USA > Illinois > Adams County > Quincy > Quincy and Adams County history and representative men, Vol. I > Part 20
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74
Not long after the completion of the Northern Cross line appears a card in one of the eity papers bearing the "acknowledgments of the editor and of Mr. Samuel Holmes to Major Holton for a fine, fresh codfish right from Massachusetts Bay, the first arrival of the kind in Quiney. After partaking of the same, we prononnee it a 'creature comfort of the first water,' and tender our thanks." All of the gentle- men coneerned were Yankee-born and fully alive to all the best tra- ditions of New England, including an overwhelming conviction that the eodfish was supreme among the finny tribe.
EXPRESS LINES EXTENDED
During the same month that Quiney got into railway connection with Chieago and the East, there was also established Godfrey & Snow's express running from the home town to Chicago. Their enter- prise had originated in an express business with St. Louis by boat and for a time the enterprise was profitable as being a real publie con- venienee : but when the projeet was extended to Chicago, and wealthy companies entered the field, it expanded beyond their facilities and they withdrew entirely.
From the time the Northern Cross Railroad Company was reor- ganized in 1851, during the period of the eonstruetion of the line from Quincy to Galesburg, and up to the consolidation as the Chicago, Bur- lington & Quiney Railroad in 1861, Nehemiah Bushnell continued as president of the organization, with Lorenzo Bull, James D. Morgan, Iliram Rogers, John Wood and James M. Pitman as directors.
THE WABASH
When the long-desired railroad communication with Chicago had been secured, with its attendant stimulus to business and general
186
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
growth, the people of Quincy and Adams County began to seek other advantages of a like nature. One was a revival of the old Northern Cross line, through a charter obtained by James W. Singleton, under the name of the Quincy & Toledo Railroad, and the road finally con- structed through the persistence of General Singleton served as a direct eastern route from Camp Point, Adams County, to the Illinois River at Mercdosia, where it connected with the line pushing west- ward from Toledo. It was considered a branch of the new Northern Cross Railroad which had been completed to Galesburg. At the Illi- nois River it connected with what was called the Great Western Rail- road, which carried the route to Toledo and the seaboard. From Camp Point to Quincy its trains used the track of the Chicago, Burling- ton & Quincy, and thus was another route provided from the last named point to the East. In 1856 several Ohio and Indiana companies were consolidated as the Toledo, Wabash & Western Railroad, and two years later a reorganization was effected as the Great Western Railroad Company. The Wabash System, which, in turn, absorbed the Great Western was mainly an outgrowth of the Wabash, St. Louis & Pacific, the consolidation of its castern and western divisions, under the former name, being effected in 1889.
FIRST VOTING OF RAILROAD BONDS
While railroad building was the order of the day, Quincy always voted overwhelmingly in favor of subscribing for such enterprises. The first vote to subscribe $100,000 to aid the Northern Cross line be- tween the Mississippi and Illinois rivers was taken March 1, 1851, and resulted in the casting of 1,074 ballots in favor of the proposition and only 19 against it. Accordingly, on the 12th of that month the mayor, in behalf of the municipality, delivered to the railroad company as security for the payment of that amount twenty-year six per cent city bonds, $80,000 bearing date January 1, 1852, and $20,000 on July 1st of that year. In July, 1853, the city voted an additional $100,000, also guaranteed by twenty-year six per cent bonds, and in May, 1856, subscribed for $200,000 of Northern Cross stock, secured by twenty-year eight per cent bonds, to be used in the con- struction of the line from Camp Point to the Illinois River. At the latter election the vote was 1,541 for and 71 against the proposition. In the following August the issuing of the bonds was formally legal- ized by the City Council, and in January, 1857, the Legislature took a hand in legalizing the proceedings by passing the "Act to incor- porate the Quincy & Toledo Railroad Company; to legalize the sub- scription of the City of Quincy and the County of Brown to the capital stock of the Northern Cross Railroad Company, and the bonds issued and to be issued by said city and county in payment of said stock; to amend the charter of the Great Western Railroad Company of the State of Illinois, and legalize and confirm the contract of said com- pany with James W. Singleton." The action of the City Council
187
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
taken in August, 1856, authorizing Mayor Wood to subseribe the $200,000 and issuing city bonds for that sum, and all other proceed- ings taken in connection therewith, were legalized in the legislative aet of January 31, 1857-
"Provided, that said bonds shall be and remain in the hands of Isaae O. Woodruff of said city (Quiney) until said road is graded from Camp Point. in the County of Adams, to Mt. Sterling, in Brown County. Thereupon, the said Isaae O. Woodruff shall deliver $100,000 of said bonds and retain the remainder thereof in his hands until said road is graded to the Illinois River,
"Provided, that nothing in this aet shall be so construed as to prevent the City Council of said eity from authorizing an earlier de- livery of said bonds if, in their judgment, the interest of the eity requires it; and the said City Council are hereby authorized and em- powered to levy and colleet a special tax for the payment of the in- terest on said bonds."
THE QUINCY & TOLEDO RAILROAD COMPANY
The Quiney & Toledo Railroad Company, incorporated by that aet, and which had absorbed that portion of the Northern Cross line from Camp Point to the Illinois River, assumed the name of the Toledo, Wabash & Western in May, 1857, and is now known as the Wabash System. This second $200,000 of bonds have been commonly called Quiney & Toledo R. R. bonds, to distinguish them from the first issue of $200,000, always known as Northern Cross bonds.
RAILROAD CONNECTIONS WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI
The Hannibal & St. Joe Railroad, which has long been a part of the Chicago, Burlington & Quiney system, was originally built to make Hannibal, Missouri, its eastern terminus. But energetie citizens of Quiney saved it from this narrow fate by organizing the Quincy & Palmyra Railroad Company in 1856 and, three years afterward, com- pleting the short line between these two points by which the Hannibal & St. Joc lost its local character as part of the great Quiney system.
By the aet of January 30, 1857, the City of Quiney was anthorized to subseribe for $100,000 of the capital stock of the Quiney & Pahnyra Railroad Company, the line extending from a point on the west bank of the Mississippi opposite Quiney to Palmyra, Missouri. The election to voto upon the question, held on April 4th following, showed that 9-12 votes had been east for it and 11 votes against. The bonds thereupon issned matured in twenty years and bore eight per cent interest.
At the election held June 27, 1868, the voters decided favorably on the question of subscribing $100,000 to aid in the construction of a railroad from West Quincy in a northwesterly direction, connecting the city with the Missouri Air Line, known more fully as the Missis- sippi & Missouri River Air Line. The vote for the proposition was 651
188
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
and against it, 198. There were considerable delays both in the is- suing of the bonds and the building of the road to Canton, the last of them not being delivered to the railroad company until August, 1870. At a meeting of the City Council held December 5, 1870, an agree- ment was read to that body signed by the officers of the road, pledging the company, in consideration of the subseription, to make Quiney the southern terminus of the line during the existence of the charter under which the construction was undertaken. But the Mississippi & Mis- sonri River Air Line was never built and the money subseribed by Quincy to promote it was a total loss.
The Quiney, Missouri & Pacific Railroad Company was organized in June, 1869, for the special purpose of eonstrueting a railroad from a point on the Mississippi River opposite Quincy to a point on the Missouri River opposite Brownsville, Nebraska, the length of the pro- posed line being 230 miles. That was largely a Quincy enterprise and three days before the company was legally organized the City Council, by resolution, approved an issue of $250,000 in municipal bonds to aid the enterprise. But the advantages of the proposed road to Quiney grew in the publie mind, and at the urgent suggestion of a committee appointed by the railroad board of directors, the Council subsequently passed measures recommending an increase of the subscription to $500.000 and the ealling of a special election to obtain the decision of the voters on the subject. Their decision, recorded Angust 7, 1869, was 1,949 in favor of the proposition and 185 opposed to it. Half of the $500,000 in city bonds was to be delivered to the railroad com- pany responsible when subscriptions in Missouri or Nebraska, along the line of the road were obtained to the amount of $800,000, and the remaining $250,000 with the collection of another $800,000 in the states mentioned. As there was no general law, however, authorizing the city to become a stockholder in such a company, or to vote upon the question, and as the discussion of a new state constitution was then well under way, the City Council deferred the issuance of the bonds.
Without going into multitudinous details, which are accessible but not pertinent, the State Constitution of 1870 incorporated a section forbidding any city from doing exactly what Quiney had done, but through the influence of the strong delegation from Adams County an exception was made in the case of that city, provided that none of the indebtedness so incurred should be assumed by the state. The General Assembly thereupon authorized the subseription made and the city bonds to be issued. In July, 1871, the president of the Quiney, Mis- souri & Pacific Railroad Company, presented evidence to the City Conneil that more than $1,118,000 had been subscribed along its line and that thirty miles of the road from West Quiney westward had been graded and bridged. City bonds amounting to $250,000 were therefore at onee issued to the railroad company : but the second $250,000 were longer in being delivered. The building of the road was slow, citizens began to realize the heavy responsibilities which they had taken upon themselves, grave doubts had entered the minds of many as to the
189
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
responsibility of many of the reported subscriptions and the matter was finally carried into the State Supreme Court over an injunction obtained by Isaae N. Morris by the Circuit Court restraining the mayor and City Council from issuing the second $250,000 in bonds. This is not the place to discuss legal questions, but to state results as concisely as is consistent with clearness. The Supreme Court decided against the lower court and, although the citizens of Quincy who had their investments wrapped up in the railroad west of the Mississippi were not convinced that all of the subscriptions on the other side of the river were bona fide, they feared that if they were too critical the en- tire enterprise would go by the board and they would be heavily, if not disastrously involved. In August, 1877. therefore. a resolution was adopted to deliver to the railroad company the additional $250.000 in installments, conditional on the progressive completion of various sections of the road-$75,000 to be paid in 1877, $125,000 in 1878, and $50,000 in 1879, provided the stipulated conditions had been complied with. Thus was finally completed what is now known as the Quiney, Omaha & Kansas City line-O. K. for short-a part of the Missouri Pacific system.
The Quiney & Carthage Railroad was created in 1870, and O. C. Skinner was elected president. J. W. Bishop, secretary, and HI. G. Ferris, treasurer. The road runs north from Quiney, passing through Mendon and Keene townships, Adams County, thenee through Han- eoek County to Carthage and Burlington. This is now known as the Carthage branch of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and runs to Burlington, Iowa.
The Carthage branch and the Louisiana branch were provided to be built at the same time and Adams County appropriated $200,000 for each road ; but on account of the Louisiana branch being diverted down the bottom instead of out through Melrose, Payson and Fall Creek townships, as originally proposed, the county refused to pay its appropriation of $200,000, and won its contention in a suit brought against it to colleet its subseription.
The Quiney, Alton & St. Louis Railroad was organized in Septem- ber. 1869, with J. W. Singleton, R. S. Bonneson, A. J. F. Prevost. William Bowles, C. H. Curtis, Edward Wells, Eli Seehorn, Perry Alexander and C. S. Highee as directors. Mr. Singleton was elected president and T. T. Woodruff, secretary and treasurer. The line is a section of the Quiney System, the original line having been completed in 1872. Its western terminus is East Louisiana, Missouri.
RAILROAD BRIDGES ACROSS THE RIVER
In order to link the railway lines which already terminated at Quincy with those on the other side of the river it became neees- sary to build a substantial bridge across the great waterway which separated them. That important achievement was realized in October. 1868, when the first railroad bridge was thrown across the river at
RAILROAD YARDS FROM RIVERVIEW PARK. QUINCY
-
ON THE QUINCY SIDE OF THE RIVER
191
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
Quiney by which the Chicago, Burlington & Quiney, the Toledo, Wabash & Western and the Hannibal & St. JJoe lines were bound together. With the subsequent completion of the Central Pacific Rail- road across the continent, Quiney was a solid unit of the real United States ; the city had free communication with both the Atlantic and tho Pacific coasts.
The movement for the construction of the bridge was placed under way when the completion of the line from Quincy to Chicago, via Galesburg, was an assured accomplishment. In 1855 Colonel Samuel Holmes, backed by many publie-spirited citizens, obtained a charter for the building of the bridge from the State Legislature. But the financial crisis of 1857 and, before its depressing effects had subsided, the disturbanees of the Civil war, placed a complete embargo on the enterprise, and the charter was suffered to expire by limitation. Its old friends, also the tried and faithful founders of the railroad, retained the projeet in their consciousness as something to be revived in more auspicious times. At the legislative session of 1864-65 Thomas Redmond, the able eitizen and member from Adams County, procured a re-enactment of the original aet of incorporation. John Wood then obtained the national authority from Congress, required before a bridge could be thrown over a national waterway. Under the congres- sional charter the Bridge Company was incorporated by Mr. Wood, Samuel Holmes, James M. Pitman and N. Bushnell ; that paper granted equal privileges to all railroads which might use it and carefully guarded the interest of navigation.
In line with its provisions, the incorporators effected an arrange- ment with the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Toledo, Wabash & Western and the Hannibal & St. Joe railroads, in November, 1866, by which a bridge company should be organized representing the principal parties in interest. The directors and officers were as fol- lows: Nehemiah Bushnell, of Quiney, president; Warren Colburn (vice president of the Toledo, Wabash & Western), vice president ; Charles A. Savage, Quiney, secretary: Amos T. IFall, Quiney, treasurer : Newton Flagg, assistant treasurer and general agent : James F. Joy. president of the Chicago, Burlington & Quiney Railroad : E. A. Chapin, general superintendent Toledo, Wabash & Western, and John Lathrop, treasurer of the Hannibal & St. Joe Railroad.
The Bridge Company finally delegated the construction of the bridge to the control and supervision of Warren Colburn, consulting engineer ; Thomas C. Clarke, chief engineer; Col. E. D. Mason, first assistant engineer and superintendent of construction, and George Wolcott and H. H. Killaly, assistant engineers. The bridge was planned to be built well above the highest water mark, the spans being arranged with reference both to steamboat and lumber-raft navigation. The extra span of two hundred feet on the east shore was especially allowed for rafting purposes during high water, although that arrange- ment involved a change of plan after the work was in progress. To determine the best available site of the bridge, a thorough scientific
192
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
exploration was made of both banks of the river for a distance of two miles north and south of the Quincy city limits, with the result that the selection for the eastern approach fell at the foot of Spruce Street, in the northwestern part of the city. There the bay and the island divided the distance to be overcome into comparatively easy sections, and the opposite bank presented the most elevated and eligible ter- minns on the west. The soundings also established a solid roek bottom in the channel of the river for the support of the main or pivot pier. As finally completed in October, 1868, this iron bridge, of the Pratt truss patent, was 3,185 feet in length and rested on nineteen piers. With the exception of the center pier, which rested on the rocky bed of the river, the foundations of the piers were composed of piles, driven into the bottom of the stream and supported by fillings of concrete to the top. The foundation of the center pier consisted of four caissons of best sheet iron about forty feet long and fourteen feet in diameter, placed within eribs and sunk and seribed to the rock thirty-five feet below the surface at low water. The central span was 362 feet in length and was turned by stationary steam power, and when the bridge was open the space on cither side of the pivot pier was 160 feet. It was a single track bridge, thirty-two feet above low water and twelve feet above the highest known water, as prescribed by the act of Congress.
The main bridge was connected with the east bank proper by an embankment across the island of 600 feet in length elevated to grade, thenee by a trestle bridge of 400 feet aeross Wood's slough, thence by another 500 feet of embankment and over the bay, by an iron drawbridge 525 feet long. A side track commencing on Chestnut Street eurved from the bridge toward the main lines of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy and the Toledo, Wabash & Western, and a track from the western terminus completed the link which joined the eastern systems with the Hannibal & St. Joe line on the opposite shore of the Mississippi.
The entire cost of the connections was distributed as follows : Main bridge, $1,150,625; Bay bridge, $165,690; embankments, $149,755; protecting shores, $33,930. Total, $1,500,000.
In March, 1898, after a remarkable wear of thirty years, the bridge was remodeled by the Chicago, Burlington & Qniney Railroad at a cost of $157,000, and the wagon bridge attachment was added in September of the following year at an expense of $50,000.
ALL SECTIONS GRADUALLY BEING ACCOMMODATED
Besides the railroads mentioned as having been built, various projects have been discussed and franchises actually granted for the extension of the local electric transportation system of Quiney as interurban lines; the strongest movements in that direction seem to have been direeted toward Hannibal, Missouri.
But as the transportation facilities of Adams County now stand
193
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
there are virtually no sections within its limits, except the extreme southeastern and northwestern townships, which are not within fair distance of some railway line : and those which consider their situation unfavorable in that regard are being gradually relieved by the propa- ganda of Good Roads which is being spread abroad.
An interesting item showing the magnitude of the railroad prop- erties in the county is their value as returned to the assessors in 1917. as follows: The C., B. & Q. (main line), $582,417; Warsaw branch, $280, 13; Q. A. & St. L. R. R., $203,817; Wabash Railway, $218,278.
ADAMIS COUNTY HIGHWAY'S
There is no single subjeet in which the farmers of a country are more vitally concerned than that of good-at least, passable-high- ways to the nearest markets for the products of their lands. This is true, with special personal application, when any considerable seetions are not traversed by either steam or eleetrie lines, as is the unfortunate case with certain distriets in Adams County. It is only really within the past five years that the work of improving the highways of the county has been undertaken systematically under the general manage- ment of a superintendent of highways. Previous to that time efforts in that direction were made by individuals and later by the Board of County Commissioners and their agents, the road viewers and highway commissioners. But real permanency in the improvements perhaps dates from 1913, or the passage of the Tice Hard Road Law, which also created the State Highway Commission and County Superintendent of Highways.
LEADING TO THE QUINCY, ATLAS AND WARSAW ROAD
Superintendent L. L. Boyer has prepared for this history the following valuable paper bearing on all phases of the subject and. as will be seen, the story covers a longer period than the official life of Adams County: "Previous to the time that the State of Illinois was admitted into the Union, or about 1809, there were 9,000 whites and 50,000 Indians in the four states included in the old Northwest Territory. At that time highways were of little importante, yet they were serving a definite purpose, which was to transport Government inspectors and provisions to the different forts which were ereeted for the protection of the whites against the Indians. Nearly all the inhabitants living south of what is now known as Adams County were along the rivers and streams. The base of supply was the southern part of the state, from which section provisions were transported dur- ing the summer seasons by means of boats. During the winter time. when the rivers were frozen, goods and provisions were transported by horseback to the different forts in the northern part of the state. One of these forts was located at Warsaw, now in Hancock County. Necessarily, there must be some definite route provided by which
Vol. 1-13
194
QUINCY AND ADAMS COUNTY
provisions and men could be transported to that fort from the southern base of supplies ; and Adams County was in its most direct line. This faet gave birth to her first real highway, running through the county from north to south, although certain trails, during the frozen seasons of the year, were used by the Indians and pioneer white settlers outside of this main-traveled highway which subsequently became known as the Quincy, Atlas and Warsaw road.
WHY HIGHWAYS WERE NOT NEEDED UNTIL 1825
"Previous to 1813 there was an Indian village at the site now known as Quincy, which for some time had been a trading post for the Indians and French from the north; but in that year Mountain Rangers rode through the country and destroyed it; which, for the time being, seemed to prevent the building of new highways from the east and south. In 1822 Governor Wood moved into his log house at the foot of what is now Delaware Street, and was the first white resident of Quincy. At that time there were only two other residents in the present limits of Adams County-Daniel Lisle, who lived a short distance south of where Liberty now stands, and Justus I. Perigo, who resided near Fall Creek. Evidently, there was little need for highways in that special seetion of the State in the early '20s.
"In 1825 there were only forty votes polled at the first election for constable and justices for the county, the total population of which was 70. Previous to that year, those who were looking for mail had to go or send to the village of Atlas, some forty miles south of Quincy, in the present county of Pike. But in the late "20s Quiney commenced to receive a weekly mail from that point by horseback messenger.
"Until 1825, and even later, each family was a complete unit, depending upon its different members for food and clothing. Each household raised its own corn.or flax, ground its own meal, spun its own yarn and made its own bread and clothing. But about that time settlers commeneed to arrive in greater numbers and the desire for co-operation both for trade and sociability became stronger. Roads and highways to bring the scattered families into more convenient communication therefore commenced to be considered as necessities.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.