THE "NEWBURGH SHORT CUT."

The Newburgh and New York Railroad was projected in 1861, and surveys were made by William Sneeden, at that time superintendent of the Northern Railroad of New Jersey. The expense of the survey was paid by Newburghers and the Erie. Nothing was done until 1864, when Robert H. Berdell came in as President of the Erie. John Houston, an Erie civil engineer, was directed to make a permanent location of the route. Nothing further was done until 1866, when the project was revived. An attempt was made to bond Newburgh and other places in aid of the road, but failed. Then Homer Ramsdell took the matter up. He was a Director in the Erie, and through his influence that Company took hold of the New York and Newburgh road. In 1868 it was put under contract by the Erie to Peter Ward of Newburgh and Valentine Levy of Hudson City, N. J. Ground was broken, April 10, 1868. The road was completed, and turned over to the Erie, August 23, 1869. It cost $550,000, and brought Newburgh within sixty-two miles of New York.

The opening of this Newburgh Short Cut was made the occasion of a celebration the like of which had not been seen since the opening of the railroad to Dunkirk. Saturday, August 14, 1869, the citizens of Newburgh extended invitations to the officers and Directors of Erie to be their guests on the opening of the railroad.

An excursion train left Newburgh at 9.45, in charge of Conductor Thomas Wright and Engineer Henry Gaylord. There was firing of cannon at every station. The excursion train from New York was met at the junction. On this train were James Fisk, Jr., Comptroller of Erie; the Directors, the Secretary and Treasurer; Hugh Riddle, General Superintendent; A. P. Berthoud, Superintendent of the Eastern Division; James H. Rutter, General Freight Agent; Gov. John T. Hoffman, A. Oakey Hall, Mayor of New York, Mayor Peddie of Newark, Hon. Charles H. Winfield of Jersey City, and many other distinguished guests.

The train was gaily decorated. Edward Kent was the engineer, and Chauncey Hale the conductor. A procession nearly a mile long paraded the streets of Newburgh, where there were hours of speech-making. Fisk made a famous speech in response to the address of welcome. Three hearty cheers and a "tiger" were given for him and Jay Gould, and the band played "Hail to the Chief," at the conclusion of the speech. A great banquet was given at Moore's Opera House, for which the citizens of Newburgh had subscribed $10 a plate. The railroad was but sixteen miles long, but it was an event, and those were the times of Gould and Fisk.

THE WAR OF THE GAUGES.

When the Erie was completed to Dunkirk in 1851 there was no railroad connection farther west. The Cleveland, Ashtabula, and Painesville Railroad was being extended eastward, with the intention of connecting with the Erie or the

New York Central Railroad by means of local roads across the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, known as the Triangle, and bordering on Lake Erie, the distance across that portion of Pennsylvania, between the New York and the Ohio lines, being fifty miles. The borough of Erie (now city) occupied the vantage point in that corner of the State on Lake Erie. A railroad known as the Erie and Northeast Railroad had been chartered, April 22, 1842, to be built from Northeast, a Pennsylvania village near the New York line, to Erie, about twenty miles. Nothing was done toward building the railroad until 1849, when, events seeming to indicate that the New York and Erie Railroad was certain to reach Lake Erie, the Erie and Northeast Company saw the importance of its railroad as a link in a chain of rail communication between the East and West and began work upon it. The railroad was completed January 19, 1852, the New York and Erie Railroad having then been open between New York and Dunkirk the better part of a year. In 1848 Pennsylvania capitalists obtained a charter from their State Legislature for the Erie and Ohio Railroad Company, to build a railroad from Erie to the Ohio line. This would have assured the completion of a line across the Triangle, but, unfortunately, the individuals interested in the project were dilatory in taking advantage of their charter, and in 1849 it was repealed in the interest of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad, which was then building to connect Philadelphia and Pittsburg, and which was determined to harass the New York trunk lines in obtaining thoroughfare through Pennsylvania.

In 1844 the Pennsylvania Legislature had chartered the Franklin Canal Company, with authority to repair the Franklin Division of the Pennsylvania Canal, and the privilege of constructing a railroad on the towpath north to Erie and south to Pittsburg, or on a route the company deemed most advantageous. Construing this concession somewhat liberally, the Canal Company located a railroad between Erie and the Ohio State line, which would complete a connection by rail with the Erie and Northeast Railroad, and give a direct line to the New York lines to Cleveland.

Under the New York railroad law of 1849, a company entitled the Buffalo and State Line Railroad Company was organized to build a railroad from Buffalo westward along Lake Erie to the State line, the purpose being to make a connection with the Erie and Northeast Railroad, and thus control, with that railroad and the proposed Ohio connection, the traffic to and fro between the East and West and the railroad then terminating at Buffalo, which was destined soon to become part of the present New York Central system. The original intent of the Erie and Northeast Railroad Company was to make the gauge of its railroad six feet, and, in fact, it had an understanding with the New York and Erie Railroad Company to that effect, being also under the impression that the Buffalo and State Line Railroad was to be of that gauge. The influences that subsequently combined the five local New York railroads between Albany and Buffalo into the one New York Central were then at work, and it was evident the Central was to be of the four-foot-eight-and

STORY OF THE TIME-TABLES.

THE first official time-tables (1841) for the information and regulation of employees on the Erie were not printed. They, were arranged by S. S. Post, who enjoyed the distinction of being the Company's original "Superintendent of Transportation." After he had drafted them they were copied on half-sheets of note paper by his clerk. As it was necessary to provide each engineer and conductor, each station agent, and the heads of operating departments with a copy, the clerk was obliged to make as many as nine copies of the first official time-table. There were a superintendent, a superintendent of transportation, a master mechanic, two conductors, two engineers, and two station agents, one at Chester and one at Goshen, each to be supplied with a time-table. The body of it was written with black ink. The names of "turn-out" stations or points were indicated by being written with red ink. These were places where a train going in one direction was to turn out, or lie on a siding, until an expected train, going in the opposite direction, should pass. The original turn-outs were at Monsey, the Y at Ramapo, and at Turners and at Chester. Written time-tables were in use until too many copies were required to stock the employees, and then printed ones came in. The public was kept informed of the movements of trains and the changes in time by handbills and announcements in New York newspapers and the two Goshen newspapers-the Independent Republican and the Democrat. At the time the railroad was opened in 1841, and for years afterward, there was not a newspaper on the line between New York and Goshen, and none between Goshen and Binghamton, on the route over which the railroad was later to proceed west from Goshen. One of the original official time-tables, made with a pen, would to-day be of priceless value as a relic of pioneer railroading, and a printed copy of one would be of scarcely less intrinsic worth as a curiosity in the history of railroad operating, but not one

of either is in existence. The oldest handbills announcing changes in the running of trains on the Erie and giving information as to passenger rates and regulations, that the author has been able to find, were issued in the spring of 1847. Older than that by two years is the freight schedule he unearthed, which was issued in June, 1845. They are both reproduced in facsimile on pages 375 and 381. Anything rarer than these, in this day of relics of pioneer railroading on the Erie, it would be impossible to obtain. They will appeal with peculiar interest to traffic managers in this advanced age of transportation science, fixing indisputably on the records, as they do, the ideas of those early directors of Erie's operating departments as to the best methods and plans for conducting railroad traffic according to the lights. they had, and to popularize the railroad and make business for it. The schedule of freight rates for 1845 is peculiarly valuable, as showing the commodities of traffic that yielded the early freight earnings of the railroad. The Erie has 2,271 miles of railroad now. It had fifty-four miles when those schedules were promulgated. Every shipper, and, it may almost be said, every passenger, was personally known to the management then—a situation now hardly possible of belief.

The first official Erie printing office, after the railroad was opened to Goshen, was the Goshen Democrat office, and there the original time-tables and announcements of the Company were printed. The work was done on a hand-press, and the printer was Charles Meade, the Democrat being published by Meade & Webb. In 1850 the Company established its own printing office in the Erie Building, foot of Duane Street, New York, and Charles Meade was called there to take charge of it. R. C. S. Hendrie, foreman of his Goshen office, went with him. Meade remained at the head of the printing department of the Company until the death of his brother-in-law and partner, Webb, when he returned to Goshen to take the affairs of the Democrat concern in

hand. He was succeeded in the management of the Erie printing office by his old foreman, Hendrie, who conducted the establishment until it was sold, in December, 1874, to Lange, Little & Co. of New York. No better work of the kind is done to-day in any modern printing office than these early Erie printers executed. The report to the stockholders for 1855, a pamphlet of 180 pages, issued from the Erie printing office, is a particularly fine specimen of press-work and superior skill in difficult typographical execution. It bears the imprint, "Press of the New York and Erie Railroad Company, R. C. S. Hendrie, Printers." David D. Osmun was an employee of the original Erie printing office at Goshen, and put in type some of the very first Erie time-tables. He is still living at Chester, N. Y.

66

January 1, 1841, in anticipation of a much earlier opening of the railroad than actually occurred, the Company began running a steamboat from the foot of Cortlandt street to the depot at Piermont. "The new enterprise," said the newspaper announcement, commences with the steamer Utica,' under the command of Capt. Alexander H. Shultz, late of the steamer Independence,' on the Philadelphia line, than whom there is not a more capable or gentlemanly commander on our waters. It is intended, in connection with this company, to open a line of travel to Albany this winter. When the arrangements are all completed, passengers will leave New York in steamboats and take the railroad at Piermont to Goshen, and thence to Albany by stages, by which route the difficult and dangerous travel through the Highlands may be avoided."

The first official Erie time-table ever published was incorporated with the announcement of the opening of the railroad to Goshen. The late A. S. Whiton, then a clerk in the office of the superintendent of transportation, made the copies of it that were sent to the newspapers, from the original schedule as decided upon, after long consultation at the Piermont offices by Superintendent H. C. Seymour, Superintendent of Transportation S. S. Post, and Alexander Main, who was cashier, paymaster, and auditor of the Company. The schedule was approved by the President and Directors, and was as follows:

THE EASTERN DIVISION

OF THE

NEW YORK AND ERIE RAIL ROAD,

Will be opened for freight and passengers on Thursday, the 23d of September, and until further notice the trains will run as follows:

FROM GOSHEN

A PASSENGER TRAIN DAILY,

except Sundays, leaving the Depot at 7 A. M., and stopping at any of the following places where passengers may desire to be left or taken up, viz. : Chester, Monroe Village, Turners, Monroe Works, Ramapo station, Sufferns, Pascac, Blauveltville, and Piermont, arriving in the Steamboat Utica, at New York, at 12, M.

A FREIGHT TRAIN TRI-WEEKLY,

leaving the depot at 3 P. M., on Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, stopping, if required, at Chester, Monroe Village, Seaman-ville, Turners, Monroe Works, Ramapo station, Sufferns, Pascac, Greenbush, Blauveltville, and Piermont, arriving at New York, by the Company's steamboat and freight barges, at 10 P.M.

FROM NEW YORK.

A PASSENGER TRAIN DAILY,

excepting Sundays, leaving the foot of Albany st., in the steamboat
Utica, Captain A. H. Shultz, at 8 A. M., and arriving in Goshen at
I P.M.
A FREIGHT TRAIN TRI-WEEKLY,

leaving the foot of Cedar street, at 4 P.M., on Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays, and arriving at Goshen at 10 P.M. Stopping places the same as in the trains from Goshen.

Passengers by the morning trains are informed that no breakfast will be furnished on the boat or on the road. They are requested to purchase tickets before taking seats in the cars, as all persons from New-York, or from any depot where tickets are sold, will be charged as way passengers, if they neglect to purchase tickets before taking their seats.

For freight or passage, inquire at the Company's dock in New York, at the foot of Albany street, or at the various depots along the

route.

H. C. SEYMOUR,

Superintendent and Engineer East. Division, New York & Erie Railroad.

This was a modest announcement, and it was not entirely satisfactory to Seymour and Post. It did not seem to be comprehensive enough, so they went into earnest consultation again, and produced the schedule and accompanying paragraphs of instruction to the public as shown below. It appeared one week after the opening of the railroad to Goshen :

THE EASTERN DIVISION

OF THE

NEW YORK & ERIE RAIL-ROAD

Is now open for freight and passengers and until further notice the trains will run according to the following

NEW ARRANGEMENT:

FROM GOSHEN.

A PASSENGER TRAIN DAILY,

except Sundays, leaving the depot at 7 A.M., and stopping at any of the following places where passengers may desire to be left or taken up, viz.: Chester, Monroe Village, Turners, Monroe Works, Ramapo station, Sufferns, Pascac, Blauveltville, and Piermont, thence by the Steamboat Utica, Capt. A. H. Shultz, to New York, landing at the foot of Albany street.

FROM NEW YORK.

A PASSENGER TRAIN DAILY,

A FREIGHT & PASSENGER TRAIN,

daily (Sundays excepted,) will leave

GOSHEN

FROM NEW YORK.