History of Baltimore, Maryland, from its founding as a town to the current year, 1729-1898, including its early settlement and development; a description of its historic and interesting localities; political, military, civil, and religious statistcs; biographies of representative citizens, etc., etc, Part 61

Author: Shepherd, Henry Elliott, 1844-1929, ed. 4n
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: [Uniontown? Pa.] S.B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1344

USA > Maryland > Baltimore County > Baltimore City > History of Baltimore, Maryland, from its founding as a town to the current year, 1729-1898, including its early settlement and development; a description of its historic and interesting localities; political, military, civil, and religious statistcs; biographies of representative citizens, etc., etc > Part 61

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HISTORY OF BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.

cheaper means of reaching the markets for their products. After the railroad reached the Ellicott works, the Ellicotts appear to have no further relation to its development and the enterprise was then pushed for- ward by the Howards, Harrisons, Patter- sons, Gambrills, Chauncey Brooks and others. Under the able management of the Harrisons the road was pushed on until finally the coal fields in the vicinity of Cum- berland, Md., were reached, and the prob- lem of railway transportation and the fu- ture of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was established.

Like all great enterprises, it had many and bitter opponents, and its progress was delayed by the strong and persistent ad- vocacy of those who favored State aid in completing the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The success of the Erie of New York (as projected by DeWitt Clinton) and of the Delaware and Raritan Canal in aiding and developing the commerce of the cities of New York and Philadelphia induced a large and influential body of citizens to be- come advocates of waterways as opposed to the new and comparatively untried steam railways.

The possibilities of the locomotive had not been developed. Mechanical engineers in America-Peter Cooper, Richard Mor- ris and M. W. Baldwin-were still experi- menting. The civil engineers-La Trobe, Stone, Kneass, Thomson, Schlatter, Howe, Haupt, Coryell and Shunk-were still grop- ing in the dark as to gradients, curves, tun- nels and bridge strains. But the light of a new day was dawning, and first one and then another of the engineers caught a ray which gave the light that solved the prob- lem.

From Cumberland the road finally reached the Ohio river near Wheeling. To show the pernicious influence of the old- fashioned State rights doctrine one can point out here at this date the effect on the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. The better terminus on the Ohio river would have been the city of Pittsburg, Pa. The State of Virginia refused to grant a charter that would permit the completing of the road to Pittsburg and insisted as they were giving financial aid and a charter, that the charter rights and franchises of the road must and should give a terminal at Wheeling. When the engineers came to locate the road it was found that the better location from an engineering standpoint, in reaching Wheel- ing, required the running of the road within the jurisdiction of the State of Pennsylva- nia. The citizens of western Pennsylvania, angered at not getting the terminus at Pittsburg, had political influence sufficient to prevent the road getting privileges through the State of Pennsylvania. Con- sequently the Baltimore & Ohio, to reach Wheeling, had to take an inferior location (from an engineering point of view) within the State of Virginia, crossing the moun- tains with very heavy grades, which add materially to the permanent cost of every pound of freight that is carried over this road.

But the most singular part of the whole proceeding is to be narrated. When the line attempted to enter the city of Wheel- ing the local authorities insisted upon a lo- cation which the corporation would not agree to, and consequently the road was built and terminated on the Ohio river four miles south of the city of Wheeling. I merely mention this to show the short-

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sightedness of the lawmakers in placing ex- actions that prevent, frequently, the con- summation of the object they have in view. It is far better to enact liberal laws, which can be adapted to particular cases or exi- gencies without involving a violation of their spirit. The Baltimore & Ohio met with varying success, completing branches into the valley of Virginia, aiding the rail- roads south of Washington and making connections into the State of Ohio. In the early fifties Mr. John W. Garrett, of the banking firm of Robert Garrett & Sons, of Baltimore, became the president. Prior to the Civil War Mr. Garrett had completed the connections through, via Parkersburg, to Cincinnati, O. While the Baltimore & Ohio was engaged in making these efforts at extensions, other parties interested in the development of the commerce of Baltimore had not been idle. In 1829, the centennial year of the founding of Baltimore, a charter was granted to the Baltimore & York Rail- road, and with varying "ups and downs" the road was finally started to be built in 1834; the corner-stone of the present build- ing used for general offices of the company was the stone marking the initial point of the line, and completed under the presi- dency of Mr. John S. Gittings to the city of York, Pa., in 1854, with a branch to Hanover. By a consolidation with the York & Cumberland Railroad it was com- pleted to Harrisburg, Pa., and corporate title changed to Northern Central Railway, giving connections at that point with the Pennsylvania Railroad system and all points in the great Cumberland and Lebanon val- leys of Pennsylvania.

Although completed from Baltimore to Harrisburg and doing a good local busi- ness, the line had not yet reached the an-

thracite coal fields, which the then manage- ment had been looking forward to as the objective point for a large tonnage of at least a thousand tons per week. I wonder what these gentlemen, Johns Hopkins, Francis T. White, Michael Herr, A. B. Warford, if living to-day, would think of their "infant," whose anthracite tonnage for 1897 was nearly five times in one day what they had hoped to carry in six-to say noth- ing of the grain, flour and merchandise and ore traffic that is treble the anthracite ton- nage. It had no outlet to tide-water and never succeeded in getting any, although repeated efforts were made for nearly fifteen years after this date. In fact, such an in- fluence had the Baltimore & Ohio manage- ment on the legislative bodies of the State of Maryland and the city of Baltimore that when obligations of this company, the Northern Central Railway, for State and municipal aid-which had been advanced the old company-came due, the State and city officers treated this company in the harshest manner and practically threw theni into bankruptcy. So much was the cor- poration involved that Mr. Gittings, the then president of the company, abandoned the management and stated that it was im- possible to financier the company. It was then that the wonderful foresight and abil- ity of the Pennsylvania Railroad manage- ment was displayed. General Herman Haupt, who was the then general superin- tendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad, ad- vised his superior officer, Mr. J. Edgar Thompson, the then president of that cor- poration, of the advisability of securing con- trol for the Pennsylvania system, not only of this road, but of the Cumberland Valley Railway. The material aid which this Pennsylvania Railroad Company rendered

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to the Northern Central enabled it to meet its obligations and make rapid progress un- der the new management to attain not only good physical but fair financial standing. They were still, however, handicapped by want of a terminal at tide-water and an out- let to Washington. They were making every effort to secure these when the Civil War intervened, and for four years changed the entire aspect of the commercial rela- tions, not only of the railroad, but of the city of Baltimore itself.

The immense southern trade which they had enjoyed was entirely cut off, and al- though the operations of the Union armies gave a large business and distributed large sums of money to the mercantile and trans- portation interests centering at Baltimore, yet the railroad business suffered. Just prior to the commencement of the Civil War the Western Maryland Railroad had been chartered and this company had com- menced building from a point on the North- ern Central Railroad out towards Owings' Mills and Westminster, into Carroll and Washington counties, and was opening up a very rich section of the State of Maryland, when they, too, were stopped from the same cause.

The close of the Civil War left the Bal- timore & Ohio Railroad in a fair physical condition for roads at that time. The im- mense collection of locomotives, cars and other transportation facilities which the United States Government had been using on the military railroads was sold. The Baltimore & Ohio management availed themselves of this material, and a large por- tion of their claims against the Government for transportation of troops and supplies for the armies were settled by their taking over

this rolling stock. It practically gave to the Baltimore & Ohio management the finest equipment of any railroad in the country at that date (1866).

Up to that period Mr. Garrett, the then president of that corporation, deserved the highest praise for his management of this property. His financial management of the securities of the company up to the time of his death, through his banking house, en- abled the Baltimore & Ohio to place their stocks and bonds on the markets of America and Europe at from one to three per cent. lower rates of interest than rival corpora- tions, yet the physical condition of the road- way and bad location was a standing ex- pense in the movement of its tonnage, which no one could improve. Mr. Garrett seemed to lack the ability to grasp the necessity of extending and controlling the connections to the great Northwest, or even to the Southwest; and thus rival lines occupied fields that should naturally have been con- trolled by them in the interest of the Bal- timore & Ohio Railroad Company.

In the early seventies the Pennsylvania system had secured an outlet to tide-water and a charter for the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad, while the Baltimore & Ohio had obtained control of the Pittsburgh & Con- nellsville, and the two systems began to se- cure the control of sections from which they had hitherto been excluded. Col. Thomas A. Scott, the then vice-president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, whose wonderful grasp of the railway and transportation business of the country has probably never been excelled and perhaps never equalled, except by his immediate successors and proteges in the Pennsylvania system (Messrs. A. J. Cassett and Frank Thomp-

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son), before entering upon the construction of the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad, seemed intuitively to foresee what would be the result of entering upon this gigantic rivalry, and had made the following propo- sition to Mr. Garrett, of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad: That if Mr. Garrett, as rep- resentative of the Baltimore & Ohio Rail- road Company, would give to the Penn- sylvania Railroad Company traffic arrange- ments and interchanges of business between Baltimore and Washington, would abandon building and transfer the control of the Pittsburgh & Connellsville to the Pennsyl- vania Railroad; that on the part of the Pennsylvania Railroad they would abandon and turn over to the Baltimore & Ohio the charter of the Baltimore & Potomac Rail- road; would not extend the Cumberland Valley road south of Hagerstown to Win- chester, Va .; would abandon the contem- plated building of the Bedford & Cumber- land road into Cumberland, and would transfer to the Baltimore & Ohio corpora- tion all their investment in the Southern Se- curity Company, would give the Baltimore & Ohio full traffic and trackage rights be- tween Columbus, O., and Chicago over what is now the Pan Handle Railway, and over the Cleveland & Pittsburgh into Cleve- land (the Baltimore & Ohio to abandon the contemplated lines to Cleveland and Chi- cago); the Pennsylvania Railroad also to give rights and terminals over the united railroads of New Jersey between Phila- delphia and New York (the P. W. & B. road, between Baltimore and Philadelphia would be used as a neutral line by both companies). Mr. Garrett declined the prop- osition and both roads continued making their extensions, and, in some instances,

paralleling each other. The result of this competition helped to bring about the financial panic of 1873. So little did the Baltimore & Ohio management appreciate the almost impregnable strength of the system of the Pennsylvania Railroad, that a Vice-President of the B. & O. R. R., said: "Mr. Garrett, I believe the Penna. R. R., will be in the hands of the receiver within two years." This was in the summer of 1871.

While the rivalries between these two great systems has existed at an immense cost to the stockholders in the respective corporations, it has been of the utmost ben- efit to the city of Baltimore. Probably no- where can a better example and a more forcible illustration be given of the relative merits of protection and free trade than in the management of these two trunk lines. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, notwith- standing the immense realty investments of the capital controlling that corporation at and in the city of Baltimore, have never given any encouragement to manufacturers to locate in Baltimore. They have always catered to competitive and distant points, and in favor of the mercantile as against the manufacturing industries. Not only at Baltimore, but at all points along their sys- tem, there is the most remarkable scarcity of manufacturing plants except at competi- tive junction points, though a large length of their road is located in territory rich in minerals, timber and fuel. Instead of strik- ing out boldly and relying upon the busi- ness to pay for the investment, they have in nearly all their extensions looked to and depended upon State or municipal aid, and one of the curses that the State of Maryland and city of Baltimore rest under to-day is an exemption from taxation claimed by

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these railroad corporations, because at one time the Commonwealth of Maryland, or the cities and counties therein, were part owners in these railroad properties.

On the contrary, the plan outlined by the early managers of the Pennsylvania sys- tem (Messrs. J. Edgar Thompson; Foster; Haupt; Lombaert; and Scott) was to en- courage manufacturing industries, develop the mineral properties of the territory adja- cent to their road, and in no instance to charge a manufacturer or shipper at a non- competitive point a higher rate to reach his raw supplies or a market for his product than was charged on or to shipments from competitive points. In other words, the lo- cal rates were never to exceed the through rates. The result has been that while the Northern Central Railway has been practi- cally owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (the controlling interest has been owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad Com- pany for nearly forty years, and the invest- ment from purely a financial standpoint has been highly remunerative), the management of the Northern Central Railway has been entirely free in making rates to and from Baltimore independent of the Pennsylvania Railroad management. The Pennsylvania Railroad recognizes that Baltimore, from her geographical position at the head of the Chesapeake Bay, is the nearest seaport for the outlet of the whole region tributary to the Great Lakes; and for any point north of Indianapolis or St. Louis, the Pennsyl- vania system gives the shortest and most direct connections, and all traffic to or from Baltimore on the Northern Central Railway over their Pennsylvania Railroad system is a direct gain.

The competition between these two great

trunk lines has been the most beneficial in character in developing the commerce of Baltimore. While at times it has, by the introduction of rate wars, been almost sui- cidal, yet a healthy competition has existed and the city has received the benefits.

When Mr. Garrett rejected the proposi- tion of Mr. Scott he directed his energies to meet the coming struggle. He planned the extensions to Chicago and Cleveland and unsuccessfully attempted to secure Phila- delphia, Wilmington and Baltimore R. R., in this he was defeated by his rival, and the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, in their efforts to obtain an outlet to the North and East, in competition with the Pennsylvania Rail- road, built the line from Baltimore to Phila- delphia in 1880.

There was no physical connection be- tween this Philadelphia extension and the main line at Baltimore. Passengers and freight were carried in the cars by a steam ferry-boat across the harbor of Baltimore.

This transfer was tedious and expensive, and to obviate it several plans were pro- posed, one by Major Hutton, of the United States Engineer Corps, to tunnel across the harbor. Another, that of Col. Henry T. Douglas, to use an elevated structure from Camden Station along Pratt street to Can- ton in East Baltimore, where a connection would be made with the Philadelphia line. Major Hutton's plan was cheaper, while that of Colonel Douglas was probably the better on account of its being an open linie above ground. Singular to say, neither plan was adopted, but a charter was secured and the plan adopted of a belt line railway, a large portion of which was a series of tun- nels and deep cuts under the city streets and around the outskirts.

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This belt railway cost upwards of a million dollars per mile for the seven miles in length. Difficulties that were not fore- seen by the projectors were encountered by the engineer in charge of the construction. Mr. Samuel Rea, who had long been con- nected with the Pennsylvania Railroad, solved the engineering difficulties in this connection, and the line was successfully built and put into operation. One of the greatest difficulties encountered was that of ventilation and drainage. The question of ventilation was successfully overcome by the introduction of electricity as the motive power to be employed in conveying trains through the tunnels.

The honor, therefore, of being the first road to successfully use electricity in the conveying of heavy freight and passenger trains at high speed belongs to this division of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad: if we take into the calculation the magnitude of the work that was done we can begin to realize what was accomplished.

The Pennsylvania system had, at about the same period, introduced electricity as a motor in the Mt. Holly branch of their New Jersey division, while the New York & New Haven Railroad had introduced the same on their Nantasket Beach Railway, which does a very large summer excursion traffic.

The electric motors on the Belt Line at Baltimore, three in number, weigh over ninety tons each and haul successfully at a speed of twenty miles per hour as high as forty-six loaded cars over an eighty-five feet grade. These electric motors and the installation of the plant were under the di- rect supervision of Dr. Louis Duncan, of

the Johns Hopkins University, and the Gen- eral Electric Company.

If it were not for this use of electricity it would be impossible to use the Belt tunnel for passenger service on account of the dif- ficulty in securing ventilation; the freight service would also be restricted.

While we have thus elaborated very fully the advantages of the two most important lines, we must not ignore the advantages of the Western Maryland. If this line can only secure tide-water facilities with the con- nections that it has to the West and North through the Philadelphia & Reading and other connections, it will divide the business and contest actively with its two great ri- vals. At Baltimore two other important railway systems terminate, although they reach Baltimore by their steamboat con- nections, which they own, and which must not be ignored, viz: The Southern Railway, through its York River Line reaching out to New Orleans, La., and Memphis, Tenn., while the Seaboard Air Line, through its old "Bay Line" connection, reaches all im- portant points in North and South Carolina, Georgia and the Southwest, giving to the Baltimore merchants almost absolute con- trol of the commerce of that section of the country. The importance of these two southern lines to the commercial interests of Baltimore and the large area of country tributary to them in the Southern States, is hard to be computed. The management of both these systems for the past two de- cades have worked along the same lines to induce immigration into the territory in which they operate, to develop the mineral and manufacturing industries, and to have the population engaged in the culture of the soil diversify their crops and industries.

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Instead of the agriculturists now depend- ing on cotton and corn, they have engaged in the cultivation of fruits, berries and what goes under the general name of "garden truck," i. e., early vegetables for the north- ern markets, finding their distributing point through the merchants of Baltimore. This has made Baltimore pre-eminently the cheapest city in the United States as a place of residence, and probably few of the citi- zens of Baltimore, except those whose at- tention has been directed to it, realize that geographically the city of Baltimore is shorter in distance to all points west and north of Canandaigua, N. Y., than the great city of New York is. In the distribution of perishable freight, this means the control of the markets.

There are two places in the United States, Baltimore, Md., and Buffalo, N. Y., that are the ideal centres for the location of man- ufacturing plants, the collection at low rates of freight and the raw material for use and the distribution of the product of such in- dustries. For no other places in the coun- try are so located as to obtain fuel at a mini- mum cost, either anthracite or bituminous, while Buffalo has the advantage of Niagara as a power for the development of electric- ity; Baltimore has within available limits the valuable water power of the Susque- hanna, Patapsco and the great falls of the Potomac, with the additional advantages before mentioned as the cheapest point for food supplies in the United States, and a milder climate.

We have mentioned heretofore the West- ern Maryland Railroad and the large pe- cuniary interest which the municipality of Baltimore; Carroll, Washington and other

counties through which the road passes have in this company.

The advantages locally to these Mary- land communities which patronize it have proved highly beneficial in developing the resources along the line. The president of the company, Mr. John M. Hood, has thrown out feeders connecting in the north and west with the Philadelphia & Reading Railway system, and on the southwest with the Maryland and West Virginia coal and lumber regions, reached through a connec- tion with the West Virginia Central (con- monly known as Senator Davis' road).

With the latter connection there are magnificent possibilities of other connec- tions with Pittsburg, Pa .; Wheeling, W. Va., and through these great industrial centers an outlet with the railways from the North and West terminating at these places. While these western connections will give to Baltimore another trunk line, this road will then experience the same lack of ter- minal facilities at tide-water that was noted in the history of the Northern Central.

From the location of both these roads, Northern Central and Western Maryland, they must terminate on the north side of the harbor, and the terminal facilities at tide-water can be obtained only in that section of the city known as Canton.

Far back in the "thirties," the leading merchants of Baltimore, in connection with a number of New York capitalists, bought large tracts of land and river frontage on the Patapsco and formed the Canton Com- pany. Many of the men in the councils of the Canton Company were broad and lib- eral in their views, while others were just the opposite, and as one or the other have predominated in the management, so have

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terminal facilities been given and manu- facturing industries fostered or retarded.

Every encouragement, except that of municipal aid, should be given the West- ern Maryland to secure proper terminals on the harbor, and the Canton Company should second their efforts.

A curious incident in the history of the Northern Central Railroad was during the prevalence of "epizooty." This road be- ing a north and south one, suffered more extensively than any other road in the country, and for six weeks the business of this important trunk line was absolutely suspended on account of this horse sick- ness preventing the delivery of freight to and from the various railway stations, what little delivery or movement of goods was attempted being done by means of oxen.

Another singular event in the history of this road was some ten years later, when from the want of sufficient side tracks and warehouses and facilities for handling freight at Baltimore, cars had to be handled and shifted in and out from depots so often, that this expense amounted to more than the freight earnings.

This merely illustrates what nice adjust- ment must exist between the different de- partments of a railroad company to pro- duce successfully pecuniary results.

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Author: Shepherd, Henry Elliott, 1844-1929, ed. 4n Publication date: 1898 Publisher: [Uniontown? Pa.] S.B. Nelson Number of Pages: 1344

Author: Shepherd, Henry Elliott, 1844-1929, ed. 4n
Publication date: 1898
Publisher: [Uniontown? Pa.] S.B. Nelson
Number of Pages: 1344