History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 26

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302

USA > Ohio > Crawford County > History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens > Part 26

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As to what per cent of the increase in the lands and products and prosperity of the county is due to railroads can not be figured with any degree of exactness, but statistics show that in 1850 Galion was a straggling vil- lage of five to six hundred people, and the C., C. & C. and the B. & I. were built, and in ten years she trebled her population to 1,967, an increase from 300 to 400 per cent; then the Atlantic & Lake Erie came, and the next ten years gave her another increase to 3.523, or 60 per cent, and twenty-five years after her first railroad, from a country village of no im- portance she had become one of the thriving and prosperous cities of the state with over five thousand population.

In 1850 Crestline was a forest, with no resi- dents beyond a farmer or two and their fam- ilies; three railroads came, and the town was laid out, and in 1860 it had a population of 1,487, and has had an increase every decade since, and in 1910 it was a prosperous town of 3,807 people.

In 1850 Bucyrus had a population of 1,365; she secured a railroad, and by 1860 her popu-

lation increased 60 per cent to 2,180; a steady growth followed and in 1880 her population was 3,380. Then came the T. & O. C., and by 1890 her population had jumped to 5,974 or an increase of 76 per cent.

In 1860 Crawford county had three railroads the C., C and C. and the B. & I. in the south- eastern part of the county, with eight and a half miles of track, and the P. Ft. W. & C. through the county from east to west, about twenty and a half. miles, making thirty miles of railroad in the county. In 1864 the Belle- fontaine & Indiana was consolidated with the Indianapolis, Pittsburg and Cleveland Rail- road, forming the Bellefontaine Railway Com- pany, and in 1868 this was consolidated with the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and In- dianapolis Company, which in 1889 took the name of the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railway Company, popularly known as the "Big Four." When the Ohio and Penn- sylvania was building they decided to go no further than Crestline, providing the Ohio and Indiana would commence their road at that point, and provided the Bellefontaine and Indiana would commence at the same place. This proposition was accepted, and Crestline was for some years the connecting point of the B. & I. with the P. Ft. W. & C. road, but after the B. & I. came under the control of the C. C. & C., Galion became the eastern terminus of the B. & I. trains.

The next railroad in the county was the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio. A char- ter was granted to the Franklin & Warren Railroad Company March 10, 1851, but noth- ing was done, and in 1855 the name was changed to the Atlantic & Great Western Rail- way. In 1863 the building of the road had reached Galion, and it was completed to Day- ton in 1864. It was popularly known as the "Broad Gauge" road, the rails being six feet apart, a belief prevailing that with a wider track, heavier equipment could be used, and greater speed and comfort obtained. The idea was a failure. The expense of construction was lieavier, the cost of rolling stock greater, and nothing gained in speed or comfort. Along nearly the entire track a third rail was added to accommodate the transfer of cars from a standard gauge to their line. At other times cars were shifted to other trucks. In the

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spring of 1880, the road was sold to the Ohio and Pennsylvania Company, and the new own- ers decided to change the entire road to stan- dard gauge. It was doing a tremendous busi- ness, both in passengers and freight, with hun- dreds of trains daily from one end of the line to the other, and the change was made on June 22, 1880. Every detail had been seen to, and every possible arrangement made, and at a given signal the work was commenced all along the entire line, and in less than six hours the entire road was changed to standard gauge without the discontinuance of a train, and the delay of only a few, one of the greatest feats ever accomplished in railroad work. The road is now the New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio, a part of the Erie system; it has the shortest mileage of any road in the county, Galion be- ing its only station in Crawford, but the build- ing is the handsomest railroad station in the county. On this road Galion was the end of a division, and large shops were erected here employing several hundred men; the Big Four also had shops, and the town being a division point on the A. & G. W. and the junction point of the Indianapolis division with the "Three C's," many crews had their home here, and Galion was one of the prominent railroad centers of the state, and became the metropolis of the county.

In 1850 a charter had been granted for building a road from Bucyrus to Toledo, the project being engineered by Bucyrus people. The eastern part of the county had an outlet with the C. C. & C. road nearing completion, and the western part also needed an outlet to the Lake, and with the Ohio and Pennsylvania reaching Bucyrus, its citizens could well look forward to the little village becoming a great business center. Before the project had gotten fairly under way, the Ohio and Pennsylvania had been compelled to abandon for the present the building of their line further west than Crestline. This was a severe blow to the hopes of Bucyrus as the east and west road was more important than anything else, so all considera- tion of the Bucyrus and Toledo road was re- luctantly abandoned, and the people of Bucy- rus took upon themselves the herculean task of building the road from Crestline to Ft. Wayne. Here are the men to whom the char- ter was granted on March 20, 1850, to build

131 miles of railroad: Robert Lee and John Frantz of Leesville, John Anderson, George Lauck, Willis Merriman, Josiah S. Plants, John J. Bowman, George Quinby, John Sims, John A. Gormly, Z. Rowse, Aaron Carey and C. Widman of Bucyrus; David Ayres, Robert McKelly, Henry Peters of Upper Sandusky. In four years the road was built.

Fifteen years passed and the necessity of a railroad from the coal fields in southeastern Ohio to the Lake at Toledo was apparent, and the Atlantic and Lake Erie was incorporated to start at Pomeroy on the Ohio river, through the coal fields of Athens and Perry counties, then up to Bucyrus and Toledo. From Bucy- rus to Toledo it was the original road pro- posed in 1850, and Bucyrus took an active interest in the road from the start, Daniel W. Swigart being president of the new road and James B. Gormly, treasurer, both Bucyrus men. Meetings were held in various towns along the line, and in 1869 the preliminary sur- vey was made. In February, 1872, a contract was made with Michael Moran and W. V. and A. M. McCracken of Bucyrus, to grade the road from Bucyrus to Toledo, and in July another contract was made with B. B. Mc- Donald & Co., of Bucyrus, to lay the rails on two sections from Bucyrus north. The same year, 1872, the contract was made for the bridge over the Sandusky at Bucyrus, together with the long trestle of nearly half a mile, necessary to cross the stream. In 1873 the panic came on, and it was impossible to get capital interested in any investment, but the projectors of the road at Bucyrus persevered. Bucyrus had invested over $100,000 in the road; other sections had given freely. In September, 1875, the condition of the road was at its worst, and a meeting was held at Bucyrus to devise ways and means to save what had already been invested and to com- plete the road. The president made a report at that meeting stating that a proposition had been made to sell a portion of it, which would be detrimental to the interests of Crawford, Wyandot and other counties. This proposi- tion had been temporarily defeated by the in- fluence of the friends of Bucyrus on the board of directors. But the road was in debt so heavily that unless something was done im- mediately the Atlantic & Lake Erie must be

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abandoned. The proposition was that if $450,000 could be raised, the more pressing obligations could be met and the road com- pleted. This sum was divided along the line, and $50,000 assigned to Crawford county. On top of the sum already subscribed, the task was a difficult one, but the amount was raised. Construction went ahead slowly, and every attempt made to reduce expenses to the mini- mum. The Bucyrus Foundry and Machine Company went into the car business, and built fifteen cars to be used in the construction work; second-hand locomotives were pur- chased and put to use in the building of the road, and little by little the work progressed, and finally in the summer of 1880 the first train came to Bucyrus. It was less than a generation since Bucyrus had built the Ohio and Indiana road, and now the descendants of the men who had built that first road, had overcome all difficulties, and secured another road for Bucyrus. The president of the At- lantic & Lake Erie was Daniel W. Swigart, a son-in-law of George W. Sweney, one of the active workers for the Ohio and Indiana; the secretary and treasurer was James B. Gormly, whose father John A. Gormly, was treasurer of the Ohio and Indiana. Among others con- nected with the road were Col. W. C. Lemert, a grandson by marriage of Samuel Norton, one of the heavy subscribers to the Ohio and Indiana. Horace and William Rowse, sons of Zalmon Rowse, a director of the Ohio and Indiana; W. V., A. M. and Charles Mc- Cracken, sons of James McCracken, another active supporter of the Ohio and Indiana; Joseph N. Biddle, a son-in-law of Robert W. Musgrave, another of the men active in se- curing the Ohio and Indiana; Thomas C. Hall, who had been one of the builders of the Ohio and Indiana, and now with his son Joseph E. Hall, had similar contracts for construction work on the Atlantic and Lake Erie.

After the road was completed, the influ- ence of Bucyrus, and the work the people of that town had done for the road, secured a favorable proposition for the location of the shops at Bucyrus, but Bucyrus capital was already in the road up to its limit, so a friendly legislature was appealed to and D. W. Swigart, James B. Gormly, W. C. Lemert, Dr. C. Ful- ton, S. R. Harris and George W. Teel secured

the passage of an act allowing the town by a vote of the people to bond itself for $50,000 to build railroad shops. The proposition car- ried almost unanimously and the shops were secured, and for more than thirty years they have given employment to hundreds of men with a large monthly pay roll that has added materially to the prosperity of Bucyrus, and that village which in 1880 had a population of 3,348, by the census of 1890 had taken its po- sition as one of the cities of the state with a population of 5,974, an increase of 78 per cent in ten years. When the road was re- organized in 1878 the name was changed to the Ohio Central, and it was sold at that time for $106,668. Later a western division was built to take care of the increasing traffic from the coal fields to the Lake. The road is today a part of the Lake Shore system, and in 191I required additional room for its shops and trackage, and the only way to secure it was from the Fair Ground which adjoined the railroad property on the south. The Fair Ground could not spare the land, so the citi- zens promptly formed a company, bought the entire thirty acres belonging to the Fair Asso- ciation at $1,000 an acre, and sold the Lake Shore the eight acres they wanted at $400 an acre and the remainder of the grounds will be laid out as an addition to Bucyrus. The Fair Association immediately purchased a new site just across the road of sixty acres at $300 an acre.

In 1867 the Mansfield, Coldwater and Lake Michigan railroad was projected, to start at Toledo, then run to Tiffin, and through Ly- kins and Sulphur Springs to Crestline and Mansfield. The people in the central and northeastern part of the county took active measures to secure the road. Both New Washington and Sulphur Springs subscribed liberally, and so enthusiastic were the people in and around Sulphur Springs that their sub- scriptions amounted to $35,000. A prelimin- ary survey was made, which located the road about half a mile east of Sulphur Springs, and an eastern suburb of that village was laid out where the station was to be, on land owned by George W. Teel, and several houses were built. The people of Crestline, however, took very little interest in the road, which was fatal to the Sulphur Springs route. New Washing-

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ton then took up the matter with the Toledo and Mansfield people, and a new survey was made farther north, from Tiffin through Bloomville to New Washington and Mans- field. The citizens of New Washington and southern Auburn subscribed $30,000 for the new road and so great was the interest in that section, that these subscriptions were prac- tically all made in sums ranging from $50 to $250, the stock being in $50 shares. There were two hundred men in the two townships of Cranberry and Auburn who took stock in the road. Work was commenced in the spring of 1872, and by October the road was in operation from Toledo to New Washington, and on May 1, 1873, regular trains were run- ning over the line. In Auburn township the road passed about half a mile north of the village of DeKalb, and the same distance south of a little settlement called Mechanicsburg, and at this point a station was placed called DeKalb, and in 1874 a town was laid out around the station which was called Tiro, after the postoffice two miles north, which was trans- ferred to the station, and in 1882 the DeKalb postoffice, which had been in existence half a century, was discontinued, being consolidated with the Tiro office, and the railroad dropped the name of DeKalb and called the station Tiro.

About the time of the building of the Mansfield & Coldwater road the people of Delphos and Carey had constructed a narrow gauge road between those two towns. It was a purely local affair, built by the people of Putnam and Hancock counties residing in the little towns along the line and gave them an outlet to the markets. Later it was taken over by some capitalists, among them W. V. Mc- Cracken of Bucyrus, and was changed to a standard gauge road, and extended eastward from Carey to Akron, passing through Craw- ford in the center of the northern tier of townships, Texas, Lykins, Chatfield, Cranberry and Auburn, and when completed it was almost an air line, 165 miles in length, known as the Pittsburg, Akron and Western. In the construction of the road no attention was paid to the little towns. From the time it entered the county in Texas township it fol- lowed a half section line due east for fourteen

miles to New Washington, passing half a mile south of the village of Lykins, and a quarter of a mile north of Chatfield. At New Wash- ington it took an air line northwest, going north of the little village of Waynesburg. Eastern capitalists had secured the road with the intention of making it the most direct and quickest route between Pittsburg and Chicago, but the grand plans never materialized and it is today a purely local road, but a great con- venience to the people along the route. It es- tablished a station in Texas township, which was named Plankton, and another in Northern Auburn, which is named North Auburn after the township. The road is now the Northern Ohio.

It was Feb. 8, 1832, that the legislature of Ohio passed an act incorporating the Dela- ware, Marion and Sandusky Railroad, and among the incorporators were E. B. Merri- man, Zalmon Rowse and Henry St. John. It was a time when there was a craze for rail- road building all over the state, and, like doz- ens of other roads incorporated at that time, nothing came of it. Nearly sixty years passed and all the original projectors had long since moldered into dust when on April 12, 1889, practically the same road was again incorpo- rated as the Columbus, Shawnee and Hocking. By the close of the year twelve miles of the road had been built from Sandusky to Belle- vue, and this twelve miles on the right of way where fifty years previous the Mad River road had run its cars on scrap iron rails. The route had been abandoned by the Mad River road in the fifties for a new route from Sandusky to Clyde. But the northern twelve miles of the C. S. and H. (the Short Line) is the roadbed where first ran the first cars on the first real railroad in the state of Ohio.

The work on the C. S. and H. was pushed rapidly from both ends of the line, and it was on Sunday, Dec. 4, 1892, at 12:15 noon, that the last connecting rail was laid that joined the lines. This rail was at the north end of the trestle in Bucyrus. Although the road was completed as far as track-laying was con- cerned, there was still much to be done in the way of preparing the road bed, and securing the rolling stock, and it was on Monday, April 17, 1893, that the first regular trains began

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running on the road, and the people turned out all along the line with demonstrations and rejoicings.

This was the last railroad built in Crawford county, with its well ballasted track, heavy steel rails, monster locomotives, and hand- somely furnished, easily riding cars. Every- thing was new and modern and presented the strongest contrast to the track and equipment of the pioneer days of railroading. It was Monday, April 17, the train went through, rep- resentative of the highest type of railroad de- velopment, and three days later, on April 20th, the contrast came. A great exposition was to be opened at Chicago (one year late) to com- memorate the discovery of America by Colum- bus, 401 years previous, and the first loco- motive ever brought to America was to pass through Bucyrus. Over a thousand school children and double that number of citizens were at the station, when the little locomotive, the "John Bull," hardly larger than a traction engine, pulling its two small cars, came round the bend, puffing and blowing as if it appre- ciated the full measure of its responsibility. It came up to the station very slowly, through two dense ranks of people, who crowded both sides of the track, leaving only room for it to pass. It looked small and it looked old, and even the veteran pioneers present had be- come so accustomed to the modern trains that they too were astonished at the smallness and crudeness of the engine and coaches, that in their early day they had regarded as a won- der and a marvel in the science of transporta- tion .*

*In 1876, this little engine, the "John Bull," was dis- covered among the old junk in the Pennsylvania shops ; it was repaired and exhibited at the Centennial Expo- sition at Philadelphia, and later presented to the United States government. Prior to 1830 experiments had been made in England with more or less success with locomotives to be propelled by steam. In 1830, Robert L. Stevens, the founder of the Camden & Amboy road, saw the "Rocket" in England, the invention of George Stevenson, and he ordered one built for shipment to this country. The engine was built, shipped to America, and named the "John Bull." It arrived in Philadelphia in August, 1831. When it was finally put together it was placed on a track, specially built for its trial; the boiler was filled with water from a hogshead; a fire of pine wood was lighted in the furnace, and at the indi- cation of thirty pounds of steam pressure, the young engineer named Dripps, nervous with excitement, opened the throttle, and the first locomotive in America moved over the rails. One of the little old cars had been purchased in 1868 by a farmer living near South

When the train stopped, men and boys and women and girls crowded around the little cars, and went inside, finding them so low that a tall man must stoop. Common wooden seats ran along the sides; there were little windows, placed there only to give light, so high that one must stand up or kneel upon the seat to look out. These windows could not be opened; there were no lights for after night, so when the shades of evening fell, the passen- gers rode in darkness. The engine weighed ten tons, and was the same as when it first ran in America, except that it had been changed from wood to coal fuel. The tender had a capacity of about a ton of coal, and the water tank about 1500 gallons of water. The water was sufficient for thirty miles, but the coal would last for ninety miles. The boiler was 13 feet long, and 3 feet 6 inches in diameter. The cylinders were 9 by 20 inches. There were two drive wheels on each side, 4 ft. 6 in. in diameter, with cast iron hubs and wooden felloes. On top of the tender at the rear was a contrivance resembling a poke bonnet; it was called the "gig top," and here sat the for- ward brakeman on the lookout for approach- ing trains, and also to signal the rear brake- man should occasion require. He worked the brakes on the locomotive and tender by means of a lever which extended up between his knees. There was no bell cord or gong to the locomo- tive and all communication between the brake- man and engineer was by word of mouth. He kept by him a few soft clods which carefully aimed, attracted the attention of the engineer if hasty communication was necessary.

Following the little train was one of mod- ern construction. The locomotive, weighing

Amboy, the Camden and Amboy road having thrown it into discard. The farmer removed it to his place and used it as a chicken-coop. It honsed the chickens until a representative of the Pennsylvania road looking for curiosities, ran across it, and entered into negotia- tions for its purchase. The thrifty farmer discovered that lapse of time had endowed his hen-coop with an nnexpected value, and he demanded and received a price which represented more than compound interest on his original purchase, and although the hens were left homeless, the farmer looked out for himself by build- ing a new residence with all modern improvements from the proceeds of his sale. The second car had not so romantic a history. It was found years previously in a lumber yard in a New Jersey town, and a far- sighted Pennsylvania official had secured it as a relic, believing the day might come when it would have a value as a curiosity.

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160,000 pounds, easily drew its long line of parlor cars and sleepers, and diner, all fitted with every modern improvement and filled with the officers and guests of the Pennsyl- vania company. From Philadelphia to Chi- cago this finest locomotive of modern con -. struction restrained its power, followed its wheezing ancestor, decrepit with age, as if it were exercising a fatherly and protecting care over him which it no doubt was.

At Bucyrus, the train was joined by repre- sentatives of the Journal and Telegraph, the Forum and the Courier. The Journal sent their veteran editor, John Hopley, who in 1842, had come as far west as Pittsburg on just such a train, and with him the youngest member of the firm, J. W. Hopley, as repre- sentatives of the past and the present. They rode in one of the ancient coaches as far as Upper Sandusky, jarred and jolted in the springless car, kneeling on the seat occasion- ally to glance from the window, and when Upper Sandusky was reached both youth and age preferred comfort to novelty, and as far as they were concerned the little train, once the pride of the road, and once the acme of perfection in traveling, was left to jog on its slow way alone, while they found all the com- forts of travel in the palatial cars of the mod- ern train. The speed of both trains was of course governed by the motive power of the John Bull and it took nine hours to go from Bucyrus to Ft. Wayne, being a trifle over 14 miles an hour.

On Nov. 12, 1891, the commissioners of the county granted a franchise for the building of an electric road from Galion to Bucyrus, to be known as the Suburban Electric Railway Company. The financial depression of 1893 put a stop to all improvement investments, but later the matter was again taken up, and the work of building commenced at Galion, and gradually extending to Bucyrus. On Aug. 26, 1899, a regular train service was started from Galion as far as the T. & O. C. tracks at Bu- cyrus, and on September II, the track had been completed to the Public Square, and there was a half-hourly service between the county

seat and the metropolis of the county. Al- though the two cities had a combined popula- tion of about 14,000 the business did not jus- tify so frequent a service and it was soon re- duced to hourly trains. Later the road was extended to Crestline, and the following year to Mansfield, and it became the Cleveland, Southwestern and Columbus Railway Com- pany, with through trains from Cleveland to Bucyrus. The headquarters of the motive power and the car barns are at Galion.

In 1894 an electric road was projected from Columbus to Cleveland, by way of Delaware, Marion and Galion. The latter city took little interest in the road so Bucyrus took the matter up, and Frank L. Hopley had the builder of the road, John G. Webb, of Springfield, visit Bucyrus, and after a consultation with J. B. Gormly, W. C. Lemert, George Dennenwirth and others, the road was incorporated as the Columbus, Marion and Bucyrus Electric Rail- way, and on Aug. 5, 1905, James B. Gormly was elected one of the directors of the new road. Owing to the high prices at which land was held much time was consumed in securing a right of way, but the Marion road was finally decided upon, and the work of construction commenced. On Monday, Aug. 10, 1908, reg- ular trains started from the south end of Pop- lar street, and the first through passenger to Columbus was County Treasurer George W. Miller, who took the first car to make his set- tlement with the state treasurer. There was difficulty over the route through Bucyrus, but the matter was finally settled, and on Oct. 27, the track laying reached the Public Square, E. B. Monnett and Charles Roberts driving the last spikes which made the connecting link at Bucyrus of an electric line from Cleveland to Cincinnati.

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History of Crawford County, Ohio, and representative citizens, Part 26

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850- Publication date: 1912 Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company Number of Pages: 1302

Author: Hopley, John E. (John Edward), 1850-
Publication date: 1912
Publisher: Chicago,Ill., Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 1302