USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume III > Part 37
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Indifference to Railroads-Of the four long years of tedious educa- tion of the minds of men in this new idea, until the granting of the first charters for the Providence and Lowell roads in 1830, there is little worth the writing. Boston saw its future prosperity slowly ebbing away on the tide that swept New York-ward. The city wanted mightily to build such railroad strands as would bind at least the towns of the State to it, but the rest of the Commonwealth was uninterested and con- servative. Even the report of the Phelps Committee, backed by the recommendations of Governor Lincoln, failed to break the stolid indifference of the country representatives. The report, made in Jan- uary of 1827, showed that all that was contemplated was the building of a magnified Granite Railway from the Capital to the Hudson. Sev- eral practical recommendations were made with the report, for the appointment of three commissioners and an engineer to make surveys, plans, estimates and the like, but the Legislature all but ignored the report except that it created a Board of "Internal Improvements" which was to employ an engineer and examine routes for canals and railways. The board made but one report, and that on a canal ! The press, or at least a portion of it, gave the original committee even worse treatment.
The End of the Educational Period-Meanwhile England had not only proven the feasibility of building railways, but had tried out steam as a motive power on these ways. While the Legislature of Massa- chusetts was wrangling over the problem of rail transportation and getting nowhere, other states were making ready for this next great move in the growth of our Nation. In Carolina an iron railroad was built before the first railroad company other than the Granite could get beyond the organization stage. New York, in 1825, had incorporated a part of the New York Central, and had a completed section with a steam locomotive running over it about a month after a charter had been granted to the Boston and Worcester. It is difficult to understand why every effort to improve the modes and means of transportation in New England have met with opposition, often amounting to the violent. Good wagon roads were slow in coming into being because of the evils they might introduce; canals were fought because they were endeavors to improve on the water-ways that the Almighty had created; turnpikes were objected to because the builders charged money for their use, and they competed with the canals; railroads were strenuously opposed be- cause they competed with both canal and highway, and were probably of the Devil anyway.
The "Father of the American Railroad"-Perhaps it is well to pass over these few years, considering them as the necessary preparatory or educational period through which all mankind must go before breaking
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from the conservatism that holds improvements in check until people are ready to make the best use of what is to follow. While it is to be regretted that other states preceded Massachusetts in the utilization of the new mode of transportation, it is pleasant to realize that the rail- road in this country was a Boston idea, and the "Father of the American Railroad" was a Boston editor, Nathan Hale. Mr. Hale was editing the "Daily Advertiser" and put before the people the latest results of rail systems abroad and at home. As a railroad educator, his services were very great. At a later period, he became the president of the com- pany which built the first Boston road opened for traffic. He was the prime mover of the Board of Directors of Internal Improvement chosen in 1828. The report was made by the directors early in the next year, and the work of Hale was a clear, business-like document, covering rail- roading as far as was then known, and the various phases of routes, traffic, possible income and costs. All of this, it is to be remembered, was before the notable Rainhill trials, near Liverpool, had taken place, or even Stephenson's "Rocket", in 1830, had shown to the world that the railroad engine was a practical affair. The railroads advocated in Hale's report, were horse powered, after the fashion of the Granite. But through his "Advertiser" he published the latest information of the "Rocket" and the "Rainhill Trials," and as Adams states it: "The result was immediate. All the slow educational work of the six preceding years seemed to bear fruit in a day-not in the Legislature, but in the market place. Individual enterprise at last came to the front, and when the Legislature met in January, 1830, petitions for the incorporation of private companies were presented to it."
The Boston and Lowell Chartered-But all was not well as yet, for the conservatism of the Legislature held in check these new enterprises. The objections that Bryant had been compelled to overcome, were again repeated. Capital was also cautious, and wanted exclusive rights for the routes over which they desired a franchise to build. These, the Legislature refused to grant. Eventually a forty-year franchise was given the Boston and Lowell, which included a monopoly of the right of way for that period. A company was formed at once, and books were opened for subscriptions; the most of the stock was taken in large blocks by men interested in Lowell manufacturing. The charter was granted June 5, 1830; the Boston and Providence charter dates from June 22, 1831, and that of the Boston and Worcester, June 23, 1831. The latter road was the first to be operated, being opened as far as Newton on April 13, 1834, starting from a temporary station on Wash- ington Street. It was opened to Worcester in July, 1835. Thus was the system of roads started which were later to make Boston a railroad
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center. It came late, for New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Charleston, South Carolina, already had roads well on the way toward completion. Adams says: "Boston, in fact, lost its railroad lead in 1826 ... and was not destined to regain it."
The Building of the Lowell Railroad-All three of the first chartered roads were completed and opened throughout within a few weeks of each other, although work was begun on the Lowell road first. It was somewhat more elaborately built, which accounts for the delay of its completion. The Boston & Lowell was a monument to men like Patrick T. Jackson and Kirk Boott, to whom, with a few others, was due the de- velopment of the City of Lowell, the most famed manufacturing experi- ment of that day. The mills that "The Noted Five" had erected in Lowell had to have a better outlet for their goods than the Middlesex Canal. The latter served well enough in summer, but when frozer up, dependence had to be placed on the none too good roads and horse- drawn vehicles to transport the textiles to Boston and the seaboard Jackson was convinced not only of the feasibility of rail freighting, but realized its necessity as the industries of his town expanded. He not only was the moving spirit in getting a charter and securing the capital needed, he insisted that the railroad should be planned and finished on a scale that was not equaled elsewhere for many years. It was constructed with a double track, with grades worked out and re- duced to a maximum of ten feet to the mile, all sharp curves and abrupt gradients being avoided. The engineer of the line was Major George W. Whistler, the father of the famous painter, later the engineer of the Western, and who finally went to Russia to aid that government in the establishing of its railroad system. One of the interesting incidents in connection with the running of the first trains on the Boston and Lowell had to do with the first engine, one imported from Stephenson, in England. A man was sent over to run the locomotive who performed his duties very well. A copy of the engine with improvements made in the Lowell machine shops was given to him to handle, but for some reason the American locomotive would not run for him. This coming to the attention of Major Whistler, so aroused his wrath that the Eng- lish engineer was discharged on the spot. After that, the Lowell locomo- tives ran as well as the Stephenson. The Boston & Lowell was a suc- cess financially from the start, dividends being paid with the exception of 1875-77 until it was absorbed by another line.
The Boston and Providence Railroad was opened, as was the Lowell, in June, the former on the IIth, the latter on the 27th. By means of it Boston was placed in direct steam connection with New York by way of Long Island Sound, and the trip between the two places reduced to
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about fourteen hours. Thomas B. Wales, John Bryant, Joseph W. Re- vere and Abbott Lawrence were among those who originated this line. The road was well built, being fortunate to escape the mistake made by the Boston & Lowell, in not having the latter's too solid superstructure. An elastic roadbed was tried much to the satisfaction of all concerned. The rails, imported from England, were of such weight-fifty-five pounds to the yard-and quality, that the last of them was not removed until 1860. This road, although always somewhat conservative in its management, was a money-maker throughout all its original career.
The Boston & Worcester Line seems to have held the first place in the minds and affections of Bostonians of the olden days. The stock was widely distributed, there being many holders of a few shares. It was the first to give the residents of the Hub their first steam hauled train ride, for it was opened to Newton, and the first locomotive to be run in Massachusetts in the latter part of March, 1834. No actual use was made of it until April 4, when it hauled a gravel train ; the president of the road gravely announcing in the next morning's paper that "the engine worked with ease, was perfectly manageable, and showed power to work at any desirable speed." It was tried out for several days, how- ever, before the president and the board of directors trusted their lives to the "perfectly-manageable" steed, when a trial trip was made to Davis's Tavern in Newton. The "Advertiser" had its say concerning this journey: "They returned in thirty-nine minutes, including a stop of about six minutes for the purpose of attaching five cars loaded with earth. The engine traveled with ease at the rate of twenty miles an hour." Regular service between Boston and Newton did not begin until May 16, 1834, which consisted of three trains each way.
By June, the railroad had been completed to Needham; to Hopkinton by September, where the train was greeted with the firing of cannon, and a band which took its place on the tops of the coaches and rendered sweet music as the train ran over the rails on a wee excursion. In June of the next year, the road was completed to Worcester, the formal open- ing of the line being celebrated with much éclat, on July 4, 1835.
The Western Railroad to Albany-Two years before the finishing of construction work on the Boston and Worcester, the Western Railroad Corporation had received a charter, March, 1833, directly connecting it with that road, and secured for the purpose of creating a line connect- ing Boston with the Hudson River. So that, while the first epoch of the construction of the Boston railway system came to an end in 1835, with three roads, the true close of this period was in 1841, when the Western line joined Boston with Albany. The three initial railroads, aggregating one hundred and twenty miles, had cost $3,000,000. Boston
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had raised most of the capital that had gone in the making of these lines. The roads had yet to prove that they would be more successful than the Middlesex Canal. Under the conditions, it is not surprising that the financing of an extension of the Boston & Worcester over the supposedly impassible Berkshire Mountains, proved difficult. Even- tually the road was built largely by outside capital and State aid, and as a separate affair, rather than a connection of the line to Worcester. The Western should have been to Boston what the Pennsylvania was to Philadelphia, or the Baltimore and Ohio to Baltimore, an institution created and nourished by the city. Instead, Boston money went into the creation of a railroad system whose center was Chicago. The West- ern and the Worcester wasted two decades fighting each other over rates and the like, before consolidating as the Boston and Albany in 1869. When Boston awoke to the failure of these two competing lines to bring it in intimate business touch with upper New York State and the Great Lakes, when the city realized that it was failing to reap the advantages which were expected to accrue to it upon the completion of the Western, it was too late. The trend of travel and freight was along other lines leading away from Boston. It was years, if ever, that the Metropolis recovered from this set-back. Down to the present, the city has been engaged in a continuing fight to secure for Boston the ship- ments that are rightfully due her as the most direct seaport, the one nearest to Europe, the natural center through which the West should send the bulk of her exports abroad.
Celebrating the Completion of the Western-The Western Road was opened throughout its length in December, 1841. The Boston City Government officials traveled to Albany where they were entertained; they returned bringing with them their hosts, and on December 30 a grand municipal dinner was given with the usual speechmaking charac- teristic of such proceedings. The novelty of railroad construction was passing, and the future history of rail transportation as far as Boston is concerned, was a matter of facts and figures rather than of banquets and oratory. Somehow, there was a feeling that all things had been finished ; that now had come the time at last when men could rest from their labors and garner the wheat from their sowing. An article in the "Monthly Chronicle," for June, 1841, begins with the words: "The magnificent system of railroads, extending from a common center at Boston, throughout all the State of Massachusetts, and reaching to four of the adjoining states, is now nearly completed." Including the West- ern, the Eastern, a Salem enterprise, from East Boston to that town, and the three initial Boston roads, the total trackage was only three hundred and thirty-seven miles, which had cost about $14,000,000, and
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was earning about $1,000,000 gross annually. Actually the State had made but a beginning. Within ten years, 2,500 miles of railroads were built in the State, and while 1850 marks the ends of the constructive period, the mileage has increased nearly every year since. Probably 200,000,000 passengers are carried in the Commonwealth every year, and the tonnage of freight hauled must total 75,000,000 tons.
The Period of Expansion-During that period extending from 1835 to 1875, which may be called the "Period of Expansion," nearly all the roads that formed the nucleus of the present great systems, were built. To the one who must have statistics, the following will give the names and dates of their beginnings. They are: the Boston and Lowell, char- tered in 1830; the Boston and Providence, 1831; the Boston and Wor- cester, 1831; The Western, 1833 (this road being associated with the Boston and Worcester and consolidated with it in 1869 as the Boston and Albany) ; the Eastern, 1836; the Boston and Maine, 1841; the Fitch- burg, 1842; the Old Colony, 1844; the Boston, Hartford and Erie, 1863, composed of a number of smaller roads, and which later, 1873, became the New York and New England.
Certain of these played very important parts in the development of sections of the State, and nearly all of them had a great deal to do with the growth of the nearby areas of Boston. For the first two centuries Boston was isolated, a provincial capital lacking the close touch with the other parts of the State that characterizes the last hundred years. The means of getting to and away from Boston were the same as in the beginning as far as motive power entered in. Roads were more numer- ous and better, there was also a canal ; but the only agencies of transpor- tation were the boat and the wagon. Boston, it is true, had dropped the town form of government in 1822, but it was but a country town for all that. It had grown in population, particularly after the Revolution, and because of its shipping was a genuine commercial center. But Boston was confined to its little peninsula, even those sections that now are parts of the city in fact, if not in name, were not even suburban. It took the better part of a day to go and come from places like Water- town, Newton, the Readings, and the host of other places which now house many of those whose daily business is carried on in the Metropolis. Even so short a time ago as the first decade of Boston as a city, there were few country homes, and seashore residences were all but lacking. A man lived near his place of business ; leisure was something to become acquainted with ; travel, even of a few miles, could be indulged in by few.
Charles Francis Adams, Jr., on the Influence of Rail Systems on Boston-As Charles Francis Adams, Jr., for a decade a member of the Massachusetts Board of Railroad Commissioners, for much of that time
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the chairman, has pointed out, the coming of the railroad changed former conditions in Boston radically. He sums up the influence of the rail system on the city in its subsequent growth and municipal character :
It brought to Boston the full current of modern city life-turning the large New England town into a metropolis, if a provincial one. Of the rapid increase both in wealth and population which then ensued, the figures of the census tell the story. It would be foreign to the story to dwell upon it. There is, however, another story which the census does not tell. In a quarter of a century after the three initial railroads were opened, both the ancient city limits and the modes of life traditionally pursued within them disappeared. Boston became the counting-house, as it were-the daily business exchange-of a vast concourse of active men having homes in every neighboring town within a limit of thirty miles. The ancient municipalities adjoining the city had been absorbed into it: Salem, Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence and Worcester became suburbs. Mean- while business vocations not only diversified themselves, but they increased in volume, so as to lose all proportion with what they had been. New branches of industry came into existence, and their rapid growth soon caused them to overshadow the traditional call- ings which were inseparably associated in the New England mind with the idea of accumulation. Down to the time when the three earliest Boston railroad lines were opened together in 1835, all the large fortunes, as they were then thought, had their origin in the fisheries, in the carrying trade, and in foreign commerce. Thenceforth, these were to become of minor importance. . . . A whole new America was meanwhile shaping itself-an America with which the relations of Boston and New England were yet to be established. New England remained the financial center of the whole; but Chicago, in 1835 a mere outpost town on the shores of Lake Michigan, was transformed into the chief distributing point of an interior, in comparison with which that region which the foreign trade of Boston once supplied, was lost in insignificance. Boston meanwhile developed into a local center of a busy manufacturing population dwelling and working in all eastern New England. This was its home function. As respects the new interior of the continent and foreign countries, the tendency of railroad development is to reduce all seaboard cities into mere points of trans-shipment-conduits, as it were, of modern trade. They are, indeed, of hardly more account in the process of distribution on this scale, than those interior towns through which the freight trains laden with corn and meat pass rapidly on their way to the East, shortly to return carrying the bonded wares of Europe in their unbroken packages to the customs houses of the West. The introduction of the railroads, then, as it changed every considerable city, changed Boston also. They changed it both within itself, and in its relations with other countries and other portions of the common country. The former capital of provincial New England had not become one of the great railroad centers of the continent. Geographical posi- tion alone probably put this out of the question. It had not, however, developed into nearly as considerable a railroad center as it might at one time have been made. In this respect, opportunities were lost. Nevertheless, as a railroad center of the second class, the position of Boston was well defined and considerable. Within its own terri- tory, the city was supreme; and that territory was populous, busy and wealthy. Beyond its territory the railroad enterprises and investments of those dwelling in Boston, had sent back to it a tide of wealth, which reduced to insignificance the old time profits. Meanwhile, so far as foreign commerce and a share in the handling of the great volume of commodities and exchanges passing between the interior and the ports of other nations was concerned, the city had much more than held its own.
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All this was written forty years ago, and its findings differ in some respects from those that would be made now. But it sums up in a manner worthy of attention today, the effect of the railroad era upon Boston, with the benefits and problems that were thrust upon the old city.
The Eight Original Railroads-Before dismissing the original eight railroads, one or two deserve further mention. The Boston and Maine, formed in 1841, started as a branch of the Lowell road under the name, Andover & Wilmington Corporation. Portions of this line were in operation nearly ten years before, in 1845, the Boston and Maine reached a terminus in Haymarket Square. It was then a well capitalized ($2,- 380,300) road, controlling seventy-four miles of track and earning annu- ally, $350,000. The Fitchburg road, chartered in 1842, was almost the creation of one man, Alvah Croker, its first president. It ran along the canal route proposed by Baldwin, passing through a sparsely settled region, until coming comparatively close to Boston. The most of its mileage was in Middlesex County, and that section of the Common- wealth owes more to it by way of development than to any other of the early railroads. With its connections out of Fitchburg, it became one of the great trunk lines from Boston to Vermont and New Hampshire in one direction, and Troy in the other. The Boston and Maine is now the principal railroad of Middlesex.
The Boston and Maine, the Fitchburg and the Old Colony, all entered Boston the same year, 1845; the two former coming in on the north side, the latter on the south, at the old Lincoln station of the Boston and Worcester; in 1847 it built its own station on Kneeland Street. The old Colony, more than any of the older roads, grew by acquisitions, and changed its name often. Chartered to build a line from Boston to Plymouth in 1854 it, through a consolidation, became the Old Colony & Fall River; in 1862, by another acquisition, it became the Old Colony and Newport Railway ; and in 1872, by a third consoli- dation, it became the Old Colony again. The original road to Plymouth was but thirty-seven miles long, but by 1880 the "System" included four hundred and seventy-five miles of road, a larger amount than was
controlled by any other Massachusetts corporation. The railroads reaching Boston in after years, can hardly be said to have been born, but, like "Topsy," they "growed." There is now none of the Boston roads, save one, which has not been changed beyond recognition by con- solidation. But of this third epoch in the history of railroads, the con- solidation period, something will be written later. Just now let us notice a side issue of the railroading of the old time-the dislike for any intimate association by the roads which led to many unpleasant, cum-
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bersome, and costly features. It was the extremities to which competi- tion went which forced consolidation upon the various corporations from 1875 and on. The one result of competition which will be noticed here is the multiplication of railroad stations in the city.
Why Boston Had So Many Stations-There were seven distinct lines in 1846 having their termini in Boston; only one of these had no separate station. When the New York and New England came in on Broad Street, 1855, the number was raised to seven. The Boston, Re- vere Beach & Lynn, 1875, added another, which, however, can hardly be counted, as its terminus was at East Boston, connections with the city being had by way of a ferry. Edwin Bacon, in his "Book of Boston," gives an interesting description of these stations which is well worth the quoting. He writes :
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