USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > The story of Essex County, Volume I > Part 39
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And yet their doom was even then close at hand. While the stage company was rejoicing in full prosperity; while it was junketing at business meetings and looking over the grand roads it occupied and grand hotels it patronized-Gilman's and the Wolfe at New- buryport, the Sun Tavern and the Lafayette Coffee House at Salem, the Ann Street Stage House and the City Tavern in Boston, and Breed's well-known hostelry in Lynn, where twenty-three stages stopped per day going to Boston, and perhaps as many returning -- while all this was going on, the air was beginning to tremble, in the shadowy and unknown distance, with the roar and screech of the
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railroad train and its unearthly whistle; sounds of doom, indeed, for all that pertained to the glory of that invulnerable institution, the Eastern Stage Company.
The "Iron Horse" soon came riding into Essex-as those old- fashioned stage-worthies must have thought-like a very fiend in armor; and all their glory began to wane, and their prosperity to melt away before their eyes. Yet they faced the invasion bravely, and tried every expedient to prevent defeat ; they tried to sell horses, to sell real estate, to reduce wages; everything, but without effect. Finally, in February, 1838, they broke up the corporation, and sold the remaining assets for the most they could get for them. Yet they had not done so badly. "During twenty years," reported the presi- dent, Col. Henry Whipple, "the holders of stock received eight and one-third per cent. in dividends annually, and, after paying all debts, between $66 and $67 on each share."
II-THE ANCIENT FERRY WAYS
There are many points of interest connected with the ancient ferries of Essex County, which in the olden times were distinguished places, and whose old boatmen, ever noted personages, were well known to the travelers over their routes. These old ferry ways derived their importance in large measure from the fact that they served as convenient stations where the news of the day was exchanged and trade transacted, with occasional refreshment of West India rum, wine, "syder," and home-brewed ale.
CARR'S FERRY: OLDEST ON THE MERRIMAC-The first colonial law regulating ferries was very strict, stating, in part, "that no per- son whatsoever shall attempt to keep a ferry without special license first obtained from their majesties' justices in quarter sessions." The oldest ferry on the Merrimac connected Carr's Island with Salis- bury, and was antedated in the county only by the "Old North Ferry," established at Salem in 1636. On July 30, 1640, the town of Salis- bury granted to George Carr, shipwright, the island which still bears his name. In the following year he was duly appointed by the court to keep the ferry at Salisbury, and the fees for "ferriages" were set at 6d. for horses and great cattle, 2d. for men, 2d. for calves, year- lings, and hogs, and Id. for goats. In 1651 the town of Newbury
Essex-30
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granted Tristram Coffyn the privilege of keeping an ordinary and selling wine on the Newbury side of the river, and of keeping a ferry between Newbury and Carr's Island; and George Carr was granted similar privileges for his side of the river. In 1655, Carr, after peti- tioning the court, was authorized to build a "float bridge" from the island to the Salisbury shore, as being a more convenient method of crossing the river. This bridge was made 270 feet long and five feet wide. It was the first bridge over the Merrimac, and was prob- ably built of logs, hewn and fitted, which had been cut on the islands in the vicinity.
In 1668 the General Court authorized Carr to keep a ferry also across the Merrimac opposite the town of Amesbury. In 1695, Richard Carr, son of the then deceased George Carr, sold his hold- ing in the Amesbury ferry to Captain John March, of Newbury, in whose family the control remained for many generations-in fact, nearly up to the time of the erection of the Deer Island bridge in 1792, which opened a new and more convenient passage for the growing traffic of the time.
SWAN'S FERRY AT ANDOVER-There was also a ferry at Andover, over the Merrimac, called Swan's Ferry, at about the commence- ment of the eighteenth century, but little of its history is known beyond the fact that, in the time of the early shipwrights of the lower Merrimac, timber purchased up-river in New Hampshire was floated down the Merrimac in rafts as far as Swan's Ferry, Andover, where it was turned over to local raftsmen for delivery to the ship- yards down-river.
The latest petition for a ferry across the Merrimac previous to the erection in 1792 of the famous Essex Merrimac bridge, was filed in July, 1789, by Joseph Swasey, of Newburyport, and John Webster, of Salisbury. The petition was granted, and it was by this ferry that Washington and his staff crossed the Merrimac in the fall of 1789 when on his way from Newburyport to Exeter. But George Carr's ferry at Salisbury, the oldest of them all, continued in more or less regular use until the opening of the above-mentioned Essex Merrimac Bridge in 1792, and it is a local tradition that Paul Revere used Carr's old ferry when he passed that way on his ride from Boston to Portsmouth shortly before the battle of Lexington.
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THE OLD NORTH FERRY AT SALEM-An interesting account of the first ferry in Essex County, to which reference has been made above, is contained in a pamphlet, entitled "The Old North Ferry and Dixy's Horse-Boat," published a few years since by the Essex Institute in Salem. The author of this pamphlet not only gives us a detailed narrative of the varied fortunes of the old ferry through- out its century and a half of uninterrupted service, but also attempts to clear up a long-standing misapprehension concerning the term "horse-boat."
III-A SHORT HISTORY OF RAILROAD TRANSPORTATION IN ESSEX COUNTY
To the average man engrossed in his own affairs, the existence of railroad transportation is taken as a matter of course. Railroads, today, are a facility indispensable to humanity and are established with such a deep-set solidity that their beginnings appear only as a hazy outline in the shades of past history. But upon further con- templation and, perhaps, after only a little prodding of the memory, this same average person is able to see the railroads of his youth in a picture, cloudy with stifling wood smoke, yet now and then dimly lighted by sporadic bursts of sparks and cinders. The rugged infor- mality of the teetering, creaky, oil-lighted car takes shape in his mind's eye. Once again he sees his favorite romantic racer of the rails with its polished brass and embellished scrollwork screaming through the twilight of an almost forgotten age. But with the intui- tive human trait of comparison, his mind sets all such antediluvian spectacles into a category of absurdity. Such powerful, massive pro- , portions has the modern locomotive that the glittering object of his youthful worship becomes with complete devastation a tarnished old teakettle.
Slightly over one hundred and twenty-five years ago the steam horse was born in England, but it was twenty-five years more before he was mature enough to enter as an alien in the United States, which was already on the lookout for some such contrivance with more power and endurance than the patient hay-burner. This first mechani- cal horse, built in England for the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, was, paradoxically enough, called the "Stourbridge Lion." Unfortunately it was too heavy for the trestles and sunk to an igno- minious obscurity. Not for long, however, was the indomitable
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American spirit downed, for Peter Cooper, learning the lesson of the "Lion," imported the first practical locomotive on this side of the Atlantic, the "Tom Thumb." In August of the same year, 1831, the Mohawk and Hudson Railroad used the "DeWitt Clinton," which did a very good job, with the exception of so showering the passen- gers with sparks that on one occasion the startled and simple coun- try folk, seeing all the poor occupants of the train beating out the spark-set fires in their garments, assumed that the train was loaded with maniacs and put every one under the hose.
Only a year before this, in Massachusetts, a group of enterpris- ing and far-sighted men with the memory of the horse-drawn granite railway in Quincy still clear, petitioned the august State Legislature for a charter to build a railroad from Boston to the town of Salem in Essex County. The lawmakers on Beacon Hill felt that what was already well enough should be left alone. Perhaps their minds were made up by the arguments put forward by the stage companies, which constantly claimed with no little feeling that they were vener- ably serving the public as common carriers, and, furthermore, were any of these new-fangled roads of rail built, navigation of the rivers around Boston would be severely impeded.2
Nothing daunted, the original backers again took up the question five years later. This time they went right about selling stock and procuring the services of a distinguished engineer, Colonel John N. Fessenden, who had already built the Boston and Worcester Rail- road. At once he began a survey of the terrain between Beverly and Newburyport. For the southern terminus East Boston was decided upon. Luckily, the frantic purchase by unprincipled speculators of all the land on and along the right of way, a thing so common in after years, did not occur. Also all the material necessary for filling up the marshes and wharfage was furnished gratuitously.
The 1836 report of the General Committee said:
"The location of the route from East Boston to Salem then became a matter for consideration. It was thought that a route entering Salem on the South would not only be the most direct, but by coming to deep water and near the business
2. The author is deeply grateful to the wealth of factual material, of which he has made liberal use, contained in Francis B. C. Bradlee's three books on the Boston and Maine Railroad, the Eastern Railroad, and the Boston and Lowell Railroad, all pub- lished by the Essex Institute in Salem, Massachusetts.
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part of the town, would afford greater facilities for the trans- portation of merchandise and accommodate passengers as well if not better than in any other direction. . . .. Between Salem and Newburyport, the object of the engineer has been to obtain the most direct route consistent with the convenience of the several towns through which it passes and very general satisfaction seems to prevail on the subject."3
Around the conference table this General Committee had waxed enthusiastic about the probable business that was just waiting for their railroad to come along and take. The bumpy, unheated stage- coaches were carrying each year over seventy-seven thousand people between Salem and Boston, not even to mention the Newburyport traffic. Popular dissatisfaction with the stage could be turned into warm approval of the more comfortable and marvelously faster rail- road train. Also, a chance at the new business developing in the State of Maine might prove a veritable gold nugget.
This time, the State Legislature was impressed by so definite a step in the march of progress that it passed an Act of Incorporation, which capitalized the "Eastern Railroad Company" at a possible two million dollars, provided the rails were laid to the New Hampshire State line. For this extension beyond Salem, not intended originally, the corporation received State aid in the form of interest-bearing scrip.
Work began in the fall of 1836 with laying of rails of the "chair" type, set much higher off the ground than those now in use, but pur- posely built to prevent blocking by the snow. Irish laborers were used in gangs and they, in addition to the very novel type of construc- tion, furnished no end of amusement to idlers, small boys, and even ordinarily occupied men.
"So many men and so many shovels and so many pickaxes wielded by as many men working in the gravel pits, where deep cuts were made through the high land, all tended to enliven the summer of that memorable panic year. Rows of men and boys sat along the banks of the sides of the cut with- out one thinking of charging the Eastern Railroad Company a cent for their disinterested superintendence."4
3. Eastern Railroad, op. cit., p. 7.
4. Johnson, D. N .: "Sketches of Lynn."
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By August, 1838, the road had reached Salem. Three engines were bought from the Lowell Engine Works and sixteen cars acquired -"extremely beautiful and mostly of a uniform appearance, very commodious, of ample height and dimensions, neatly furnished, the seats covered with hair cloth and different from those of other rail- roads in this vicinity, particularly in having doors at the ends, of which a passage is afforded from one end of the train to the other."
Both because of the novelty of riding on the "train of cars" and because of the great reduction in rates from the costly stage fares, traffic was heavy from Salem to Boston. Stations, however, were as sorry a spectacle as many of them still are today. Of the Lynn sta- tion during "the 'forties," Johnson says: "It was not noted for the amplitude of its accommodation or the elegance of its design. Models of this structure were never seen in any gallery of art, nor are any designs preserved in any manual of architecture."
At Salem, local atmosphere was created by an old dotard, who claimed he had lost one of his legs fighting in the Revolutionary War and whose duty it was to ring a bell in the station belfry whenever a train for Boston was about to depart. These trains, so well and loudly advertised, highly deserved praise, for they made the run to Boston, including the ferriage, in thirty-five minutes -- only slightly longer than it takes now when no slow ferry trip is necessary. Of course, there were inconveniences such as a roadbed that made the cars jiggle and bounced the tired travelers until they were in a state of complete exhaustion. This slight discomfort was hardly lessened by the practice of shackling the cars together with chains, which resulted in a very jerky process whenever slack was taken or released.
It was decided to continue the line to Newburyport, which neces- sitated the construction of a tunnel under Washington Street in Salem. After having dug a huge trench, the contractors built a stone arch seven hundred and eighteen feet long-one of the largest pieces of granite work ever undertaken in New England up to that time. The arch was then covered with dirt, making a tunnel. Just north of this work was a large mass of ledge that had to be pierced. There being no steam or compressed air drills in those days, labor was manual. To hasten the rather slow progress, huge charges of pow- der were used, blasting the rock in all directions. Such a commotion had a seemingly disturbing effect upon the community for, after an
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enormous chunk of rock had crashed through the roof of a nearby house all the way to the cellar, while its occupants were at dinner, a town meeting was held to remonstrate. By August, 1840, the rails had reached Newburyport and, shortly after, the New Hamp- shire route was completed to Portsmouth, fifty-four miles from Boston.
Railroading had not the systematic operation then that it has now. For instance, on one run a Marblehead Branch train was shorthanded, so the conductor trudged up to the post office for the mail bags, came back to sell the tickets in the station, got on to the engine and coupled it to the car. Then he jumped down, collected the tickets from the passengers in the coach and hurried back to the locomotive, which he cheerfully drove to Salem. Such unified execu- tion would hardly be possible in the present diversification of labor.
In the early 'forties, public opinion in New England was greatly aroused over the anti-slavery question. Curiously enough, free negroes were obliged to ride in separate cars while slaves could travel first-class with their masters. On September 29, 1841, a Mr. Doug- las, colored and free, boarded the train at Lynn, walked into a first- class car and sat down. When the conductor came along, he espied Douglas and ordered him into the "Jim Crow" car. The victim refused to budge, even after the aforesaid conductor and two brake- men tried their best to remove him by force, but the negro was pow- erful and only clutched his seat the more firmly. Before he was finally removed, two seats were uprooted and a veritable race riot had been started. Lynn became so excited over the affair that for several days the railroad management, fearing more trouble, had the trains rush without stopping through the station where Douglas had got on. Soon after the Massachusetts Legislature prohibited com- mon carriers from making any sort of race discrimination.
Trains were running through to Portland by 1843, the time being five hours. Prosperity with its concomitant dividends had come to the Eastern Railroad. Its first serious accident was in 1848 at the close of the presidential campaign. Two large political gatherings were on the program-one in Salem, at which Caleb Cushing was to address the Democrats, and one at Lynn, where Daniel Webster was to speak to the Whigs. Two extra trains bound for these ral- lies unfortunately collided at a junction just south of Salem, killing
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six people and injuring sixty-four. Blame was put upon an inebriated switchman, who had hoisted the wrong signal lights.
In the western section of Essex County the inhabitants of Andover heard the railroad talk in Boston and decided they needed faster transportation accommodations for their town and vicinity, so, in 1833, the Andover and Wilmington Railroad was chartered, con- struction being started near the South Parish Meetinghouse in Andover and continuing to a connection with the Boston and Lowell at Wilmington. Here, as with the Eastern Railroad, the probable chances for financial success were based upon records of the passenger and freight traffic carried by the stages. The company sold capital stock up to $100,000, of which a large amount was held by Phillips Academy and the Andover Theological Seminary. Manifestly, its business was to be entirely local and its connections were to depend largely upon the good will of the Boston and Lowell. The only available newspaper article describing the new line's inauguration is a small account printed in the Salem "Gazette" for August 2, 1836, which says :
"This road is finished from Wilmington to Andover. The cars were to commence running last week. The Andover route is now only between Wilmington and Andover, a dis- tance of but a little over seven miles. At Wilmington the road intersects the Lowell road. This road it is expected will be completed from Andover to Haverhill within a year and will probably terminate at the latter place."
Haverhill decided to put itself on equality with Andover and got authority to extend the road to the "Central Village." By 1837, the management agreed to push the line to the Maine boundary, connect- ing with the Portland, Saco, and Portsmouth for entrance into Port- land. Business was anticipated from competition with the Eastern, which was then under construction. Stock sales and State aid made the extension possible. From 1834 to 1843 the road was known as the Boston and Portland Railroad, but after that, the familiar name of Boston and Maine was adopted.
The cars resembled stage coaches and were mounted on frames with wheels adapted to the rails. Each unit was divided into three compartments with doors at the sides and passengers sitting back to
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back. An 1841 time-table shows trains leaving Boston from the Boston and Lowell station at 7:30, 11:30, and 5:00 for Andover, Haverhill, Exeter, and Dover. Tickets were taken up by conductors who had formerly been stage drivers, as the railroad company was glad to employ a class of men used to the whims of the traveling public. Later, the cars had flat roofs, eight wheels, platforms, and doors at the ends. Seats were arranged as at present and each car held about fifty-five people.
The independence of the Boston and Lowell furnished difficulties for the Boston and Maine, since the older line was quite unwilling to be inconvenienced or delayed in any way by the Boston and Maine operating problems at Wilmington. This condition compelled the construction of a new route to Boston called the Boston and Maine Extension, which was built in 1844. At about this time Lawrence had started on its career of being a prosperous manufacturing cen- ter. With great foresight, the directors of the Boston and Maine, realizing that this growing community would need better railroad facilities, relocated the line between Andover and North Andover so that it touched Lawrence.
Throughout Essex County the late 'forties proved to be an expan- sive age; branch lineage greatly increased. In order to tap some of the Boston and Lowell business, the Boston and Maine built to Lowell from Lowell Junction. After feverishly opposing this, the former road retaliated by constructing a line into Lawrence. In 1 846, the Essex Railway Company, fathered by the Eastern, received a charter to build a road from Salem to Lawrence, in order to take away some of the Boston and Maine traffic at Lawrence. It was built, as well as the Gloucester Branch of the Eastern. Both were expected to be valuable feeders to the main line. In 1848 the South Reading Branch Railroad was built from South Reading (now Wake- field) to South Danvers in order to compete with the Eastern Rail- road at Salem.
At this time the Boston and Maine had honest and efficient man- agement with a resultant good financial standing. Its route was par- ticularly fortunate, as it ran through towns just remote enough from the coast not to have the competition of water freights. A liberal board of directors built up a tremendous local business. In addition to this, dissatisfaction with the Eastern Railroad became apparent
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when the citizens of Newburyport decided to build a railroad con- necting with the Boston and Maine at Lawrence. This would develop Essex County's interior as well as take away from the Merrimac river boats the shoe traffic of Haverhill. The road was completed by 1850, but, owing to the agrarian nature of the vicinity, operating difficulties were encountered, especially cows which seemed content to wander aimlessly along the right of way. As fences were uncom- mon, it was hardly unusual to strike two or three of the animals on the trip from Newburyport to Georgetown. The handbrakes applied by the firemen in the tender and the brakemen on the passenger cars were powerless to stop the train quickly enough, even though the errant cows were sighted on the tracks some yards ahead. Indeed, this pastoral hazard was detrimental to the reputation of the road. Slowness of its trains became a by-word, and everlasting enmity of neighboring farmers was augmented yearly.
Maritime commerce had declined to such an extent that serious attempts were made to revive it. One project, that of the Honorable S. C. Phillips, a well-known Salem merchant and shipowner, was to bring by boat raw cotton and coal for the Lowell mills to the port of Salem, where it could be shipped by the contemplated Salem and Lowell Railroad to Lowell, whence the finished products could be . carried back, thus making Salem a thriving port and at the same time furnishing funds for the railroad. The State Legislature agreed on a plan to run the line through North Reading and Wilmington to Tewksbury. In the Salem "Gazette" is described the inaugural train of August 2, 1850:
"The train started from Phillips Wharf at seven o'clock and after stopping at North Street and Frye's Mills, pro- ceeded with several hundred passengers to the Grove Street station in Danvers. Here, unfortunately, on attempting to start, some flue gave way in the engine which caused a deten- tion of more than an hour, until another engine was procured from Salem. . .. . In passing through North Reading, we went over one of those singular quagmires which have been encountered on most railroad routes. The filling-in sank forty feet and for several weeks the work of each day sank out of sight during the night. In passing through Wilmington, we went near the place where Pearson with fearful cruelty mur-
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dered his wife and innocent twin children. A large part of the ride up was performed under a drenching rain."
The fare between the two cities was only sixty cents and the service was much better then than it was seventy-five years later. The rolling stock must have been borrowed, for the annual report of 1857 gives the entire equipment as three locomotives, three pas- senger cars, one baggage car, and one hundred and ninety-seven freight cars. Some of the rules are interesting to look back upon, such as "No engines will be taken out on Sundays except by permis- sion of the Superintendent," and "the Superintendent respectfully begs leave to remind gentlemen passengers who spit that the car floors cannot be cleaned while the train is in motion."
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