USA > Maryland > Washington County > Hagerstown > A history of Washington County, Maryland from the earliest settlements to the present time, including a history of Hagerstown > Part 44
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The next stop was at Valparaiso, and on the 14th of September the Nylon passed through the "Golden Gate." In California, Mr. Bell first en- gaged in the practice of law. There was a little log school-hour which was used as a Court House, and in it cases of great magnitude, involving im- mense sums of money, were tried. It was not long, however, before he drifted baek into journ- alism. He first took a position as reporter for the San Francisco Daily Herald, published by John Nugent, then as city editor of the same paper. Ho resigned this place to become associated with B. F. Washington and Jos. E. Lawrence, as pro- prietor of the San Francisco Daily Placer, Times and Transcript, of which paper Mr. Bell was the managing editor. After awhile he retired from
this position to take the general editorship of the Sacramento Daily Union. In his work, he distin- guished himself by his opposition to all kinds of jobbery and corruption in the Legislature and by his aetive and fearless campaign against the Vig- ilence Committee party. In taking this stand, he did admirable service to the State, and gained for himself a high reputation for purity and bravery.
In 1858, Mr. Bell left California and return- ed to the east across Mexico. He then went to St. Louis, as eastern correspondent of the Alta California and the Sacramento Union. At that time, the telegraph line was extending westward from St. Louis and eastward from San Francisco, and Secretary Floyd had established the pony ex- press to transmit news and letters through the intervening space. The news from Europe came by steamer to Cape Race, from which point the agent of the Associated Press sent it throughout the country. Mr. Bell was an intimate friend of J. C. Stebbins, the superintendent of the Tel- egraph Company, and from him obtained the monopoly of the news for the Pacific Coast. About this time, in April 1860, the fight between Heenan, "the Beneeia Boy" and Sayers, the English cham- pion, took place in England, and the news of this encounter was awaited with the most intense inter- est and excitement, stimulated of course by reek- less betting upon the result. The steamer "Van- derbilt," which brought the news, made a remark- ably quick voyage, and Mr. Stebbins proeured for Mr. Bell the press aecount of the fight. This was telegraphed from St. Louis to the end of the line: Just as the report was about half taken down by the operator, he telegraphed baek to Mr. Bell that the pony express was ready to start. The order eame back to detain the messenger with oysters at Mr. Bell's expense. This was done and when the Union and the Alla California published the news it was decmed impossible to have received it in so short a time. Days afterwards, when the account was confirmed there was a great triumph for the two papers. In 1867, Mr. Bell purchased a third interest in the Hagerstown Mail, and was until 1891 one of the editors of that paper, making it a paper of high standing and great influence in the State. It was mainly through his influence that the Western Maryland railroad was extended to Hagerstown at the time it was, and the same influence has always been exerted in the cause of good government and proper enterprises.
259
OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
For many years, an old soldier of 1776 came down to Hagerstown from his home in South Mountain once a month to draw his pension. This was old John Barnheiser, who died in Quincy, in June 1849, at the age of a hundred and six years-probably the very last of the men of "76. Martin Reckert attained to an even greater age. He was a native of Germany, and lived a solitary life at the top of the mountain near Clearspring ; he died in December, 1857, at the age of one hundred and six years and eleven months. He boasted that he had voted at every Presidential election from Washington to Buchanan inclusive. In 1855, Joseph Keenan died at the Alms House at the age of a hundred and six years. He was born in Scotland in March, 1749.
The first steps to establish a Lutheran Female Seminary were taken in the Maryland Synod in 1849. The building was completed in 1853, and the first class graduated in 1857, the Rev. Mr. Baughman being the Principal. In 1865, the property was purchased by Charles W. Hum- richouse, who sold it to the Rev. C. M. Keedy in 1875. It is now successfully conducted, the num- ber of students being generally large.
The building of the Franklin railroad to Hagerstown gave considerable concern to the pco- ple of Baltimore. As soon as the cars were run- ning between Chambersburg and Philadelphia, the Baltimore papers began to complain that the trade from the West was diverted to Philadelphia. Passengers from the West, when they reached Hagerstown left the National road and went to Chambersburg and thence to Philadelphia where the merchants bought their goods. Then at the same time the canal had been opened to Hancock and there the products of the West, which had theretofore gone to Baltimore, were loaded on boats and found a market at Georgetown. In the same manner almost the entire trade of Wash- ington County, along with that of Franklin and Cumberland Counties left Baltimore, and now after the lapse of more than a half century has not been fully restored. This diversion of trade from Baltimore in 1839 gave infinite satisfaction to the people of Washington County. The violation by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company, which was considered identical with the city, of its con- tract to build its road through Hagerstown, and the remission by the Legislature of the penalty of one million of dollars which the Company agreed to forfeit to the County should the contract be
violated, had exasperated the people of Washing- ton County to the last degree. It looked to them like a piece of deliberate chicanery, to obtain the votes of the Washington County delegation in the Legislature, necessary for the passage of the bill authorizing the State to subscribe a large sum to the road, and then to violate the agreement.
It was whilst this feeling of resentment prevail- ed that the Pennsylvania Company made overtures Williamsport had the first opportunity. On the 6th of April, 1839, the Franklin Company passed a resolution offering to extend the road to that town, upon condition that, on or before the 1st of May the people of the town would subscribe for two hundred shares of the capital stock- equal to ten thousand dollars-and such further amount as would pay for the right of way in a direct line from Mason and Dixon's line to the town. In the event of the failure to embrace this offer, then Hagerstown should be the terminus upon condition of subscribing to four hundred shares and such further amount as would secure the right of way. This proposition was eagerly embraced by Hagerstown. The Legislature, in 1838, had given authority to the Moderator and Commissioners to take the stock and make a loan to raise the money to pay for it. They could not wait until Williamsport's option had expired, but on the 22nd of April an order was passed accepting the terms. The Hagerstown papers then boasted that the County would now be inde- pendent of Baltimore and her railroad. That city had driven them away and they would seek an alliance with the strangers to whom they had been driven by their friends.
Besides this, another avenue to ne east would,. it was confidently expected, soon be opened to the town. The Gettysburg railroad, or the Tape Worm, as it was more familiarly known, had been graded to the summit of South Mountain and the sum of $750,000 had been spent on it. The distance from the place which was then its terni- inus to Hagerstown was but fifteen miles. It required no great powers of calculation, urged the Torch Light, to demonstrate that this chasm of fifteen miles in a railroad communication from Philadelphia to the Western Waters, will not re- main unfilled, when it shall be, as it will be, the only broken link in the long and important chain of railroad communication between Wheeling and Pittsburg in the West and Philadelphia in the East, via Gettysburg and York. Fifty-one years
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
after this time, when the work which had been done at this heavy eost was almost obliterated by trees twelve inches in diameter, and people had only a tradition of the work, were rails laid upon it-many years after the "ehasm of fifteen miles" had been filled hy the traeks of the Western Mary- land road. This Gettysburg road was graded un- der the direction of Thaddeus Stevens at the ox- pense of the State of Pennsylvania, and the pop- ular theory has always been that Stevens did this work in order to employ a large number of men whom he could thus influence to vote for his eandi- date for Governor. But it is more than probable that this was ineidental to the main plan of mak- ing a link in a great Western route.
On the third of February, 1841, the first train of ears was pulled into the Hagerstown ter- minus of the Franklin Railroad, by the locomotives "Washington" and "Franklin." The train, it was said, was made up of large and elegant cars, filled with volunteers and visitors from Franklin County. As the train drew up to the terminus of the road in Hagerstown, it was received with acelama- tions by a large gathering of eitizens. The visi- tors from Franklin County, among whom were the Chambersburg Artillerists, the Franklin Blues and the St. Thomas Artillerists. all under eom- mand of Major Gilmore, paraded the streets of Hagerstown. Captain Robertson's company of Hagerstown Riffemen joined in the procession. In the meantime the train of ears was running backwards and forwards to Greencastle earrying delighted passengers who had never before seen or travelled upon a train of ears. On the 24tli of February. 1841, the first advertisement of a time table for the running of trains was given to the publie. Two trains left Philadelphia daily the first at 1 a. m. which arrived at Hagerstown at 6 p. m. the same day, and the second at 8 a. m. This train reached Chambersburg at 10 p. m. where it remained until 3 a. m. arriving in Hag- erstown at 5 a. m .- making the time eonsumed in the trip equal to about ten miles per hour. One train left Hagerstown at 6 p. m. arriving in Chambersburg at 7:30, leaving Chambersburg at 1 a. m., and arriving in Philadelphia about 5 p. m. The other train left Ilagerstown at 5 a. m.
and reached Philadelphia about 10 p. m. On Saturdays, there was a train of "pleasure ears" which plied backwards and forwards between Chambersburg and Hagerstown.
This time table did not continue long. Whetn- er from laek of business or from bad management the road did not pay, traffie diminished and the physical condition grew very bad. In 1849 it became burdened with debt, and was sold at publie auction by Sheriff Daniel South. Andrew Kersh- ner and George W. Henry obtained a judgment against it, and to satisfy this judgment the entire road, including the right of way for six miles, its tracks, franchises, movable property and two lots in Hagerstown were "knocked down" to Col. George Schley for the sum of six hundred dollars. The original cost of the property had been about fifty thousand. There was mueh speculation about the disposition the purehaser would make of the property. One of the editors supposed that the best thing would be to sell the rails to the blaek- smiths and give the right of way baek to the farm- ers through whose lands it passed. But this in- telligent adviee was not followed. Col. Schley sold the road to parties who ran it for awhile as a horse tram way. The road was laid with wooden rails, protected by strap iron nailed along the upper surface for the wheels to run upon. What was known as "snake's heads" eaused many aeei- dlents. The end of a picee of strap iron would get loosened from its fastening; the ear wheel would run under, instead of over it, and the end of the iron would force itself through the floor of the ear.
Travel over the Franklin Railroad during iis existence as a tram way, was primitive. An old horse was hitehed to a truek about fifteen feet in length, with boards aeross it upon which the passengers sat with no support for their baeks and the covering over it was too low to sit upright under it with any comfort. If there had been a heavy rain, passengers had to be rejected. Fre- quently the "coach" ran off the track or the wheels slipped down between the rails .*
An effort to revive the road again was made in 1853, and in that year the Legislature enaeted a law authorizing the relaying of the traek with
*Correspondence of the Bloomfield Advocate. Harrisburg, Aug. 29, 1854.
The Franklin Rail Road, &c.
Mr. Sheibley :- According to promise I herewith furnish you with a brief description of our trip to
Hagerstown. From Harrisburg to Chambersburg, (a distance of 52 miles,) we passed through one of the richest and most fertile valleys in Pennsylvania .- Chambersburg is truly a neat and handsome town The Cumberland Valley railroad company has here
St. Paul's U. B. Church, Hagerstown.
St. John's Episcopal Church, Hagerstown.
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OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
iron rails. Under the authority of the Act, the road was put up for sale on the 15th of June, 1853, the six mniles lying in Maryland were sold to John N. Hutchinson for $5,000. The condition of the sale was that the purehaser should relay the rails on the road and adapt it to steam power within eighteen months of the ratifieation of the sale. The requirement was not observed, and the trustees, after due notice, again offered the prop- erty at public sale ; on the 24th day of July 1855, they sold it to the Chambersburg, Greencastle and Hagerstown Railroad Company for the sum of $600. This sale was ratified September 3, 1855. The condition of the sale was that the purchaser should commence relaying the rails within two months. Up to December no movement had been made looking to carrying out this eondition. In the meantime Hagerstown was without adequate
communication and the people were greatly ag- grieved over thic elosing of the railroad. A public meeting was held in December, which sent a peti- tion to the Legislature, asking that the sale be set aside and the road resold. An Act was ae- cordingly passed directing the sale of the road and naming J. Dixon Roman. Thomas Harbine and Leander McKec, trustees to make the sale. The purchaser was to begin laying rails within sixty days after the ratification of the sale, and to have at least one mile completed within four months. The purchasers, after complying with these conditions, were declared a body corporate under the name of the Franklin Railroad Com- pany, with authority to extend the railroad to the south and to eross the Potomae river at any point between Hancoek and Knoxville. This privilege was not used until 1873, when the Martinsburg
a large machine shop and engine house; thesc, to- gether with several warehouses in the vicinity of the depot, make it quite a stirring place.
From Chambersburg to Hagerstown, the only public means of conveyance, we were informed, was the great Franklin railroad-this of course is suffic- ient (?) for all practical purposes. The management of trains on this road is entirely different from any we ever "hcarn tell on." So here goes for a descrip- tion:
We werc informed "Car time" had arrived, and soon found ourselves safely deposited in the Express "train-starting regularly every day at 10 o'clock for Hagerstown." The locomotive consists of a real bona fide "Old Grey Mare," who, to appearance, was in the same dilemma "Old Uncle Ned" found himself: Having
"No more teeth for to eat de-oats So he had to leave de-oats go."
Attached to her was the car, though to use a more appropriate term-a Gipsey waggon. It is simply a truck, with boards laid across for seats, without any support to rest against; and the covering so low as not to admit of sitting upright. In fact, to ride in this machine is punishment worse than a crowded stage coach.
This train, (fully fifteen feet in length,) was controlled entirely by a real clever fellow, who per- formed the duty of engineer, fireman, brakcinan, conductor, mail agent, and everything else belonging to an Express train. After the passengers were scated, (two all told,) the train started off at a speed which forcibly reminded us of an anecdote, that happened on this road several years ago, the circumstances of which were as follows: The train was going along at the usual speed, when it was overtaken by an unfortunate individual with a wood- en leg. The conductor hailed him with "Hello! won't you take a ride? No sir, I thank you, I am in a hurry," was the reply. This fully illustrates the speed of the trains on this famous Franklin railroad.
The road is entirely out of repair, and serious acci- denis frequently happen in consequence of the de- caycd sills on which the rails are fastened. Some- times the car runs off the track, and sometimes slips between; but as yet no loss of life has been the result.
There is now a road in contemplation from George- town, D. C., to Hagerstown, via Frederick. Should this be built, we hope to see the Franklin road re- laid. It might be made profitable, for Hagerstown numbers now about four thousand inhabitants, and this is their only public outlet. In its present con- dition it is a nuisance, and a shame to the commun- ity through which it passes-asking, as they do, from $80 to $100 per acre for their land. The country around Hagerstown is rich, fertile, and well cultivat- ed, being an excellent wheat and corn growing dis- trict, though the latter crop this season is almost an entire failure, on account of the excessive drought. Destruction seems to have swept everything before it, and scarcity following after. Corn is now selling in Hagerstown at $1.25 per bushel, and potatoes at $2.00 per bushel, and scarce at that. Hagerstown is beautifully ornamented with shade trees, and con- tains many fine Churches, in one of which the Rev. Mr. Gans, (formerly of Bloomfield,) preaches to a large congregation. The people are also well sup- plicd with music .- Heyser's brass band perform, every. Saturday evening in the public square, and in addition, the slaves have a brass band, and the way the "darkies" discourse music is a caution to aboli- tionists.
We left Hagerstown yesterday morning in the cars, and again had two passengers, being forced to leave six or eight behind on account of the heavy rain the previous night. At length we arrived at Chambersburg, and from thence to this place again, on the Cumberland Valley railroad. Whenever we come across anything similar to that Franklin rail- road ,we will again inform you of it.
Yours, &c.,
B.
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
and Potomac railroad, crossing the river at Falling Waters and uniting Hagerstown with Martinsburg, was opened to the public. In 1889, a further ex- tension from Martinsburg to Winchester was made. In March, 1854, the interest of Hutchinson & Co. in the Franklin railroad was sold to the Cumber- land Valley Company for $30,000 and at the same time that part of the Franklin road which lay in
Franklin County was sold to Dull, Jones and Worral for $5,900. In August, 1859, the road from Hagerstown to Chambersburg was quietly re-opened, twenty-seven years after its first open- ing. Since then its career has been distinguished by success and model management. During the Civil War it performed important service to the Government by bringing supplies to the army.
265
OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, MARYLAND.
CHAPTER XVII
7
OR the best part of seventy years one of the most conspicuous figures in Washington County was Dr. Frederick Dorsey. He was probably known to a greater propor- tion of the people of the County than any other person who ever lived in it. No man ever lived who was more thoroughly identified with a com- munity. He was better beloved by a large portion of his people than any other man. It is eertain that no one was ever a more familiar topie of con- versation, or has been the subject of more anec- dotes, even down to this time; and he has been in his grave nearly half a century. Frederick Dorsey was born in what is now Howard County in the year 1774, in a house that is still standing. He was well educated, and in early life removed to Washington County, where he spent the remain- der of his days in the active pursuit of his pro- fession, and, died October, 1858, in the house in which he had lived sinee his marriage, at the ad- vanced age of eighty-four years. He continued in aetive praetiee up to the hour of his last illness, a period of over sixty years, and, what is a most unprecedented circumstanee, was associated in practice, at the time of his death, with his son, Dr. Clagett Dorsey, and his grandson, Dr. Frederick Dorsey, Jr. When he died it was said of him that "he had lived through the American Revolution. He had watched the progress of the revolutionary and bloody history of France. He had beheld the brilliant yet terrible career of Napoleon. He had shaken hands with Washing- ton, an event of itself sufficient to honor any grave; and such was his vivid recollection of the eireumstanee, that the impress of that grasp ting-
led upon his fingers to his last days. Jefferson was his idol. Rush was his friend and preceptor. Clay, Rochester, Pindall, the Fitzhughs, the Barnes, the Ringgolds, the Tilghmans, the Masons, the Lawrences, the Hughes, the Spriggs, the Carrolls, the Buchanans, the Kershners, were his early, intimate friends.
"He had seen this lovely County, now so set- tled, arise from a wild and uninhabited prairie. He had witnessed in succession the pack-horse give way for the common wagon-then the stage-eoach, then the locomotive and the telegraph. The single footpath, which constituted the only highway to the West, he had seen yield to the county road, then the turnpike, and finally the railroad."
When as a boy he had ridden into Elizabeth- town he had reached what was almost the western limit of civilization. When he died, the "Star of Empire" had taken its eourse westward aeross . the great plains, the Rocky Mountains to the shores of the Pacific Ocean.
Dr. Frederick Dorsey possessed a remarkable combination of eccentricities and virtues. Benev- olence, truth, fidelity, cheerfulness and unfailing animal spirits were traits, each of which secmed to be pre-eminent. Added to these were a remark- able memory, great conversational powers and great physical enduranee, which enabled him to perform labors that seemed well nigh miracu- lous. Dr. Nathaniel Potter pronounced him the best judge of pulse he ever knew. He was a natural surgeon and had performed operations which were reported in text books as showing mar- velous skill. In mid-wifery he was pre-eminent, and had offieiated upon eleven thousand occasions.
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HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD
It is needless to relate that he held firmly to the faith of his times in blood-letting and the use of ealomel. A gentleman of Hagerstown, who was supposed to be in the last stages of eonsump- tion, had been at Baltimore to eonsult eminent physicians, but had returned without hope. Dr. Dorsey saw him at last. His opinion was gruffly expressed in these brief words-"About a pound of ealomel will eure you-your liver, and not your lungs, is diseased." And ealomel did eure him.
Happening to be in Philadelphia, he was sent for to see his friend, the late Mr. Savage, who was suffering with a severe fit of the gout. He inquired, and was told the treatment Mr. Savage was undergoing by his Philadelphia physiean. Looking over his spectacles with a mingled ex- pression of surprise and contempt, and repeating in slow and measured terms the preseription -- "5 grains of sup. earb. soda every two hours," he added, "here. take this to-night, 20 grains of calo- mel, and to-morrow morning 40 grains of jalap," which were to be followed by other medieines no less potent. Before the week had passed Mr. Savage was on the street, and being asked by a friend the cause of his rapid improvement, replied : "Old Dorsey, of Hagerstown, took me through a threshing machine, and if that don't take the gout of a man's bones, God knows what will." Nor did he fail to show his faith by his works, for it is an uneontraverted faet that when he had the cholera in 1832, he administered to himself more than two hundred grains of ealomel in less than twelve hours.
Dr. Dorsey had studied medieine with Dr. Richard Pindell, and had begun his professional career in partnership with that celebrated physie- ian, but he was not a regular graduate of any medical college, although he had attended a course of leetures. The University of Maryland eonfeir- ed upon him the degree of Doctor of Medieine in 1824. But twenty years before this he had re- eeived a diploma of honorary membership of the Philadelphia Medical Society. He had an enor- mous practice, and "the extent of the country over which he rode almost daily, would now appear in- credible. In the carly history of this County the people were subject to most malignant bilious epi- demics. At this period. he had almost the exelus- ive practice of this town and adjacent country, for twenty miles around. He would often make a circuit from 60 to 80 miles in twenty-four hours.
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