USA > Michigan > Genesee County > History of Genesee county, Michigan. With illustrations and biographical sketches of its prominent men and pioneers > Part 11
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The project of constructing a railroad from Detroit to Pontiac was agitated in Oakland as early as the spring of 1830, and an act incorporating the " Pontiac and Detroit Railway Company" was passed by the Legislative Council of the Territory, and approved by Governor Cass, on the 31st of July in the year named, this being the first railway company ever chartered in Michigan. The corporators were John P. IFelfenstein, Gideon O. Whittemore, William F. Mosely, William Thompson, Hervey Parke, "and such other persons as shall associate for the purpose of making a good and sufficient railway from Pontiac to the city of De- troit," the stock of the company to consist of one thousand shares, at one hundred dollars each. This company, how- ever, found the project to be too heavy for the means which they could command, and their charter became void by reason of their failure to comply with its conditions.
A second company was formed, and an act granting a new charter was passed by the Territorial Legislature, and approved by the Governor, March 7, 1834. Under this act, William Draper, Daniel Le Roy, David Stanard, John- son Niles, Seneca Newberry, Elisha Beach, Benj. Phelps, Joseph Niles, Jr., and Augustus C. Stephens were appointed commissioners to receive subscriptions to the stock of " The Detroit and Pontiac Railroad Company," the amount of which was fixed at fifty thousand dollars. The work was to be commenced within two years from the passage of the act, and completed within six years, the charter to be for-
45
INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
feited by failure to comply with these conditions. The principal stockholders were Alfred Williams and Sherman Stevens, of Pontiae, who were also managers of the affairs of the company; but these gentlemen gave so much of their attention to banking, and other financial operations, that very slow progress was made in the construction of the road, and it was not until the fall of 1838 or spring of 1839 that a track (which even then was composed of wooden rails for a part of the distance) was completed as far as Royal Oak, and trains made up of cars of the most inferior description were run from Detroit to that point by horse- power. In the fall of 1839 the road was extended so that the trains ran to Birmingham, and steam was introduced as a motive-power for their propulsion. At that time (Sep- tember, 1839) we find in the Flint River Gazette the ad- vertisement of Henry J. Buckley, agent and conductor, informing the public that the trains were then running two trips a day between Detroit and Birmingham, and making connection at the latter place with a daily line of " post- coaches" for Pontiac and Flint, and a semi-weekly line for Grand River. In 1840, the company being heavily in debt and without means of payment, the road was sold at sheriff's sale, and passed into the hands of Dean Richmond, of Buffalo, and other capitalists of the State of New York. Theu followed another period of delay and discouragement, but finally, in the year 1843, the road was completed to Pontiac, which for more than ten years continued to be the western terminus, and the point of connection with the stage- lines running to Flint and Saginaw.
This road, in the early years of its existence, was made the subject of unmeasured ridicule on account of the poverty of the company, the rough and superficial manner in which the line was constructed, the poor quality of its carriages and machinery, and the exceedingly slow and irregular time made by the trains between Pontiac and Detroit. From an article which appeared in the Detroit Post a few years since, containing some reminiscences of pioncer railway travel, the following-having reference to the Pontiac line -is extracted :
" Trains would frequently stop between way stations at a signal from some farmer who wished to ask a few questions, or to take passage. An old lady denizen of a farm-house, with spectacles of a primitive manufacture placed high upon her forehead, came running ont to the train, waving her bandanna. Her signal being heeded, the train was . brought to a stop, and her inquiry of the conductor was, if a certain lawyer named Drake was on board. After re- ceiving a negative answer, a short conversation was kept up before the train started on its journey. It was no uncom- mon occurrence for the engineer, who kept his shot-gun with him, to bring down game from his engine, shut off steam, and send his fireman after the fruits of his marks- manship. The road being laid with strap rail, one of the duties of the conductor was to keep a hammer for the pur- pose of spiking down 'snake-heads' whenever they were seen from the cab of the engineer." There are, doubtless, many citizens of Genesee County who will recollect their journeyings from Pontiac to Detroit in those days, and rec- ognize the above as a truthful description.
Some time after the completion of the line to Pontiac it
was leased to Gurdon Williams for a period of ten years, at a graduated annual rental, averaging about ten thousand dollars a year ; but the lease was purchased or relinquished before its expiration, and the road came into the possession of a company, of which II. N. Walker, Esq., was made the president. Under his administration a sufficient amount of money was raised on the bonds of the road to relay the track and place it in a good condition for traffic.
For the purpose of forming a railroad connection between the western terminus of the Detroit and Pontiae road and Lake Michigan at or near the mouth of Grand River, and thence, by steamers with Milwaukee, the Oakland and Ot- tawa Railroad Company was formed and incorporated by act of Legislature approved April 3, 1848. The persons appointed as commissioners to receive subscriptions to the capital stock (which was fixed at two million five hun- dred thousand dollars) were Gurdon Williams, Edward A. Brush, II. C. Thurber, Alfred Williams, Bowman W. Dennis, John Hamilton, C. P. Bush, W. A. Richmond, and Charles Shepard. The company was empowered by the act " to construct a railroad with a double or single track from the village of Pontiac, in the county of' Oakland, to Lake Michigan, in the county of Ottawa, passing through the most desirable and eligible route, by the way of Fen- tonville," and was required to begin its construction within five years, and to complete it within fifteen years, from the passage of the act.
Work was commenced on this line in the year 1852, and in the following year HI. N. Walker (who was a leading spirit in this, as well as in the Pontiac road) purchased in England twenty-six hundred tons of iron, which was esti- mated to be sufficient to lay the track through to Fenton- ville. But further delays intervened, and it was not until four years after the commencement of work upon the line that the first locomotive rolled over the completed track into Genesee County.
On the 13th of February, 1855, the Oakland and Ottawa and the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad interests were consol- idated, under the name of " the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway." During the same year the road was completed from Pontiac to Holly, and the company's agents in Europe negotiated a loan of one and a quarter millions of dollars, by the aid of which the work was pushed forward with vigor, and the road finished to Fentonville in 1856. The county now, for the first time, enjoyed the advantage of a railroad line within her own borders, but the expected branch from Fentonville to Flint was never built, and the people of the city and the northern parts of the county had still to depend on the stage-lines connecting with the railway.
In September, 1857, the railroad was completed to Ionia, and in one year from that time it was opened to Grand Haven.
In April, 1860, the forcelosure of the mortgage by the bondholders placed the road in the hands of a receiver, -the Hon. C. J. Brydges. Since that time its affairs have gradually become more prosperous, and it now ranks with the important railway lines of the State. The stations on this road within the county of Genesce are Fenton Linden, and Gaines.
46
HISTORY OF GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
FLINT AND PÈRE MARQUETTE RAILWAY.
The second line which was completed and put in opera- tion in Genesee, and the first to enter the city of Flint, was the Flint and Pere Marquette Railway. The company pro- posing the construction of this road was organized at Flint on the 21st of January, 1857, under the provisions of the general railroad law of 1855. The capital stock of the company was fixed at five million five hundred thousand dollars, to be divided into shares of fifty dollars each, the corporation to continue for the period of five hundred years. The formation of the company was declared, in the articles of association, to be " for the purpose of construct- ing, operating, and maintaining a railroad within the State. . . . The said railway is to be constructed from the city of Flint, county of Genesee, passing northerly and westerly through the counties of Genesce, Saginaw, Midland, Glad- win, Clare, Osceola, Lake, and Mason, to Pere Marquette [now Ludington], on Lake Michigan, a distance of one hundred and seventy miles, as nearly as we can now deter- mine, which is to be the length of said railway."
The names of the original subscribers to the stock, and who were also signers of the articles of association, were as follows: George M. Dewey, Benjamin Pearson, Alvin T. Crosman, Daniel D. Dewey, Josiah Pratt, Theodore G. Mills, C. Roosevelt, Artemas Thayer, II. W. Wood, James IIenderson, R. D. Lamond, Alexander McFarlan, E. N. Pettee, E. II. McQuigg, Charles B Higgins, R. Bishop, E. F. Frary, M. Miles, Giles Bishop, A. B. Witherbee, George W. Fish, II. C. Walker, H. M. Henderson, T. C. Meigs, Chauncey K. Williams, Charles E. Dewey, William Patterson, G. R. Cummings.
The first board of directors of the corporation were : President, George M. Dewey ; Henry M. Henderson, Ben- jamin Pearson, Artemas Thayer, Robert D. Lamond, Cor- nelius Roosevelt, William Patterson, Alvin T. Crosman, Josiah Pratt, all of Flint.
The persons who were appointed commissioners to re- ceive subscriptions to the capital stock were Benjamin Pearson, Alviu T. Crosman, and Daniel D. Dewey, and to these the names of Robert D. Lamond and Josiah Pratt were afterwards added.
In 1856 the Congress of the United States had passed an act (approved June 3d, in that year) providing "that there be, and hereby is, granted to the State of Michigan- to aid in the construction of railroads from Little Bay de Noquet to Marquette, and thence to Ontonagon, and from the two last-named places to the Wisconsin State line ; also from Amboy, by Hillsdale and Lansing, and from Grand Rapids to some point on or near Traverse Bay ; also from Grand Haven and Pere Marquette to Flint, and thence to Port Huron-every alternate section of land, designated by odd numbers, for six sections in width, ou each side of each of said roads." Where such odd-num- bered sections had already been sold by the United States, or pre-empted, then the deficiency to be made good by seleetions of a like number of alternate sections of land owned by the government outside of the six tiers of sec- tions ; but in no case to be farther than fifteen miles from the lines of the proposed roads.
By an act of the Legislature of Michigan, approved
Feb. 14, 1857, the State accepted the grant of lands from the United States, with the terms and conditions imposed ; and by the same act the title to that portion of the lands intended by Congress to be given in aid of the construction of the Flint and Pere Marquette line was vested in that company, under certain conditions, among which were these : that the proceeds of the lands were to be exclu- sively applied in the construction of the road, and to no other purposes whatsoever; that the road, when completed, should, "in all respects and all its parts, be a first-class railroad, and the rail thereof be the 'T' or continuous rail;" also that "after the completion of twenty miles of its railroad, and after the Governor shall have certified to the Secretary of the Interior that such twenty continuous miles of its road are so completed, then, and not before, said company may sell sixty sections of land included within any continuous twenty miles of its line of road ; and, in like manner, upon the completion of each other twenty continuous miles, it may sell other sixty sections ; and so on, from time to time, until the whole of its road is completed ; and after the full and final completion of the entire length of its road, and the acceptance of the same by the board of control* herein provided, then the com- pany may sell the remainder of the lands hereby invested in accordance with the act of Congress, and not before."
The company was also required by the act to survey and locate its road on or before the first day of the (then) next December, and to complete and put in good running order at least twenty continuous miles of road during each year from and after that time, and to finish the entire. length of the road within seven years from the 15th day of November, 1857.
The lands thus donated to the company amounted to six hundred and sixty-two thousand four hundred acres, or one hundred and twenty sections for each twenty-mile section of road ; so that under the above condition they were pro- hihited from selling more than one-half their lands until the whole line should be completed and accepted by the board of control. But in February, 1859, the Legislature passed an act amending the above, by striking out the word " sixty," and inserting in its place the words " one hundred and twenty ;" thus authorizing the company, upon the com- pletion of each twenty-mile section of road, to sell the entire amount of lands dne upon such completed section. An amendatory act was also passed extending the time for the completion of the first twenty miles from Dec. 1, 1858, . to Dec. 1, 1859.
The land-grant having been duly accepted by the com- pany on the terms and conditions imposed by the Legisla- ture, and local subscriptions to the stock having been secured to the amount required by law, the survey was commenced under direction of George T. Clark, chief engineer of the road, at the opening of the spring of 1857, and was pushed so vigorously that the location of the route was made and accepted by the board of directors in the following August. This location of the route differed materially from that originally contemplated, as it passed
‹ The board of control constituted by this act consisted of tho Governor of the State (ex officio) and six commissioners, to be nomi- nated by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate.
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INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS.
entirely to the south of the county of Gladwin, but traversed Isabella and Mecosta, which were not touched by the preliminary survey. Subsequently the route was again changed so as to pass wholly to the north of these two counties.
On account of the financial depression of 1857 nothing was done towards the construction of the road during that year, but in the fall of 1858 the contractors, Messrs. Paul Farwell & Co., commenced work near Bridgeport Centre, and at the close of the year one-third of the line between Flint and Saginaw had been cleared, and about three miles graded ready for ironing.
On the 31st of March, 1859, resolutions were adopted authorizing the issue of the bonds of the company to the aggregate amount of five million five hundred thousand dol- lars, " for the purpose of raising funds from time to time for the construction and completion of the railway of this company from Pere Marquette to Flint ;" the said bonds to be secured by a trust deed to Myron II. Clark and Shep- herd Knapp, of New York, and James M. Edmunds, of Detroit, as trustees of the property of the company, includ- ing their interest, actual and prospective, in five hundred and fifty thousand acres of the lands granted by Congress. The deed was executed by the president and secretary on behalf of the company, at the date above named. Under this mortgage, successive issues of the company's construc- tion bonds were made on the several sectious as the work progressed ; the first issue being made in April, 1860.
In October, 1859, thirteen miles of the road-bed was finished, and the remainder of the line between Flint and Saginaw was nearly ready for the iron. Eight miles of the completed grade south from East Saginaw had been laid with iron from the Wyandotte Rolling-Mills, and on this portion a construction-train had been put in operation. From this time until the following July operations were suspended. The time had expired ( December 1st ) in which the first twenty-mile section was to be completed by the con- ditions of the aet which conferred the lands, and apprehen- sions were felt that a forfeiture would be declared by the State. But on assurances from the Governor and other influential officers and citizens of the State that no advan- tage would be taken of the company's misfortune, if the enterprise was continued and prosecuted in good faith, the contractors were induced to resume operations in July, 1860, as above mentioned, though the work procceded but slowly.
The completed track was extended southward into Genc- see County, and reached Pine Run during 1861. On the 20th of January, 1862, the road was regularly opened for traffic to Mount Morris, where connection was made with its trains by the stages of Boss, Burrell & Co. At this time the announcement was made that the company had a sufficient amount of iron on hand to complete the line from this point to its southern terminus.
The formal opening of the finished line from Saginaw to Flint was celebrated on Monday, Dec. 8, 1862, and was the occasion of unmeasured rejoicing in the city, terminating in an entertainment at the Carlton House in honor of the auspicious event.
The officers of the company at that time (elected Dec. 5,
1862) were: Directors-Eber B. Ward, of Detroit, Presi- dent ; Charles A. Trowbridge, Henry H. Fish, Palmer V. Kellogg, of Utica, N. Y. ; llenry Hobbs, Charles B. Mott, East Saginaw ; Benjamin Pierson, Alfred J. Boss, Flint ; Morgan L. Drake, of Pontiac ; Treasurer, Wu. II. Bron- son ; Secretary, Morgan L. Drake.
THE FLINT AND HOLLY LINK IN THE FLINT AND PÈRE MARQUETTE LINE.
From the tique when the first train ran through to Pon- tiae, projects had been in contemplation to extend the line from that village to Flint, and eventually to make eounce- tion with Saginaw, either over the road proposed to be built by the Saginaw and Genesee Railroad Company (before mentioned as having been incorporated in 1837) or by other means ; and, in 1846, the Legislature passed " an act (approved May 15th) to incorporate the Pontiac and Genc- see Railroad Company," with a capital stock of five hundred thousand dollars, and the privilege of increasing it to one million dollars ; the charter commissioners appointed to re- ecive subscriptions to the stock being Ilorace C. Thurber, Sherman Stevens, Frederick A. Williams, Grant Decker, Charles C. Ilascall, Elkanah Parker, Robert Le Roy, Boor- man Dennis, Wm. Axford, Enos Goodrich, Oliver Pahuer, Gould Davison, and Benjamin Pearson. The company was authorized and empowered " to construct a railroad, with double or single track, from Pontiae, in the county of Oak- land, running northwesterly through the village of Fenton- ville, to the village of Flint, in the county of Genesee, with a branch of the same running to some suitable point in the county of Shiawassee ; also a branch of the same from the village of Genesee [Flint ?] to Saginaw City, in the county of Saginaw ;" the road to be commenced within three years, and to be completed in ten years, from the passage of the act, under penalty of forfeiture of charter. This was amended March 30, 1848, by extending the time for com- meneement of work to five years, and the time for comple- tion of road to fifteen years, and by authorizing an increase of capital to one million five hundred thousand dollars ; also, by the addition of a clause providing that " in case any annual meeting of the stockholders of said company shall not be, or shall not have been holden, the charter of said company shall not thereby be forfeited."
The Genesee and Oakland Railroad Company was incor- porated by act approved April 3, 1848. Henry M. Heu- derson, Addison Stewart, Jas. B. Walker, Enos Goodrich, Jas, Kipp, Elijah B. Clark, Horace C. Thurber, and John S. Goodrich were appointed commissioners to receive sub- scriptions to the stock, which was authorized to the amount of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The company was empowered to construct a railroad, with double or single track, from Pontiac to Flint, " passing through the most desirable and eligible route, through the counties of Oak- land and Genesce," and was required to commence the con- struction of its road within five years, and to finish it in ten years, from the passage of the act of incorporation.
Neither the " Pontiac and Genesee," nor the " Genesee and Oakland" companies ever made any progress worthy of notice towards the accomplishment of the objects for which they were incorporated. " An act to authorize the Flint
48
HISTORY OF GENESEE COUNTY, MICHIGAN.
and Pere Marquette Railway Company to purchase the rights and franchises of the Genesee and Oakland Railroad Company" was passed by the Legislature, and approved Feb. 15, 1859, and by the terms of the same aet the latter company was also authorized to purchase the rights and franchises of the former; and it was further provided that " when said two companies are consolidated, in accordance with the provisions of this act, they may assume to them- selves the name of ' The Michigan and Northwestern Rail- way Company ;'" this consolidation arrangement to become valid and operative " when accepted by said companies, by a vote of their respective boards of directors." To what extent action was taken by the two companies under the authority conferred by this act does not clearly appear, but it is certain that no results were attained beyond a survey of the route between Flint and Fentonville, commenced Sept. 13, 1860, under the direction and superintendenee of George T. Clark, chief engineer of the Flint and Père Mar- quette road.
But the project to construct the lacking railway link, south from Flint to the Detroit and Milwaukee road, was never abandoned, and was finally taken up by parties who were powerful, practical, and wealthy enough to carry it to completion on their own means, without the issuance of bonds, or the asking of municipal or other outside aid. The leader in this project was the Hon. Henry II. Crapo (afterwards Governor of Michigan), with whom were asso- eiated a number of heavy capitalists of New Bedford, Mass., and several gentlemen of means in Genesee County. Im- mediately after the completion of the Pere Marquette road from East Saginaw to Flint, these gentlemen moved ener- getically in the matter, and about the commencement of the year 1863 became incorporated under the general railroad law as the " Flint and Holly Railroad Company." The board of directors (which also represented the principal stockholders) of this company were Henry II. Crapo, of Flint, president ; Oliver Prescott, John R. Thornton, and Edward S. Mandell, of New Bedford, Mass .; Levi Walker and J. B. Walker, of Flint ; David Smith, of Fentonville. The commissioners to open the books for subscriptions to the stock of the company, under the requirement of the law, were Oliver Prescott, Wm. W. Crapo, New Bedford ; Henry II. Crapo, H. W. Wood, Flint ; David Smith, Fen- tonville.
At the ineeption of the enterprise, it was the general belief of the public (though perhaps not of the projectors) that the road to be built from Flint would interseet the Detroit and Milwaukee road at Fentonville. But when a more easterly survey was made, to interseet that road at Holly, in Oakland County, a comparison of the two routes showed that the latter, although a trifle longer, offered advantages more than sufficient to compensate for the slightly greater distance to be built, and it would, more- over, strike the northern terminus of the railway line which, it was evident, must soon be built from Monroe, on Lake Eric, to the Detroit and Milwaukee road, at Ilolly. This route was, consequently, the one adopted.
The contract for grading the road was let to Messrs. Walton and Wright, of Detroit, who commenced operations upon the line in the autumn of 1863. The work was
pushed with a vigor which has seldom been equaled in the history of railroad construction, and which had not been expected, even from the practical and energetic business men who stood at the head of the enterprise. So rapid was the progress made that the road was completed and opened to Holly-seventeen miles-on the 1st of Novem- ber, 1864, the first trains being run by the company's new locomotive, " City of Flint." And now, for the first time, Flint and the central and northern portions of Genesee County had a railway outlet to the commercial emporium of the State. Before the opening of this road the travel between Flint and Holly Station had been accommo- dated by the stage-line of Boss, Burrell & Co., which was well equipped, admirably conducted, and very largely pa- tronized, carrying, on an average, as many as one hundred and fifty passengers each way (a total of three hundred passages) daily between these points; and it is recollected by old residents of Flint that in a single day twenty-seven of' these coaches delivered their loads of passengers at the Irving House in that city for dinner. It is also mentioned as a somewhat singular circumstance that the senior propri- etor of the line, Hon. Alfred J. Boss, died within two or three days of the time when his stages made their last trip.
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