THE COMING OF THE RAILROAD TO LAKE ERIE
Lake Erie became in the nineteenth century the portal of the Great
Lakes. To her shores came from the east an army of immigrants pouring
into the states beyond, and from these regions, as they became
populated, came back an immense volume of produce to be carried to the
cities of the east and the south. These conditions led the citizens
of the lake shore promptly to adopt any new means of transportation.
In its day they had welcomed the turnpike and built many roads into
the interior. During the era of canal-building the people of New York,
Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana had spent hundreds of thousands of
dollars on artificial waterways. In 1840 five canals over a thousand
miles in length, not including their many branches, opened into Lake
Erie. The Welland Canal united it with Lake Ontario, the Erie with the
Hudson, while the Ohio and Erie connected Cleveland with Columbus and
the Ohio and also with the Pennsylvania Canal and thus with Pittsburg;
and from Toledo and the Maumee River the Miami Canal went south to
Cincinnati, and the Wabash and Erie west to Lafayette, Indiana. This
remarkable group of canals had been built in twenty years. No less
wonderful was the building of railroad lines in the next two decades;
and to us who are accustomed to limited trains and “flyers” the story
of the first trains is one of curious interest.
[Illustration: Map: “By Canal and Railroad to Lake Erie” showing
connecting canal and railroad paths from Lake Michigan in the west to
Lake Ontario and New York in the east]
Ohio and Michigan were progressive in the matter of building railroads.
Michigan gave a charter to the Michigan Central in 1830, and in 1832,
when there were only two hundred and twenty-nine miles of railroad in
operation in the United States, the Ohio legislature granted a charter
for the construction of a road from Sandusky to Dayton, a distance
of over one hundred and fifty miles. These early dates are rather an
exhibition of good intentions and foresight than a measure of actual
achievement, for neither road was begun until 1837 and then each was
carried but a few miles. All railroad-building about the lakes until
nearly the middle of the century was a matter of crude and small
beginnings, but it is these very beginnings which make us realize the
transformations that have taken place within less than eighty years.
The first railroad to be built in Ohio was the Kalamazoo and Erie
from Toledo, Ohio, to Adrian, Michigan. This was later bought up by
the Michigan Southern road and was the first link in the route to
Chicago, taken, as will be remembered, by our traveller of 1840. It was
thirty-three miles long and was a typical early railroad. Seven-eighths
of it was built in unbroken forest, and one-third through a densely
timbered swamp where malaria and mosquitoes made the lives of the
workmen miserable. The track was built of oak stringers, or long wooden
beams, upon which were fastened strips of iron five-eighths of an
inch thick and two and a half inches wide. These rails were supported
by wooden cross-ties placed about four feet apart and resting securely
on a heavy foundation of broken stone. The cars were built after the
fashion of the body of a stage-coach, or rather of three stage-coaches
put together, and were set on a four-wheeled truck instead of directly
on wheels, to make it possible for them to swing round on curves. The
conductor walked along an outside footboard to collect fares. These
cars opened at either end and seated about twenty-four persons, who
faced to the front. On the Toledo road a horse track was laid between
the rails, and the road was used for one year with horse power. In 1837
a locomotive was purchased and steam power was substituted.
For ten years American builders had been experimenting with types of
locomotives and had adopted a pattern which has persisted to this day
in its principles, although it has been much changed in details and
size. The fore part of the engine was placed on a four-wheeled truck
and fastened to it with a bolt, which allowed the truck to swing some
distance and thus to round sharp curves safely. The back part rested
on four connected driving wheels. An engine of this type had been
built in 1836 in Philadelphia, and was speedily adopted elsewhere. It
weighed about ten tons when water and coal tanks were loaded, and would
seem to us to-day a crude and small affair, but it was better suited
to wooden rails than a heavier engine would have been. Passengers paid
four and a half cents a mile to be carried on this Toledo railroad at a
speed of less than ten miles an hour.
The leisureliness and timidity of the first trains would seem to us
amazing, did we not remember how tiny the engine was, how unstable
the road-bed, and how loosely the cars were coupled together by bolt
and pin. Twenty years after this first road was built one of the
printed instructions to engineers was to be perfectly sure before
they pulled out of the station that they had their entire train with
them and had dropped no cars in starting. At first it was the custom
for the engineer to stop the train to collect fares, or for any other
urgent business connected with the road. It was many years before
the companies dared run night trains. The Michigan Central, which
was opened in 1837, found in the autumn of 1841 that its depots were
so loaded with barrels of flour and cords of wood that they would
not be able to get it all to Detroit before the close of navigation
on the lakes. The directors conferred together and hired teams to
transport the goods from stations near Detroit to that place. For the
long distances they had no alternative but to put one of their four
locomotives on for night service, but they considered it unsafe and
hoped that such extreme measures would not be necessary in the future.
When this road had been opened, four years before, an adventurous young
man who owned a sorrel pony announced that he was going to race the
train for the last mile before it reached Dearborn. The crowds who had
been assembled to see the first train come in were much excited over
the competition, and, needless to say, the pony won.
After the completion of these and other short roads there was a lull
in railroad-building, due to the hard times in the western country
which succeeded the panic of 1837. In 1845 and 1846 the legislatures
began once more to plan internal improvements, and a great era of
railroad-building began which continued until the opening of the Civil
War. In the history of Lake Erie 1851 stands out as the year when
three of the trunk lines were completed and their opening fittingly
celebrated. In that year the first train came into Cleveland, and with
the thought of the hundreds of trains that enter its stations daily,
let us put ourselves back into the city of 1851 and watch the first
train arrive.
The state legislature had voted to loan to the credit of the
city $200,000 for the construction of the Cleveland, Columbus,
and Cincinnati Railroad. In 1851 the road-bed of two hundred and
sixty-three miles was completed, and on the morning of February 21
was formally opened by the passage over the road of a party of four
hundred and twenty-eight persons, who took the train from Columbus
and Cincinnati to Cleveland, the “city of the Lake Shore.” The party
was made up of members of the legislature, officers of the state, the
councils of both cities, and many citizens. The road over which these
people travelled was a very different one from the Toledo road of
fourteen years before, and from the number of people accommodated it
is evident that the passenger coaches were very different, also. Iron
rails had taken the place of wooden ones, and heavier locomotives and
more comfortable cars had been built. When the excursion train reached
the city of Cleveland, thousands of citizens were lined up along the
track and about the station and the cannon of the city boomed out a
loud welcome to the incoming guests. The party had arrived late in the
day, as it was a twelve-hour journey. The next morning a procession of
Cleveland people was formed, with General Sanford as chief marshal, to
escort the guests to the public square in front of the court-house,
where the mayor received them with a speech of welcome. He was followed
by Mr. Convers, speaker of the senate, Mr. Starkweather, who spoke
for the people of Cleveland, three gentlemen from Cincinnati, and the
governor of the state, Mr. Wood, who was a Cleveland resident. Last on
the programme came Mr. Cyrus Prentiss, the president of the Cleveland
and Pittsburg Railroad, forty miles of which were also opened that day.
This road ran to Ravenna, where passengers could take the canal packet
to Beaver River, and there transfer to a steamboat for Pittsburg. Mr.
Prentiss invited the guests to take an excursion on that road. After
that trip they returned to a banquet and grand torchlight procession in
the evening.
In their pulpits on Sunday the ministers discoursed on the wonderful
event that had taken place, the arrival of the railroad, and on
Monday morning the people gathered from all the region round to see
the strange iron horse start back across the state with its load.
Just before the train pulled out of the station, one of the visiting
party sang a humorous song, describing the effect of the trip upon the
interior regions of the state. He told of the delight and astonishment
of mothers and children in their log cabins, and of wood-choppers of
the back country as they had looked up and seen this “snorting iron
horse with the long tail” race through the country. He ended his song
with praise of the governor Cleveland had given the state and of
Cleveland itself,
“The beautiful city, the forest-tree city,
The city upon the lake shore.”
The opening up of the Venango oil-district in Pennsylvania in 1858
brought to Cleveland a large refining and shipping industry, for which
it was well fitted by its advantageous position on the lake and its
railroads and vessels.
Two months later a similar occasion took place in the little village of
Dunkirk, Pennsylvania, when the New York and Erie road was completed.
This line crossed the state of New York some seventy miles south of
the Albany turnpike and New York Central route, and with its completion
the Great Lakes and the Atlantic were once more united and the occasion
was celebrated as if such an idea had never entered the minds of any
one before. President Fillmore and Daniel Webster, his Secretary of
State, with three other members of the cabinet, came on from Washington
and took the trip on the first train over the road. In New York City
and all along the way there was great excitement, and in the little
village of Dunkirk grand preparations had been going on for weeks. The
train arrived at four-thirty on the afternoon of May 15. As it rolled
into the station the church bells rang, cannon roared, and a salute of
thirteen guns was fired from the United States steamship _Michigan_,
which was stationed in the harbor. The cars passed under a canopy of
French, American, and British flags, and beyond the engine at the very
end of the track was an arch of evergreen and flowers built over an old
plough on which was printed the word “Finis.” This was the plough used
to break ground for the first ten-mile section of the road at Dunkirk
in 1838.
The distinguished visitors formed in a procession and marched about the
town, to be welcomed by the mayor before they entered the huge shed
erected for the occasion. Over the table, three hundred feet long, hung
two barbecued oxen suspended on poles. Upon the table were ten sheep
roasted whole. Bread had been baked in loaves ten feet long by two
thick, which it took two men to carry. Even the pork and beans were
in tin vessels holding fifty gallons each, and barrels of cider were
set at intervals along the side of the table. The presidential party
looked, admired, and praised--and then returned to the hotel for a
collation, leaving the sampling of these triumphs of the culinary art
to the other guests of the occasion.
From the window of the hotel the great men made speeches in the
evening, President Fillmore and Senator Douglas leading and being
followed by ex-Governor Seward and others. This group was of great
interest to the political world as having six presidential candidates
in its ranks--Fillmore, Crittenden, Douglas, Seward, Marcy, and
Webster. The last-named was to have spoken that night, but he was so
hoarse from previous efforts that he could only say a few words in
answer to the calls of the people for him, and postponed his speech
until the next night. With suitable éclat, the ocean and the lakes were
once more “forever united,” this time in very truth, by a service which
took only twenty hours in contrast to the three days of the Erie Canal.
In the words of one of the banners in the hall, “’Tis done,--’tis done,
the mighty chain that binds bright Erie to the main.”
“Bright Erie” was not yet connected as closely as the public might
naturally demand, as was shown by the famous Erie war of 1853. On all
the roads between what are to-day the great cities of the country
there ran one or at most two trains a day. Even on the New York and
Erie itself, which was one of the fastest and best equipped in the
matter of service, the mail train ran one-half the distance in one
day, and then stopped overnight at Elmira before it proceeded on its
way. These arrangements made it very necessary that the traveller
should make good connections and that the various roads should run in
harmony, for each piece was operated by a separate company. Besides
this there was another complication. The tracks of different roads
were of different gauges or widths, so that the train of one could
not by any possibility be run on another. This condition of affairs
was particularly bad at Erie, twenty miles beyond Dunkirk, where all
passengers had to leave the cars, ride across the town in omnibuses,
or walk a mile to the other station, and if connections failed, as
they often did, dine or even stay overnight in the town. This state
of affairs was satisfactory to the local hotel and baggage men and
others who gained from the opportunities offered by a large transfer
of baggage and people, but it was very annoying to travellers. The
railroad manager of the eastern road decided to alter the gauge of his
road and attempt an arrangement by which passengers could be carried
through direct to Cleveland. He began by buying up all the stock he
could of the other line. This was the pioneer attempt at a railroad
merger and resulted in one of the most bitter local wars the country
has ever known, involving every one in the region and the people of
both states in a protracted and very serious struggle. The issue was
complicated and intensified by state and railroad rivalry, but the
whole affair began because the people of Erie were unwilling to be
made a “way-station,” as they termed it, on a through route and thus
lose the commercial advantages of being a terminus for railroads and
steamboat lines.
On the morning of December 7, 1853, the citizens of Erie were summoned
by the ringing of the court-house bell. Men rushed to the centre of the
town to find that the eastern railroad company had begun work at the
state line altering their road from their four-feet-ten-inches gauge to
the six-foot width of the western railway. As the road ran for a short
distance through the street of the town the municipal authorities had
refused a permit for change, but the company had begun, nevertheless.
After listening to impassioned speechmaking from the court-house steps
till it was thoroughly roused, the crowd, led by the mayor, started for
the wooden railroad bridge. They found it guarded by employees of the
railroad, who were soon scattered by a shower of rotten eggs and other
missiles. The mob then attacked the bridge, tore up the tracks and the
timber, and returned triumphantly to the city. Two days later a similar
mob tore up the track, destroyed the bridge, and ploughed the road at
Harbor Creek, seven miles east of Erie. Mob-rule had come in earnest.
It was two months before a single train got through to any point near
these places, and it was three years before the matter was finally
adjusted. The courts and the state militia became involved. State
feeling ran high between Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York over the
question of their local gauges, and the press of the whole country
took sides in the matter. Passengers and freight had to be transferred
during the winter months, when the lake was closed, by wagon from the
stop east of Erie to the stop west of that town, a process that was
called “Crossing the Isthmus.” But still the Erie people rallied with
the watchword, “Break gauge at Erie, or have no railroad.”
Horace Greeley, going west at this time, had to ride the seven miles
across the “Isthmus” in an open sleigh through a severe storm of
wind, snow, and sleet, and after that the railroad managers and the
townspeople were continually denounced in the _New York Tribune_. “Let
Erie be avoided by all travellers,” he wrote on his return, “until
grass shall grow in her streets, and till her piemen in despair shall
move away to some other city.”
Homes of railroad officers and sympathizers were mobbed by the
“Rippers,” as the opponents of the road were called because of their
violent methods. The bridge at Harbor Creek was rebuilt by the company
four times, only to have it burned or torn down. At last when the
whole town was split into bitter factions and all united local spirit
was for the time being destroyed, the courts and legislature settled
the matter. The railroad company, having made certain concessions to
Erie interests, was allowed to change to a compromise gauge of four
feet eight and a half inches (that of the New York Central road) and
run trains through Erie on what is now a part of the Lake Shore and
Michigan Southern Railroad. The great era of consolidation which was to
create our transcontinental lines had begun.