USA > Pennsylvania > Erie County > A twentieth century history of Erie County, Pennsylvania : a narrative account of its historic progress, its people, and its principal interests, Volume I > Part 35
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It was not very long afterwards until interest in the Canal road was revived. An organization that came to be known as the Huidekoper and Dick syndicate, of Meadville. decided the property was worth buying and developing, and came forward with a proposition. The negotiations en- tered into resulted in the sale of Miss Reed's property, whereupon the new owners organized the Pittsburg, Shenango & Lake Erie Railroad Company. It was given out that this new corporation purposed acquiring dock facilities at the harbor of Erie, and some sort of a deal was entered into to that effect, the deal, with an agreement to build a costly station at Erie, obtaining from the city a franchise for a track on Twelfth street from Raspberry to Sassafras. It is not definitely known what caused the failure of the dock project at Erie harbor, though it is surmised the rail- roads already on the ground contrived to occupy the land in advance. The docks were never built at Erie. Neither was the railroad permitted to enter Erie at grade, and it became necessary by a deep cut to effect a passage underneath. The track into Erie was laid in November, 1891, and in the spring of 1892 the road was opened for business.
The Shenango road did not follow the route of the old canal out oi Erie. Running west on Twelfth to Raspberry street, a curve began there which carried it under the tracks of the Erie & Pittsburg and Lake Shore railroads into the valley of Cascade creek, out of which it passed on a short piece of its own track to a junction with the Nickel Plate at
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the Green Garden road, and from there to Wallace Junction, fourteen miles from Erie, the Nickel Plate track is used. Almost immediately upon leaving the Nickel Plate road the canal right of way is entered upon, and this was followed through Erie and Crawford counties. Failing to secure harbor facilities at Erie a branch line was constructed from Cranesville to Conneaut, Ohio, and there the estuary of Conneaut creek was converted into what in time became one of the most notable iron-ore ports on the lower lakes.
In the year 1896 the interest of the Pittsburg, Shenango & Lake Erie Railroad passed into new hands and the road then became known as the Pittsburg, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad, the word Bessemer becoming the trade or traffic appelation and the ownership, spoken of generally as the Carnegie interests. Under this latest management the road made gigantic strides. Originally it terminated at Butler and reached Pitts- burg on the Allegheny side of the river of the same name over the Pitts- burg & Western, and trains are still run that way, although the connecting line is now the Baltimore & Ohio. But the Bessemer owns its own line of road to the Monongahela, and up that river, and practically the entire route is now double tracked, has a road-bed of broken slag, and the rails are laid on cross-ties of steel. At Albion, in this county, very ex- tensive yards have been constructed, with capacity for the storage of 3,000 cars, and in every detail of construction and equipment of road and rolling stock the Bessemer road is a Twentieth century institution. In Erie the station, built in 1898, is not of the upset price specified in the franchise terms, but provision against the future was made by the pur- chase of the old church property at the corner of Twelfth and Peach streets. Whether or not an imposing station shall occupy that site is an unsettled question, for the reason that if grade crossings shall be abol- ished, the probabilities are that all railroads entering Erie will use one common Union Station.
None of the railroads entering Erie has a more checkered history than this road, for, be it known, there have been from first to last sixteen charters obtained to cover the consolidated properties that now go to make up the Bessemer system. Mr. Reed's enterprise was but the northern end of what is now an important railroad, made up of numerous railroads, and it was with this ultimate end in view, of course, that Mr. Reed conceived the idea of building the "Canal Bed" railroad. Data furnished by the present management of the Bessemer, makes it possible to furnish a sort of catalogue of the various organizations that were finally fused into one practical and profitable railroad.
The Bear Creek Railroad Company, organized 1865, and its name changed to Shenango & Allegheny Railroad Company in 1867, under various acts of the Legislature.
The Ohio River & Lake Erie, 1868.
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The Erie, Shenango & Pittsburg, a reorganization of the Ohio River & Lake Erie, 1878.
The Northeastern Ohio, in 1888, under the general railroad law of Ohio.
The West Penn & Shenango Connecting Railroad Company ( for- merly called the Connoquenessing Valley Railroad Company) in 1881.
The Pittsburg, Butler & Shenango in 1889, by a reorganization of the last above named company after a judicial sale under a decree of the Mercer county courts.
The Erie Terminal Railroad Company, one of the constituent com- panies, organized in 1891.
The Conneaut Terminal Railroad Company, also one of the con- stituent companies, organized in 1892.
The Pittsburg, Shenango & Lake Erie Railroad Company. There were five organizations of this name, the first being a reorganization in February, 1888, of the Shenango & Allegheny (formerly the Bear Creek) road. The second, organized June 8, 1888, by the consolidation of the Pittsburg, Shenango & Lake Erie and the Erie, Shenango & Pitts- burg. The third, organized June 9th, 1888, was a consolidation of the Pittsburg, Shenango & Lake Erie and the Northeastern Ohio. The fourth was formed in August, 1890, under an agreement filed in Penn- sylvania and Ohio in October of that year, consolidating the Pittsburg, Shenango & Lake Erie and the Pittsburg, Butler & Shenango. The fifth was formed under agreement in March, 1893, filed the same year in Pennsylvania and Ohio, consolidating the Pittsburg, Shenango & Lake Erie, the Conneaut Terminal, and the Erie Terminal.
The Butler & Pittsburg, one of the constituent companies, was or- ganized in 1896.
The Pittsburg, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Company was formed under agreement dated December 22, 1896, filed in Pennsylvania and Ohio in January, 1897, consolidating the Pittsburg, Shenango & Lake Erie and the Butler & Pittsburg Railroad companies.
The Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Company is a corporation orga- nized December 31, 1900, under the railroad corporation act of Penn- sylvania. On April 1, 1901, this company entered into a lease and agree- ment with the Pittsburg, Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Company, under the terms of which the Bessemer & Lake Erie Railroad Company assumes control and operates the property of the P., B. & L. E. R. R. Co. for a period of 999 years, with the Carnegie Company as guarantor.
This is railroad evolution illustrated by one of the best known of Erie's railroad corporations.
There were other Erie railroad enterprises, but these proved to be still-births. One, it is true developed to a point where the "throwing of
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dirt" had begun, but none of them really succeeded in effecting a genuine organization.
There had always been a strong hope entertained that connection with the Erie Railway might be secured. It was with that purpose in view that the first railroad in Erie county was built ; it was because that that railroad when built did not bring the Erie Railway's terminus to Erie that the "Railroad War" occurred; it was in the hope of retrieving that disaster by yet bringing the Erie Railway here that the Erie City Railroad was organized in 1853, and the same motive was behind the organization of the Erie Southern Railroad in 1875. The plan at that time was to construct a line of road from Erie to Mill Village, and this was the first big project undertaken by the Board of Trade after its organization. It made quite a promising start. Among the leading promoters were the Carrolls, J. C. Spencer, Myron Sanford, John Clem- ens, F. F. Adams, J. R. Cochran, and many others of the leading busi- ness men of the time. Subscription books were opened and the first in- stalments on the stock paid in. But the enterprise eventually fell through. Thomas H. Carroll was treasurer of the company. In about a year after tlie company was organized the payments made by subscribers were re- turned by the treasurer and the company went out of existence in a business like way
Again in 1882 there was another railroad flurry. This project was chiefly in the hands of Senator Morrow B. Lowry, and it was called the Pennsylvania Petroleum Railroad. Its plan was to build a short line of road, from Erie through Edinboro to connect with the Erie Railway, and work was actually begun at several points. In Erie Liberty street had been secured, and grading was done from Twenty-sixth street to Eighth, the purpose being to follow the valley of Little Cascade creek to the harbor. But the stock subscribers were not of enduring faith. Notwithstanding work had actually been begun the bottom dropped out of the enterprise with exemplary suddenness, and in a comparatively brief space of time the Pennsylvania Petroleum Railroad was lost to memory.
CHAPTER XXVIII .- SLAVERY IN ERIE.
GEN. KELSO'S SLAVES .- SLAVES SOLD FOR SALT .- THE REES AND MOOR- HEAD SLAVES .- THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD.
Slavery was abolished in Pennsylvania in 1780, but it was not a radical abolition at that date. Slaves existed for a considerable time thereafter, and Erie county has had slaves, though not in large numbers. The exact conditions of emancipation in Pennsylvania are concisely set forth by Judge John Reed of the Ninth District of Pennsylvania in his Modification of the Commentaries of Blackstone, published in 1831. He says :
"No child born since March 1, 1780, or imported from abroad, can be a servant for life or a slave. By an act of the Legislature of that date, all servitude for life, or slavery of negroes, mulattoes and others, 'Is utterly taken away, extinguished and abolished forever.'
"The first sort of servants in Pennsylvania is the children of slaves who, under particular regulations, are bound to serve until twenty-eight years of age. As slavery existed at one time, to a considerable extent, it was deemed prudent by the Legislature to abolish it gradually. It was therefore provided at the date of the act above referred to, that a particular registry of all negro and mulatto slaves should be made in a given time, by the clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions of the proper county, and of the children of such slaves as should be thereafter born, within six months after their births respectively and all such children so recorded were declared to be servants till twenty-eight years of age, but their children were to be free. As none but the children of persons in being on the first of March, 1780, are subject to this sort of servitude, it also will soon have passed away. The slightest defect in the registry, either of parent or child, or non-compliance with the requirements of the act, is fatal to the title by which such service is claimed. Many have been discharged."
It will thus be seen that slaves, living at the time the act was passed, remained slaves until their death, but their children were slaves only until they reached the age of twenty-eight years, while the children of the latter were free from their birth, even though the parents had not yet reached the age limit which gave them freedom.
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In the year 1797-or 1798, for the date is not known exactly, Gen. John Kelso came to this county from Dauphin county and settled on the land of the Harrisburg & Presque Isle Land Company in Fairview, near the mouth of Walnut creek, five years subsequently moving to Erie and building a home on the bank of the bay at the foot of State street-there is a Kelso house still standing on the old site, at the northwest corner of State and Second streets. Gen. and Mrs. Kelso brought with them to Erie, a family of seven children and besides Charley Logan and his wife Fira (a slave) with her three sons who under the law were also slaves until they were twenty-eight years old. That family circle of fourteen (including the slaves) was a large establishment for pioneer times. It would be a large one even now. Before long Mrs. Kelso found it too large, and by her advice two of the boys were sold. George, the oldest, was disposed of to Rufus S. Reed, the consideration being one hundred barrels of salt. Bristow, the next boy, was sold to Mr. Brown. These slaves continued in service here until their manumission by the expiration of the lawful probationary period; and after having obtained their free- dom they became established as useful if humble citizens of the place. For many years Bristow was the ice cream caterer of the town. The mother, Fira, was famous as a cook, and the reputation for hospitality that the Kelso home achieved was due to Fira's skill. During the last days of her long life she was free. Perhaps, her old master, the General, was quite willing to keep her after she was past service, and it may be that she desired to leave him, but at any rate she died at the age of 101 years while living with her son George.
Thomas Rees, when he settled in Harborcreek township, brought in three probationary slaves. One was named Robert McConnell, another James Titus, but the name of the third is not known. These served until the expiration of the probationary period under the emancipation act, when Mr. Rees provided for the two former by giving them fifty acres of land near Gospel Hill. From these three slaves descended the colored element of the population of Harborcreek, which in the process of time reached a considerable number, more of the black race being settled in that township than in any other in Erie county.
Another instance of slavery was found in the Moorhead family, one of the pioneers of that family having brought to Erie a slave woman and her son. A search for particulars relating to this case brought the fol- lowing, obtained from the History of Lancaster County, Pa., by Franklin Ellis and Samuel Evans :
"The Moorheads were a family of Scotch-Irish settlers in this town- ship, but not as early as some others. Thomas Moorhead took out a patent, August 17, 1761, for a tract of land about a mile north of MIt. Joy. He died in 1763, leaving a widow, Christiana, and the following sons and daughters: James. Robert. Elizabeth, Jane. Margaret and
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Christian. Thomas Moorhead divided his land between his sons, James and Robert. James was a soldier of the French and Indian war and a captain in the war of the Revolution. He married Catherine Byers, daughter of John Byers, of Salisbury township. For some time he was engaged in hauling military stores from Philadelphia to Boston dur- ing the Revolution. When returning from one of his trips, and when passing through Connectici he bought a colored woman named Phoebe and brought her to his home here and took her with the family when he moved to Erie."
While living in the family of Mr. Moorhead as a domestic servant on the farm in Lancaster county, Phoebe became the mother of a boy named Cæsar Augustus. This occurred in 1990. Cæsar, then, came to Erie county along with his mother when the Moorheads about 1801 or 1802, settled in the section of Harborcreek that has ever since been known as Moorheadville. Few of the oldest people now living in that part of the county remember Phoebe, who continued until her death to fill the place of a house servant in her master's family, but many knew Cæsar, who became a notable character, not only in Moorheadville, but in Erie as well. He married an Erie woman of his race but con- tinned with the Moorheads whom he regarded as his own people, and even after he became free by the operation of the law he continued to remain on the old place. His former master gave him a piece of ground, four acres in extent, with a small house, and stocked it with a cow and other animals and here he lived until his death at about the age of eighty.
The Honorable Jolin Grubb was a slave holder, and as near as can be ascertained it came about in this manner. When the estate of his father-in-law, Thomas Cooper of York county, came to be settled up, there was a negro slave of the name of Jack, aged twenty-five, that had to be disposed of, and he was put up for sale. Mr. Grubb became the purchaser for one hundred pounds. It is not certainly known whether this slave was brought to this county and became one of the force of negro farm laborers maintained by Judge Grubb at his country place in West Millcreek, but if he was, undoubtedly he had been freed soon after coming here, for the Judge was well known to be among the earliest of anti-slavery men of these parts.
P. S. V. Hamot at one time held a number of slaves, but there are no records that show how these were acquired, nor is it known how many he held. In an Erie newspaper of June, 1825, Mr. Hamot adver- tised a runaway slave, of the age of nineteen years.
Judge Cochran also was the owner of a slave for a number of years. and until the legal period of his servitude expired, but the character of his bondage, according to all accounts, unlike what real slavery is understood to be, was of the mildest sort.
Erie county has, however, a better record as an anti-slavery section than as one of forced servitude, and strangely enough, as will be shown,
-
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among the leaders in helping fugitive slaves to their freedom the names of Judge Grubb and the Moorheads have prominent place. It was during his term of service as associate justice that Judge Grubb distinguished himself as the friend of the fleeing negro. It is related that he presided ar the trial and hearing of a case where an alleged fugitive slave had been apprehended and it was desired to remove him from Erie county to the South. It was the first and probably the only case of its kind ever tried here, and the decision then rendered the first of its kind in the state. Consequently it was much commented upon. The captors of the fugitive, full of swagger and bluster, brought the runaway to the court house roped upon a mule, and seemed to be intent upon impressing the court and people with their importance. There was a great crowd in attendance. John H. Walker was the attorney for the negro, and after hearing the case the court decided that no crime had been committed by the black man which would subject him to be apprehended under the laws of the Commonwealth, and he was therefore entitled to his freedom from the arrest. And the Court closed his decree in these virile words: "He is free. Let no man lay hands upon him."
It was in 1836, soon after the occurrence narrated above, that the Erie County Anti-Slavery Society was organized, with Joseph Moorhead as president and William Gray as secretary.
Later came that other organization, mysterious in its character but active and efficient in its operations, that went by the name of the Underground Railroad. Erie's prominence as a station on the Under- ground Railroad in the days when that peculiar product of slavery thrived, though then understood and appreciated by those initiated into the freemasonry of that peculiar cult, is little known today. Possibly even yet there are some who do not fully understand what the Under- ground Railroad was but the great majority of intelligent people do not need to have the term explained to them. Erie was a central point at which many lines converged, and from Erie other lines diverged, one going east, by the shore of the lake. another across the water to the land of freedom from slavery, the route generally from the mouth of Four-mile creek ( for a reason later to be explained) to Long Point light- house. Here and hereabout there were many active agents of the Under- ground line and several depots. some of them still standing although the agents who employed them for their beneficent purposes have long since passed over.
It will interest many to have some of these depots pointed out- that is, those that remain standing. They are few. At the foot of French street nearly the last building on the west side near the foot of the hill -part of the old Bethel property-is what was long known as the Himrod station. This property was owned in those days by William Himrod, a man of large heart, generous impulses, a lover of his race,
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and one of Erie's most valued and exemplary citizens. Peculiarly sit- uated, rambling in its plan or arrangement, and convenient to the harbor, it was a most admirable situation for the last point in the long journey toward freedom. Another depot was the Josiah Kellogg house on Sec- ond street, a handsome old-fashioned brick edifice that stands back from the street and just on the edge of the hill whence slopes now the lawn of a portion of Lake View Park. These are about the only places left in Erie of the numerous houses in which the fleeing black men from the south were concealed while endeavoring to make their way to Canada and freedom.
At the time there were way-stations a short distance away. For example there was one well-known depot at Eagle Village on Federal Hill, but it long since disappeared-about the time that Eagle Village itself became lost, and even Federal Hill has been missing from the geography of this region since the city's boundaries embraced and oblit- erated both.
For "those days" were the years back of the sixties. Enduring from a period soon after the war with England in 1812-13, the Underground Railroad went out of existence with the booming of the guns chat fired on Fort Sumter that April morning in 1861, but during its existence thousands of men and women, and not a few babes in arms, passed over the lines of that mysterious thoroughfare and found freedom. "And Erie was pretty nearly on the main line.
The principal routes that led into Erie were those that came up from Kentucky, for that portion of Virginia which was contiguous to the Ohio, and that formed the pan-handle conspicuous against the western boundary of Pennsylvania had but few slaves-the mountainous sections of every country have ever been the homes of free men. So, from Ken- tucky chiefly the runaway slaves came. Their course northward was generally along or parallel with some stream that was an affluent of the Chio, such rivers as the Beaver or Shenango, and yet there were other considerations that caused these lines or routes of travel to vary. Negroes traveling alone and on foot, as would be the rule of fugitive blacks, had small chance of effecting their final escape into Canada unaided. They were too valuable to be permitted to run away from their masters without an effort to recover them, and there were plenty of professional man-hunters ready to put forth even laborious efforts to win the big rewards almost invariably offered for the recovery of slaves that had escaped. Therefore. lone negroes had but small chance of effecting their ultimate escape unless they were assisted, and parties of fleeing slaves had still less chance.
They were aided. Even in the state from which they ran away there were white men ready to befriend them, furnish thera with food and clothing and even money, and to direct their steps toward the land where freedom was theirs to enter upon. But it must not be taken for
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granted that this aid, generously extended, made the way plain and the es- cape easy. On the contrary, with all that the friends of the fugitives could do in the way of hiding them as they rested, if there were not means also to help them secretly on their way, they would surely have been captured, for the hunters after runaway blacks had the skill of sleuth- hounds in following a trail and a patience, industry and endurance that would deserve unstinted praise if they had only been employed in a more deserving cause.
Therefore the routes and the courses pursued varied. All tended toward the northi. The pole star was the beacon by which the course in a general way was steered, and the trend of the streams marked the way, affording many aids in time of distress. But the hunters in pursuit and the expedients necessarily adopted from time to time, changed the survey of the underground line as new parties of fugitives passed over it.
Many of the fugitives escaped into the southwestern part of Penn- sylvania, where they were sure to find friends, and in Washington county there were many stations on the line where the passengers were for- warded to Pittsburg, thence north up the streams that flow into the Ohio, and through Mercer county found their way to Meadville and then into Erie county.
One favorite route was from Meadville by way of Cambridge and Mill Village to Union (it was then known as Union Mills), and then up over the Lake Pleasant road. The records of the faithful conductors of the lines from the lower or southern part of the county are defective. There had been but little attempt made to preserve the noble roster. In the days when they were in service these conductors were known only to the members of the guild, and these, each for his individual safety as well as for the safety of the others bound to him by a sort of freemasonry and the stronger tie of deadly peril mutually shared, kept secret the member- ship while the business of operating the road called for their services, and afterwards-well, then there were other things to think of and most of the conductors who were young enough to enlist took upon themselves that other peril of serving as a soldier of the Union and going forth to fight for the preservation of the integrity of the nation. There was thus a break in the continuity of that other service that caused many names that should appear upon the rolls to be dropped and never re- stored.
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