The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV, Part 16

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897, ed; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.), publisher
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Boston : Osgood
Number of Pages: 760

USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV > Part 16

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).

The great ceremony of the Manchester and Liverpool opening took place in November, 1830, and Mr. Hale took care to lay before the readers of the Advertiser a full account of it. The business community of Boston were quite alive to the importance of the event, and the growth of feeling was now rapid. As people got more eager for railroads, they insisted less on exclusive privileges. In this matter, therefore, legislative conservatism again happily prevailed, and when the Legislature met in June two more Boston roads were incorporated,- those to Providence and to Worcester. The sys- tem of roads which was destined to make Boston a future railroad centre was fairly inaugurated. Neither in thus getting at last in motion had Boston or its business community shown any marked degree of enterprise, public or private. The early progressive spirit shown in the Middlesex Canal and the Granite Railway had not been sustained. In America these were both Boston ideas; but, once originated, they had been most eagerly picked up elsewhere, and other places were now in advance. A portion of the present New York Central road had, for instance, been chartered in 1825 ; and it was completed, and a trial trip with a steam locomotive made over it on the 9th of August, 1831, only forty-seven days after the charter of the Boston & Worcester had become a law, and nearly three years before a locomotive was used upon its tracks. South Carolina was in advance even of New York, for an iron railroad had been completed there before the Boston & Lowell was fairly organized. So also charters had been ob- tained and the work of construction begun on railroads terminating in Baltimore and Philadelphia, in 1827 and 1828, while Boston was then, and for two years after, engaged in educating local public opinion. The city, in fact, lost its railroad lead in 1826, and, as will presently be seen, it was not destined to regain it.

The Lowell was the first organized of the Boston roads, as well as the first upon which the work of construction was actually begun.1 Close behind it

1 Patrick T. Jackson and Kirk Boott were the moving spirits in the construction of the Boston & Lowell road. The stock was in shares of $500 each originally, and was mainly taken by those interested in the Lowell manufactories. It was consequently held in larger blocks than was usual in those days. Mr. Jackson was an original subscriber for 124 shares, Edwin Mun- roe for 100, John Lowell for 94, Geo. W. Lyman and Geo. W. Pratt for 75 each, and William

Appleton for 50. The engineer of the line was Major Geo. W. Whistler, who afterward was the engineer of the Western, and finally passed into the railroad service of the Russian Govern- ment. The Boston & Lowell was originally built with " fish-belly " rails, laid on stone sleep- ers, which were supported on parallel mason- work walls sunken in the road-bed. Colonel Baldwin had satisfied himself by mathematical calculations that any less solid permanent way

127

THE CANAL AND RAILROAD ENTERPRISE OF BOSTON.

followed the Worcester and the Providence. In those days, however, when everything connected with construction had to be learned as the work went on, the progress made was not rapid. The country through which the routes lay was nowhere difficult, but the only actual experience obtainable of any real value was that of the Manchester & Liverpool road; and a trip of inquiry to Europe was a more considerable matter then than now. Under such circumstances twelve miles a year was looked upon as suf- ficiently rapid construction, though apparently it did not satisfy all parties interested. Indeed, so great was the distrust still felt in these undertakings that in January, 1833, Mr. Francis Stanton got the signatures of the holders of one thousand shares in the Boston & Worcester to a call for a stock- holders' meeting, to consider the question of stopping the work and aban- doning the enterprise. At last, however, in the spring of 1835, all of the three lines approached completion at about the same time. The first locomotive set in motion in Massachusetts was on the Boston & Worcester tracks in the latter part of March, 1834. Rails were then laid as far out as Newton, some nine or ten miles from Boston, and the company delayed opening for travel this completed section of its road only because it was compelled to await the arrival of an engine-driver, imported from England to take charge of the English-built locomotive. At last, on the 4th of April, a locomotive was actually put to work on a gravel train; and the next day the president of the company let it be known through the columns of his newspaper that "the engine worked with ease, was perfectly manage- able, and showed power enough to work at any desirable speed." Three days later, on the 7th, a party of the directors and their friends, some fifty or sixty in number, went out on a trial trip as far as Davis's tavern in

would not sustain the rolling stock; so that the locomotive, when in motion, would always be . overcoming an ascent caused by the sinking of the road under its weight. At a later day wood had, of course, to be substituted for stone, and gravel for mason-work. The earliest locomo- tive used on the road was imported from Stephenson's then famous works at Newcastle- upon-Tyne. A man to run it was also brought over ; but, as usual, he proved a useless fellow, and, when the locomotive had been duplicated at the Lowell inachine shops, he pretended not to be able to make the American locomotives work satisfactorily. He was accordingly one day summarily sent about his business by Major Whistler, who was a man with whom it was dangerous to trifle. After that the Lowell loco- motives did as well as the English.

Though at the time of the construction of the railroad Lowell was considered a large manu- facturing place, its business seems now to have been curiously small. The income derived by the Middlesex Canal Company from transportation between that place and Boston did not, for in- stance, in 1830, exceed $4,000. The whole num-

ber of passengers passing between the two points annually was estimated at 37,500, and the tons of freight at 11,870 from Boston to Lowell, and 3,347 from Lowell to Boston. When the rail- road company was organized, it was estimated that the gross annual receipts of the road, when in operation, would be $58,514. This, of course, was largely exceeded, the gross receipts of the year 1835, - during a portion of which only was the road in operation, - amounting to $65,000. The next year they were $165,000. They have since shown a steady increase, reaching $500,000 in 1859, $1,000,000 in 1870, and in 1880 they were $1,380,000. The company paid dividends from the beginning, and for thirty years never failed to do so. They were passed in the years 1875-77. The average rate of dividend has been about 61/2 per cent. The market value of the stock has fluctuated widely, having fallen from $135 per share in 1835, when the road went into operation, to $86 the next year. By 1843 the price had got back to $132, and it then fluctuated along until 1855, when it fell to $62. In 1868 it had risen to $146, and in 1876 it had fallen again to $45. In 1880 it stood at $120.

128

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

Newton. "They returned," the Advertiser stated the next day, " in thirty- nine minutes, including a stop of about six minutes for the purpose of attaching five cars loaded with earth. The engine travelled with ease at BOSTON AND WORCESTER RAIL ROAD. the rate of twenty miles an hour." A little more than a month later, on the 12th of May, there appeared in the columns of the Advertiser the annexed new form of no- tice. The regular passenger T THE Passenger Cars will continue to run daily from the Depot near Washington street, to Newton, at 6 and 10 o'clock, A.M. and at 35 o'clock, P. M. and Returning, leave Newton at 7 and a quarter past 11, A.M. and a quarter before 5, P.M. Tickets for the passage either way may be had at the Ticket Office, No. 617, Washington street ; price 300 cents each ; and for the return passage, of the Master of the Cars, Newton. railroad service to and from Boston did not, however, be- gin until four days later, on the morning of May 16, 1834. It consisted of the six trains By order of the l'resident and Directors. a 29 · epistf F. A. WILLIAMS, Clerk. specified in the advertisement. Thirty-five years later, it was reported that the daily service thus begun had then so increased that two passenger trains, carrying upon the average three hundred persons, entered or left the city in each five minutes of the fourteen active hours of the working day.

Opened to Newton in the middle of May, by the end of June the Boston & Worcester road was ready for use as far as Needham. It was formally opened to that point on July 7. The further extension to Hopkinton was completed by September; and the 21st of the month the passenger service was extended to that point. On the day previous there was quite a celebra- tion there, which was attended by the Governor, John Davis, his predecessor in the office, Levi Lincoln, and other distinguished personages. The party from Boston was some two hundred in number, and they went to Hopkin- ton in a train of seven of the company's largest passenger cars, leaving the city at 7 A. M. " The weather," as the Advertiser of the following day stated, " was unusually fine; and the sweetness of the atmosphere, the rapidity of the motion, and the beauty and novelty of the scenery which was succes- sively presented to view, appeared to produce in all the party an agree- able exhilaration of spirits." At Hopkinton the train was received with firing of cannon; and the party of visitors, under escort of a company of riflemen, proceeded to Captain Stone's tavern, where a collation was pro- vided. "While the party were at table the ladies were invited to take seats in the cars, and the military, with their band of music, to take a stand upon the tops of the cars, where they were formed in sections. In this manner they made an excursion of several miles down the road and back, which they appeared to enjoy highly. As they returned, the military on the tops of the cars approached the hotel with arms presented and music playing."

Two months later, in November, the road was opened to Westborough ; and in June of the following year it was completed through to Worcester.

129

THE CANAL AND RAILROAD ENTERPRISE OF BOSTON.

The formal opening to travel was on Saturday, July 4, 1835; and on that day the four locomotives, which constituted the company's whole motive- power, passed twice each way the entire length of the road. Some fifteen hundred passengers were carried. On the 6th the event was formally cele- brated at Worcester.1

The Providence 2 and Lowell roads were opened a few days before the Worcester, -the former on the IIth and the latter on the 27th of June.

1 On this occasion Mr. Henry Williams, of Boston, a director of the company, took occasion, in response to one of the sentiments, to allude " with much feeling to the difficulties with which the enterprise had to contend at the outset with- out the aid of the capitalists, who hesitated to embark in so perilous an adventure. 'The work was commenced and has been completed,' said Mr. Williams, 'by the middling class in the com- munity.'" This was true of the Boston & Wor- cester in a far greater degree than of either the Boston & Lowell or the Boston & Providence. At the time of the completion of the road, the largest holder of its stock had two hundred and fifty shares ; the average holding was about thirty shares.

Among the early directors of the company were David Henshaw, George Bond, Thomas Motley, Daniel Denny, and George Morey. Mr. Nathan Hale was chosen president at the time the company was organized in July, 1831, and held the office until June, 1849; when he was succeeded by Thomas Hopkinson.

As an enterprise the Boston & Worcester was profitable from the outset. The first divi- dend of two per cent was paid simultaneously with the opening of the road through to Wor- cester; and after that semi-annual dividends, never falling below three per cent, were regu- larly paid until January, 1868, when the Boston & Albany consolidation took place. The aver- age rate of dividend throughout the independent existence of the company was a fraction less than seven per cent per annum.

The estimate of gross annual receipts at the time the road was built was $142,500. The first complete year of operation was 1836: the gross receipts were then $183,000. The subsequent increase was steady. In 1840 the receipts were $267,000; in 1850 they were $758,000; in 1855 they had reached a million. They did not in- crease much after that, until the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion. In 1861 they were $928,000 ; and when the war closed in 1865 they were $1,700,000. In the year preceding the con- solidation they were $1,940,000. The capital stock had been meanwhile increased from the original amount of $1,250,000 in 1836, to $5,000,000. In other words, the receipts had increased over twelvefold, while the capital had increased but fourfold. The net receipts were forty-three per

cent of the gross in 1837, and forty per cent in 1867. The market value of the stock was neces- sarily always high, ranging from $75 per share in 1837 and in 1857, to $160 in 1863.

2 Among those most forward in originating the Boston and Providence road were Thomas B. Wales, John Bryant, Joseph W. Revere, and Abbott Lawrence. The stock of the company was originally allotted to the petitioners for the charter, and was deemed a desirable investment. No difficulty was accordingly found in placing it. It has always been held by a large number of shareholders, and in small lots. In 1835 the largest individual holder had but seventy-five shares ; in 1880 the largest single holding was three hundred and fifty-two shares, and there were 1,600 stockholders in all. Mr. Wales was the first president of the company, and was succeeded in 1835 by W. W. Woolsey, of New York, father of President Woolsey of Yale College.

The road was very well built, and was for- tunate enough to escape the mistake of a too solid substructure, into which the builders of the Boston & Lowell fell. This was due to the sagacity of its engineer, Captain McNeill, who was sent abroad to examine the Manchester & Liverpool road; and in doing so was shrewd enough to anticipate the paradox of the elastic road-bed. The original rails laid down were of English manufacture, and weighed fifty-five pounds to the yard. The iron was so excellent in quality that the last of it was not taken out of the tracks until 1860. The first superintend- ent of the road was General William Raymond Lee, who also assisted Captain McNeill in its construction.

So far as extensions or consolidation with other lines is concerned, the policy of the Boston and Providence has always been very conserva- tive. It owned and operated forty-three miles of road in 1835; and but sixty-seven miles in 1880. As an enterprise it was from the beginning very profitable. Its original cost was $1,600,000. Its gross earnings have steadily increased from $347,466 in 1836, to $685,630 in 1860, $1,049,125 in 1870, and $1,323,985 in 1880. The average rate of dividend paid to the holders of the stock has been over seven per cent ; and in the course of forty-five years only three semi-annual divi- dends were passed, - those between January,

VOL. IV. - 17.

I 30

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

By means of the road to Providence, also, Boston was placed in direct stcam communication by way of Long Island Sound with New York, and the time required for a trip between the two cities was reduced to about fourteen hours. It could be accomplished between the rising and the setting of an April sun. The first epoch of construction in the Boston railroad system did not, however, close with the opening of these three initial lines. It extended, on the contrary, to the closing days of 1841, when at length the Western road was finished, and Boston placed, as Dr. Phelps had pro- posed in the original scheme outlined in his report of 1827, in direct con- nection with Albany and all that net-work of interior communication which there found an outlet.

The Western Railroad Corporation had been chartered in March, 1833, as a species of outgrowth of the Boston & Worcester, -that is, the direct- ors of the latter were individually made corporators of the former. The Boston & Worcester company thus had exclusive control over the exten- sion of its own enterprise. No formal action was taken under the charter for over two years, and until the road to Worcester was opened ; but in the meanwhile the project was a good deal discussed, and some subscriptions obtained in the towns along the proposed line. What with building at the same time three railroads, aggregating one hundred and twenty miles and calling for an outlay of three millions, the hands of the capitalists of Boston were supposed to be full. Accordingly no attempt was made to obtain subscriptions from them. Some time in the autumn of 1834 an informal offer had come from New York to subscribe the entire stock; but it was declined on the ground that its acceptance "might throw the whole enter- prise into the vortex of the stock-gambling operations of Wall Street." The proposed road was, too, essentially a Boston one; and it was feared, not without cause, that the control of the charter elsewhere, especially in New York, might not imply its early construction. Yet in Massachusetts at this time, even in the towns along the route, no confidence was felt in the financial outcome of the scheme, and frequent doubts were still expressed as to its being practicable at all. The Berkshire Hills were supposed to present a serious, if not insuperable, barrier to the wheels of a locomotive. So limited also were men's views, that even in a place like Worcester the project was regarded with disfavor by many, because the railroad already constructed having made that town a terminus, its extension further, it was thought, would be a local injury.

The celebration at Worcester took place on July 6. After it was over a directors' meeting was held on the train as it returned to Boston, and it was decided at once to enter seriously upon the extension to Albany. A month later stock subscription-books were opened at various points. The

1855, and July, 1856. The market value of the stock, though as a rule it has ranged high, has fluctuated widely. When the road first went into operation, it stood at about $125 per share. During the next twenty years it never rose above

$115, or fell below $80. In 1854 it sold down to $57. In 1863 and 1870 it went up to $158. In 1878 it fell again to $99; and then in 1881 it touched the highest point it had ever reached, -$164 per share.

I31

THE CANAL AND RAILROAD ENTERPRISE OF BOSTON.

want of faith in the financial success of the undertaking was, however, so general, that, even when these books were opened, subscriptions were urged almost wholly as a matter of public spirit. No one thought the road itself would be any more successful than the old Middlesex Canal had been; but it was argued that the community as a whole must derive great benefit from it. It was naturally a difficult matter to get any large amount of stock taken on this basis. Boston was thoroughly canvassed. Public meet- ings were held at which urgent appeals were made to all to subscribe, each according to his means. In itself, and under the circumstances of the time, the outlay called for was not a particularly heavy one. Boston was then a city of eighty thousand inhabitants, with an assessed valuation amounting to eighty millions. The increase since 1800 both in population and in wealth had been very great. Had any confidence been felt in the proposed road as a financial undertaking, the two millions required would, therefore, have been forthcoming at once. Considering the facts that a mania for railroad construction was then beginning both in England and in America, and that all three of the Boston initial lines were already more than answering ex- pectation, this want of confidence is now somewhat inexplicable. It was generally felt, however; and, after every effort had been put forth, when at the expiration of the ten days fixed for keeping them open the subscrip- tion-books were closed, it was found that but thirteen thousand of the twenty thousand shares had been taken. Of these, eight thousand five hun- dred had been subscribed for in Boston. Renewed efforts were necessary. Accordingly, on October 7, a mass-meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, over which Abbott Lawrence presided. A report and resolutions were offered by Nathan Appleton, and speeches were made by delegates from many points, including Albany. Edward Everett closed the discussion, and a committee was then appointed to collect additional subscriptions, the members of which were directed to call on every man in the precincts assigned to them, " from the capitalist to the carman," to urge the vital necessity of subscrib- ing for one or more shares. The response to this appeal even was not suffi- cient, and another meeting was held on November 20. Again the subscription committee was sent out. The thoroughness of the canvass now made, and the difficulties the canvassers met, can best be inferred from these extracts from the diary of one of their number,-Josiah Quincy, Jr., -subsequently . the first treasurer of the corporation : -

" Nov. 24, 1835. I went over the list of the voters in my ward to find out who had not subscribed, in order to call upon every man who is able, to learn whether he is willing to help on with this great undertaking."

" 25th. Went round with Mr. Edmund Dwight to obtain subscribers for the West- ern railroad, and they all with one accord began to make excuses. Some think the city is large enough and do not want to increase it. Some have no faith in legislative grants of charters since the fate of Charlestown bridge, and very few say they won't subscribe. It is the most unpleasant business I ever engaged in."

132

THE MEMORIAL HISTORY OF BOSTON.

At last, by dint of much asking, the required amount of subscriptions was secured, and the books were closed on December 5 ; and on January 4 the corporation organized by the election of a board of nine directors, among the Boston members of which were Thomas B. Wales, William Lawrence, Edmund Dwight, Henry Rice, John Henshaw, Francis Jackson, and Josiah Quincy, Jr. Mr. Wales was chosen president, and Josiah Quincy, Jr., treasurer.

The list of the original subscriptions to this enterprise is a curiosity. It includes over two thousand two hundred names, and the average number of shares taken by each was consequently less than ten. Subscriptions were very generally made in firm names, showing the extent to which the under- taking was looked upon as an aid to the city's business interests, and not as a money-making enterprise. The majority of the subscriptions, also, were for single shares, and the desire felt by the subscribers to get rid of the can- vasser at the lowest price possible, short of a refusal to subscribe at all, is quite apparent. - The largest subscription was but for two hundred shares; and names always associated in Boston with the idea of great wealth are found in this list set down opposite to amounts representing a risk, in what has since proved one of the most reliable of investments, of five hundred or a thousand dollars.1

The general expectation was, in fact, that, after one unsuccessful effort, all idea of building the road as a private enterprise would be abandoned, and the work would be taken up by the State. This opinion was shared in by the directors. An attempt, as ingenious as it was successful, to secure State aid was accordingly made as soon as the Legislature met. President Jackson's war on Nicholas Biddle's Bank then filled the public mind. The Democratic party was intensely and blindly hostile to all banking schemes ; and of this fact the friends of the railroad now skilfully availed themselves. Protesting that they asked no grant from the Treasury of the Commonwealth, but merely a chance to raise an income for themselves, they succeeded in getting a bill reported creating the "State Bank of Massachusetts," with a capital of ten millions, one million of which the directors were required to subscribe for ten thousand shares of the stock of the Western Railroad Cor- poration. The proposal at once created great excitement. The Democrats were bitterly opposed to a bank; but it soon became apparent that the friends of the bank and of the railroad combined would be strong enough to carry the measure. Accordingly, the Democrats themselves came for-

1 The largest subscription was that of James K. Mills & Co., 200 shares. A. & A. Lawrence & Co., and Whitwell, Bond, & Co., each sub- scribed for 150. Nathan Appleton, Lawrence & Stone, Palmer Company, T. H. Perkins, T. R. Sewell, R. G. Shaw, Israel Thorndike, Water- ston, Pray, & Co., and J. D. Williams, each for 100. Governor Everett subscribed for 20 shares ; as also did J. E. Thayer. W. Raymond Lee sub- scribed for 50 shares, and W. F. Weld for 10.

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.

The memorial history of Boston : including Suffolk County, Massachusetts. 1630-1880, Vol. IV, Part 16

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897, ed; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.), publisher Publication date: 1881 Publisher: Boston : Osgood Number of Pages: 760

Author: Winsor, Justin, 1831-1897, ed; Jewett, C. F. (Clarence F.), publisher
Publication date: 1881
Publisher: Boston : Osgood
Number of Pages: 760