Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive.)
THE STORY OF THE ROME, WATERTOWN AND OGDENSBURGH RAILROAD
[Illustration: THE FLEET LOCOMOTIVE ANTWERP When She Dug Her Red Heels
into the Track the Railroad Men Reached for Their Watches.]
THE STORY
of the
Rome, Watertown and
Ogdensburgh Railroad
_By_
EDWARD HUNGERFORD
AUTHOR OF "THE MODERN RAILROAD," "OUR
RAILROADS--TOMORROW," ETC., ETC.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
1922
Copyright, 1922, by
EDWARD HUNGERFORD
_Printed in the
United States of America_
Published, 1922
TO THOSE PIONEERS
OF OUR
NORTH COUNTRY
WHO
_Labored Hard and Labored Well In
Order That It Might Enjoy the
Blessings of the Railroad, This
Book Is Dedicated by Its Author_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION 1
II LOOKING TOWARD A RAILROAD 5
III THE COMING OF THE WATERTOWN & ROME 24
IV THE POTSDAM & WATERTOWN RAILROAD 59
V THE FORMATION OF THE R. W. & O. 79
VI THE R. W. & O. PROSPERS--AND EXPANDS 102
VII INTO THE SLOUGH OF DESPOND 128
VIII THE UTICA & BLACK RIVER 143
IX THE BRISK PARSONS' REGIME 171
X IN WHICH RAILROADS MULTIPLY 203
XI THE COMING OF THE NEW YORK CENTRAL 227
XII THE END OF THE STORY 246
APPENDIX A 263
APPENDIX B 267
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Fleet Locomotive _Antwerp_ _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Orville Hungerford 31
The Cape Vincent Station 51
Early Railroad Tickets 71
Watertown in 1865 81
The Birth of the U. & B. R. 148
Hiram M. Britton 186
Snow Fighters 231
PREFACE
Some railroads, like some men, experience many of the ups and downs of
life. They have their seasons of high prosperity, as well as those of deep
depression. Such a road was the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburgh. In its
forty years of life it ran a full gamut of railroad existence. Alternately
it was one of the best railroads in creation; and one of the worst.
The author within these pages has endeavored to put plain fact plainly. He
has written without malice--if anything, he still feels within his heart a
burst of warm sentiment for the old R. W. & O.--and with every effort
toward absolute impartiality in setting down these events that now are
History. He bespeaks for his little book, kindness, consideration, even
forbearance. And looks forward to the day when again he may take up his
pen in the scribbling of another narrative such as this. It has been a
task. But it has been a task of real fascination.
E. H.
A LIST OF THOSE WHO HAVE ASSISTED MATERIALLY IN THE PREPARATION OF THIS
BOOK
RICHARD C. ELLSWORTH Canton
HAROLD B. JOHNSON Watertown
CORNELIUS CHRISTIE Syracuse
RICHARD HOLDEN Watertown
J. F. MAYNARD Utica
DR. CHARLES H. LEETE Potsdam
W. D. HANCHETTE Watertown
RICHARD T. STARSMEARE Kane, Pa.
W. D. CARNES Watertown
ARTHUR G. LEONARD Chicago
ROBERT WARD DAVIS Rochester
GEORGE W. KNOWLTON Watertown
L. S. HUNGERFORD Chicago
HON. CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW New York
ELISHA B. POWELL Oswego
P. E. CROWLEY New York
IRA A. PLACE New York
F. E. MCCORMACK Corning
EDGAR VAN ETTEN Los Angeles
D. C. MOON Cleveland
JAMES H. HUSTIS Boston
F. W. THOMPSON San Francisco
HENRY N. ROCKWELL Albany
CHAS. H. HUNGERFORD Arlington, Vt.
CHARLES HOLCOMBE Biloxi, Miss.
CHAPTER I
BY WAY OF INTRODUCTION
In the late summer of 1836 the locomotive first reached Utica and a new
era in the development of Central and Northern New York was begun.
For forty years before that time, however--in fact ever since the close of
the War of the Revolution--there had been a steady and increasing trek of
settlers into the heart of what was soon destined to become the richest as
well as the most populous state of the Union. But its development was
constantly retarded by the lack of proper transportation facilities. For
while the valley of the Mohawk, the gradual portage just west of Rome and
the way down to Oswego and Lake Ontario through Oneida Lake and its
emptying waterways, formed the one natural passage in the whole United
States of that day from the Atlantic seaboard to the Great Lakes and the
little-known country beyond, it was by no means an easy pathway. Not even
after the Western Inland Lock Navigation Company had builded its first
crude masonry locks in the narrow natural _impasse_ at Little Falls, so
that the _bateaux_ of the early settlers, which made the rest of the route
in comparative ease, might pass through its one very difficult
bottle-neck.
It was not until the coming of the Erie Canal, there in the second decade
of the nineteenth century, that the route into the heart of New York from
tidewater at Albany, was rendered a reasonably safe and (for that day)
comfortable affair. With the completion of the Erie Canal, in 1827, there
was immediately inaugurated a fleet of packet-boats; extremely swift in
their day and generation and famed for many a day thereafter for their
comfortable cabins and the excellence of their meals.
But the comfort of these ancient craft should not be overrated. At the
best they were but slow affairs indeed, taking three days to come from
Albany, where they connected with the early steamboats upon the Hudson, up
to Utica. And at the best they might operate but seven or eight months out
of the year. The rest of the twelvemonth, the unlucky wight of a traveler
must needs have recourse to a horse-drawn coach.
These selfsame coaches were not to be scoffed at, however. Across the
central portion of New York; by relays all the way from Albany to Black
Rock or Buffalo, they made a swift passage of it. And up into the great
and little known North Country they sometimes made exceeding speed. That
country had received its first artificial pathways at the time of the
coming of the Second War with England, when it was thrust into a sudden
and great strategic importance. With the direct result that important
permanent highroads were at once constructed; from Utica north to the
Black River country, down the water-shed of that stream, and through
Watertown to Sackett's Harbor; and from Sackett's Harbor through
Brownville--the county seat and for a time the military headquarters of
General Jacob Brown--north to Ogdensburgh, thence east along the Canada
line to Plattsburgh upon Lake Champlain.
These military roads still remain. And beside them traces of their
erstwhile glory. Usually these last in the form of ancient taverns--most
often built of limestone, the stone whitened to a marblelike color by the
passing of a hundred years, save where loving vines and ivy have clambered
over their surfaces. You may see them to-day all the way from Utica to
Sackett's Harbor; and, in turn, from Sackett's Harbor north and east to
Plattsburgh once again. But none more sad nor more melancholy than at
Martinsburgh; once in her pride the shire-town of the county of Lewis,
but now a mere hamlet of a few fine old homes and crumbling warehouses. A
great fire in the early fifties ended the ambitions of Martinsburgh--in a
single short hour destroyed it almost totally. And made its hated rival
Lowville, two miles to its north, the county seat and chief village of the
vicinage.
There was much in this North Road to remind one of its prototype, the
Great North Road, which ran and still runs from London to York, far
overseas. A something in its relative importance that helps to make the
parallel. Whilst even the famous four-in-hands of its English predecessor
might hardly hope to do better than was done on this early road of our own
North Country. It is a matter of record that on February 19, 1829, and
with a level fall of thirty inches of snow upon the road, the mailstage
went from Utica to Sackett's Harbor, ninety-three miles, in nine hours and
forty-five minutes, including thirty-nine minutes for stops, horse relays
and the like. Which would not be bad time with a motor car this day.