THE FORMATION OF THE R. W. & O.
That the Watertown & Rome and the Potsdam & Watertown Railroads would have
merged in any event was, from the first, almost a foregone conclusion.
Their interests were too common to escape such inevitable consolidation.
The actual union of the two properties was accomplished in the very early
sixties (July 4, 1861) and for the merged properties--the new trunk-line
of the North Country, if you please--the rather euphonious and embracing
title of the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburgh Railroad was chosen. It was at
that time that the branch was built from DeKalb to Ogdensburgh. A combined
directorate was chosen from the governing bodies of the two merged
roads--I shall not take the trouble to set it down here and now--and Mr.
Pierrepont was chosen as the President of the new property, with Marcellus
Massey, of Brooklyn, as its Vice-President, R. E. Hungerford as Secretary
and Treasurer, H. T. Frary as General Ticket Agent, C. C. Case as General
Freight Agent and Addison Day as General Superintendent. Whilst the
general offices of the company were in Watertown, its shops and general
operating offices, at that time, were in Rome. It was in this latter city
that Addison Day was first located. Day was a resident of Rochester. He
refused to remove his home from that city, but spent each week-end with
his family there.
He was a conspicuous figure upon the property, coming as the successor to
a number of superintendents, each of whom had served a comparatively short
time in office--Robert B. Doxtater, Job Collamer and Carlos Dutton, were
Addison Day's predecessors as Superintendents upon the property. These men
had been local in their opportunity. To Day was given a real job; that of
successfully operating 189 miles of a pretty well-built and essential
railroad. Yet his annual salary was fixed at but $2500, as compared with
the $4000 paid to Dutton. Later however Day was raised to $3000 a year.
The main shops of the company, as I have just said, were then situated in
Rome. They were well equipped for that day and employed about one hundred
men, under William H. Griggs, the road's first Master Mechanic. A smaller
shop, of approximately one-half the capacity and used chiefly for
engine repairs and freight-car construction, was located at Watertown,
just back of the old engine house on Coffeen Street.
[Illustration: WATERTOWN IN 1865 Showing the First Passenger Station of
the Potsdam & Watertown. Taken from the Woodruff House Tower.]
But Watertown's chief comfort was in its passenger station, which stood in
the rear of the well-famed Woodruff House. Norris M. Woodruff had
completed his hotel at about the same time that the railroad first reached
Watertown. It was a huge structure--reputed to be at that time the largest
hotel in the United States west of New York City; and even the far-famed
Astor House of that metropolis, had no dining-salon which in height and
beauty quite equalled the dining-room of the Woodruff House. Mr. Woodruff
had given the railroad the site for its passenger station in the rear of
his hotel, on condition that the chief passenger terminal of the company
should forever be maintained there, which has been done ever since. Yet
the chief passenger station of the R. W. & O. of 1861 was a simple affair
indeed. Builded in brick it afterwards became the wing of the larger
station that was torn down to be replaced by the present station a decade
ago. It was not until 1870 that the three story "addition" to the original
station was built and the first station restaurant at Watertown opened, in
charge of Col. A. T. Dunton, from Bellows Falls, Vt. After the fashion of
the time, its opening was signalized by a banquet.
* * * * *
In front of me there lies a very early time-table of the Rome, Watertown &
Ogdensburgh Railroad. It bears the date, April 20, 1863, and apparently is
the twelfth to be issued in the history of the road. It is signed by
Addison Day, as Superintendent.
On this sheet, the chief northbound train, No. 7, Express and Mail, left
Rome at four o'clock each afternoon, reaching Watertown at 7:05 p. m., and
leaving there twenty minutes later, arrived at Ogdensburgh at 10:30 p. m.
The return movement of this train, was as No. 2, leaving Ogdensburgh at
4:25 o'clock in the morning, passing Watertown at 7:10 o'clock and
reaching Rome at 10:35 a. m. In addition to this double movement each day,
there was a similar one of accommodation trains; No. 1, leaving Rome at
2:35 o'clock each morning, arriving and leaving Watertown at 6:20 and 6:40
a. m., respectively, and reaching Ogdensburgh at 10:10 a. m. As No. 8, the
accommodation returned, leaving Ogdensburgh at 4:30 p. m., passing
Watertown at 8:20 p. m., and arriving at Rome at 12:20 a. m. Apparently
folk who traveled in those days cared little about inconvenient hours of
arrival or departure.
There were connecting trains upon both the Cape Vincent and the Potsdam
Junction branches--the branch from Richland to Oswego was just under
construction--and a scheduled freight train over the entire line each day.
Yet there, still, was an almost entire absence of mid-day passenger
service.
Gradually this condition of things must have improved; for in Hamilton
Child's _Jefferson County Gazetteer and Business Directory_, for 1866, I
find the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburgh advertising three fast passenger
trains a day in each direction over the entire main line, in addition to
connections, not only for Cape Vincent and for Potsdam Junction, but also
over the new branch from Richland through Pulaski to Oswego. Pulaski,
humiliated in the beginning by the refusal of the Watertown & Rome to lay
its rails within four miles of that county-seat village, finally had
received the direct rail connection, that she had so long coveted.
In that same advertisement there first appears announcement of through
sleeping-cars, between Watertown and New York, an arrangement which
continued for a number of years thereafter, then was abandoned for many
years, but, under the bitter protests of the citizens of Watertown and
other Northern New York communities, was finally restored in 1891 as an
all-the-year service.
Upon the ancient time table of 1863 there appear the names of the old
stations, the most of which have come down unchanged until to-day. One of
them has disappeared both in name and existence, Centreville, two miles
south of Richland, while the adjacent station of Albion long since became
Altmar. Potsdam Junction we have already seen as Norwood, while nice
dignified old Sanford's Corners long since suffered the unspeakable insult
of being renamed, by some latter-day railroad official, Calcium. A similar
indignity at that time was heaped upon Adams Centre, being known
officially for a time as Edison!
The Centre rebelled. It had no quarrel with Mr. Edison. On the contrary,
it held the highest esteem for that distinguished inventor. But for the
life of it, it could not see why the name of a nice old-fashioned
Seventh-Day-Baptist town should be sacrificed for the mere convenience of
a telegrapher's code. It was quite bad enough when Union Square, over on
the Syracuse line, was forced, willy-nilly, to become Maple View, and
Holmesville, Fernwood. Neither were the marvels of the lexicographers of
the Postoffice Department, under which all manner of strange changes were
made in the spelling of old North Country names (think of Sackett's
Harbor, time-honored government military and naval station, reduced to a
miserable "Sacket!") germane to Adams Centre's problem. Adams Centre it
was christened in the beginning, and Adams Centre it proposed to remain.
And after a brief but brisk fight with railroad and postoffice officials,
it succeeded in regaining its birthright.
* * * * *
Early in June, 1872, William C. Pierrepont retired as President of the
Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburgh and was succeeded by Marcellus Massey, the
third holder of that important post of honor in the North Country. Mr.
Massey, although for the greater part of his life also a resident of
Brooklyn, was of Jefferson County stock, a brother of Hart and of Solon
Massey. He gave his whole time and interest to the steady upbuilding of
the road. Gradually it was coming to a point where it was considered,
without exception, the best operated railroad in the State of New York, if
not in the entire land. Sometimes it was called the Nickel Plate, although
that name nowadays is generally reserved for the brisk trunk
line--officially the New York, Chicago & St. Louis--that operates from
Buffalo, through Cleveland to Chicago.
The R. W. & O. was in fact at that time an extremely high-grade railroad
property; it was the pride of Watertown, of the entire North Country as
well. Mr. Massey used to say that as a dividend payer--its annual ten per
cent came as steadily as clock-striking--his road could not be beat;
particularly in a day when many railroad investments were regarded as very
shaky things indeed. The crash of the Oswego Midland, which was to come a
few years later, was to add nothing to the confidence of investors in this
form of investment.
Steadily Mr. Massey and his co-workers sought to perfect the property. The
service was a very especial consideration in their minds. A moment ago we
saw the time table of 1863 in brief, now consider how it had steadily been
improved, in the course of another eight years.
In 1871 the passenger service of the R. W. & O. consisted of two trains
through from Rome to Ogdensburgh without change. The first left Rome at
4:30 a. m., passed through Watertown at 7:38 a. m., and arrived at
Ogdensburgh at 11:15 a. m. The second left Rome at 1:00 p. m., passed
through Watertown at 4:17 p. m., and arrived at Ogdensburgh at 7:10 p. m.
Returning the first of these trains left Ogdensburgh at 6:08 a. m., passed
through Watertown at 9:20 a. m., and arrived at Rome at 12:10 p. m.: the
second left Ogdensburgh at 3:00 p. m., passed through Watertown at 6:35
p. m., and reached Rome and the New York Central at 9:05 p. m. The
similarity between these trains and those upon the present time-card, the
long established Seven and One and Four and Eight, is astonishing. Put an
important train but once upon a time card, and seemingly it is hard to get
it off again.
In addition to these four important through trains there were others: The
Watertown Express, leaving Rome at 5:30 p. m. and "dying" at Watertown at
9:05 p. m., was the precursor of the present Number Three. The return
movement of this train was as the New York Express, leaving Watertown at
8:10 a. m. and reaching Rome at 11:35 a. m. There were also three trains a
day in each direction on the Cape Vincent, and Oswego branches and two on
the one between DeKalb and Potsdam Junctions.
* * * * *
For a railroad to render real service it must have, not alone good
track--in those early days the Rome road, as it was known colloquially,
gave great and constant attention to its right of way--but good engines.
Up to about 1870 these were exclusively wood-burners, many of them
weighing not more than from twenty to twenty-five tons each. They were of
a fairly wide variety of type. While the output of the Rome Locomotive
Works was always favored, there were numbers of engines from the Rhode
Island, the Taunton and the Schenectady Works.
Thirty-eight of these wood-burning engines formed the motive-power
equipment of the Rome road in the spring of 1869. Their names--locomotives
in those days invariably were named--were as follows:
1. _Watertown_
2. _Rome_
3. _Adams_
4. _Kingston_
5. _O. Hungerford_
6. _Col. Edwin Kirby_
7. _Norris Woodruff_
8. _Camden_
9. _J. L. Grant_
10. _Job Collamer_
11. _Jefferson_
12. _R. B. Doxtater_
13. _O. V. Brainard_
14. _North Star_
15. _T. H. Camp_
16. _Silas Wright_
17. _Antwerp_
18. _Wm. C. Pierrepont_
19. _St. Lawrence_
20. _Potsdam_
21. _Ontario_
22. _Montreal_
23. _New York_
24. _Ogdensburgh_
25. _Oswego_
26. _D. DeWitt_
27. _D. Utley_
28. _M. Massey_
29. _H. Moore_
30. _C. Comstock_
31. _S. F. Phelps_
32. _Col. Wm. Lord_
33. _H. Alexander, Jr._
34. _Roxbury_
35. _Com. Perry_
36. _C. E. Bill_
37. _Gen. S. D. Hungerford_
38. _Gardner Colby_
Of this considerable fleet the _Antwerp_ was perhaps the best known. Oddly
enough she was the engine that the directors of the Potsdam & Watertown
had purchased from "Vilas, of Plattsburgh." She was then called the
_Plattsburgh_, but upon her coming to the R. W. & O. she was already
renamed _Antwerp_. Inside connected, like the _O. Hungerford_, she also
was a product of the old Taunton works down in Eastern Massachusetts. Her
bright red driving wheels made her a conspicuous figure on the line.
The _Camden_ was also an inside connected engine. The _Ontario_ and the
_Potsdam_ and the _Montreal_ were other acquisitions from the Potsdam &
Watertown. The _Potsdam_ had a picture of a lion painted upon her front
boiler door, the work of some gifted local artist, unknown to present
fame. She came to the North Country as the _Chicopee_ from the Springfield
Locomotive Works, and with her came, as engineer and fireman,
respectively, the famous Haynes brothers, Orville and Rhett. Henry
Batchelder, a brother of the renowned Ben, who comes later into this
narrative, and who is now a resident of Potsdam, well recalls the first
train that made the trip between that village and Canton. Made up of
flat-cars with temporary plank seats atop of them, and hauled by the
_Potsdam_, it brought excursionists into Canton to enjoy the St. Lawrence
County Fair. That was in the year of 1855, and the railroad was only
completed to a point some two miles east of Canton. From that point the
travelers walked into town.
Mr. Batchelder also remembers that the engineers and firemen of that early
day invariably wore white shirts upon their locomotives. The old
wood-burners were never so hard as the coal-burners on the apparel of
their crews. They were wonderful little engines and, as we shall see in a
moment, had a remarkable ability for speed with their trains. The
_Antwerp_ in particular had rare speed. Those red drivers of hers were the
largest upon the line. And when Jeff Wells was at her throttle and those
red heels of hers were digging into the iron, men reached for their
watches.
* * * * *
No true history of the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburgh might ever be written
without mention of Jefferson B. Wells. In truth he was the commodore of
the old locomotive fleet. For skill and daring and precision in the
handling of an engine he was never excelled. Although bearing a certain
uncanny reputation for being in accidents, he was blamed for none of them.
Whether at the lever of his two favorites, the _T. H. Camp_ and the
_Antwerp_, or in later years as captain of the "44" he was in his element
in the engine-cab. The "44" spent most of the later years of her life,
and of Wells', in service upon the Cape Vincent branch. I can remember it
standing at Watertown Junction, sending an occasional soft ring of grayish
smoke off into the blue skies above. And distinctly can I recall Jeff
Wells himself, a large-eyed, tallish man, fond of a good joke, or a good
story, a man with a keen zest in life itself. He was a good poker player.
It is related of him, that one night, while engaged in a pleasant game at
Cape Vincent, word came from Watertown ordering him to his engine for a
special run down to the county-seat and back.
For a moment old Jeff hesitated. He liked poker. But then the trained soul
of the railroader triumphed. He threw his hand down upon the table--it was
a good hand, too--and turning toward the call-boy said:
"Son, I'll be at the round house within ten minutes."
* * * * *
That was Wells; best at home in the engine-cab, and, I think no engine-cab
was ever quite the same to him as that of the speedy _Antwerp_, with John
Leasure on the fireman's side of the cab--Leasure was pretty sure to have
previously bedecked the _Antwerp_ with a vast variety of cedar boughs,
flags and the like--and the President's car on behind. This, in later
years, was sure to be the old parlor-car, _Watertown_, gayly furbished for
the occasion. This special was sure to be given the right-of-way over all
other trains on the line that day; all the switch-points being ordered
spiked, in order to avoid the possibility of accidents. Yet, on at least
one occasion--at DeKalb Junction--this practice nearly led to a serious
mishap. Mr. Massey's train had swept past the little depot there and
around the curve onto the Ogdensburgh branch at seventy miles an hour. For
once there had been a miscalculation. The little train veered terribly as
it struck the branch-line rails; the directors were thrown from their
comfortable seats in the parlor-car, and poor Billy Lanfear, of Cape
Vincent, the fireman, was nearly carromed from his place in the cab. At
the last fractional part of a second he succeeded in catching hold of the
engineer's window as he started to shoot out.
The wood-burners were not supposed to be fast engines--a great many of
them in the early days of the R. W. & O. had small drivers and this was an
added handicap to their speed. But sixty miles an hour was not out of the
question for them. Mr. Richard Holden, of Watertown, who started his
railroad career in the eating-house of the old station in that city, still
recalls several trips that he made in the cab of the engines on the Cape
branch. It had a fairly close schedule at the best, connecting at
Watertown Junction with Number Three up from Rome in the afternoon, and
turning and coming back in time to make connections with Number Six down
the line. It frequently would happen that Three would be fifteen or twenty
minutes late, which would mean a good deal of hustling on the part of the
Cape train to make her fifty mile run and turn-around and still avoid
delaying Number Six. But both Casey Eldredge and Chris Delaney, the
engineers on the branch at that time, could do it: Jeff Wells was still on
the main line and unwilling then to accept the easier Cape branch run,
which afterwards he was very glad to take.
"The air-brake was unknown at that time," says Mr. Holden, "all trains
being stopped by the brakeman, assisted by the fireman, a brake being upon
the tender of all the engines. When some of these fast trains were
running, I used to take a great delight in riding on the engine, and
remember the running-time of the trip was thirty-five minutes, which
included stops at Brownville, Limerick, Chaumont and Three Mile Bay, my
recollection being that the station at Rosiere was not open at that time.
Deducting the time used for stops the actual running time would average
sixty miles an hour. All engines used on passenger trains had small
driving-wheels and it will be remembered that all passenger trains, except
One and Six, consisted of but a baggage-car and two coaches, consequently
an engine could get a train under good headway much faster than engines
with the heavy equipment in use at the present time."
* * * * *
In all these statements in regard to the speed of the trains upon the
early R. W. & O. it should not be forgotten that for the first twelve or
thirteen years of the road's existence, it had to worry along without
telegraphic or any other form of rapid interstation communication. It was
not until 1863 or 1864 that its trains were despatched upon telegraphic
orders; and even these were of the crudest possible form. The "Nineteen"
had not yet been evolved. A slip of paper torn from the handiest writing
block and scribbled in fairly indecipherable hieroglyphics was the train
order of those beginnings of modern railroading. The telegraph order,
instead of being a real help to the locomotive engineer, was apt to be one
of the puzzles and the banes of his existence.
It was in 1866 that a railroad telegraph office was first established at
Watertown Junction and D. N. Bosworth engaged as despatcher there.
According to the recollections of Mr. W. D. Hanchette, of that city, who
is the nestor of all things telegraphic in Northern New York, Bosworth was
soon followed by a Mr. Warner, who was not, himself, a telegraphic
operator, but who had to be assisted by one. A Canadian, named Monk, was
one of the first of these. Warner was finally succeeded as despatcher at
Watertown Junction by N. B. Hine, a brother of Omar A. Hine and of A. C.
Hine--all of them much identified with the history of the Rome road. N. B.
Hine remained with the road for a long season of years as its train
despatcher, eventually moving his office from the Junction to the enlarged
passenger station back of the Woodruff House in Watertown.
He learned his trade in the summer before Fort Sumter was fired upon;
using a small, home-made, wooden key at his father's farm, somewhere back
of DeKalb. A year after he had obtained his railroad job, Omar Hine was
appointed operator at Richland, opening the first telegraph office at that
place, and becoming its station agent as well. From Richland he was
promoted to the more important, similar post at Norwood. When he left
Norwood, Mr. Hine became a conductor upon the main line. In that service
he remained until the comparatively recent year of 1887.
About the time that he was assigned to Richland, his brother, A. C. Hine,
was appointed operator and helper at the neighboring station of Sandy
Creek. So from a single North Country farm sprang three expert
telegraphers and railroaders. When they began their career, but a single
wire stretched all the way from Watertown to Ogdensburgh; and the movement
of trains by telegraph was occasional, not regular nor standardized. A
second wire was strung the entire length of the line in the fall of 1866
and in the following spring, Mr. Bosworth began the difficult task of
trying to work a systematic method of telegraphic despatching, and
gradually brought the engineers of the road into a real cooperation with
his plan, a thing much more difficult to accomplish than might be at first
imagined. Those old-time engineers of the road were good men; but some of
them were a trifle "sot" in their ways. Their habits were not things
easily changed.
* * * * *
The full list of these old-time engineers of the R. W. & O. would run to a
considerable length. Remember again Orve Haynes--something of an
engine-runner was he--who afterwards went down to St. Louis to become
Master Mechanic upon the Iron Mountain road. The _J. L. Grant_ was named
after a Master Mechanic of the R. W. & O., who eventually became an
assistant superintendent. The _Grant_ was in steady use upon the Cape
branch prior to the coming of the "44." A good engineer in those days was
a good mechanic--invariably. Repair facilities were few and far between.
The ingenuity and quick wit of the man in the engine-cab more than once
was called into play. Engine failures were no less frequent then than now.
Ben. F. Batchelder first came to fame as a well-known engineer of that
early decade; John Skinner was another. There was D. L. Van Allen and
Louis Bouran and John Mortimer and Casey Eldredge and Asa Rowell and old
"Parse" Hines, and George Schell and Jim Cheney--that list does indeed run
to lengths. In a later generation came Nathaniel R. Peterson ("Than") and
Conrad Shaler and Frank W. Smith and George H. Hazleton, and Frank Taylor,
and Charles Vogel--but again I must desist. This is a history, not a
necrology. It is hardly fair to pick but a few names, out of so many
deserving ones.
The most of the engineers of that day have gone. A very few remain. One of
these is Frank W. Smith, of Watertown, who to-day (1922) has retired from
his engine-cab, but remains one of the expert billiard players in the
Lincoln League of that city.
Mr. Smith entered upon his railroad career on November 9, 1866, at the
rather tender age of seventeen, as a wiper in the old round house in
Coffeen Street, Watertown. In those days all the engines upon the line
still were wood-burners. The most conspicuous thing about DeKalb Junction
in those days, aside from the red brick Goulding House, was the huge
wood-shed and wood-pile beyond the small depot, which still stands there.
It was customary for an engine to "wood up" at Watertown--in those days as
in these again, all trains changed engines at Watertown--and again at
DeKalb Junction before finishing her run into Ogdensburgh. Similarly upon
the return trip, she would stop again at DeKalb to fill her tender; which,
in turn, would carry her back to Watertown once again. Wood went all too
quickly. I remember, sometime in the mid-eighties, riding from Prescott to
Ottawa, upon the old Ottawa and St. Lawrence Railroad, and the wood-burner
stopping somewhere between those towns to appease its seemingly insatiable
appetite.
The wood-burners upon the R. W. & O. began to disappear sometime about the
beginnings of the seventies. Apparently the first engine to have her
fire-boxes changed to permit of the use of soft coal was the _C.
Comstock_, which was rapidly followed by the _Phelps_, the _Lord_ and the
_Alexander_. They then had the extension boilers and the straight
"diamond" stacks. A red band ran around the under flare of the diamond.
About that time the road began adding to its motive power; new engines,
among them the _Theodore Irwin_ and the _C. Zabriskie_, were being
purchased, and these were all coal burners, bituminous, of course. When,
as we shall see, in a following chapter, the Syracuse Northern was merged
into the R. W. & O., eight new locomotives were added to the growing fleet
of the parent road; four Hinckleys and four Bloods.
Even at that time the road was beginning, although in a modest and
somewhat hesitant way, the construction of its own locomotives in its own
shops. William Jackson, the Master Mechanic there in 1873, built the _J.
W. Moak_ and the _J. S. Farlow_, both of them coal-burners for passenger
service. He was succeeded by Abraham Close who built the _Cataract_ and
the _Lewiston_, and the _Moses Taylor_, too, in 1877. The following year
the late George H. Hazleton was to become the road's Master Mechanic and
so to remain as long as it retained its corporate existence.
In later years there were to come those famous Mogul twins, the _Samson_
and the _Goliath_. There were, as I recall it, still two others of these
Moguls, the _Energy_ and the _Efficiency_. In a still later time the road,
robbed of its pleasant personal way of locomotive nomenclature and
adopting a strictly impersonal method of denoting its engines by serial
numbers alone, was to take another forward step and bring in still larger
Moguls; the "1," "2," "3," and "4."
But I anticipate. I cannot close this chapter without one more reference
to my good friend, Frank W. Smith. He was an energetic little fellow; and
after some twenty months of engine wiping there at Coffeen Street, and all
the abuse and cuffing and chaffing that went with it, he won an honest
promotion to the job of a locomotive fireman. It was a real job, real
responsibility and real pay, thirty-nine dollars a month. Yet this job
faded when he became an engineer. Job envied of all other jobs. How the
boys would crowd around the _Norris Woodruff_ at Adams depot, at
Gouverneur, and all the rest of the way along the line and feast their
eyes upon Frank Smith up there in the neat cab, that so quickly came to
look like home to him! Fifty dollars a month pay! Overtime? Of course not.
Agreements? Once more, no. This was nearly fifteen years ahead of that day
when the engineers upon the Central Railroad of New Jersey were to
formulate the first of these perplexing things.
But a good engine, a good job and good pay. They had the pleasant habit of
assigning a crew to a definite engine in those days, and that piece of
motive power invariably became their pet and pride. A good job was not
only an honest one, but one of a considerable distinction. And fifty
dollars a month was not bad pay, when cheese was eight cents a pound and
butter seven, and a kind friend apt to give you all the eggs that you
could take home in the top of your hat. Remuneration, in its last analysis
is forever a comparative thing--and nothing more.