The act further provided that the railroad shall be constructed between Deposit, in Delaware County, and a point on the west side of Chenango River, one mile westerly of the village of Binghamton, in Broome County, on or near the route established by Benjamin Wright, via Nineveh and Page Brook, with the privilege of running the same through Chenango County: Provided said route is practicable and can be adopted without prejudice to the public interest, which shall be decided by the certificate of John B. Jervis, Orville W. Childs, and Horatio Allen, engineers, or by any two of them. If they decide that route not to be practicable, they shall locate the route from Deposit to and through the village of Binghamton to a point one mile westerly of that village, or any other route, or by the great bend of the Susquehanna River; and the Company is authorized to construct the road in the county of Susquehanna in the State of Pennsylvania, as may be necessary for that purpose; the engineers to survey all the proposed routes between those points.

The Company is required to construct the road between the summit of the Shawangunk Ridge and Deposit, within the State of New York, through the interior of Sullivan County, and, if necessary, through a portion of the county of Ulster, providing a practicable route can be obtained, which is to be decided by the same engineers; but in case they shall not so decide, the Company is authorized to construct a portion of its road on such route as the Directors shall decide through the counties of Sullivan and Ulster, the engineers to survey all the routes proposed between the two points.

The Company is authorized to connect the railroad with the Corning and Blossburg Railroad, at or near the village of Corning, and with the Williamsport and Elmira Railroad, at or near the village of Elmira; no bonds to be issued or assigned by the Comptroller until after the route is located between the Shawangunk summit and Deposit, and Deposit and Binghamton, according to the provisions of this act. (Chapter 325, Laws of New York, 1845.)

1846.

Petitions from Chenango and Delaware counties for an act compelling the Company to construct its railroad on the northern route, and against locating any part of the route in Pennsylvania; and from the Directors for an act to amend the Act of May 14, 1845, as regarded the locating of the route, were presented early in the session.

In the Assembly, March 16th, Mr. Titus, from the Committee on Railroads, reported in favor of such a bill. March 28th, it having been recommitted to the Committee on Railroads, Mr. Bush reported in favor of its passage. Mr. Blodgett, from the same committee, reported against the passage of any bill permitting the railroad to go into Pennsylvania and against ignoring Sullivan County. The bill was returned to the committee. March 31st, Mr. Titus re-reported it without amendment. The debates on and amendments to the bill in the Assembly were so lively and numerous that, April 9th, on motion of Alvah Worden, of Ontario County, it was referred to a select committee of eight, consisting of one member of Assembly from each Senate District.

The Speaker, William C. Crain, appointed from the First District Mr. Titus; from the Second, George T. Pierce; from the Third, Henry C. Haynor; from the Fourth, Sidney Lawrence; from the Fifth, Benjamin F. Cooper; from the Sixth, Andrew G. Chatfield; from the Seventh, Mr. Worden; from the Eighth, Mr. Blodgett.

April 10th, the committee reported the bill, with amendments, and it was agreed to. Benjamin Bailey, of Putnam County, offered an amendment that if the railroad was built out of the State, or connected with any other railroad, the Company should forfeit its charter.

Not agreed to.

April 22d, the bill reported by the Select Committee of the Assembly was rejected, less than two-thirds of the members voting for it.

All efforts to reconsider the vote failed. May 2d, Mr. Worden introduced the bill anew, and it was passed by a vote of

99 to o.

May 4th, in the Senate, Mr. Hard introduced a bill entitled "An Act to amend an act in relation to the construction of the New York and Erie Railroad, and for other purposes"; passed May 14, 1845. Same day the Worden bill was received from the Assembly, and referred to the Committee on Railroads, which reported in favor of its passage, without amendment.

May 7th, the Senate passed the Hard bill by a vote of 23 to 4. May 8th, it was amended in the Assembly, and passed, May 9th, by a vote of 95 to 20. Same day, the Senate agreed to the Assembly amendments, and the bill passed by a vote of 23 to 1, Mr. Putnam, of the Eighth District, voting against it. May 13th, the Senate passed the Worden bill by a vote of 23 to 0.

(Abstracts of the Bills.)

May 11th.-Repealed the section of the Act of May 14, 1845, referring to the survey of the route by John B. Jervis, Orville W. Childs, and Horatio Allen, and appointed John B. Jervis, Orville W. Childs, Horatio Allen, civil engineers, and Frederick Whittlesey of Monroe County, Jared Wilson of Ontario County, William Dewey of Jefferson County, and Job Pierson of Rensselaer County, Commissioners to determine the route by surveys, and if they determine that there was no practicable route between the Shawangunk Ridge and Deposit, through the interior of Sullivan County, the Company had the privilege of leaving its contemplated route, or the completed road, at any point west of Goshen, in Orange County, and locate the road through Ulster County, on the east side of Shawangunk Mountains, pursuing the valley of the Wallkill, to near the village of Rondout; thence up the Rondout Creek, crossing to Esopus Creek; up that creek to the Barberbush Kill, in the town of Shandaken, Ulster County; up that creek and through Stony Clove to the Schoharie Kill, in the town of Hunter, Greene County; down the Schohárie Kill to the Bear Kill; up that kill to the town of Stamford, Delaware County; then across through the town of Harpersfield to the Charlotte River; then down the same and the Susquehanna River to the best point to cross at or near Binghamton, or any other route the said Company shall determine to follow through Ulster, Greene, Delaware, or Sullivan counties; or the Company is authorized to fix and locate the line, the Legislature reserving power, at its next annual meeting, to direct otherwise, between the Shawangunk Ridge and Deposit, along the valley of the Delaware River, and across the Delaware to the Pennsylvania side, but not to construct between those points more than thirty miles in length of their railroad on the Pennsylvania bank of the Delaware, the route to cross the Delaware, between Carpenter's Point, in Orange County, and the Glass House Rocks, in Pike County, Pa., and recross the Delaware into New York State, not less than three nor more than ten miles above the mouth of the Lackawaxen River, the road on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware to be constructed as not to

have power to send for persons and papers. The resolution was laid on the table, and on February 28th, James Little, of Onondaga County, offered a resolution providing that if the committee was appointed, it should be instructed to inquire whether the Company had complied with the requisition of the Act of May 14, 1845; whether the bonds issued to the Company by the State were not sold below par, in violation of that act; whether the Company had not mortgaged its road and the proceeds thereof, and if so, to whom, for what amount, and by what authority; whether money obtained by the Company for the construction of the road had not been applied to the payment of interest; whether the bonds of the Company had not been hypothecated by it for money borrowed, and if so, to whom and what amount of bonds; and if sold by the persons to whom they were hypothecated, at what rate each bond was sold; whether in the judgment of the committee the State ought not to resume the lien conditionally released by the Act of May 14, 1845. The resolution was laid upon the table.

February 21st, Senator Johnson introduced a bill imposing tolls upon freight transported on the New York and Erie Railroad. It was referred to the Finance Committee, which reported that it was inexpedient to pass such a bill at that time.

These and similar harassing measures were to prevent the passage of a bill which the New York and Erie Railroad Company was the sponsor for, and was using ail its endeavors to carry through the Legislature. This was finally accomplished on April 20th, in spite of the filibustering tactics of its opponents. This act is what is known as the General Railroad Law. It repealed the Act of March 27, 1848. It still further widened the scope of the Erie plans. Sec. 51 provided that nothing in the act should authorize or permit the New York and Erie Railroad Company to abandon the use of its road in the county of Rockland, east of Suffern depot. (Chapter 140, Laws of New York, 1850.)

1851.

In the Assembly the matter of the petition of citizens of Rockland County, to prevent the Company from diverting traffic by way of the New Jersey railroads, and the remonstrances from New York City and all along the line against the passage of such a bill, were referred to the Committee on Railroads, March 12th. The committee were: Joseph B. Varnum, Jr., of New York; John Horton, of St. Lawrence County; George Lesley, of Rensselaer County, and Wolcott J. Humphrey, of Wyoming County. The committee reported April 1st, sustaining the remonstrances, and reported a bill simply providing against the running of freight trains over any railroads in the State of New Jersey, leaving the Company at liberty to transfer goods from its own to other trains if the consignees desired it. The committee learned nothing to justify the impression that the Company had in any way violated its charter. The prayer of the petitioners was not granted.

1852.

In the Senate, February 6, 1852, on petition of citizens of Rockland County, whether the Company had exceeded. its powers in certain bonds, on motion of Abraham B. Conger, of the Seventh District, the President appointed at select committee to inquire into the matter. The committee were Mr. Conger; Azor Taber, of the Eleventh District, and Ashley Davenport, of the Twenty-first District.

Another petition from Rockland County for a committee to inquire whether the Company had not exceeded its corporate powers, was presented. It was referred to a special committee. March 1st, the matters were taken from the committee and referred to the Committee on Railroads, and they were not heard of again during the session.

Efforts were made by the enemies of the Company in the Assembly to pass an act compelling it to pay tolls to the State on its traffic, without success.

IN THE PENNSYLVANIA LEGISLATURE.

1841.

As early as 1841 the people of northeastern Pennsylvania foresaw the importance of the railroad to them, and anticipated the change in the route from the roundabout course of the Wright survey, from the Delaware Valley to the Susquehanna Valley, to one more direct and feasible, and secured the passage of an act (February 18, 1841) by the Pennsylvania Legislature, authorizing the New York and Erie Railroad. Company "to construct said road through a portion of Susquehanna County, in the State of Pennsylvania, because it had been represented that in the county of Broome the Company could not build its railroad further, except by tunnelling the mountain west of Deposit, or using stationary power." (No. 17, Pamphlet Laws of Pennsylvania, 1841.)

1846.

The question of right of entry into Pennsylvania by the railroad was the one that seriously confronted the Company at this period of the work, and great opposition to it was made by the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company and others in Pennsylvania. The Legislature of that State, however, at last passed an act (March 26, 1846), amending the Act of February 18, 1841, so that the Company was authorized to extend the line of its railroad from a point near the village of Port Jervis, across the Delaware, into the county of Pike, and thence up the valley near the shore of the river, a distance not to exceed thirty miles, to a point not exceeding ten miles above the mouth of the Lackawaxen River, provided that the road cross the river into Sullivan County not less than three nor more than ten miles above the mouth of the Lackawaxen River, and constructed so as not to obstruct the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company in the building of its aqueduct across the Delaware at Lackawaxen, or injure

the rafting channel of the river, or impede the business of the Delaware and Hudson Canal, the railroad to cross the river at some point between Carpenter's Point and the Glass House, and permit a connection at or near Carpenter's Point, in Pike County, with any railroad now chartered or hereafter to be chartered by Pennsylvania; the Company to keep at least one manager, toll-gatherer or other officer, a resident of Pike County, and one in Susquehanna County. This act was not to take effect until the New York Legislature should authorize the Company, and the Company should consent, to make a connection with the Blossburg and Corning Railroad, at or near Corning, and with the Williamsport and Elmira Railroad at or near the village of Elmira. Among the conditions of the act was one compelling the Company to regulate its tolls so that the charge on anthracite and bituminous coal should not exceed one and one-half cents per ton per mile; the Company to pay the State, after the completion of the road to Lake Erie, $10,000 a year, any failure to do so to forfeit all the rights granted in the act; the Company to make a sworn statement to the Auditor-General of the cost of the work in the State, and to pay a tax on its stock to an equal amount of such cost, at the rate similar property was taxed; the Company to make a sworn statement to the Legislature, in January of each year, of its business for the previous year; a scire facias to issue from the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and be served on the President or any officer or agent of the Company, on complaint that any of the provisions of this act had been violated, and show cause, the act to be null and void if such were the case. (No. 17, Pamphlet Laws of Pennsylvania, 1846.)

66

1848.

66

The interests of the Company were all centred in the Pennsylvania Legislature of 1848, and its future depended on the action of that body in the matter of a necessary change of the point of entry of the railroad into that State. ("Administration of Benjamin Loder," pages 88-90.) Favorable action was taken, and an act was passed amending the Acts of 1846 and 1841; giving the Company authority to change the place of crossing the Delaware into Pike County from some point between Carpenter's Point and the Glass House to some point between Carpenter's Point and Bolton Basin," provided that the Company should erect, by the first day of October, 1852, a permanent and substantial bridge across the Delaware, between Sim's Clip and the rope ferry at Matamoras, with a double track, one for a railroad, the bridge to be kept in good order and repair by the Company "forever thereafter," the Company to receive the same rate of tolls as was charged at the Delaware Bridge at Easton, Pa.; the Company to connect any railroad that might be constructed to the abutment of the bridge with its railroad by a branch railroad on one of the tracks of the bridge to the main line, at or near the depot at Port Jervis; no tolls to be exacted for railroad passengers or freight passing over the bridge; the Company to begin

the construction of the bridge and branch railroad with all proper speed, if a railroad was built to the Delaware River at the bridge before January 1, 1852; the Company to pay all immediate and consequent damages to the proprietor of the rope ferry at Matamoras in consequence of construction of the bridge, the last item not to exceed $3,000; the penalty of refusal or neglect to comply with the provisions of this act to be the assessment by the State of Pennsylvania on the Company and the collection of a tax of one dollar for each passenger carried on the railroad in Pennsylvania, until a sum sufficient to construct the bridge and pay all damages to private property; a refusal to pay the tax to be followed by the Canal Commissioners of Pennsylvania appointing a collector and adopting measures to enforce the payment; noncompliance with any of the provisions of the act to be followed by the repeal of the Act of 1841, and all the supplements thereto, nothing in the act to be construed as exonerating the Company from the payment of the $10,000 annual bonus to the State. (No. 262, Pamphlet Laws of Pennsylvania, 1848.)

With the passage of the General Railroad Law by the New York Legislature, and the action of the Company under it, the Erie won its way from the Ocean to the Lakes, after a persistent fight of twenty years.

These two extracts from letters of Benjamin Loder, who was President of Erie at the time, are significant :

ALBANY, 8 March, 1850. DELAVAN HOUSE.

ALBANY, 5 April, 1850.

CRUDE AND HALTING PRELIMINARIES.

IN the days when the agitation of the project for a railroad from the Hudson River to Lake Erie began, railroad building was but a budding science in this country, and the ideas that prevailed as to the best means of constructing such thoroughfares were extremely crude. In 1830, two years before the Erie was chartered, Robert L. Stevens had designed the T rail, the first specimen of which was rolled in 1831—the rail that is now in universal use the world over-but still knowledge of railroad construction came to our engineers slowly. J. Elfreth Watkins, in his monograph on "The Development of the American Rail and Track," published by the National Museum in its report for 1888-89, says: "The British railway projectors had the advantage of being able to call into their service a trained force of civil engineers, men on whose judgment the wealthy capitalist was willing to supply the money for the proposed improvement. Many of the civil engineers who were first called into the service of the American railroads were connected with the Army Engineer Corps, having obtained their training at West Point, the only institution in the United States where engineering was taught during the first quarter of the century. In some cases, however, these surveys were made by canal or road engineers, who had obtained experience in canal and turnpike construction." Of the latter class were the surveyors for the original route of the New York and Erie Railroad in 1834.

As early as the summer of 1832 differences had come between the friends of the Erie project in the western part of New York State and those in the eastern part, over the efforts of the latter to have the survey for the route made by the Government. Philip Church united the western incorporators of the company (as he termed those of the western New York counties who were mentioned in the charter) into opposition to that plan, but the Government survey was defeated by other causes. (Chapter III., pages 16 to 18.) The western incorporators, failing to induce the Company to make its own survey, united in pressing the importance of the project upon the attention of the New York Legislature, with the purpose of

having the State itself survey the route for the proposed railroad. One of the chief objections those unfavorable to the railroad offered to its further recognition by the State was that the climate of the region through which much of it was to pass was such that in winter the deep snow would at times entirely put a stop to the use of the railroad, and the ice forming on the rails in the late fall, the winter, and the early spring months, would frequently preclude the use of the locomotive, while the severe frosts would weaken the foundations.

How little had ideas of the practical science of railroad construction taken possession of the projectors of the Erie as late as 1834 is shown by the plan then put forward as the one on which this railroad was to be built, as stated in the argument of the western incorporators before the New York Assembly Committee on Railroads, in meeting the objections of the opponents of the railroad. "Very smooth ice," it said, "forming on the rails prevents the adhesion of the locomotive engine. Those who have been eye-witnesses say that this is obviated on the Liverpool and Manchester Railroad by placing one of the cars before the locomotive. The wheels of the car easily break and displace the ice. It is understood, snow is removed from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad by a machine preceding the locomotive, supposed to be in the shape of a double-moulded plough, and is perhaps what is called the Swedish snow plough. The use of a snow plough extending across the whole width of a railroad, on rails within a few inches of the ground, would produce in our deep snows very considerable retardation. It is proposed to build our rails a considerable height from the earth, which, in our great command of wood, can be easily accomplished, in some such mode as the following: