History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 44

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875

USA > Illinois > Cook County > History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time > Part 44

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Alton & Springfield road was commenced in 1846 upon promises of money and paid-up stock by local subscrib- ers. During the progress of the road examples of perseverance and self-sacrifice were given, which par- take of the nature of romance rather than of actual his- tory. Captain Godfrey mortgaged all his property, lived in a construction car, and labored as a hired work- man from the beginning of work, in 1846, to the com- pletion of the road in 1852. The charter was granted to the Alton & Sangamon Railroad February 27, 1847.

The Chicago & Mississippi Railroad Company was chartered June 19, 1852. Henry Dwight was the lead- ing spirit in the extension of the Alton road from Springfield to Bloomington and Joliet. Having suc- ceeded in the organization of a board of directors, in 1856, bonds were issued, amounting to $3,500,000, and with the moneys obtained on such bonds, the road was finished to Joliet, as the Chicago, Alton & St. Louis, the new company leasing the entire line. The Alton & Sangamon road, from Alton to Springfield, was com- pleted in 1853, and the Chicago & Mississippi, from Springfield to Bloomington, in 1854, and from Bloom- ington to Joliet in 1856.

The Joliet & Chicago Railroad Company was char- tered by the Legislature of 1854-55 and empowered to construct a road from Joliet via Lockport, to Chicago, on the condition that a perpetual lease of it should be grant- ed to the Chicago & Alton Railroad Company. This con- necting was subsequently completed, the city granting a right-of-way into Chicago in April, 1857.

In December, 1857, Governor Mattison and one or two others, purchased the road at auction, for $5,000, or less than one-ninth of the cost of buikling one mile, the total sum expended upon the line heing $9,535,000. The St. Louis, Alton & Chicago Railroad Company, however, which was then organized, survived but a few years ; the company being re-organized in 1862, as the Chicago & Alton.

THE MICHIGAN SOUTHERN & NORTHERN INDIANA RAILROAD, 1833-57 .- The Michigan Southern was com- pleted to Chicago February 20, 1852, and was the first Eastern trunk line introduced here. The depot was built on the prairie near Gurnec's tannery, opposite the Rock Island Railroad depot, the same year. The his- tory of this road, which is the early history of the pres- ent corporation known as the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern Railroad Company, embraces the record of the Erie & Kalamazoo, 1833 to 1849; Michigan South- ern, 1837 to 1855 : Atlantic & Pacific, or Buffalo & Mississippi, or Northern Indiana, 1835-1855 ; and the Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana, 1855-57.

The Erie & Kalamazoo Railroad Company was incorporated in April, 1833, by the Michigan I.egis- lative Council, with power to build a road thirty-three miles long, from Port Lawrence, now Toledo, to Adrian, Mich. The road was opened as a one-horse railroad in the summer of 1837 ; but in August of that year the engine, " Adrian Baldwin No. 1," was placed on the road. This enterprise, added to the one undertaken by the company, known as the Palmyra & Jacksonburg Railroad Company, was pregnant with troubles to the company. In 1842 W. J. Daniels was appointed re- ceiver, and the latter road was sold to the State of Michigan for $22,000, the amount due to the State. In 1848 financial troubles brought ruin to the company, and the road was sold to Washington Lunt, of New York, and George Bliss, of Massachusetts. The Michigan Southern Railroad Company leased the road August , 1849, and has continued in possession of it, paying a rental of $30,000 annually. This Michigan Southern was one

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of the old lines, which, like the Michigan Central, passed from the State into the hands of a corporation. In 1837 the track of the Michigan Southern Railroad was laid with strap-rail. In 1839 it was completed to Peters- burg ; in 1840 to Adrian ; and in 1843 to Hillsdale. Sixty-six miles were in operation in 1843 from Monroe to Hillsdale, owned and operated by the State of Michi- gan. It was the original plan to build the road from Monroe to New Buffalo ; but, owing to the crisis which the extravagant dreams of 1837 created, the State was forced to cease work on the road in 1843. In 1844 the State took possession of the Palmyra & Jacksonburg Railroad, in lieu of the loan and interest thereon, made by the State to the Erie & Kalamazoo Railroad Com- pany, who projected and built the Palmyra & Jackson- burg Railroad. This last-named road was opened to Tecumseh August 9, 1838, and the branch to Jackson in 1856. In 1846 the road was purchased by Edwin C. Litchfield & Co., of New York, the State agreeing to receive the sum of $500,000 payable in ten installments of $50,000 each, within ten years. In 1850 the new company had added only four miles of track, but within the two succeeding years the Michigan Southern was built from Toledo to Chicago, a distance of two hun- dred and forty-three miles.

A bill for the incorporation of the Atlantic & Pacific Railroad Company, was introduced in 1835 by John B. Chapman to the legislators of Indiana. The Legis- lature would not consider the bill under that heading, but subsequently granted certain privileges to the Buf- falo & Mississippi Railroad Company.

On May 25. 1835, a number of incorporators met at Elkhart, Ind., to consider the subject of builling a rail- road from Maumee Bay to the Mississippi. From this meeting sprung the organization of a company in Feb- ruary, 1837, with Robert Stewart as president. The road was located and contracts let June 14. 1837. About one mile of the proposed road west of LaPorte was graded. In 1838 work was suspended ; but a line from Goshen to the eastern boundary of the State was located. In 1847 a new company was organized with William B. Ogden, J. Y. Scammon, J. W. Brooks, C. B. Blair, E. D. Taylor, John B. Niles, and A. L. Osborn, directors. Up to 1849 nothing was done on the road, so the company re-organized under the title Northern Indiana Railroad Company. During this year the Rail- road Charter & Insolvent Railroad Purchasing Com- pany, known as Edwin C. Litchfield & Co., of New York, turned their attention from fallen public railroad works in Michigan to fallen private railroads in Ohio and In- diana, and soon had control of the Northern Indiana Railroad Company, the more humble title substituted for the Buffalo & Mississippi.

In October, 1849, the Northern Indiana Railroad Company was organized by Judge Niles, and a charter obtained from the Ohio Legislature, March 3, 1851. At the same time the Northern Indiana & Chicago Railroad Company was organized in Illinois and consolidated with the former under the title of Northern Indiana Railroad Company. Work was begun in earnest and on May 22, 1852, a passenger train, drawn by the en- gine " Adrian," passed over the line from Toledo to Chicago. Within two years following, the company re- constructed fifty miles of the old road and built one hundred and sixty miles of new road. The consolida- tion of the Northern Indiana with the Michigan South- ern was effected April 25, 1855. Between the years 1853 and 1856 the road was extended to Jackson, and to Three Rivers, Mich.

According to the Herald of October 21, 1855, the

depot of the two roads then known as the Michigan Southern and the Rock Island Railroad, was projected with frontage on Van Buren Street. The Herald's de- scription of the building was substantially as follows . " It will be three hundred and fifty-five feet in length exclusive of offices at the end of the building. The span of the roof from the side walls is one hundred and sixteen feet. It will have but a single support in the entire building, as it will be constructed on the principle of Howe's patent truss. The ventilators will be in the roof. The height of the walls will be twenty-two feet, while from the floor to the center of the arch will be forty-two feet. The roof alone will cost $23.000, 'I'his building was used as the depot for the two lines of rail- road named above, until October, 1871.

The collision of April 25, 1853, at the Michigan Southern and Central Crossing, gave rise to much argu- ment concerning the right of the railroads here. About the first of June, the Michigan Southern Railroad Company applied to Judge Morris for an injunction to restrain the Illinois Central Railroad from running their cars across the track of the Southern road. This case was decided in June, 1853. The presidents of the road from the date of its incorporation to 1855. were : Robert Stewart, 1837 ; Joseph Orr, 1837-41 ; Jonathan Burr, 1841 ; (eight years unorganized; ; W. B. Ogden, 1847 ; [two years unorganized) ; E. W. Chamberlain, 1850 ; James H. Barnes, 1851 : John Stryker, 1851 ; George Bliss, 1852 ; John B. Jervis, 1852-55 ; John B. Niles, H. P. Andrew, Jr .. Ezekiel Morrison, W. J. Walker, W. C. Hannah, Havilah Beardsley, John H. Defrees and T. S. Stanfield. Schuyler Colfax was a di- rector in 1858-59 and Philo Morehouse, 1860-69.

The Michigan Southern & Northern Indiana Com. pany did not rest satisfied with this progress. The Air Line, the Detroit, Monroe & Toledo Railroad, and the building of the great lake vessels-" Western Metrop- olis " and "City of Buffalo"-marked the progress of the corporation. The panic of 1857 came to destroy all this enterprise. No less than one hundred and fifty- five heavy claims were pressed against the company by creditors, the board of directors resigned, the road went to protest and the affairs of the Michigan South- er & Northern Indiana Railroad seemed dark indeed. A new directory was elected ; but so poor in worldly goods was the company that when the directors assem- bled to hold their first meeting, October 1, 1857, a few chairs were borrowed from offices convenient, to replace those carried off by the Sheriff.

The Eric & Northeastern was opened January 19, 1852, and operated as a six-foot gauge road until De- cember 7, 1853, when the Erie war took place. The company was, however, successful, and the standard gauge completed February 1, 1854, between Buffalo and Erie. The other railroads forming the Michigan South- ern & Northern Indiana Railroad in 1857 named above were all consolidated or leased by the company previous to-that year.

THE MICHIGAN CENTRAL RAILROAD, 1831-57 .-. The Michigan Central road may be said to have its ori- gin in the Detroit & St. Joseph Railroad, chartered in 1831, with a nominal capital stock of $1,500,000. 'The good intentions of this corporation were borne testimony to, hy the fact that, previous to 1837, a sum approximating to $117,000 was expended on the roads. The Detroit & St. Joseph Railroad Company, bowed down under the reverses of 1837, sold their interest in the road to the State of Michigan. The State expended $400,000 on permanent-way and rolling-stock during 1837-38, and completed and opened the road to God-

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THE RAILROAD SYSTEM.

frey's (now Ypsilanti), February 5, 1838. The receipts for the first four months, ending June 5, 1838, reached $23.963.56. During the months of June, July and August, no less than ten thousand passengers were car- ried over the road. The extension of Ann Arbor was completed in October, 1839, and work on the extension to Jackson was in progress. The track at this time was carried forward on a wooden stringer of sawn timber. This rail stringer was fitted into sawed ties held to the tie in a trapezoidal groove by wooden wedges. On the top of this continuous stringer was spiked the old iron strap-rail when the directors had it, and when they did not have the iron, a one and a half by three inch oak ribbon nailed to the tie, did duty in its place. The pas- senger car of that day resembled an omnibus, placed at right angles to the track, moving sidewise on four wheels. The conductor walked a platform in front and along the end of the omnibus, and collected his fares, hanging by his arm to the window.

During the first nine months of the year 1844, the road was in operation to Jackson, a distance of seventy- seven miles, and during the last three months was in operation to Marshall, a distance of one hundred and nine miles. The receipts from freight and passenger business of the Michigan Central Railroad in 1844 were $206,867.48, exclusive of payments made by the United States Postal Department.

An act of the Michigan Legislature, approved April 30, 1839, provided for the appointment of a committee or commission to consider the expediency of discon- tinning certain public works. A policy of retrench- ment followed. One improvement after another was cast off, until the Central and Southern railroads alone re- mained persistent beggars for aid and from an exhausted treasury. The board of internal improvements in their last report to the Legislature, December 7, 1846, say that from December 1, 1845, to September 4, 1846, the gross receipts of the Central Railroad were $239,663 .- 75. During the eight months preceding the sale of this road to the Michigan Central Railroad Company the State was compelled to expend upon it no less a sum than $143.314.59. A very intelligent committee of the Senate reported in January, 1846, that the sum to- tal of the expenditures upon the different works of internal improvements was about $4.500,000, and three hundred and five thousand of the five hundred thousand acres of land granted by Congress to the State in 1841. When the Legislature began to agitate the question of the sale of the public works, parties were numerous who desired to lease the Central and Southern rail- roads ; but it was decided that the whole system of in- ternal improvements by the State for the purpose of revenue, was, at any rate, a fallacy, and that the sale of the two railroads was dictated by sound political econ- omy and the exigencies of the State. Finally the Michigan Central Railroad Company bought the line for $2,000,000, and not long after the Michigan South- ern Railroad Company bought the Southern road for $500,000. After this transaction Eastern capitalists looked to what they termed the insolvent West as the reservation for their investments. Stephen F. Gale, during a visit to Boston, was asked by President Wil- kins, of a Boston bank, regarding Western investments. The former advised him to invest in Michigan bonds at seventy cents per dollar, and gain control of the Michigan roads. This was effected, and gave rise to the boast of the Boston capitalists that "when the Western States and their people fail to complete a rail- road, Boston steps in with her capital and assumes con- trol." The road was completed to Chicago, and opened

May 21, 1852. At that time a temporary depot was erected on the lake shore, south of Twelfth Street, which was used until the ordinance was passed admitting the Illinois Central Company to construct their road to the Chicago River. In April, 1856, the Illinois Central depot, at the foot of Lake Street, was completed, when, under an arrangement with that company, the Michigan Central trains ran north to that point. This track along the lake front, in the building of which the Mich- igan Central Company participated indirectly, was two and a half miles long, one and a half miles running par- allel with Michigan Avenue. The track running parallel with Michigan Avenue was double, while the remainder was single. The northern or double track rested on four lines of piles, driven into the sand, immediately in- side of the breakwater, securely fastened together. The single track was built on two lines of piles con- tinued along the southern portion of the breakwater.

A charter for the New Albany & Salem Railroad was granted by the Indiana Legislature for a road thirty- five miles in length from the Ohio River. This was extended to Michigan City, and thence, under a charter from Illinois, to the Union Railroad Company. The total length of the road operated by the Michigan Cen- tral Railroad Company in 1857 was two hundred and eighty-eight miles.

The conspiracy cases growing out of the disaffec- tion of the farmers of Leoni Township, Jackson Co., Mich,, whose property bordered on the unfenced road, formed the sensational history of the company during this period. Several farmers were ruined in their efforts to defend themselves from charges which the most subtle lawyers, connected with the road, arranged and placed before the Judges of the Wayne County Circuit.

The history of the road up to 1857 is one which shows what indomitable energy and perseverance may accomplish, Its principal projector, James F. Joy, is a resident of Detroit. John W. Brooks, who died a few years ago at Boston, was also an active spirit in building up the interests of the road.

THE PITTSBURGH, FORT WAYNE & CHICAGO RAILROAD, 1852-57 .- The organization of the Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Company was effected October 14, 1852, the engineers completing their survey in November. In 1853 contracts were granted for one hundred and forty-five miles of track. In 1855 twenty miles were built, and in 1856 three hundred and sixty- three miles were added, owing to the consolidation with the Pittsburgh division on November 10, bringing the total mileage up to three hundred and eighty-three in 1857. During the year 1856 the road was infested by a pack of ruffians, who made it a practice to plunder express and baggage cars. Their mode of operating was less sensational than that of modern train-robbers. They would enter the train at way stations, hurl pack- ages out of the baggage or express cars, at points where their accomplices were stationed, and ultimately hurl themselves out. Trainmen were never able to succeed in capturing one of them ; but on February 26, 1857, Allen Pinkerton succeeded in arresting eighteen of the criminals. The disclosures made before the court implicated many persons holding good positions, and the whole proceedings were so entertaining as to engage the attention of all residents along the road, if not the stockholders themselves. So far was this car- ried that the company awoke from a dream of train- robbers to learn that a great financial crisis had swept over the country, and to realize that their road escaped the evils of the period of depression only to bear them subsequently.

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HISTORY OF COOK COUNTY.

CHICAGO'S RAILROAD SYSTEM IN 1857 .- In 1857 Chicago had nearly four thousand miles of railroad tributary to herself, and the joint earnings of the com- panies amounted to over eighteen and a half millions of dollars ! When the railroad spirit of the State, which had been crushed by the failure of the "internal im- provement " act of 1837, revived in the Rockford Con- vention of 1847, Chicago had not a mile of road. In 1848 she operated ten miles of railroad to the Desplaines River. In 1850 the ten had been increased to nearly forty-five. Then the Illinois Central entered the field, and trunk lines from all parts of the State and the country commenced to stretch their giant arms toward Chicago ; and with a readiness which astonished the world, floods of capital from the East poured into the Garden City and enabled her to meet all advances more than half-way ; so that by 1855 the forty-five miles of iron road had been extended to almost three thousand, while, within a period of two years more, another thousand was added to the three. The world never before saw such a stride made toward commercial supremacy. At that time the resources of the West were limited, and the fact that Eastern capital, with the exception, perhaps, of the Galena & Chicago Union road, covered the State with this net-work of arteries, making Chicago their great heart, only sustained her citizens in their unbounded confidence, and in what had sometimes seemed the wildest visions of a glorious future. Twenty years had converted into substantial facts the " impossibilities " of 1837. Then they were impossi- bilities, but two decades had demonstrated to the world that the members of the Vandalia Convention and the originators of the act of 1837 were prophets instead of madmen.

The conditions of the case, in 1857, were these : The first grand trunk line into the city, the Chicago & Milwaukee Railroad, was in fine running order-W. S. Gurnee, president ; M. L. Sykes, superintendent ; A. S. Downs, secretary ; H. A. Tucker, secretary. There were two roads connecting with each other at the Wis- consin State-line, mainly under the same management. For the first ten months of the year the total receipts of the Illinois end of the line (forty-five miles; amounted to $282,731.92. The total number of through passen- gers over the line for November, 1856, to November, 1857, was about one hundred and eighty thousand. The first branch of this road from the west was the Ken- osha & Rockford Railroad-Josiah Bond, president ; Levi Burnell, secretary ; Charles H. Sholes, treasurer ; C. L. Prescott, superintendent ; W. H. Noble, chief engineer, all of Kenosha. This road was to connect at Rockford with a projected line to Rock Island. Eleven miles of the proposed eighty miles of road were com- pleted and in operation.

The second trunk leaving the city was the Chicago, St. Paul & Fond du Lac Railroad, Hon. William B. Ogden, president ; S. F. Johnson, superintendent and chief engineer ; J. W. Currier, secretary ; Charles But- ler, treasurer. The southern division of the road was operated from Chicago to Janesville, ninety-one miles. The northern division from the junction of the LaCrosse & Milwaukee road to Fond du Lac, thirty miles, made one hundred and twenty-one miles in operation by the latter part of 1857. The road was then completed to Van Dyne, ten miles north of Fond du Lac, giving a total of one hundred and thirty-one miles. Thirty-six miles of additional grading was ready for the iron, when opera- tions should again be commenced in the spring. As yet the directors had received no benefit from their mu- nificent land grant of two million acres. According to

the provisions of the act the directors were not to come into possession of the land until the road should be completed to Oshkosh. For the year the receipts of this line amounted to $429,305.39. Nearly 170,000 pas- sengers were carried without the least accident to any one.

The Milwaukee & Mississippi and the Milwaukee & LaCrosse roads formed, with the Fond du Lac, a direct line to Chicago. There was a daily train running between Chicago and Prairie du Chien over the former road. A branch of the Milwaukee & LaCrosse road Hudson & Superior Railroad, was already projected from Hudson, on Lake St. Croix, where it was to con- nect with the LaCrosse road to Superior, at the head of the lake of that name. The company had obtained a grant of lands to aid in its construction.

Galena & Chicago Union Railroad. the origin of Chicago's magnificent system, extended from Chicago to Freeport, forming with the Illinois Central a direct route between Chicago and Dubuque. The officers of this road were : John B. Turner, president ; William H. Brown, vice-president ; William J. McAlpine, assist- ant president and chief engineer : Philip A. Hall, super- intendent : William M. Larrabee, secretary ; Henry Tucker, treasurer ; George M. Wheeler, auditor. The receipts for the year amounted to $2,117,904.97. Over this line two hundred and fifty-five thousand passengers went westward and two hundred and sixteen thousand eastward. In 1856 the number of persons taken west on this road exceeded those returning by sixty thousand, thus proving that the tide westward had fairly set in.

The first branch road west of the city and north of the main line was the Fox River Valley Railroad, run- ning from Elgin up that beautiful valley to Richmond, and from thence the Wisconsin was completed to Gen- eva, in that State. Its officers were : B. W. Raymond, Chicago, president ; G. H. Merrill; Elgin, superintend- ent ; A. J. Waldron, Elgin, secretary and treasurer. At Geneva, Wis., it connected with the projected Wis- consin Central. The Beloit Branch of the Galena Rail- road connected at Belvidere seventy-eight miles west of Chicago, with the Beloit & Wisconsin ; officers the same as those of the Galena road.

The Beloit & Madison road was in operation to Footville, seventeen miles, and was designed to connect with the Milwaukee & Mississippi road running to l'rairie du Chien. The Mineral Point Railroad connected with the Galena & Freeport, running to Mineral Point, Wis. An important extension of the Galena road was the Dubuque & Pacific line, opened for business to Not- tingham, thirty-seven miles from Dubuque, on January 1. 1858, The entire length of the projecttd line from Dubuque to Sioux City, on the Missouri, was one hun- dred and thirty-one miles. The company had been aided with a land grant of over one and a quarter mil- lion acres. The Galena / Fulton Air Line was the direct route from Chicago to Fulton, on the Mississippi, one hundred and thirty-six miles. In May, 1857, the Chi- cago, lowa & Nebraska line was completed from Clinton to DeWitt, twenty miles. It was supposed that the road could be completed to Cedar Rapids and equipped for $20,000 per mile. From thence it was expected to bend north, up the valley of the Cedar, and form, with a north- and-south road in Minnesota, a direct line to St. Paul. The Sterling & Rock Island road was a proposed line running down the Valley of the Rock River.

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History of Cook County, Illinois From the Earliest Period to the Present Time, Part 44

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas Number of Pages: 875

Author: Andreas, A. T. (Alfred Theodore), 1839-1900
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Chicago : A.T. Andreas
Number of Pages: 875