Centennial history of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, Part 12

Author: Stocker, Rhamanthus Menville, 1848-
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : R. T. Peck
Number of Pages: 1318

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As a matter of convenience, in connection with the mail and stage business in which the Searle family were engaged, Daniel and Leon- ard came to Montrose in 1827. The former be- came proprietor of the old Post Hotel and the latter clerked for him. This arrangement con- tinued some two years, when the hotel passed into other hands. Leonard engaged in the mercantile business first as partner with Martin Curtis and afterwards as sole owner. He con- tinued the mercantile business about ten years, when he purchased the Post corner and erected a first-class hotel thereon, which he occupied for twenty-four years, keeping the best public-house in the place. In 1866 he leased the hotel and purchased the B. S. Bentley place, which became his home during the rest of his life.

About 1840 Leonard became interested in the

staging business again and continued to run the stages for a great many years, meeting the Erie Railway at different points as it progressed westward. The route finally extended to Great Bend and at last from Montrose to New Milford. He died in December, 1880, aged seventy-three. He was a man of generous impulses and public- spirited. He made a home for his father-in-law, Elder Davis Dimock, in his last days, and lives in the kind remembrance of his children. He was married, October 23, 1832, to Lydia C. Dimock. Their children were David D., a broker in New York; Katharine E, wife of Gen. Wm. H. McCartney, a distinguished crim- inal lawyer at Wilkes-Barre; Josephine, wife of Benj. Stewart Bentley. Esq., of Williamsport ; Hetty, wife of Wm. M. Miller, grocer in Wilkes-Barre.

ERIE RAILWAY .- In the summer of 1832 a reconnoisance or preliminary examination of the country through which it was proposed to build the road was conducted under the author- ity of the government of the United States, by Colonel De Witt Clinton, Jr., and it resulted in presenting strong inducements for obtaining a complete and accurate instrumental survey. In 1833 one million dollars was subscribed to the capital stock, and the company organized in August of that year by the election of officers and directors. A year passed, during which the company did not receive enough from its stock- holders and others to make a survey, and in 1834 the aid of the State was invoked, and the Legislature passed a bill appropriating fifteen thousand dollars for that purpose. Governor Marcy appointed Benjamin Wright, Esq., to conduct the survey. During the year he and his assistants made a survey of the whole line, four hundred and eighty-three miles, and as the work was done under the authority of the State government, the reports, estimates and maps of Judge Wright were deposited by him with the secretary of the commonwealth. Much had been said in the Legislature and many of the public prints to discourage the undertaking ; but the results of the State survey were so favorable as to dispel all reasonable doubts as to the feasibility of the improvement, and measures were taken to advance the project.

LINES OF TRAVEL.

Subscriptions were stimulated to so great an ex- tent that the capital stock of the company was increased to the handsome amount of over two million three hundred and sixty-two thousand dollars.

After several ineffective efforts had been made, the New York and Lake Erie Railroad Company was incorporated by the Legislature on the 24th of April, 1832, with power "to construct a railroad from the city of New York, or some point near, to Lake Erie, to transport persons and property thereon, and to regulate their own charges for transportation." Up to the time of the incorporation, the question as to whether animal or locomotive power should be used on the contemplated railroad was an open one, vigorously argued pro and con. A road for locomotives, it was commonly conceded, must cost from twelve to fourteen thousand dollars per mile, while one for horses could be built for five or six thousand dollars per mile, and as it was a portion of the latter plan to allow indi- viduals to use their private conveyances upon the road, it was argued that the company would be at no expense for engines, carriages, etc., should that project be adopted. Let the reader imagine for himself what the Erie Railroad would be as a toll tramway ! By the time that the company was incorporated, however, some- thing approximating to the modern locomotive railroad had been decided upon.

In 1836 the entire route was re-surveyed, a portion of the road located and work upon it commenced, but the financial stringency which began to be felt in that year, and intensified in the panic of 1837, compelled a suspension of opera- tions until 1838. In that year the Legislature granted to the company, in aid of its con- struction of the road, a loan of the credit of the State for three million dollars. At the session of the Legislature in 1840 the loan bill was further amplified, and this, together with the collections on the stock subscriptions, enabled the company to vigorously prosecute the work. The first portion, a section of forty-six miles, from Piermont to Goshen, was put in operation on the 23d of September, 1841.

But the following year complicated embar- rassments, arising from the nature and amount of

its indebtedness, made it necessary that the busi- ness of the company should be placed in the hands of assignees, and it was not until May 14, 1845, when the Legislature passed an act releasing the State claim, that the outlook again became pro- pitious. Then the directors entered with a new feeling of confidence upon the work of resusci- tating the project, and presented a plan to the public which placed the work in a position to be successfully completed. In response to their appeal for assistance, the merchants and busi- ness men of New York soon subscribed the sum of three million dollars to the capital stock. Work was recommenced and successive portions of the road were put in operation from time to time. The opening of the main line as far as Binghamton, N. Y., occurred December 27, 1848, and in the spring of 1851 (May 14th), "amid the firing of cannon that reverberated through all of the southern tier of counties, and the shouts of hundreds of thousands of the in- habitants, who lined the road at all stations," the entire route was formally opened to travel and traffie. Two trains of cars passed over the line on that memorable occasion, " bearing the President of the United States, Daniel Webster and a large and noble company of the most dis- tinguished citizens of America as guests of the gratified and justly proud directors of the road, from the Hudson to Lake Erie." 1

The company was required to run its original line within the limits of the State, and hence its first outlet on the Hudson at Piermont, the connection between Piermont and New York being by steamers and freight barges. This part of the line is now operated as a branch, while by lease of the Union Railroad, eonnect- ing the main line with the Paterson and Ramapo and the Paterson and Hudson Rail- roads (September 10, 1852), Jersey City was made the main terminus. In addition to the assignment of 1853, the property passed into the hands of a receiver in 1859, and again in 1875. By the last it was sold under fore- closure, and its name changed from New York and Erie to New York, Lake Erie and Western Railroad.

1 Lossing.

HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

The Erie Railway follows the Susquehanna River through the northern part of Susque- hanna County a distance of about fifteen miles and has two stations- Susquehanna and Great Bend-within the county. It was not the orig- inal intention of the Erie Company to enter the State of Pennsylvania, but it was found that a better route could be obtained by entering the State at Port Jervis and passing up the west side of the Delaware by Lackawaxen, and again by entering the State by way of Lanes- boro' and Great Bend. There was a route by way of Nineveh which would have been nine miles farther. To determine the matter, three commissioners were appointed by the Governor of New York, who decided that the road should enter the State of Pennsylvania as it now runs, for which privilege the Erie Railway Company annually pay into the treasury of the State of Pennsylvania the sum of ten thousand dollars. The Starrucca viaduct, eighty feet high and twelve hundred feet long, is within Susque- hanna County, built of stone, and is one of the most costly works on the road. James B. Kirkwood was the engineer who had charge of its construction. T. D. Estabrook was superin- tendent for Braton & Gonder, who built five miles of the road, including one and one-half miles of rock cut. The Cascade bridge, one hundred and twenty-five feet high and two hundred feet long, which has since been filled in, is also within the county. It was originally a broad-gauge road, six feet wide, but it has since adopted the regulation gauge -- four feet eight and one-lialf inches in width.

The embankment made by filling in the gorge at the Cascade, on the Erie, after doing service for eighteen years, was washed away by a severe storm.

" It took three years to fill in this gorge when the trestle was first built. The work was not then made permanent. It lasted, however, until washed away in August. Engineer R. W. Ware, road-master of the Delaware Division, made a calculation, after the disaster, that the gorge could be so filled in as to make the embankment perfectly secure and permanent. Operations were begun under his directions.

"A steam-shovel, two trains and about a dozen men were the force employed. Conductor F. Long had charge of the trains, but the entire work was under the supervision of Superintendent Thomas, of the

Delaware Division, with Engineer Ware in imme- diate charge. The work progressed rapidly, the great steam-shovel rendering invaluable aid. During the month of September 2094 cars of earth were hauled from the bank to the Cascade, and in October, 4188 cars. In each car were nearly seven yards of earth, making a total of nearly 43,978 yards of earth dumped into the gorge. This amount filled the great cavity, and was a little less than that which Mr. Ware had figured it would take.

"This great work has permanently changed the course of the stream that flowed through this ravine, and has made the embankment a fixture. No storm can again wash away the track at that spot. Great walls have been built on the one side so that the stream is forced against solid rocks on the opposite side."

THE DELAWARE, LACKAWANNA AND WES- TERN RAILROAD was the earliest, and is yet the principal, thoroughfare of steam travel in Susquehanna County. It had a very early incep- tion, and Henry Drinker, a strong and prominent character in the herculean pioneer projects of Northeastern Pennsylvania, was the originator of this great line of traffic which built up the city of Scranton, and in the territory which is the especial province of this volume gave rise to many minor improvements, brought into ex- istence thriving New Milford and other towns, and gave an outlet to New York.

The original Drinker family were old Qua- kers prominent in Philadelphia. Soon after the Revolutionary War Henry Drinker, the great-grandfather of Joe, was interested, with Benjamin Rush, George Clymer, Samuel Mere- dith, Robert Morris and others, in the purchase of Pennsylvania wild lands. This portion of the State was then an entire wilderness, and in 1789-91 Henry Drinker purchased from the State twenty-five thousand acres of land in what are now the counties of Lackawanna, Wayne, Pike and Susquehanna. A great por- tion of this land was on the liead-waters of the Lehigh River, in the first-named county, then a part of Luzerne.

To open this isolated settlement to the outside world and make the region accessible, Henry built, in 1819, the first turnpike road into the Lackawanna Valley. This he had chartered as the Philadelphia and Great Bend turnpike. It was sixty miles long and extended from Stan- hope, N. J., to Drinker's Beach. It is known

LINES OF TRAVEL.

as the " Old Drinker road " to this day, and is a landmark in fixing boundary lines.

In 1819, also, Drinker became aware of the presence of anthracite coal in the valley, and, although it was then comparatively valueless, efforts to introduce it having, up to that time, met with little success, he believed in its actual importance, and foresaw the advantages of a better communication between the Delaware and Susquehanna Valleys. His idea was a railroad, although there was not one in existence in the world at that time, except the crude English mine tramways. Drinker blazed with an axe a route from the mouth of the Lackawanna, now Pittston, through the unbroken forest, across the lofty Pocono Mountains to the Water Gap, a distance of sixty miles, and satisfied himself that such a scheme as he proposed was feasible. In 1826 he obtained a charter from the Pennsyl- vania Legislature for the Susquehanna Canal and Railroad Company. The commissioners appointed by the act were Henry W. Drinker, William Henry, Jacob D. Stroud, Daniel Stroud, A. E. Brown, S. Stokes, James N. Porter and John Coolbaugh.

Drinker's idea was a railroad with incline planes or a canal, horse-power to be used if a railroad, between the planes, and water-power to raise the cars upon the planes. Hc inter- ested a number of prominent men in his project, and in 1831 a survey of the route was made. The engineer employed, Major Ephraim Beach, reported that the road could be built for six hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars.

After considerable work, Henry Drinker induced George and Seldon Scranton, of Ox- ford, N. J., to become partners in the scheme, as- sociating them with the project. After inducing the Morris Canal Company to take one hundred and fifty thousand dollars' worth of stock, a road known as the Lackawanna and Western Rail- road was built from Scranton to Great Bend, by the Serantons, Drinker dropping out on ac- count of severe losses which he had sustained in opening up the country with roads, and endeav- oring to develop the coal and iron resources so abundant in that region. This was completed in 1851.

This was an outlet for coal, formed by grop-

ing blindly among the hills in the wrong direc- tion, and apparently diverging towards Great Bend, sixty miles away, before starting for New York.

A practical movement was made in the right direction in 1849, when, chicfly through the in- fluence of the Scrantons, a company was char- tered to run a road from the Delaware Water Gap to some point on the Lackawanna, near Cobb's Gap, called " The Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad Company." The commissioners named in the act and invested with authority to effect an organization were Moses W. Cool- baugh, S. W. Shoemaker, Thomas Grattan, H. M. La Bar, A. Overfield, I. Place, Benjamin V. Rush, Alpheus Hollister, Samuel Taylor, F. Starbird, James H. Stroud, R. Bingham and W. Nyce, who met at Stroudsburg, December 26, 1850, and chose Colonel George W. Scranton, a man in whom the people had entire confidence, president of the company. He had been the owner of the original charter of the old Drinker Railroad, and this the company purchased of him for one thousand dollars, in 1853. A joint application was then immediately made by the Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad Company, and the Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company, for an act of the Legislature con- solidating them, and such an act was passed March 11, 1853. Thus was consummated a union under the present name of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, and a solu- tion of the problem of connecting Scranton and its coal-mines with the New York market was assured. Colonel Scranton was elected as presi- dent of the consolidated company, and long continued by repeated re-elections to hold that responsible office.

Measures were immediately adopted to con- struct the road from Scranton to the Delaware River, at a point five miles below the Water Gap. The necessary surveys had been previ- ously made by E. McNeill, chief engineer of the company, who, by indefatigable labor, had pro- cured Crestline and other preliminary surveys, which enabled him to establish a favorable line with easy grades, practicable for a heavy traffic, over the barren heights and perplexing undula- tions of the Pocono.

HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

Books were opened for subscriptions to in- crease the capital stock, which had at the time of the consolidation amounted to $1,441,000, and such was the confidence felt in the success of the enterprise, not only by the original stock- holders, but by other capitalists, that the whole sum required, $1,500,000, was obtained in a few days.

The contract for the construction of the Southern Division-the original Delaware and Cobb's Gap Railroad-was put under way in June, 1853. As heretofore explained, this sec- tion, sixty-one miles in length, extended from Scranton, through Cobb's Gap, and so on in a general southeasterly direction, through the western part of Luzerne (now Lackawanna) County and across the county of Monroe, through the Delaware Water Gap, to a point on the river five miles below, where it connected with the Warren Railroad of New Jersey. Going by this railroad nineteen miles to New Hampton Summit, and there making connec- tion by the Central Railroad of New Jersey with Jersey City, the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad Company found a market for the product of the extensive coal-fields of which it had become possessed, and a few years later the relations between the Lackawanna Valley and the sea-board were rendered still more intimate by the leasing of the Morris and Essex Railroad.

" 1 Shortly after leaving Nicholson, the road reaches Martin's Creek, finds the summit at New Milford, and goes down Salt Lick to Great Bend, where it joins the New York and Erie.

" The Valley Railroad is of great importance to the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Company. It completes their line of three hundred and twenty-five miles from New York to Oswego, leading to the greatest coal markets in the State. The divisions are as follows : Morris and Essex, from New York to Scran- ton, 149 miles ; Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, from Scranton to Great Bend, 47 miles ; Valley, from Great Bend to Bingham- ton, 14 miles ; Syracuse and Binghamton, 80 miles ; Oswego and Syracuse, 35 miles.

" The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Company formerly paid about four hundred thousand dollars a year for the privilege of running their coal and freight trains over four- teen miles of Erie track.

" The Lackawanna and Susquehanna Rail- road is a branch of the Albany and Susque- hanna, connecting with the latter at Nineveh, N. Y., and with the Jefferson Railroad near Starrucca Viaduct, at Lanesboro', Susquehanna County. It is twenty-two miles in length.

" A charter was obtained at an early day, we believe as early as the year 1828, for a railroad from the Lackawanna Valley to Lanesboro'. Other charters were also obtained at later dates, but nothing was effected toward building a rail- road until Col. C. Freeman, member of Assem- bly from Wayne County, at the session of 1851, secured a charter for the Jefferson Railroad Company, with Earl Wheeler, Charles S. Minor, Francis B. Penniman and Benjamin B. Smith as corporators."

This chartered organization was to have the right to build a railroad from any point on the Delaware River in Pike County, by the best route through that county and the county of Wayne, and terminating in the county of Sus- quehanna at the New York State line. An effort to get the Erie Railroad Company to build the whole or a portion of the line failed ; the Jefferson Railroad Company remained prac- tically inert, and nothing was accomplished for more than ten years. The commissioners and the Erie Company, however, both had the pro- posed line surveyed.

In 1862-63 the Pennsylvania Coal Company built along the Lackawaxen from Hawley to the Delaware, connecting with the Erie at Lack- awaxen Station, and leased the line to the Erie Company.

On March 18, 1863, a supplement to its charter was passed, giving the Jefferson Com- pany the right to build a " branch "-so-called -from the Moosic summit (in Susquehanna County) to Carbondale. Work upon the line was not begun, however, until 1869, though Charles S. Miner, Esq., had in the mean time secured the right of way. The pseudo-branch was finished in 1870 by the Jefferson Company

1 Miss Blackman's " History."

LINES OF TRAVEL.

-- the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company furnishing the money -- and shortly after its completion the line was leased to the Erie, under a lease which is still in effect.

About 1864 thie Jefferson Company raised capital and issued bonds for building along the line which they had originally contemplated, from Honesdale to Hawley, thus making, with the road built by the Pennsylvania Coal Com- pany, a continuous line from Honesdale to Lackawaxen, and placing the former town in direct connection with the Erie. Members of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, in individual capacity, took much of the stock. Among the people of Honesdale most promi- nently identified with the project at this period and later, were Judge C. P. Waller, Samuel E. Dimmick and Zenas H. Russell.

No attempt has ever been made to connect, by an independent line over the Moosic range, the two railroads built under the charter of the Jefferson Company, and it is probable that none ever will be made, for the Delaware and Hud- son Canal Company's Gravity Railroad, from Honesdale to Carbondale, is a sufficient con- necting link.

PROPOSED RAILROAD ROUTES OUT OF MONTROSE .- As early as 1868 the subject of an outlet from Montrose began to be agitated by leading citizens of the borough and county and men influential in railroad circles outside of the county. Judge Asa Packer, then presi- dent of the Lehigh Valley Railroad, proposed to the projectors of a railroad running from Montrose to some point on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, to furnish the equipments for the same, and everything except to pay for the right of way and grading. The matter was informally discussed by Joseph D. Drinker, B. F. Blakslee, Abner Griffis, Azur Lathrop, Samuel H. Sayre, F. B. Chandler, C. M. Gere, George Walker and others, and the rontes from Montrose to Meshoppen and also from Mont- rose to New Milford or Great Bend were dis- cussed. The people of Meshoppen objected to the former and opposed the plan ; the latter was partially surveyed, but what seemed to be impassable barriers for a railroad route were met and the survey was abandoned. After

feeling the pulse of the people and ascer- taining the amount that could be depended upon by subscription from people at Montrose, along the line of the proposed railroad in the county and others outside of the county, it was decided to survey a route from Montrose to Tunkhannock, build a narrow-gauge road of three feet in width and accept the proposition of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company. In accordance with this, the State Legislature was petitioned for a charter of privilege, which was granted at the session of 1869, aud Abner Griffis, of Forest Lake, 'paid the necessary amount, one hundred dollars, at Harrisburg, and, with other delegates, formally received the charter. The capital stock is one million dol- lars-shares of fifty dollars each.

MONTROSE RAILWAY COMPANY .- In pursu- ance of the charter granted by the Legislature of Pennsylvania, incorporating the Montrose Railway Company, a meeting was held at the public school-house in Springville on the 27th day of April, 1871, when the following gentle- men were duly elected :

President : James I. Blakslee, 1871-86.

Directors : W. H. Cooper, 1871; Samuel H. Sayre, 1871-86 ; H. K. Sherman, 1871-86; Samuel Stark, 1871-77; C. L. Brown, 1871; C. M. Gere, 1871- 86; S. D. Thomas, 1871-86; G. E. Palen, 1871- 79; W. H. Jessup, 1871; S. Tyler, 1871-86; B. F. Blakslee, 1871-86 ; Felix Ansart, 1871.

The following other gentlemen have also served as directors :

Robert Klotz, 1872-86 ; W. J. Mulford, 1872-86 ; C. D. Gearhart, 1880-86; Azur Lathrop, 1872-79; Charles O. Skeer, 1872-86; Paul Billings, 1878-86 ; J. S. Tarbell, 1880-86.

Secretaries : C. L. Brown, 1871-86; J. R. Rayns- ford, 1878-86.

Treasurers : W. H. Cooper, 1871-84; Asa P. Blakslee, 1884-86.

At the first meeting of the board, held at Springville on May 27, 1871, it was directed that a corps of engineers be at once employed under the supervision of Mr. F. Ansart, Jr., to survey and locate a cheap route for a narrow- gauge railroad extending from Tunkhannock to Montrose. President Blakslee reported at this meeting that the Lehigh Valley Railroad Com- pany had agreed to furnish the rails, ties, spikes

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HISTORY OF SUSQUEHANNA COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

and splices necessary for the superstructure as soon as the grading had been completed and paid for by receipts from stock subscriptions, they agreeing also to receive the payment due them in stock at par. On December 14, 1871, the engineer, Felix Ansart, Jr., reported to the president that he had located, marked and de- termined a route for a railroad from Tunkhan- nock, in the county of Wyoming, to Montrose, in the county of Susquehanna, the line running from the depot of the Pennsylvania and New York Canal and Railroad Company, at Tunk- hannock, to Marcy's Pond, thence along the west bank of the pond to a summit between the waters of Marcy's Pond and the Meshoppen Creek. Crossing the same, it runs in a nearly direct line to the village of Springville, thence by the village of Dimock into the borough of Montrose. The length of the road is 27-12 miles. The terminus at Montrose is 1045 feet higher than the Tunkhannock terminus. There are six principal summits : The Marcy's Pond Summit, Lemon, Springville, Woodbourne, Decker and Montrose.

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Centennial history of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania, Part 12

Author: Stocker, Rhamanthus Menville, 1848- Publication date: 1887 Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : R. T. Peck Number of Pages: 1318

Author: Stocker, Rhamanthus Menville, 1848-
Publication date: 1887
Publisher: Philadelphia, Pa. : R. T. Peck
Number of Pages: 1318