History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 39

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196

USA > Ohio > Franklin County > Columbus > History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II > Part 39

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At a meeting held in Columbus, March 7, 1871, Wayne Griswold of Picka- way County, chairman, and B. F. Stage, of Franklin, secretary, Messrs. A. Ctover of Scioto, James Emmett of Pike, John Woodbridge of Ross, Wayne Griswold of Pickaway and R. C. Hoffman of Franklin, were appointed a committee to procure a charter and it was decided to adopt the name of Scioto Valley Railroad Com- pany, and Columbus and Portsmouth as termini of the line, with Chillicothe, Cir- cleville and Waverly as intermediate points. On February 23, 1875, another

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organization was completed with William Monypeny, E. T. Mithoff, John G. Mitchell, T. E. Miller, W. B. Hayden, John C. English and John Joyce as incor- porators, with a capital stock of 82,000,000, and on September 13, 1875, the com- pany was granted by ordinance of the Columbus City Council a right of way across Broad and Friend streets through a portion of Centre Street east of the County Fair Grounds and through " such other streets and alleys as may be necessary to construct and maintain its track." A construction contract was made in May, 1875, and on Angust 12 of that year the work was begun. The road was com- pleted from Columbus to Chillicothe in July, 1876, and to Portsmouth in January, 1878, and was extended from Portsmouth to Petersburg in May, 1881, there making connection with the Chesapeake & Ohio. The first train from Columbus to Chillicothe was run June 1, 1876. The first excursion train over the whole road arrived at Columbus December 27, 1877. The road has no grade over twentysix feet to the mile except a short one at its junction with the Central Ohio. No cur- vature exceeds three degrees. The total length of the road is one hundred and twentyeight and threefourths miles.

On January 1, 1885, the company defaulted on its interest and a receiver was appointed May 30. On January 22, 1890, the property was sold for the benefit of the bondholders and a reorganization was effected. The foreclosure was made chiefly at the instance and for the benefit of Mr. Huntington of New York, who had gathered up through his brokers a sufficient quantity of the company's bonds and interest coupons for that purpose, and the small bondholders, consisting to a large extent of widows and other helpless persons, were subjected to great loss. An issue of $5,000,000 of stock and a like amount of firstmortgage four per cent. one-hundred-year gold bonds was authorized. On February 1, 1890, the road was reorganized as the Scioto Valley and New England Railway Company. Four and a halt miles of additional track extending from Portsmouth to Sciotoville had been built in 1889. In 1890, the road was leased to the Norfolk & Western sys- tem, embracing lines of an aggregate length of 1,437 miles.

Columbus, Shawnee & Hocking .- This company was incorporated October 6, 1889, by D. S. Gray, P. W. Huntington, H. D. Turney, W. E. Guerin, and F. J. Picard. Its present capital comprises $2,000,000 of common and a like amount of preferred stock. On October 28, 1889, it purchased the Columbus & Eastern Rail- way which extended from Columbus to Moxabala with authorized branches to Redfield and Cannelville. The Columbus & Easteru was chartered February 1, 1882, and organized the ensuing November by J. E. Redfield, James Taylor, Allen Miller, John F. McFadden, F. A. Kelley, G. G. Collins, F. Siegel, C. D. Firestone, W. E. Guerin, J. C. Donaldson, B. E. Orr and R. W. Reynolds. G. G. Collins was president and F. Siegel secretary ; capital 82,500,000. The purpose of this cor- poration was to build a railway from Columbus to Moxahala, with branches to Redfield and Cannelville. The road was begun in November, 1882, and com- pleted from Hadley Junction to Moxahala Jannary 16, 1884. On March 6, 1885, W. E. Guerin was appointed receiver and at the same time Augustine Converse was appointed receiver of the Buckeye Coal & Iron Company, an organization comprised within that of the railway. The first spike was driven with due cere-

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mony at Glenford August 16, 1883. On October 28, 1889, the company purchased the Shawnee & Muskingum River Railway extending from Shawnee Junction to Shawnee, chartered March 13, 1887, and opened June 1, 1889. In the spring of 1890, the company began the construction, completed in October, of eleven and onetenth miles of track from Saltillo on the Columbus & Eastern division to Sayre on the Shawnee and Muskingum. On January 1, 1890, fiftyyear five per cent bonds to the amount of 85,000,000 were ordered to be issued. The company now operates one hundred and fiftytwo miles of road and penetrates a region of abun- dant coal and fireclay deposits.

Toledo & Ohio Central .- On June 7, 1867, a meeting of which J. S. Robinson, of Kenton, was chairman, was held in Columbus in the interest of a railway from Columbus to Toledo. It was addressed by M. M. Greene, William Dennison and C. A. King. A subsequent meeting held July 13, J. R. Osborn chairman, adopted resolutions favoring the organization of a company and a survey of the route. At a third meeting held in Toledo, Charles A. King chairman and D. R. Locke sec- retary, sixteen incorporators were appointed, viz : For Columbus, W. B. Brooks, Samuel Galloway, William A. Platt, Theodore Comstock, William Dennison, Wil- liam E. Ide and D. W. H. Day; for Toledo, Charles A. King, H. S. Walbridge, James C. Hall, Morris A. Scott, Perry Crabbs, E. V. McMakin, Charles Kent, J. R. Osborn and A. D. Pelton. This organization seems to have done nothing further than to appoint C. E. Waite engineer. Assistance from Columbus was expected, but was not given because of the claims laid upon the city by the road to the Hocking Valley.

A meeting in behalf of the enterprise was held at Toledo December 24, 1872, at which John C. Lee was chairman and various interested counties, including Franklin, were represented but no definite action was reported. On June 12, 1889, the Atlantic & Lake Erie Railroad Company was incorporated for the purpose of constructing a railway from Toledo to the Hocking coal field, and on August 22, 1871, the Columbus, Ferrara & Mineral Railroad was incorporated with authority to build a road from Columbus to Ferrara. A meeting in behalf of this enterprise was held at Columbus November 10, 1871. A contract for construction of this road was reported and referred in the Columbus City Council November 23, 1872, and on December 16 the following resolution was adopted :

That the Mayor be and he is hereby requested to prepare a contract with the Columbus, Ferrara & Mineral Railway Company on the basis of the bid of said company dated Novem- ber 21, 1872, for the completion of a railway mentioned in an advertisement of the said Mayor dated September 25, 1872, and to report such contract to this council for its concur- renee.

Owing to the unconstitutionality of the law under which the bonds of the city were to be issued nothing was done in pursuance of this resolution.

At a joint meeting of stockholders of the Atlantic & Lake Erie and the Colum- bus, Ferrara & Mineral companies held at Columbus December 17, 1872, a report was made of assets and progress. Grading had then been completed on one hun- dred and ten miles of the line and ties for fifty miles of it had been delivered. The directors were instructed to collect the available subscriptions and prosecute the

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work. A vote taken in Columbus on August 31, 1872, on a proposition to issue the bonds of the city to the amount of $200,000 in the aid of the Scioto Valley and the Co- lumbus, Ferrara & Mineral railways resulted in favor of the proposition, 4,239 to 462, but a judical decision nullifying the law under which this vote was taken rendered it useless. On April 20, 1876, the name Atlantic & Lake Erie was exchanged for that of Ohio Central Railway Company, and on December 20, 1879, that company was consolidated with the Columbus, Ferrara & Mineral, which then bore the name of Columbus & Sunday Creek Valley Railroad Company. In April, 1880, a con- struction contract was made with Brown, Howard & Co., of Chicago, and the work was begun at Fostoria and Bush's Station. The road was completed in Novem- ber, 1880, but in 1883 it passed into the hands of John S. Martin, of Toledo, as receiver, and on April 15, 1885, it was sold on forclosure to C. J. Canda for $1,000,000. The company has made running arrangements with the P. C. & St. L. and B. & O. companies from Columbus to Alum Creek ; with the Cincinnati & Muskingum Valley from Bremen to New Lexington ; with the Kanawha & Ohio from Corning to Jacksonville; and with the Columbus & Eastern from Thurston to Alum Creek. The subscribed stock, when last reported, amounted to 84,700,000. The company now owns or operates lines having an aggregate trackage of 248 miles.

Atlantic & Great Western .- On February 17, 1849, the Pennsylvania legisla- ture adopted a joint resolution approving the repeal of the charter of the Olean & Erie Railway, which was intended to connect the New York lines with those of Ohio. In the same month and year a publie meeting was held at Massillon, at which William Neil of Columbus was chairman, to consider the construction of a railway of six feet gauge from Columbus to the Pennsylvania line in the direction of Olean, New York, and a survey was ordered. On September 7, 1853, the stock- holders of the Atlantic & Ohio Broad Gauge Railway Company met at the Neil House and elected William Neil, Jacob Perkins, D. K. Cartter, William Dennison, John Miller, Joseph Ridgway and J. F. Bartlit as directors. An immediate sur- vey was ordered, the intention being to connect with the northern system of Pennsylvania and with New York via the New York Central. On October 19, 1871, General George B. McClellan and others filed with the Secretary of State a deed transferring that part of the Atlantic & Great Western which lies in the State of Ohio to General George B. Wright and others. At the same time was filed a certificate of reorganization of the Atlantic & Great Western Railway Company of Ohio, which elected a board of directors with General Wright as president, he having previously resigned his office of Commissioner of railroads and telegraphs. The road never reached Columbus.

Michigan & Ohio .- A meeting was held in the City Hall, Columbus, January 14, 1875, in the interest of this proposed road which had been projected three years previously by citizens of Grand Haven, Michigan. The meeting was addressed by its chairman, T. E. Miller, by Governor Allen, by James S. Gibbs, president of the proposed road, and by others, and a committee of ten was appointed to promote the enterprise. On February 3 another meeting was held

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and a committee was appointed to obtain subscriptions to the amount of $125,000 in Franklin County, but with this action the enterprise ended.

Columbus & Ironton .- This company was incorporated in January, 1870, by Ralph Leete, R. E. Neil, B. S. Brown, Luther Donaldson and others, and on March 3, same year, a large meeting in behalf of the enterprise was held at the Opera House in Columbus, S. S. Rickly chairman and E. C. Cloud and J. J. Janney sec- retaries. Addresses were made by William Dennison, George B. Wright and others, and a committee to open subscription books was appointed. The project was carried .no further.

Columbus & Maysville .- This company was incorporated November 30, 1849, and its subscription books were opened in Franklin, Pickaway and Ross counties March 16, 1853. A part of the line was built south of Hillsborough but nothing was done north of that point.

The Union Depot Company .- The railway station at Columbus was first estab- lished by the Columbus & Xenia and the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati com- panies in 1850, and a frame stationhouse admitting three tracks was then built. Shortly thereafter an alliance of a rather exclusive character was formed between the Little Miami, the Columbus & Xenia and the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincin- nati companies, one of its conditions being that no one of these roads should form a connection with any other without the consent of its associates. Out of this grew a controversy when the Columbus & Xenia asked the Bee Line company that the trains of another road be admitted into the station, a request to which the Bee Line objected. On September 9, 1859, a dining hall was opened on the north side of the station and placed under the care of S. E. Ogden. In pursuance of a law authorizing the formation of railway depot companies a certificate was filed April 3, 1868, incorporating the Union Dépot Company of Columbus, but not until more than four years thereafter was anything done towards the construction of a building. On July 17, the Cleveland, Columbus & Cincinnati and the Pitts- burgh, Cincinnati & St. Louis companies formed the Union Dépot Company at Columbus with a capital stock of $500,000, and six directors, a condition being that each of the two stockholders, its successors or assigns, should appoint three of the directors and have power to fill vacancies.

On February 15, 1873, an agreement was formed between the C. C. C. & I., the P. C. & St. L., the L. M. and the C. & X. companies and the Union Depot Com- pany, by which the latter agreed to issue $500,000 fiftyyear seven per cent. bonds, the P. C. & St. L. and the C. C. C. & I. companies agreeing " each to take an equal and in the aggregate a sufficient amount of said bonds to construct a passenger dépot complete for use." The agreement provides " that all lines of railroad now or hereafter constructed, terminating at or passing through the city of Colum- bus, shall be entitled, on request, to a perpetual lease and to the use of said dépot " and " the dépot grounds " upon the same terms as the original parties. The stock bears interest at the rate of eight per cent. with a sinking fund of $675 per annum, the current expenses of operating and managing the depot, together with the taxes and assessments, to constitute the charges to be assessed on the roads using it " in proportion to the business done by each in and upon it . . . roads running

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two lines or passing through to count twice, roads not passing through to count but once." The grounds contain seventeen and eightysix one thousandths acres, valued in an agreement between the corporations February 15, 1873, at $92,697.51. The " undivided half owned and conveyed by the Columbus & Xenia Railroad Company " is valued at $55,398.75.

At the time of the original location of the station it was just outside of the city, Naghten Street, or as it was then called, North Publie Lane, being the cor- poration line In addition to the passenger station, freight depots and yards were located at the same point, and not only passenger but freight trains were made up in the yards cast of and adjoining High Street. This caused frequent blockades of the street and loud and angry complaints soon became common. The Ohio State Journal of March 31, 1855, said :

Within the past week we have received no less than ten communications relative to the careless manner in which the railroad companies allow their locomotives to cross High Street. We have not published them knowing that it would do no good. It was only yester day afternoon that one of our most prominent citizens came near losing his life owing to the reckless conduct of those employed on the William Penn. That something should be done to abate this nuisance is very evident, for already there is a petition in circulation praying that the railroad companies may be compelled to keep a flagman at the dépot to warn people of the danger to which they are now subjected.

The same paper of April 14, next following, contained similar observations, and we find in one of its issues in 1863, the following :

The almost fatal accident at the depot yesterday proves what we have long thought but have abstained from expressing, that the present structure is a standing disgrace and shame to the wealthy corporations centering at Columbus. Frequently three trains come in at once blocking up the whole space and leaving barely room to walk between them.

This was while the original frame house was yet standing. One of the causes of public complaint arose from the fact that during more than twenty years after the station was established no care was taken by the companies to enable passen- gers to reach it from the street, only a narrow gravel or cinder walk having ever been provided for their accommodation, the pretext for this being, that should the companies pave the walk they would thereby relinquish it to the public. In Oeto- ber, 1869, a proposition was made to tear out the south side of the station building and extend it southward so as admit another track.

The controversy between the city and the railway companies as to the street interference of their tracks has increased with the growth of the city. Accidents, became more and more frequent with the steady increase of street travel. On December 16, 1872, the City Council had before it an ordinance to prevent the improper use of High Street for railway purposes, but upon assurances from the railway authorities that such use would be discontinned the ordinance was not acted on. On April 29, 1873, the City Council adopted a resolution declaring that the only way of overcoming the difficulty was to either tunnel under or bridge over the railway tracks, and directing its standing committee on railways, together with the City Engineer, to ascertain which, in their judgment, would be the better of these two expedients, and to report with plans and estimates both for

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tunneling and for bridging. The cost of the tunnel was estimated in the report thus called for and submitted October 14, 1873, at 861,394.05, and on March 23, 1874, the acceptance by the railway authorities of the tunnel ordinance passed by the council was announced. On May 9, 1874, a contract was made with John Stothart for construction of the tunnel and its necessary sewers for 845,050. It was soon found that the tunnel did not furnish a proper remedy. The street rail- way company laid its tracks through it but the public would not use it.

At a meeting held August 16, 1871, for consultation between the railways and the City Council, Governor Dennison suggested such a change of the Columbus & Xenia track that it should come into the city by way of the " Piqua Shops" along side of that of the Columbus & Indiana Central. This would have reduced the space occupied on High Street about twothirds, and would now reduce it about onehalf. Messrs. H. J. Jewett, W. C. Quincy, B. E. Smith, Thomas A. Scott, Oscar Townsend, William Dennison and Rush R. Sloane, were appointed by the railways to confer with the City Council, and engineers representing both the railways and the city were chosen to prepare plans for submission to a future meeting. On September 19, 1871, it was agreed at a meeting attended by many prominent representatives of the railways and of the city to locate a new station building 350 feet east of High Street, and to shift the tracks of the Columbus & Xenia road a little further north so as to bring all the tracks on the street within a space of 300 feet, the switching and making up of trains to be done at the eastern end of the station. Messrs. Ford, Quincy and Becker were appointed a committee to prepare plans in accordance with the agreement. Plans and esti- mates reported by this committee were adopted at a meeting held December 15, 1871, but in March, 1872, the newspapers of the city very impatiently stated that the construction of the new building was likely to be postponed for another year. Not until April 22, 1873, was a contract closed for construction of the building. In pursuance of this contract, Hershiser & Adams of Columbus proceeded to erect it for the sum of $177,940, making with the cost of connections and tracks and the value of the grounds an aggregate of $320,000. The first regular passenger train was run into the building on February 14, 1875. It was the Panhandle train Number 2 in charge of Edwin Morrell, conductor, and Morris Littell, engineer. William Thornburgh, one of the oldest conductors on the Bee Line, ran the last train into the old station, and the first of his road out of the new one. B. MeCabe was appointed depot master January 29, 1875, and still serves in that position. On November 4, 1878, George H. Wright, who had been baggage master at the Union Station for twenty years, resigned and was sueceeded by his first assistant E. C. Wentworth. The newspaper comments on the destruction of the shabby old frame building which had served as a passenger station for twenty- four years, and on the presumable grandeur of its successor, were very effusive. Appreciable progress had undoubtedly been made, but the nuisance of street obstruction continued and still continues to the present writing. Its extent in the year 1890 was indicated by the following report of a count made on December 15 of that year and filed with the City Board of Public Works: Trains in twenty- four hours crossing High Street, 245; ears in twentyfour hours, 2,021 ; engines in

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twentyfour hours, 349; number of times the street was obstrueted, 350; total duration of obstructions, seven hours and cleven minutes; persons crossing tracks on foot 15,641 ; persons crossing tracks in vehicles 10,726; total number of persons crossing tracks 26,367; number of vehicles 5,363; number of vehicles detained 1,450 ; pedestrians detained 1,289 ; persons in vehicles detained 2,900; total number of persons detained 4,189. Another count taken August 29, 1891, made the follow- ing showing : Trains crossing in twentyfour hours, 233; cars, 2,180; engines, 211; duration of obstruction, seven hours and twentyfive minutes; pedestrians crossing the tracks, 40,035 ; pedestrians detained by trains 15,040; persous in vehicles, 14,600; total number of persons crossing the tracks, 54,636; number of vehicles, 7,310; vehicles detained by trains, 3,500.

In 1849, before completion of the first railways, the total number of passengers carried through the city on the National Road averaged about sixty daily. Dur- ing the year 1890, 38,381 trains entered and left the Union Station, and now, July, 1891, 116 regular passenger trains enter and leave the station daily, not including the double or triple sections, nor the extras and special excursion trains, of which as many as twelve have entered the station in a single day.

Fast Freight Lines .- The early history of railways shows that it was deemed absolutely necessary that a transfer of passengers and freight should be made at the end of each separate line, and to insure this a change of gauge was often resorted to so that the cars of one road could not pass upon the rails of another "nor go beyond its own termini in either direction lest they never get back." To illustrate, it may be stated that what is now so well known as the Lake Shore & Michigan Railway, a line which now extends under one management from Buffalo to Chicago, was thirtyfive years ago composed of several corporations with a full set of officers and agents and a full equipment of rolling stoek for each. Oldtimers will remember the " Erie War," when the good people of the ambitious and enter- prising little city of Erie, Pennsylvania, actually took up arms and fought the pro- posed change of gauge, because, as they thought, such a change would rnin their market for pie, peanuts and popcorn which the transfer of passengers afforded them, and that this change would also dispense with the services of a large force of men employed in the shifting of freight from one road to the other. But in spite of this determined opposition a uniform gange between Buffalo and Cleveland became an accomplished fact.

Merchants and shippers who have begun business within the last twentyfive years have but slight conception of the tribulations incident to the old time method of conducting railway transportation. Through freight then meant freight which passed through half a dozen sets of hands and was transferred, earted and coopered at every break of gange. Fast freight as we now understand it did not exist; in fact the freight business was about the slowest thing in American life. Nor was slowness its chief fault; it was also unsafe. Packages were accidentally or purposely broken open during their frequent transfer and in part pilfered of their contents. The annoyances of this kind were extremely harassing and apparently unavoidable. Besides his actual losses of goods the consignee was subjected to absurd extra charges for cooperage, cartage and eleri-

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cal service often, as is still the ease at many of the custom houses, trumped up on slight pretexts.

To obviate the delay and loss occasioned by the numerous transfers from one road to another, William A. Kasson, of Buffalo, organized what was known as " Kasson's Despatch." He employed men to see that the transfer of freight was prompt and safe, and contracted to deliver goods from New York to any point reached by him, making an extra charge additional to that of the railways, of about fifty cents per hundred pounds, and undertaking to collect the whole charges and account for the same. The goods shipped by him did not move any faster than other freight, but owing to their more speedy transfer his agency soon became known as a " fast freightline." It reached Columbus, Cleveland, Cincin- nati, Louisville, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Toledo, Detroit and Chicago. . Very soon certain capitalists perceived that Mr. Kasson had conceived a valuable idea and he sold to them his business, the name of which was thereupon changed to that of the " Merchants' Despatch." Its subsequent success vindicated the favorable judgment formed of it.

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History of the city of Columbus, capital of Ohio, Volume II, Part 39

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co Publication date: 1892 Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co. Number of Pages: 1196

Author: Lee, Alfred Emory, 1838-; W. W. Munsell & Co
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: New York and Chicago : Munsell & Co.
Number of Pages: 1196