USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume Three > Part 20
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voir, was $3,570,016.29. The entire division was sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad company in 1857, and subsequently was transferred to the Pennsylvania Canal company. It was finally abandoned in 1899.
The Erie extension of the State public works, the division from which the very best results were hoped for, proved to be the source of much annoyance to the commissioners and engineers, and was
CAN OFFICE
NORT
AMERICAN
THOTEL
PIONERA LINE
-PHIL ADEL ··· · PITT .. ....
PIONEER LINES
DWE
Lancaster
Showing old Court House in the distance. From Day's Historical Collections
found to be an expensive undertaking. It began at the Beaver connection, above New Castle, from which point its course lay up the Shenango, passing near Conneaut lake, through Crawford county, and along Conneaut creek a considerable distance, and thence across to Erie and the lake. Its entire length was 1051/2 miles. The work of construction was begun in 1827, attention being given first to the French Creek feeder and afterward to the canal proper ; but numerous obstacles opposed the progress of the builders, and in 1834 only a small portion of the division was ready for navigation. The feeder branch was seriously damaged by high water in 1837 and was not again repaired during the State
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ownership. In 1843 the feeder, together with the Shenango and Conneaut sections of the division, passed into the control of the Erie Canal company, by whom the work was completed in Decem- ber, 1844. The company operated the line from Erie to Beaver until September, 1870, and then was succeeded by the Erie and Pittsburg Railroad company. The canal was not navigated after the latter part of 1871. The cost to the State of the Erie exten- sion, with the French Creek feeder (21 miles long), and the Franklin branch (2214 miles long), was $3,721,056.86.
The West Branch division, from its connection with the North Branch and Susquehanna divisions at Northumberland, extended through the West Branch valley to Farrandsville, a small town a few miles above Lock Haven. Work on this line was begun in 1828, navigation was opened as far as Muncie in 1830, but not until 1838 was the entire line opened for traffic. The Lewisburg connection was completed in November, 1833, and the "side cut" to Bald Eagle creek in 1834. In 1838 provision was made for an extension of this division a distance of thirty-three miles to the mouth of Sinnemahoning creek, but after an expenditure of more than $140,000 the work was abandoned. The expense to the State of the West Branch division and its auxiliary branches aggregated $1,389,099. In 1858 the division was sold by the Common- wealth to the Sunbury and Erie Railroad company and in the same year passed under control of the Susquehanna and West Branch company, who, in 1873, transferred its property and franchise rights to the Pennsylvania Canal company. It was afterward sold in sections and the remaining portion was abandoned in 1891.
The North Branch division was in many respects one of the most important branches of the State canal, as it formed the link which united the inland navigable waters of Pennsylvania with those of New York, and provided the ready means of transporta- tion which was suggested previous to 1800 by the Society for Pro- moting Internal Improvements. The North Branch canal, as it
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was generally known, began at Northumberland and thence ex- tended along the Susquehanna to the New York State line. At that point it formed a connection with the junction canal leading to Elmira, thence to and down Seneca lake, and finally, by means of a short branch, united with the Erie canal. Although not a part of the main line of the State public works, the North Branch canal was its most important auxiliary, and during its active opera- tion was productive of grand results in promoting trade between the people of both States and in developing the resources of the country along its route. To a considerable extent it replaced river traffic with a safer means of transportation, and in exchange for the products of manufacture in the Eastern States it supplied these localities with coal for all purposes. The work of construc- tion on this division was begun at Berwick in 1828 and the canal was opened for traffic as far as Nanticoke Falls in Septem- ber, 1831. The Wyoming extension to Pittston, 17 miles, was
completed in 1834. The Tioga line, which completed the connec-
tion with the New York canals, was begun in 1836. The branch
from Pittston to Athens was begun in 1836, but the work was dis- continued in 1841. The Tunkhannock line was begun in 1838. The North Branch Canal company was incorporated in 1843 and acquired from the legislature the unfinished part of the canal line between the Lackawanna river and the State line, but through its failure to comply with the conditions of transfer, the State re- sumed control in 1848. Although the entire division and its vari- ous extensions were presumably completed in 1853, navigation was not opened until November, 1856, when the Tonawanda passed up the canal from Pittston bound for Elmira with a cargo of coal. The total cost of the North Branch division was $1,598,- 379-35. It was sold in 1858 to the Sunbury and Erie Railroad company, and by the latter to the North Branch Canal company. In the same year the line from Northumberland was transferred to the Wyoming Canal company, and in 1869 passed under the management of the Pennsylvania Canal company, and by whom
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it was abandoned with other portions of its system, as before men- tioned. In 1865 the branch from Wilkes-Barre to the New York State line was transferred to the Pennsylvania and New York Canal and Railroad company, and its use for canal purposes was discontinued in 1872.
The Delaware division extended from Bristol to Easton, along the Delaware river, a distance of sixty miles. It did not form a part of the connecting system of canals built and operated by the State, but was a continuation of the Lehigh Coal and Navigation company's line from Easton to the Delaware, at Bristol. It ac- quired added importance, in that it became the connecting link be- tween the Lehigh company's canal and the Delaware and Raritan canal across New Jersey, and thus furnished transportation facili- ties from the coal regions to New York city over that route, as well as to Philadelphia by way of the Delaware. The work of con- struction on the division was begun in 1830, and in 1832 the line was opened for navigation. Its cost, when entirely finished, was
$1,384,606.96. In 1858, with several other branches of the pub- lic works, the Delaware division was sold to the Sunbury and Erie Railroad company, who in the same year conveyed it to the Dela- ware Division Canal company. In 1866 it was leased to the Le- high Coal and Navigation company, and in 1871 passed under control of the Central Railroad of New Jersey, by whom it was subsequently operated. This is the only division of the entire canal system constructed by the State which is now in operation.
The Beaver division canal began at the mouth of Beaver river and extended thence up that stream and the Shenango to a point six miles above New Castle, where it formed a connection with the Erie extension. It was begun in 1831 and was finished in 1834 ( May 28). Its length was 3034 miles and its cost was $760,- 148.48. In 1840, by the construction of the Pennsylvania and Ohio canal, the Beaver division furnished the connection between the canal system of this State and Ohio, and thus became an im- portant avenue of transportation. It may be stated, however,
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that the Beaver division had no direct artificial connection with the other canal lines ( except the Erie extension) of the State, but from its southern terminus at the mouth of Beaver river boats were transported up and down the Ohio between that point and Pitts-
Samuel Vaughan Merrick
Founder Franklin Institute, 1824; first presi- dent Pennsylvania Railroad company. Repro- duced especially for this work from a negative by Gutekunst
burg. This means of communication was ample and river traf- fic was only interrupted by occasional high water. On January I, 1845, the State transferred the Beaver division to the Erie Canal company, and under that management it was operated until the line was finally abandoned in 1871.
The Columbia railroad and the Alleghany Portage railroad were important branches of the public works, and as such deserve
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mention in this place. They were constructed for the purpose of carrying out the internal improvement enterprises undertaken in pursuance of the acts of the legislature referred to in preceding paragraphs, and were operated as railroads for the reason that the region through which they passed was of such character that successful canal operation was impossible. Previous attempts to establish navigable waterways between the Delaware at Phila- delphia and the Schuylkill had taught the State engineers that further efforts in that direction would likewise be unsuccess- ful, and it was therefore determined to connect the canal system and tide water by means of a horse power railroad, on the pro- posed line of the old Delaware and Schuylkill canal as far as the Schuylkill, and thence to Columbia, there to form a connection with the Eastern division canal.
The Philadelphia and Columbia railroad. eighty-one miles long, was begun in 1828, was finished in 1834, and thereby the city of Pittsburg was given direct artificial communication with Philadelphia and the navigable waters on the eastern boundary of Pennsylvania. As first built, the road began at Broad and Willow streets in Philadelphia and followed the general course of the present Philadelphia and Reading company's road as far as Belmont Station, on the Schuylkill, a distance of four miles : thence its course lay over the hill, with a total rise of one hundred and eighty-seven feet. From White Hall station to Columbia its line is marked by the present general route of the Pennsyl- vania company's road between these points.
The completion of the road was regarded as a triumph of engineering skill, and the formal opening was an occasion of gen- eral rejoicing. Travel and transportation by safe and reason- ably expeditious means were assured and obstacles apparently in- surmountable had been overcome. The Delaware and the Schuylkill at last were united, and even the distant Susquehanna was levied upon to contribute its constantly increasing volume of products to Philadelphia markets. At first the road was oper-
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ated with horse power and drivers, and transportation companies owned their own cars, paying toll to the collectors along the route. This custom occasioned much inconvenience, but it was continued until the use of locomotives was made possible by changing the course of the road to avoid steep grades. The State supplied locomotive1 power in 1834 (June 28), but its use did not become general until 1836.
In connection with the history of the Philadelphia and Colum- bia railroad2 there may be noted a number of events of more than ordinary interest. The first locomotives used wood for fuel in generating steam, but in some of them anthracite coal was suc- cessfully used as early as 1838. Bituminous coal was first used
for the same purpose in 1839. In 1846 the old strap rails were replaced with T rails, and in 1850 a telegraph line was estab- lished. In 1856 the State entered into a contract with the Penn- sylvania Railroad company to carry passengers and freight over the road for five years, but in the following year, in carrying out the act providing for the sale of the public works, the lessee com- pany became absolute owner of the line. The cost to the State of the Philadelphia and Columbia railroad was $4,791,548.91.
The Alleghany Portage railroad, connecting the Eastern and Western divisions of the State public works, extended from Holli- daysburg on the east to Johnstown on the west slope of the Alle- ghany mountains, a total distance of 36.44 miles. In design, construction and subsequent operation, this road was a novel af-
'One authority states that the first loco- motive used on the road was the Black Hawk, of English makc, and that it made trips in 1831 between Lancaster and Colum- bia. The Lancaster, built by M. W. Bald- win of Philadelphia, began running in 1834, and its success (the Black Hawk proved a failure) resulted in an order from the State for twelve locomotives, six from M. W. Baldwin, four from Robert Stephenson, of England, and two from Coleman Sellers & Sons, of Philadelphia. In 1836 the George Washington was put on the road by the
Norris Locomotive Works of Philadelphia, and was the first engine to climb the heavy grades without difficulty.
"The Gettysburg extension of the Colum- bia road was begun in 1836 by an incor- porated company, but after about thirty miles were graded the work was discontin- ued. The company intended to build the road from Wrightsville, opposite Columbia, to Gettysburg, but the State proposed to ex- tend the line farther south. To a certain extent the extension was a part of the public works.
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fair, and comprised a series of levels, inclined plains and hoist- ing arrangements, yet when completed it served the purpose for which it was intended and by it loaded cars and canal boats were safely transported over the mountains in either direction. Ac- cording to published reports there were ten inclined planes, up which cars were drawn by stationary engines; four viaducts, and one tunnel, nine hundred feet long, nineteen feet high and twenty feet wide. In the highest part the road attained an altitude of 2,326 feet above tide water.
The Portage railroad, as it was commonly known, was the result of the engineering genius of Sylvester Welch, who also was largely instrumental in constructing other portions of the State public works. The road was begun in April, 1831, and in 1833 (Nov. 20) the first cars passed over the line, drawn by horses, as the hoisting apparatus was not then in place. The
second track was laid in 1835. The first locomotive, the Boston, so called after the city in which it was built, ran on the Johnstown level of the road in 1834, and was the first railway locomotive east of the Alleghanies in this State. It was soon followed by others, each with a distinguishing name, and among them there may be recalled the Conemaugh, otherwise known as the Coffee Pot, and also the United States, both primitive specimens when compared with the ponderous engines that now transport trains over the modern road through Blair's Gap, where the Portage road was laid out.
The first Portage railroad cost the State nearly two million dollars, and it was operated for about fifteen years, when the work of constructing a new and better road was begun. It was completed in 1855, upon which the old road, with its series of levels and planes, was abandoned. The new improvement cost a little more than $2, 100,000. The line was sold to the Pennsyl- vania Railroad company in 1857, and such parts thereof as were not required for the purchasing company's use were permanently abandoned.
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Railroads .- Railroading, which is now recognized as one of the most important elements of industrial and commercial life in our great Commonwealth, had its beginning in the early years of the last century, and that beginning was as crude, imperfect and as humble as that which marked the early history of any other of the great enterprises that attained the perfection of develop- ment with the dawn of the twentieth century.
The American railroad in its inception was a necessity born of the rapid progress of development during the years following the close of the second war with Great Britain, and was borrowed in its earliest stages from the mother country; but then, as now, the American people proved themselves only temporary borrowers and soon began to build upon their own ideas, with the result that in the construction of railroads and locomotives and cars for trans- portation of freight and passengers, and in the operation of large railroad enterprises, the United States soon gained an enviable prominence, and instead of borrowing from other countries Amer- ican inventors builded entirely for their own systems and began to send abroad the products of their native genius; and thus it is that to-day in the construction of railroads and their equipment, and in the operation of these great thoroughfares of travel and transportation the United States leads the world-and supplies a goodly portion of it with the production of its factories. In the accomplishment of this grand work Pennsylvania was almost a pioneer and for many years has been a chief controlling factor.
Originally railroads were called tramroads and are known to have been used in England as early as 1730, at Newcastle-on- Tyne, for the convenient transportation of coal from the mines to places of shipment. These primitive roads bore little resem- blance to the railroads of half a century ago, rude and undeveloped as the latter were at that time, and no resemblance whatever to the modern railroad of the present day. They at first consisted of strong parallel wooden rails, resting on sleepers, and the latter on the firm earth, and there was no thought then of grades and
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Francis Rawn Shunk
Clerk of State Legislature; secretary Board of Canal Commissioners 1836-1838 ; secretary of state 1838 ; governor 1845-1848
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curves, overcome and adjusted with engineering skill, for the tramroad of early days covered only short distances and no at- tempt was made to surmount grades, that being a later step in the grand evolution of scientific railroading. Horse power, too, for many years was used in transporting freight, and it was not until 1769 that steam power was applied to the moving of vehicles on tramroads, although a carriage propelled by steam power was invented and used in Paris in 1763.
Soon after the construction of tramroads the builders, in order to render more durable the parallel wooden rails, began to protect their tops with straps of iron, and in 1738 some enterprising genius produced a rail made wholly of iron-an iron rail-from which was derived the name railroad. A recent writer on the subject has said that these rails were cast, and to prevent the wheels of the cars from running off the track a flange was cast on the outside of the rails, but afterward was changed to the in- side. Flanges on the wheels of cars were first used in 1789, and have been continued to the present time. Cast rails in short lengths of three or four feet were continued in use until 1820, when machinery was invented for rolling rails in suitable forms and of greater lengths. The first public railway for the "Surrey Iron Tramroad" was authorized by act of Parliament in 1801, and this is believed to have been the pioneer of its kind.
Although tramroads were in frequent use in England and other European countries during the eighteenth century, it was not until 1801 that experiments of that character were tried on this side of the Atlantic; and if accounts are true, our own State of Pennsylvania had the honor of pioneership in this work of development when Thomas Leiper set up in the yard of the once famous Bull's Head tavern, on Third street, above Callowhill, in Philadelphia, a tramroad twenty-one yards long, with a grade of one and one-half inches to the yard, and succeeded in hauling up its entire length a car loaded with 10,696 pounds of material, using one horse as motive power. The success of this experi-
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ment demonstrated the feasibility of constructing a similar road as a substitute for the proposed canal between Philadelphia and Columbia, for the latter undertaking had failed of success and it had become necessary to devise some other convenient and less expensive means of transportation between those points. Ulti- mately the road was built and was operated by the State, horse power being used until 1834, when locomotives were purchased for the line. The history of the Philadelphia and Columbia rail- road will be found elsewhere in this chapter.
In 1809 a second tramroad, sixty yards long, four foot gauge, was built for Mr. Leiper by John Thomson ( father of J. Edgar Thomson, formerly president of the Pennsylvania Railroad com- pany ), a civil engineer, and so gratifying were the results of this second experiment that Mr. Leiper soon afterward built a similar road from his stone quarries on Crum creek, in Delaware county, to his boat landing on Ridley creek, a distance of one mile. This primitive road, like its predecessors, was operated with horse power, and was in use nineteen years, until after railroads of greater strength were brought into existence, and until after loco- motives came into use as motive power in transporting loaded cars. In 1818 a similar road was built at Bear creek furnace, in Armstrong county, and was used for transporting ores and iron products in that locality. In the course of the next few years. it having become known that roads of this character afforded cheap and expeditious means of transportation, several others were constructed and put into operation. The dates of building and the localities in which they were operated are not essential to this chapter, but as the first step toward the construction of mod- ern railroads mention of some of them is proper. The tramroad led to the railroad, and the use of horse power in moving cars led to the subsequent introduction of the steam engine. Each had its place in the evolution of the modern railroad, and a century ago the tramroad was to the people of that age a thing of as much im- portance as is the present railroad to those of our own time.
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One of the most important of these old-time roads was that built in the early part of 1827 at Mauch Chunk, for the transpor- tation of coal from the Lehigh Coal and Navigation company's mines to the Lehigh river, a distance of nine miles, with four miles of siding. Gordon's Gazetteer for 1832 describes the road as follows : "The railway is of timber, about 20 feet long, 4 inches by 5 (each piece), and set in cross pieces made of cloven trees placed 31/2 feet from each other and secured by wedges. The rail is shod on the upper and inner edge with a flat bar of iron 21/4 inches wide and 5/8 of an inch thick." Loaded cars descended it by gravity and were drawn back empty by mules. These roads, however, were built for the transportation of freight, ores and other products of the mines, and were not intended or used for the conveyance of passengers or the general transaction of busi- ness as we now understand the purpose of railroads. They were for private and corporate use and were not common carriers as that term is now used.
With all the conveniences of the thoroughly equipped modern railroads of the twentieth century, with their numerous and swiftly moving trains of cars, we are prone to regard the old primitive tramroad as of little consequence in the history of railroad enter- prises in this State, yet it must be understood that the present conditions of elegance and comfort in travel are the direct out- growth and the natural successors in an age of progress to the little, crude affairs with which enterprising men experimented and struggled less than a century ago. The tramroad with its cars drawn by horses was sufficient for its time and fulfilled its mis- sion but in the course of a few years there came a demand for more rapid transportation of freight and passengers than either the tramroad or the canals could furnish ; and it became necessary, too, to provide for more extended lines of road, and for the carry- ing of freight and passengers up grades, over mountains and across considerable streams. This great work meant increased expenditures, the incorporation of heavily capitalized companies,
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and, above all, the services of men of energy, brains and courage; it meant that the slow horse on the tramroad or on the canal packet must be displaced by stronger and more rapid means of propulsion; it meant that the structure which would safely sus- tain one or two small loaded cars must be replaced with a road- bed of sufficient strength to support the weight of a steam loco- motive and a train of twenty or more heavily loaded cars; and it meant, in short, that the old system of transportation must be entirely revolutionized and superseded. The locomotive then had been recently invented and was in use in England and elsewhere on the other side of the Atlantic, and commercial interests in the United States again looked abroad in the hope of borrowing an- other idea for temporary purposes. And to Pennsylvania is ac- corded the honor of having the first locomotive operated on a railroad in this country.
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