USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > History of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of its prominent men, Volume I pt 2 > Part 9
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Disappointed in their efforts to secure railroad communication with the metropolis of their own Srate, the people of Berkshire became more earnest to secure it with the city of New York; and a meeting was held October 6th, 1831, at West Stockbridge, to consider the interest which Berkshire had in the construction of a railway to the city of Albany .. In this meeting, Col. S. M. MeKay, Hon. Henry W. Dwight, Ralph Taylor, and other prominent citizens of the county, were appointed a committee to respond to any movement which might be made across the line for a railroad from New York to Albany, by the valley's of the Croton and the Housatonic. They secured a charter March 2d. 1832, but nothing was done under it. The road here spoken of was what is now the Harlem, in- corporated in 1831, which, it was proposed, should be constructed through
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Sharon and Salisbury in Connecticut, and Sheffield, Great Barrington, and West Stockbridge in this State.
On the 10th of October, at a convention of several northern Berkshire towns, resolutions of cooperation with the Hudson & Berkshire were adopted, and on motion of Thomas A. Gold the meeting passed a resolu- tion urging the next Legislature to incorporate the road from Pittsfield. to connect at West Stockbridge with the Hudson & Berkshire, chartered by the State of New York. On motion of Henry Hubbard, it was re- solved cordially to cooperate in procuring a charter for the other branch of the road, through Lee to Lenox Furnace. The meeting also appointed S. M. MeKay, Henry Hubbard, and T. A. Gold delegates to a county con- vention to be held at Lenox on the 17th of October, which convention passed a long series of resolutions similar to those of the preliminary meetings. The movement for the road to Hudson was persistently pushed. The high grades discouraged the building of the branch from West Stockbridge to Lee ; but June 16th, 1831, the Massachusetts Legis- lature granted & charter for a road from West Stockbridge village to the New York line; and March 6th, 1832, S. M. Mckay, Lemuel Pomeroy, and T. A. Gold were incorporated, with a capital of 8240,000, as the Pittsfield & West Stockbridge Railroad Company. Those charters ex- pired before any action was taken under them. April 5th and 15th. 1826, they were renewed : the capital of the latter being increased to $300.000. and Lemuel Pomeroy, M. R. Lanckton, and Robert Campbell were named as corporators.
The West Stockbridge and Hudson & Berkshire were put under con- tract in the fall of 1835, and opened for travel September 26th, 183S. Jason Clapp immediately began to run a line of fine coaches from Pitts- field to connect with the cars at West Stockbridge, and continued to do so until the opening of the Western Railroad.
In the meantime the Legislature of New York, May 5th, 1834. incor- porated the Castleton and West Stockbridge Railroad Company. "to construct a railroad from Castleton (below Albany) to the State line at West Stockbridge." May 5th, 1836, the name was changed to the " Al- bany and West Stockbridge Railroad Company," and authority was granted to make a railroad from the Hudson River at Greenbush to the line of Massachusetts at West Stockbridge. To attract attention to this enterprise a very large meeting of its friends, composed of delegates from: various counties in New York and Massachusetts, was held February 3d. 1835, in Canaan, N. Y. Committees were appointed to collect statistics of business and procure subscriptions of stock. The stock was duly sub scribed and the company organized on or before May 23d. 1835. Samuel Cheever was appointed superintendent. and William H. Talcott, engi- neer, and surveys and estimates were made upon several routes Throughout the struggle the friends of the road had the host aid which Pittsfield and its most capable citizens could give. They took care to send to the Legislature men of ability and influence, and fast friends of
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the enterprise. Hon. Julius Rockwell, then a young but influential member of the House, of which he was twice speaker, was their most ac- tive agent and counsellor. Wherever his powers as a debater could avail, they were freely used ; and so also was his scarcely less valuable influ- ence in personal conversation.
March 12th, 1830, the Massachusetts Railroad was incorporated, to extend from Boston to the Hudson River, but nothing was done and the charter expired.
On the 15th of March. 1833, while the Boston & Worcester Railroad was under construction, their directors were individually incorporated as "The Western Railroad Corporation," with authority to construct a railroad from the Boston & Worcester Railroad, in Worcester, to the western boundary of the State, with a capital of not less than $1,000,000, nor more than $2,000,000.
By an advertisement, July 15th, 1835, it was announced that books for subscription to the stock would be opened August 3d, for ten days. at Boston, New York, Springfield, Worcester, Albany, Hudson, Pitts- field, and Lee. The required amount not being subscribed within the time specified the books were reopened, and by persevering efforts the re- quired amount was obtained by December 5th, 1835, with sufficient sur- plus to provide for losses and contingencies, and, January 4th, 1836, the corporation was duly organized by the choice of the following directors: Thomas B. Wales, William Lawrence, Edmund Dwight. Henry Rice, John Henshaw, Francis Jackson, and Josiah Quincy, jr., of Boston. and Justice Willard and George Bliss, of Springfield. At their first meeting Thomas B. Wales was chosen president, Ellis Gray Loring, clerk, and Jo- siah Quincy, jr., treasurer. In March it was found that a million dollars more were needed, and the Legislature, by nearly a unanimous vote. agreed that the State would take that amount of the stock. The directors appointed Major William Gibbs McNeil as chief engineer, and Capt. Wil- liam H. Swift as resident engineer of the company, and George Bliss as gen- eral agent to make all contracts and transact all business which he might deem necessary for its interests. The work was entered upon in earnest. and in the summer of 1837 it became necessary finally to locate the road across the county of Berkshire. Each section, therefore, brought for- ward its strongest facts and arguments. An approximate location upon the route through Pittsfield was made by the engineers of the Western Company, under the supervision of Mr. John Child. in 1836, and various preliminary surveys upon the southern, by Richard P. Morgan, who first proposed and surveyed it at private expense in 1826. In justice to the friends of the south route and Mr. Morgan the following facts should be here stated : the surveys for the only practical route through Pittsfield were necessarily confined to a narrow valley, while there were several good lines by the southern route.
The chief engineer, Major William Gibbs MeNeil, and Captain Wil- liam H. Swift and his associate, George W. Whistler, resident engineers,
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in their report dated January 15th, 1837, page 58, say, "Upon the north route (through Pittsfield) the line has been surveyed, and approximately located, entirely through to the New York boundary," and of the several southern routes, they say, page 62, "From the extent of the country which it was necessary to examine the surveys have been entirely experi- m'ental, and no one line has been approximately located ; but, from the facts collected we have now the means of pointing out the best practical line for approximate location, whenever it shall be judged expedient to make the same." The directors, therefore, January 21st, ordered an ap- proximate location upon the southern route, as suggested. This was made by Mr. Morgan and his assistants in February, March, and April. and the early part of May. This gave Mr. Morgan only three months (in two of which, as he says, February and March, he was obstructed by deep snows) in which to locate fifty miles of railroad through a wooded and difficult country. His report upon this location, hurried, as it must have been, is dated at Springfield, May 28th, and that of Mr. John Child (who had only to revise his line and estimate, while Mr. Morgan had to make an approximate location and estimate) at the same place the follow- ing day, May 29th. It is upon these two reports, with all the advan- tages being given to the northern route of careful revision of a location practically made the season before, while Mr. Morgan's approximate lo- cation was made in winter, and the significant fact that the report upon the northern route was made with the knowledge of the previous day's report of Mr. Morgan that the resident engineers of the Western Rail- road approved of the location of the route through Pittsfield, June 12th, 1837.
No wonder that at a hearing of both parties at Springfield, June 25th, the gentlemen from Stockbridge, as is recorded, urged the board to postpone all proceedings west of the river till the next year; but not- withstanding this request, after a consideration and examination of both routes by a part of the directors, they decided, while at Pittsfield, Au- gust 10th, 1837, in favor of the final location of the route through Pitts- field, on condition of a subscription of between $25, 000 and $30.000 being obtained, which was soon raised, through the energetic efforts of Mr. Lemuel Pomeroy and others. To Mr. Lemuel Pomeroy's efforts in securing the location of the Western Railroad through Pittsfield its citi- zens are greatly indebted. He " pursued the object in a way that nobody else did. While others were full of good feeling, and were will- ing to attend meetings at home, it was he who got out a delegation at every meeting abroad, and saw it carefully attended to. Dr. Robert Campbell was better acquainted with the subject than anybody else. He and one or two others went with Major Whistler and Captain Swift in making the preliminary observations. Mr. Hubbard was always enthu- siastic on the subject, and made many speeches in town meeting and elsewhere." In June, 1838, work was commenced, and vigorously prove- cuted. The contractors were: Daniel Carmichel & Co., the rock eut in
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Washington with Sidney Dillon as foreman (Mr. Dillon's first contract on his own account was a section in Hinsdale), Willis Phelps, William Wall. Joseph Rankin, and William Town, Sewell F. Belknap, James Finegan, John Healey, Thomas Malloy, William Baird, Oliver Chapman, and --- Brown (of Pittsfield). Isaac C. Cheseborough made the final location in 1838.
After many delays an agreement was made, April 23d, 1840, with those controlling the charter of the Albany & West Stockbridge Rail- road, by which the Western Railroad was authorized to locate, construct, and operate that line to Albany.
During this year a large part of the grading of the sixty-two and a half miles in the State west of the Connecticut River was completed, and the rails laid upon thirty-five miles. May 24th, 1841, the road was opened for use from the east to Chester, and a locomotive with a single car belonging to the Hudson & Berkshire Road reached the Pittsfield depot at half-past one, P. M., May 4th, 1841 ; the first that had ever en- tered the town. Crowds assembled to witness the novel spectacle, but there was no formal celebration. August 9th trains were run to Wash- ington summit, and from Worcester to Hudson October 4th, via the Hud- son & Berkshire, and to Albany December 21st, under a contract with the Hudson Company for the joint use of their road from the State Jine to Chatham. The opening was duly celebrated at Albany by an excursion from Boston to that place December 27th, and at Boston De- cember 29th by an excursion from Albany. The independent line be- tween the State line and Chatham was opened September 12th, 1842.
Mr. Thomas B. Wales, the efficient president of the road from its organization in 1836, declined a reelection in February, 1842, and Mr. George Bliss, the efficient agent, from the start, was chosen, March Ist, in his place. Lemuel Pomeroy was the first Berkshire director. 1838-40. succeeded by Parker L. Hall, Thomas Plunkett, Robert Campbell, Wil- liam H. Murray, and others, successively.
When the Western Road was completed, in 1842, a strong desire arose in the towns of Adams and Cheshire to participate in its benefits. A charter was therefore obtained, March 3d, 1842, with James E. Mar- shall, Thomas Robinson, and Stephen B. Brown as corporators. This expired before anything was accomplished : but it was renewed. March 18th, 1845, and the road was constructed under the direction of the Western Railroad Company, at an expense of $450,000. It was leased to the company for thirty years at six per cent. on its cost, and the lease was renewed November 25th, 1876, for ninety nine years. The last rail was laid at eleven o'clock, October 6th, 1846, and at half-past eleven the locomotive "Greylock." with a passenger car conveying a party from Pittsfield and Cheshire, entered North Adams.
Previous to the incorporation of the Pittsfield & North Adams Rail- road, in addition to the proposition of John L. Sullivan for a road through the county from south to north, David Anthony and others were incor.
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porated, February 25th. 1832, with a capital of $600,000, as the Hoosac Rail and McAdamized Road Company, to construct a rail or MeAdamized road, with authority to transport persons and property by steam power or otherwise, from the north line of Williamstown to the north line of Cheshire, with liberty to extend to or near the source of Hoosac River ; and March 20, 1832, Henry W. Dwight and others, as the Berkshire & New York Railroad Company, with a capital of $809,000, to constuet a railroad commencing at the State line of Connecticut, at the point where the contemplated railroad from the city of New York to Albany, or the branches thereof, shall strike said line, thence through the town of Shef- field and the most eligible route, to the village of Stockbridge, there to unite with the West Stockbridge Railroad, with a view of having the same extended, by the inhabitants of New York, to the city of Albany : with authority to construct a branch from the village of Housatonic through Stockbridge, Lee, Lenox, and Pittsfield to an intersection with the Hoosac Rail and MeAdamized Road Company. Both charters ex- pired without anything being accomplished.
April 13th, 1837, the Berkshire Railroad Company was incorporated, with a capital of $800,000, to build a railroad from some point on the south line of the State near Ashley's mills, in Sheffield, through said town and Great Barrington, to an intersection with the West Stockbridge Railroad in the village of West Stockbridge. Robert F. Barnard. Wilbur Curtis, and Increase Summer were the corporators. Foster A. Barnard. E. F. Ensign, Dr. Oliver Peek, J. Z. Goodrich, Major Charles W. Hopkins, John H. Coffing. and Loring G. Robbins were among the early directors, and R. F. Barnard, Major Hopkins, and John H. Coffing successively held the office of president until their decease, succeeded by Major Loring G. Robbins, the present president. Its construction was secured mainly through the exertions of Mr. Bishop, then president of the Honsatonic Railroad. Mr. R. B. Mason, the engineer, was afterward connected with the building of the Illinois Central Railroad, and mayor of Chicago in 1873. The road was completed from the Connectient line to Great Bar- rington, and the first train ran to the station on the morning of the 28th of September, 1842. From that time a regular passenger train was run between Bridgeport and Great Barrington. The first shipment of freight was by the Berkshire Woolen company, September 30th. The road was completed to West Stockbridge. and the first shipment of freight in that direction was made July 19th, 1843. The road is operated under a per- petual lease by the Housatonic Railroad Company.
March 20th, 1847, the Stockbridge & Pittsfield Railroad was incor- porated, with a capital of 8550,000, to build a railroad from Pittsfield. through Lenox. Lee, and Stockbridge, to a junetion with the Berkshire Railroad at some point north of Van Deusenville in the town of Great Barrington ; with Charles M. Owen, Charles C. Alger, and George W. Platner as corporators. Their first meeting for organization was held at Lee, July 3d, 1848. At this meeting Charles M. Owen was chosen chair.
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man, Harrison Garfield, clerk. fifty-six associate corporators were admit- ted, the charter was accepted, and Charles M. Owen. Daniel R. Williams, Samuel A. Hurlbut, Harrison Garfield, Thomas F. Plunkett, James D. Colt, and Thomas Sedgwick were chosen directors, and authorized to secure subscriptions to the stock, and to contract for a lease at seven per cent. per annum on the amount of its capital. At a subsequent meeting of the directors at Lenox, Samuel A. Hurlbut was chosen president, and Harrison Garfield, clerk ; and at a meeting at the same place. July 22d, 1848, Thomas F. Plunkett, J. D. Colt, 20, and R. B. Mason were ap- pointed a committee to confer with the officers of the Western Railroad Company upon the subject of depot arrangements at Pittsfield. and John Z. Goodrich as agent to settle land damages. The first annual meeting of the stockholders was held May 3d, 1849, and the old board of directors was reelected. Mr. Owen declining, George W. Platner was elected in his place. June 25th, 1849, at a meeting of the directors at Pittsfield. B. B. Provost, the engineer, submitted a survey of the route. which was adopted and signed by a majority of the directors, and Mr. J. Z. Good- rich was chosen treasurer and clerk in place of Mr. Garfield, resigned. The president was authorized to sign in behalf of the corporation the contract for the construction of the road by Miller & Schuyler, and the lease to the Housatonic Railroad Company, when completed. September 23d, 1850, at a meeting of the stockholders, at Pittsfield, it was voted to ratify the leases made by the directors to the Housatonic Railroad Com- pany, January 25th, 1849, and January 25th, 1850. The road was opened January 1st, 1850. After its completion, at a meeting held January 31st. 1850. the capital stock was fixed at $448,700. Thomas F. Plunkett was chosen president September, 1852, Thomas Hurlbut in 1855, and Daniel R. Williams, the present president, in 1861.
The first charter for a railroad from the Connecticut line up the Farmington valley, through Sandisfield, Otis, etc., was that of the Pitts. field & New Haven, granted to Henry Childs and others April 22d. 1848. This was before the construction of the Stockbridge & Pittsfield Road through Lee and Lenox, and had anthority to build from Pittsfield through Lenox, Lee, Becket, and Otis, to the Connecticut line, with a capital of $900,000. April 5th, 1864, the charter was revived ; but the north end was to terminate at Lee or Lenox. April 12th, 1866, the name was changed to the Lee & New Haven. and June 5th. 1866. State aid to the amount of $300,000 was granted. February 4th, the time for the State loan was extended to June 5th, 1872, and March 8th, 1872. the time for its construction was extended to June 5th, 1875. Meanwhile, April 3d, 1871, the Lee & Hudson was incorporated to extend from Lee, the northern terminus of the Lee & New Haven, through Stockbridge to West Stockbridge. To this no portion of the State loan was granted.
In September, 1870, two years before the expiration of the State loan, Otis, Sandisfield, and Tolland, on the strength of the promised Stateaid. voted, by large majorities, to take in the aggregate 8105,000 of the stock
MILTON BRAVELY- CONC.
UNION RAILWAY STATION, PITTSFIELD.
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of the Lee & New Haven Railroad Company. The remaining subscrip- tions required to secure the loan not being obtained within the limits of their charter, an extension of the charter, and, as the inhabitants of these towns supposed, the loan also, was obtained June 5th, 1875. As an ad- ditional precaution the selectmen, before making their subscriptions for the town, seut Mr. Northway, the president of the company, back to Boston for information. The chairman of the railroad committee assured him the loan was extended with the charter ; but, as an additional pre- caution, Mr. Northway inquired of Attorney General Train, who refused to give his opinion, but referred him to ex-Attorney General Hon. Charles Allen, whose opinion. given in a letter dated April 11th, 1872. was that the extension of the charter to June 5th, 1875, carried the loan with it. The officers of these towns, then being satisfied, made their sub- scriptions May 10th and June 4th, 1872, in accordance with the previous vote of their towns, and the remaining subscriptions were soon obtained, and the work of construction was vigorously prosecuted. Learning. acci- dentally, early in 1873, after an expenditure of about $40,000 by the towns alone, not including that of the people and contractors, and while under a contract for its completion, that Attorney General Train, who referred the president of the company to ex-Attorney General Allen, had given a private opinion to Mr. John W. Phelps, of Springfield, Angust 3d. 1872 (two and three months after the town officers had actually made their subscriptions and were honorably and legally bound to pay their several assessments as called for), that the loan was not extended with the charter, they and the company immediately petitioned the Legislature, then in session, for an extension and confirmation of the loan. which an honorable Legislature by a large majority voted to do : but which Gov- ernor Washburn vetoed, as he said in his veto message, because the en- terprise had no merit which should entitle it to public assistance. What- ever may have been his opinion in regard to the merits of the enterprise. two successive Legislatures had endorsed it before the towns voted to subscribe. It was through this endorsement and promised State aid that the towns were induced to subscribe and spend. as towns and individuals. over $60,000 toward its construction, in the full confidence that their State would carry out its part of the bargain.
The Lee & New Haven Railroad, from the failure of the State to pay its promised loan, has been abandoned, and the towns of Otis, Sandis- field, and Tolland, farther from railroads than any other towns in the State, formerly the most prosperous in southern Berkshire, and showing. previous to their unsuccessful efforts, a gain in population between 1865 and 1870 of seventy three inhabitants, showed a loss, in the two years succeeding the veto, of four hundred and seventy-two, or sixteen per cent.
After nearly ten years, and an expenditure of more than an equal amount in interest and fruitless efforts for justice, the State, when the inevitable bankruptey of these towns was near, grantel, in 1852, the
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paltry sum of the principal of the original expenditure of the towns.
Mr. Isaiah B. Davis, of Poughkeepsie, New York, the contractor, suspended work as soon as he was aware of the adverse opinion of the attorney general, with several thousand dollars honestly due him. Mr. Davis (recently deceased) was a man whose character and honesty of pur- pose were above reproach, and diligent investigation fails to find a dis- creditable act on his part whatever there may have been on the part of others. He should have been, in all business fairness, paid by the com- pany for his work, and this would have been done had the State acted honestly with the towns, thereby saving all from loss and securing the road, which was and which still continues to be a great necessity.
Work on the Lee & Hudson, a connecting line, was suspended about the same time with that on the Lee & New Haven, after an expenditure of about 8200,000 by more wealthy towns and individuals. This was expended without any promised help from the State, and for their losses the State was not so directly responsible.
As already stated, the first proposition for a tunnel through the Hoo- sac Mountain was for a canal, in. 1826. May. 10th, 1848. the Troy & Greenfield Railroad Company was chartered to build a road from Green- field up the Deerfield River, through the Hoosac Mountain and North Adams and Williamstown to the Vermont line, with George Grinnell, Roger H Leavitt, and Samuel H. Reed as corporators. November 22d. 1849, the Troy & Boston was incorporated. November 26th and 20th the location of the Troy & Greenfield was filed; but the efforts to obtain sub- scriptions to the stock proving fruitless, the company unsuccessfully ap- plied for a State loan in 1851 and 1853. April 5th, 1854, a loan of $2.000. - 000 was granted on condition that $600.000 should be subscribed to the stock, twenty per cent. paid in, seven miles of the road built, and 1,000 feet of tunnel completed, to entitle the company to $100,000 of serip : and for every additional issue of scrip a further payment on the stock. 1,000 feet of tunnel, and certain specified lengths of road were required to be constructed ; so that in the end the whole road and tunnel would be completed before the last issue of $200,000 by the State, for which loan the company was to give a first mortgage. The company being still un- able to secure the necessary subscriptions, the Legislature, in 1855, au- thorized the towns through which it was to pass to subscribe to its stock: but this failed to be responded to.
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