and a warm practical supporter, and a hard worker to make the en- terprise a success was Hon. Stephen A. Douglas. The Illinois Central from Cairo at the mouth of the Missis- sippi to the canal was designed to be a most important link in the great system of communication between the lakes and the Mississippi, as that river as far south as Cairo was open to the gulf at all seasons of the year.

The original bills, introduced by Judge Breese, as he himself says in a letter to Senator Douglas, published in January, 1851, did not contemplate a connection with Chicago. They confined the roads to the routes from Cairo, by Vandalia, Shelbyville, Decatur, Bloomington, Peru and Dixon, to Galena. In 1847 Senator Douglas made Chicago his home, and he, in connection with other large property owners, determined to establish a linc binding the Northwest with the lakes. Thus many friends were secured for the measure in the northeastern and middle States, who did not favor a proposition hav- ing for its natural tendency the diversion of trade from the Upper Mississippi toward New Orleans alone .* The bill was reported by Judge Breese, chairman

* See letter from Senator Douglas to Judge Breese, published in Weekly Democrat, March 1, 1851.

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HISTORY OF CHICAGO.

of the committee on public lands, the same year, but did not meet with further consideration.

On the 11th of December, 1848, in the United States Senate, Mr. Douglas gave notice that he would intro- duce a bill granting the right of way and making a grant of land to the States of Illinois, Mississippi and Alabama in aid of the construction of a railroad from Chicago to Mobile. The bill was introduced on the 18th of the same month, read twice, and referred to the committee on public land, of which Judge Breese was

chairman. On the ryth of December Judge Breese re- ported back the bill without amendment and it was or- dered to be printed. On the 30th of January, 1849, Judge Breese moved that the prior orders be postponed for the purpose of taking up the bill. The Senate was in committee of the whole proceeded to its considera- tion. Mr. Breese submitted sundry amendments, but moved that the printing of them be dispensed with. Mr. Dodge, of Iowa, suggested a further amendment so as to provide for terminating the road at Dubuque, on the Mississippi River. Mr. Breese then amended by inserting after the word " Galena " the words "to the Mississippi River opposite Dubuque." No further amendments being submitted the bill was reported to the Senate, when the several amendments were con- curred in. The bill was then ordered to be engrossed and read a third time, and was subsequently by unani- mous consent taken up and passed in the Senate. In the House at this session it failed, but the matter hav- ing been so fully and fairly presented, ripened it for its subsequent passage in 1850.

General James Shields was sent to Congress as the the successor of Judge Breese. In December, 1849, Congressman Shields and Senator Douglas, supported by the other Illinois members, prepared the bill, which was introduced into the Senate by Mr. Douglas in Janu- ary, 1850. It passed the Senate May 2, and the House of Representatives September 20, 1850. Its triumph in that body was largely due to the energy and ability of Hon. John Wentworth, the Representative of this dis- trict, and the late Governor Bissell, then a member of the House. At the same time a strip of land between LaSalle and Cairo, two hundred feet wide, was granted to the State for the uses of road-bed, side-tracks, and stations of the Central Railroad. The main grant of which this was supplementary, was 2,595,000 acres in the heart of the State, or alternate sections designated by even numbers for six sections deep on each side of the main line and its branches, and for lands sold or pre- empted within those sections, an equal quantity within fifteen miles on each side of the line, on condition that the grant would be controlled by Illinois, and when the road should be built would be free to the General Gov-

ernment. The minimum price was fixed at $2.50 per acre, but in 1852 $5.00 per acre was realized.

This was the precedent of railroad grants, refused to the roads then completed, viz .: Chicago & Galena

from Chicago to Elgin ; a section of the Northern Cross Railroad, from Naples and Meredosia to Springfield, and six miles of Governor Reynolds's track from a point opposite St. Louis to the Bluff coal mines. What new hopes the great land grant built up may be learned from the repeal of the act canceling the Great Western Railroad Company's charter, and the regranting of the charter to the Cairo City & Canal Company, with addi- tional privileges. This transaction, known as the " Hol- brook Charter," became notorious; so much so that Douglas prevailed upon D. B. Holbrook, president of the Cairo company, to yield up to the State the charter, which surrender was made December 24, 1849.

During the previous month, November 5, 1849, the act to provide for "a general system of railroad incor- porations " went into effect. It provided that not less than twenty-five persons might form a railroad corpora- tion, and elect directors when $1,coo of stock per mile should be subscribed, and ten per cent paid in. Thir- teen directors were to be chosen, at least seven of whom must reside in the counties through which the road was to run. Rules were laid down for the conduct of the directors, making the stockholders individually liable to the creditors of the company to the amount of stock held by them. Every company before proceeding to construct their road through any county was to make a map of its route and file it in the County Clerk's office. The corporation was not to interfere with navigable streams, or obstruct roads and highways. The com- pensation for any passenger and his ordinary baggage was not to exceed "three cents per mile, unless by special act of the Legislature." Rules were also laid down for obtaining the right of way Each employé was to be appropriately " labeled " with his company's badge. Annual reports were required to be made to the Secretary of State, and the railroad property listed by the proper officer, the State having a lien upon ap- purtenances and stock, for penalties, dues and taxes. The act admitted the right of the Legislature to alter rates, if the profits were not reduced less than fifteen per cent per annum on the paid up capital. Three com- missioners, appointed by the Governor, were to fix the rates of transportation for the United States mail, in case the railroad could not agree with the General Gov- ernment. Should a passenger not pay his fare the con- ductor was authorized to "put him off." Under no circumstances were freight cars to be placed behind pas- senger coaches, and at least a thirty-two-pound bell or a steam whistle was to be placed on the locomotive, and worked at least eighty rods from a railroad crossing. Penalties were provided for a violation of these sections. " Warning boards " were to be erected, on which were to be painted, in capital letters of at least the size of nine inches-" Railroad Crossing-Look out for the cars while the bell rings, or the whistle sounds." This was not to apply to city streets.

By act of the General Assembly, approved February 17, 1851, an act entitled ".\n act to incorporate the Great Western Railway Company," approved March 6, 1843: " An act to amend an act entitled an act to incorporate the Great Western Railway Company," approved February 10, 1849, and " An act to incorporate the Illinois Central Railroad Company," approved January 16, 1836, were repealed. By section 3 of the same act the grant of Congress approved Sep- tember 20, 1850, was accepted.

Prior to the passage of this wholesale repealing act, a memorial was presented to the General Assembly. It is dated December 28, 1850, and signed by Robert Schuy-

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THE RAILROAD SYSTEM.

ler, George Griswold, Gouverneur Morris, of Morrisania, Franklin Haven, David A. Neal, R. Rantoul, Jr., J. Sturges, Thomas W. Ludlow and John F. A. Sanford. The memorialists offer to build a road from Cairo to Galena, with a branch to Chicago, on or before July 4, 1854, "as well and thoroughly built as the railroad running from Boston to Albany," agreeing furthermore, in con- sideration of the charter and the land grant to "pay annually -- per cent of the gross earnings of the said road." The general reader may be glad to learn that this blank was filled with a "seven" and that this agree- ment became one of the corner-stones of the financial stability of the State of Illinois .* On February 10, 1851, the Legislature, declaring that in its judgment the object of incorporating the Central Railroad Company could not be attained under general laws, passed an act incorporating the Illinois Central Railroad Company. The event was celebrated in Chicago by a popular dem- onstration of favor. The corporators were the memor- ialists mentioned above, and Henry Grinnell, William H. Aspinwall, Leroy Wiley and Joseph W. Alsop. These gentlemen, with the Governor of the State for the time being, were constituted the first board of directors.

To this company the congressional grant of right of way and public lands, together with "the right of way which the State of Illinois has heretofore obtained;" the lot of land obtained by the State within the city of Cairo for a depot; "all the grading, embankments, exca- vations, surveys, work, materials, personal property, profiles, plats and papers constructed, procured, fur- nished and done by or in behalf of the State of Illinois, for or an account of said road and branches, and the right of way over and through lands owned by the State," were " ceded and granted," and the company were required to execute a deed of trust of all this prop- erty, together with " the railroad which may be built," to Morris Ketchum, John Moore and Samuel D. Lock- wood, trustees, to secure to the State the first lien on the property so conveyed, the construction of the road, and the indemnification of the State against the claims of the United States, in case the road should not be completed within ten years as required by the act of Congress of September 20, 1850. Thus the magnificent grant to the State was relinquished to a private corpora- tion, not without strong opposition, however, for there was a deep feeling against the measure. The magni- tude of the grant was so overpowering to the minds of many good citizens, that they argued earnestly that by proper management the State might not only build the seven hundred miles of railroad, but from the proceeds of the lands pay off a burdensome State debt of many millions of dollars besides. Doubtless this might have been possible, but the opportunities for "steals" might not have been easily resisted. John S. Wright published a pamphlet in which he insisted that the State would be "everlastingly dishonored if the Legislature did not devise laws to build the road, and disenthral the State of its enormous debt besides, out of the avails of this grant." The company negotiated a loan of $400,000, but the money could not be realized until there should be a conveyance of the lands from the General Government. In this there was some delay. Justin Butterfield, the commissioner of the general land office, at Washington, who was from Chicago, construed the grant as entitling the company to lands for the Chicago branch, on a straight line to Chicago, which would avoid the junction with the Michigan Central. After some vexatious delay this construction of the act was overruled by the President and Secretary of the

* The amount thus paid over to the State has been over $y,ovo,ou0.

Interior, and in March, 1852, the necessary patents were issued, contracts were awarded, work commenced and the road pushed forward to completion with little interruption.

In March, 1851, the board of directors had chosen Roswell B. Mason,* of Bridgeport, Conn., engineer in chief. It is entirely fitting that he should himself give an account of the survey and building of the line, as he was at the head of the work from its commencement to its conclusion. The following letter to a personal friend explains itself :

"CHICAGO, October 12, ISS3.

" C. C. P. HOLDEN,

" Dear Sir: In compliance with your request, I give you very briefly a few facts and incidents connected with the early operation of the engineer department of the Illinois Central Railroad.

" I received my appointment as chief engineer of the Illinois Central Kailroad on the 22d of March, 1851, and entered at once upon the duty of selecting my assistants and making preparations for the journey to what was then considered this far off Western country. Leaving New York on the 14th of May with a party of ten or twelve young gentlemen, we traveled by steamer to Albany, by rail to Buffalo, by steamer to Detroit, by rail to New Buffalo, on the east side of Lake Michigan, and thence by steamer to "Chi- cago, arriving on the 19th of May. My assistant engineers were appointed over the work as follows:

"N. B. Porter, from Chicago to Rantoul, headquarters Chicago; L. W. Ashley, Rantoul to Mattoon, headquarters Urbana; C. Floyd Jones, Mattoon to main line Junction, and main line from Ramsay to Richview, headquarters Vandalia; Arthur S. Ormsby, Richview to Cairo, headquarters Jonesboro; H. B. Plant, Ramsay to Bloom- ington, headquarters Decatur; T. B. Blackstone, Bloomington 10 Eldena, headquarters LaSalie; B. B. Provoost, Eldena to Dunleith, headquarters Freeport. Henry Bacon, after a few months, took the place of N. B. Porter at Chicago, and L. W. Ashley took the place of Arthur S. Ormsby at Jonesboro. The solicitors of the company were W. H. Bissel and Mason Brayman of Springfield; the trustees, John Moore, S. D. Lockwood and Morris Ketchum.

"After seeing my assistants on their way to their several loca- tions, I went by packet-boat on the Illinois & Michigan Canal from Chicago to LaSalle, and then took a private conveyance to Cairo and back to Chicago. We traveled very nearly on the line of the road as now located south of LaSalle through Bloomington and Clinton to Decatur. From Decatur I went to Springfield to have a consultation with the solicitors, Messrs. Bissel & Brayman, and on my return to Decatur I was joined by W. H1. Bissel, Esq., who went with me to Cairo and a part of the way back south of De- catur we traveled substantially on the present line of the road through Vandalia and near Richview and Jonesboro. But owing to high water we could not drive to Cairo and went to Mound City on the Ohio River, and thence by steamer to Cairo. Owing to cholera, which then prevailed there, and what appeared to me a very fair prospect of being drowned, I made a short visit, returning by steamer to Mound City; then followed back substantially on our route to near Decatur, thence to Urbana. The expectation at that time being to have the Chicago branch leave the main line at some point between Decatur and Vandalia.

" Going north from Urbana, we traveled over an unbroken prairie, almost the entire distance to Chicago, with no settlement in view on the whole one hundred and twenty-eight miles except at Spring Creek and baurbonia until you came near Chicago, where we arrived in about one month from the time I left there, traveling by private conveyance between seven hundred and eight hundred miles. During the journey f met all my assistants except B. B. Provoost, and found them well equipped and entering very heartily into a vigorous prosecution of their work.

"After spending a few days at Chicago, I went again by packet- boat to LaSalle and thence by private conveyance to Dubuque, through Dixon, Freeport and Galena, meeting Mr. l'rovoost at Freeport, who had his work well in hand; returning to Chicago after about ten days, where I spent several weeks. But during the " summer and fall I visited different portions of the line several times and was able to complete the location substantially and get my profiles and maps ready to take with me to New York late in the fall.

" On the 2d of February, 1852, I went to Washington to de- posit the map of our location with the Commissioner of the Land Department as required by law, and to get his approval of the se- lection and quantity of the land. This was not accomplished until

* Hon. Roswell B. Mason, the builder of the road and who located in Chi- cago during the construction of the wime, was called by the people of this city in the Mayor's hair in the tall of 136%. where he served the city for two years with the sainc fidelity that characterized all his acts in the construction of the Illinois Centrai Kallroad in the years 1851-56.

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HISTORY OF CHICAGO.

the 14th of March. While in Washington in the early part of March, I directed the work to be put under contract from Chicago to Calumet, in order to enable the Michigan Central Kailroad to reach the city. Spending a few days with my family in Con- necticut after leaving Washington, I started for Chicago again on the 17th of March via Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, and after a tedious journey of seven or eight days reached Chicago. Every effort was made to complete the work from Chicago to Calumet as soon as possible, and on the 21st of May, 1S52, the first pas- senger train from Detroit entered Chicago, using the Illinois Cen- tral Railroad track from Calumet to about Twenty-second Street, and from thence by a temporary track over the prairie almost in a direct line to the east side of Michigan Avenue, immediately south of Thirteenth Street, where a temporary passenger depot was pro- vided and occupied for something more than a year, until the road was completed to the present depot at the foot of Lake Street.

" The only towns of importance on the main line were Galena, Freeport, Dixon, La Salle, Bloomington, Clinton, Decatur, Van- dalia, Richview, Jonesboro and Cairo. Richview and Jonesboro were not immediately on the line, but within about one mile. We did not go through a single settlement on the branch, but passed near Urbana and Bourbonnais. With the exception of more or less timber in the immediate vicinity of the towns mentioned above, we passed over prairies from Galena to Big Muddy River within about sixty miles of Caito. This sixty miles was quite heavily timbered almost the entire distance. In going north on the Chi- cago Branch from the main line we passed over patches of timber and prairie to a point a little south of Mattoon, and from there to Chicago it was entirely prairie, except for a short distance at Spring Creek and Kankakee. In going south from la Salle we soon came on to a prairie and traveled forty miles without seeing a house of any kind, and generally there was scarcely any settlement between the towns mentioned above, which are from twenty-five to fifty or sixty miles apart. On the branch 1 think there was no settlement immediately on the line of the road from where it leaves the main line until you come within about twenty miles of Chicago. There were quite a number of places from twenty to forty miles without a settlement. The only railroads in Illinois in the spring of 1851 were the Chicago & Galena, extending from Chicago to Elgin, about forty miles, laid with strap-rail ; and a road from Jacksonville to the Illinois River, also laid with strap-rail, and pretty much abandoned, 1 think, at that time.

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History of Chicago. From the earliest period to the present time, Part 69

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas Number of Pages: 1340

Author: Andreas, Alfred Theodore
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago, A. T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 1340