tion meeting of baggage handlers, and as an infringement of their rights, warranting them to strike in a body and demand. redress. LET THE CARS CUT HIS HEAD OFF. Charles Ellison, a young man living in the town of Monroe, Orange County, N. Y., August 20, 1857, stepped into Turner's Hotel, at Turner's Station, intoxicated. He called for liquor. It was refused him. ernment contract for carrying the mails, and a mail agent travelled on the railroad from New York to look after them. The first agent, in 1841, was James H. Reynolds, who was succeeded by Leander Millspaugh. Tickets were sold in New York over the railroad and the stage line. In October, 1845, the Erie itself made a contract for carrying the mails. The first agent's name was Robinson. The cars then ran only as far Middletown. The agent's duties were to receive and mail letters deposited in the car at the different stations, and deliver mail on which postage was prepaid at all regular stopping places. This was the beginning of railway mail service on the Erie. THE ORIGINAL ERIE BUILDING AND DOCKS-1848. FROM AN OLD PRINT. "If you don't let me have a drink," he said to the bartender, "I will kill myself! He was still refused. He walked out to the railroad track, waited until a train approached, and when it was near, placed his neck across the rail. His head was severed from his body. BRAKEMAN JOHN GRAY'S TERRIFIC FLYING LEAP. November 29, 1859, as a freight train was passing over the Conawacta Bridge, at Lanesboro, Pa., an axle on one of the cars broke, and nine of the cars became detached from the locomotive and plunged from the bridge, fifty-two feet, to the ground below. John Gray, of Port Jervis, a brakeman, was the only person on that part of the train. He was standing on the top of the last car that left the bridge, and jumped from it at the instant it was going over. He landed on the ground fifty feet beyond where the car fell, and one hundred feet from the point where he made the leap-a frightful flying leap through the air. Instead of being instantly killed, he lived five days with both arms broken, his shoulder dislocated, and his body terribly mangled. FIRST RAILWAY MAIL SERVICE. Stephen Sweet, of Middletown, was agent of the stage company that ran in connection with the railroad, taking care of the mails and passengers. The stage line had the gov THE ORIGINAL ERIE BUILDING. For twenty years the Erie's general offices were quartered amply in the building that occupies the block at West, Duane, and Reade streets, New York. That ground was leased from the city by the Company, January 1, 1848, for a term of ninety-nine years. The building, and the docks along the water front, were finished the same year. THE GORGEOUS GOULD AND FISK The original Erie Building was occupied by the general offices of the Company until 1869. November 7, 1868, Gould and Fisk purchased Pike's Opera House, then recently erected, at the corner of Twenty-third Street and Eighth Avenue, New York, and the next year began fitting the building up for the Erie headquarters and leased it to the Company. "For months past," as a New York newspaper of August 25, 1869, declared in a description of the new quarters, "workmen have been industriously preparing the place. There are two entrances to these offices, the main one being on Twenty-third Street. The public passing by on Eighth Avenue will be struck by the magnificence of these. The ceilings are high, and, as well as the walls, are admirably frescoed. "Going up the Twenty-third Street entrance, the visitor finds the staircase grand. The woodwork and the walls of marble are elaborate. Arriving upon the second floor a huge, admirably carved door swings open upon such a spectacle as was never before witnessed in any business place; in fact, there are but few palaces wherein so rich a coupe d'ail could be presented as that of the main offices of the Erie Railway Company. The carved woodwork, the stained and cut glass of the partitions, the gilded balustrades, the splendid gas fixtures, and, above all, the artistic frescoes upon the walls and ceilings, create astonishment and admiration at such a blending of the splendid and practical. On this main floor the private offices of Mr. Fisk, Comptroller; Mr. Gould, President; Mr. Otis, the Secretary of the Company. There is a large, handsome room for the Board of Directors. The Vice-President and his clerks, the Counsellor of the are Company, and the General Superintendent and his clerks occupy rooms on the same floor. The private offices of Mr. Gould, Mr. Fisk and Mr. Otis are fitted up superbly. In each are every possible requirement-telegraphic communication with all parts of the house-such desks as a coquette might desire for her boudoir, so ornamented and tastefully arranged are they-furniture of the most comfortable description, and elegant mirrors, statuary, etc. The room for the Board of Directors is also comfortably and splendidly furnished. The woodwork and furniture were made by Marcotte, and are rich and costly. "On the third floor are the offices of the General Freight Agent and Ticket Agent. These rooms are elegantly arranged. "On the fourth floor is the Auditor's Department and the Engineer's Department. There are back of these public offices, on the fourth floor, the rooms for the janitors and those of the servants who reside in the building. The kitchens, store-rooms and pantries are back of these. Even up to the top of the house the rooms are airy and very large -the high ceilings all appropriately frescoed. "There are in the basement very large and complete printing offices, storage rooms, telegraphic departments, steam engines, boilers for heating the house and running the machinery. A most important feature of these new offices is the safe, which has cost over $30,000. It is seven stories high, each totally unconnected, and is built upon a solid foundation of granite. Rising to the very roof of the main building, this immense safe is so constructed that were the Grand Opera House to be burned to the ground, the safe would stand. It is reared within the house, but in no wise is connected with it. The "Throughout the new offices are the most complete arrangements for the comfort of those who will occupy them. managers have a dining-room, the employees have theirs, and a chef de cuisine of acknowleged capacity will provide their daily meals. Dumb waiters will go from the kitchen to every floor. In short, nothing has been overlooked in rendering these new offices as commodious as they are magnificent. "On the decorations of the rooms the highest praise can be bestowed. Garibaldi, who executed the frescoes, is well known here as an artist of rare talent. In the Academy of Music, in Booth's Theatre, in the Grand Opera House, he has given evidences of this fact, but nowhere more so than on the ceilings and walls of the new Erie offices has he proved how very artistic he can be. Mr. Fisk, who planned and has superintended the arrangement of the palatial offices in question, has certainly reason to be proud of the result, there being nowhere in this country or in Europe anything of the kind to compare with these splendid rooms.” In those palatial quarters the Erie offices were housed until December, 1875, when H. J. Jewett had come to the control of Erie, and he removed the offices back to the original old Erie Building in West Street. In 1880, the quarters being too much cramped for the increase in force made necessary by the increase in railroad and railroad business, the company leased five floors in the Coal and Iron Exchange Build ing, at Church and Cortlandt Streets. The Erie general offices are still in that building, although much more modestly housed than in President Jewett's time. In 1872, when Gould made his "restitution" to the Company, he included the Opera House in the property turned over to the Erie, Fisk's widow having relinquished the half interest her husband had in the property at Gould's request. The property was reconveyed to Gould in December, 1881, by the Company at a valuation of $700,000, being more than $500,000 less than the Company had allowed him for it in 1872. The consideration was a transfer to the Company of all Gould's interest in the Erie coal properties. FIRST ERIE DINING-STATIONS. The first building intended to be used for dining purposes along the line of the Erie was built at what is now Sterlington, about twenty miles from Piermont, before the railroad was yet finished as far as that. It was put up by speculative persons connected with the Company, on the belief that after people had travelled twenty-four miles by boat and twenty miles by rail, they would be hungry, and welcome a spot where they could get something to eat. The building was a pretentious affair architecturally, but not large. But it proved that travellers did not seem to have taken on appetite enough after a trip of that distance to patronize the pioneer dining-place, and it was never used for the purpose for which it was built. The Peter Turner place, at Turner's Station, some miles further on, was apparently just the right distance from New York to have whetted the appetite of the patrons of the road, and their demands made of this place the first dining-station to come into existence along the railroad. For years the wants of the travelling public were catered to so sumptuously and excellently, that Turner's became famous the country over as a dining-station, in spite of the unpretentious, homely appearance of the caravansary where the meals were served; and all through trains, east and west, that arrived there anywhere near a suitable meal time, stopped there for meals. Peter Turner died, and his son James succeeded to the famous old dining-saloon. During Nathaniel Marsh's administration, the building of an immense diningstation at Turner's was begun by the Company, and it was completed during the administration of President Berdell. It was of brick. It was three stories high and 400 feet long, situated between the east and westbound tracks, fifty yards east of the old Turner's dining-saloon. The railroad offices were also in the building, which was fitted up sumptuously as a hotel as well as a dining-saloon. The dining-room would seat 200 guests, and the lunch-counter was of proportionate capacity. There was not another such place on the line of any railroad in the country. Experienced hotel men at various times leased it and conducted it, but never at a profit. It was a favorite retreat of James Fisk, Jr.'s, who, with special train-loads of boon companions, chiefly of the gentler sex, was wont to entertain lavishly there in his palmy days in Erie. The place was called the Orange Hotel. After the days of Gould and Fisk, the glory of the famous dining-place began to wane, and it was rapidly becoming a spot of solitude amid splendor, when, on the night of December 26, 1873, it was completely destroyed by fire. The building and its furnishings had cost $350,000. For years its charred ruins disfigured the landscape thereabout, and, during Jewett's time, were at last cleared away. To-day the spot is covered with railroad tracks, and not a thing remains to remind this generation of the splendor and folly that once ruled there. The second dining-saloon on the Erie was at the Port Jervis station. It was started soon after the railroad reached there. Its first proprietors were J. W. Meginnes and James Lytle. Lytle retired from the firm, and Meginnes ran it until 1857, when he died. His widow conducted it a short time, when S. O. Dimmick took it and ran it until Port Jervis was abandoned as a regular dining-place in 1869. Narrowsburg became a dining-place when the railroad was opened to Binghamton. It was conducted by Major Fields, and acquired much fame by the fact that the grand excursion over the railroad, May 14, 1851, on the occasion of the opening to Dunkirk, dined there en route, on that day. At that dinner, President Fillmore and members of his cabinet, Daniel Webster among them, and scores of other notable men of that day, sat down, and made the wayside dining-hall echo with their after-dinner eloquence. Narrowsburg became a famous Erie dining-place, and was conducted later by Commodore C. Murray and afterward by his sons, C. H. and H. C. Murray, for many years, when the Company abandoned Narrowsburg as a regular dining-station. Later, Deposit became a dining-station, and Owego, Elmira, Hornellsville, Olean, and Dunkirk had large depot dining-saloons for many years after 1851. Susquehanna was made a leading and regular dining-place early in the 60s, and the Company erected the immense and costly station buikling there. This dining-saloon was one of the notable ones of the country for more than a quarter of a century. The Erie dining-saloon at Hornellsville also became famous, and is remembered to this day by travellers for its delicious waffles. The coming of the dining and hotel cars on the road destroyed the general usefulness of the station dining-saloons. They became unprofitable, and the greatest of them now depend chiefly on their lunch counters. EVOLUTION IN THE PASSENGER SERVICE. In May, 1852, Henry Fitch resigned as general ticket agent of the Erie. He was succeeded by George L. Dunlap. In 1857 Mr. Dunlap retired from the railroad business and went to Chicago, where he made a fortune in real estate, and where he still lives. He was succeeded by C. B. Greenough. In 1862 Mr. Greenough left the Erie, and went to Brazil, from the government of which country he had obtained liberal concessions for constructing street railways. He made a fortune there, but died in Rio Janeiro. Following Mr. Greenough came William R. Barr. When he came to the Erie, Mr. Barr was and had been for several years general agent at Buffalo of the Buffalo and Erie, the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula, the Cleveland and Toledo, and the Michigan Southern and Northern Indiana railways, the independent lines that were subsequently consolidated as the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern. He remained at the head of the Erie passenger department until June, 1872, when he was succeeded by John N. Abbott, who had been assistant general passenger agent since 1869. The general passenger agents were not much in evidence as factors in the management of the Company's business until the time of Barr. There had been several serious rate wars since the opening of the railroad to Dunkirk, but the general passenger agent's name never appeared to indicate that the head of that department even so much as made a suggestion. The president, the secretary, the general superintendent, or frequently some prominent director, usually figured as the one in charge of the business of fixing rates or originating methods of conducting the passenger department. The general passenger agent's name had never appeared on an official time-table until the Barr incumbency of the office. Under Barr the individuality of the passenger department was brought out so that it stood publicly in stronger contrast to the operating department, with an indication that it was not subordinate to that department. It was not, however, until Mr. Barr's successor, John N. Abbott, had been appointed, that reform principles and methods of conducting the immigrant business were introduced and made effective in improving the revenues of the Erie Company, safeguarding the immigrants and commercially protecting the interests of the port of New York against unfair competition through other ports for this valuable traffic. This was accomplished by a master stroke on the part of Mr. Abbott in negotiating contracts with the leading transatlantic steamship lines, in 1873, under which immigrants should be carried from their old homes in Europe to their new homes in America upon as favorable fares and conditions via the port of New York as should exist from time to time through any other Atlantic seaport, and were consigned to and placed under the protecting care of the Erie Company in Castle Garden, where they were shielded from the wiles and solicitations of runners and sharpers, and, when ready to start for the West, instead of being loaded upon baggage wagons or compelled to find their own way to the railway station, were carried in a commodious emigrant barge direct from Castle Garden to the Erie immigrant station and trains at Jersey City. The Commissioners of Emigration of the State of New York adopted resolutions commendatory of this new, humane, and protective system after it had been successfully inaugurated. The details of these arrangements were efficiently administered by Nicholas Muller, who was appointed emigrant. agent of the Erie in 1873. This alliance between the Erie and the steamship lines continued until the emigrant busi ness of all the railroad lines was pooled in 1883, and the other lines may be said to have had, during all those years, only such of the immigrant traffic as the Erie could not carry. Emigrant Agent Muller was succeeded in 1880 by John W. Romaine, who remained in office until the pooling arrangement took the direct and independent management of the business out of the charge of the passenger departments in 1883. Improvement in the local or suburban passenger traffic was begun under the administration of Mr. Abbott, but his efforts were not seconded with any degree of earnestness by any of the managements until that of John King. Since then it has been made a special point of attention, and under the management of D. I. Roberts, who became general passenger agent in 1891, this branch of the Erie's passenger traffic has been brought to a degree of importance that makes it of unvarying and increasing profit to the Company and benefit to the public. James Buckley belongs peculiarly to the history of the passenger department of the Erie. He has been in its service more than a generation, and for twenty-five years has been its general Eastern passenger agent, with headquarters at New York. Pullman cars first came on the Erie June 1, 1872, under the Dix administration, among them hotel dining-cars. Previous to that the sleeping and drawing-room cars were of the Erie's own make. Air brakes were introduced on the Erie August 14, 1869. They were the Guthrie vacuum brakes, and were experimented with successfully on the local train known as the "Middletown Way." This was the forerunner of the present system of safety brakes. Lighting the cars with gas was begun June 15, 1881, when an experiment with the Pintsch system was successfully made on a special train run from Jersey City to Turner's. The original Erie passenger trains consisted of never more than three cars. The regular through passengers trains on the Erie to-day (1898) average seven cars, and seventeen cars in a train are not unusual. During the last week in November, 1862, the track-walker on the section of railroad near Andover, N. Y., on the Western Division, found obstructions on the track, so placed and at such an hour that it was evident they had been put there to wreck a passenger-train. This being reported, a watch was set, and about 9 o'clock on the night of Friday, November 26th, a few minutes before the express train, moving east, was due, two persons were discovered going on to the railroad, one of them carrying a log-chain. Near the track was a portion of a wrecked gravel car, having one pair of wheels attached. The men placed this on the track over a culvert, on a curve in the road, and fastened it to the ties with this log-chain. The citizens who were on the watch pounced upon the men and arrested them at once. They were committed to jail at Angelica. They proved to be George Palmer, a cabinet-maker, and Samuel Allen, a blacksmith. Palmer and Allen were tried and convicted on the charge of train-wrecking, February 3, 1853, before County Judge Lucien P. Wetherby. They were sentenced to four years in the Auburn Penitentiary. Palmer was twenty-five years old, and Allen, twenty-one. This was the first attempt at deliberate train-wrecking on record in this country. MEMORABLE AND DISASTROUS STRIKES. 1854. D. C. McCallum, superintendent of the Susquehanna Division, drafted a code of rules regulating the running of trains, which he submitted to the Directors of the Company early in 1854. They were pleased with it, and officially adopted it as supplementary to the existing rules. Charles Minot was then the general superintendent. The McCallum rules were adopted March 6, 1854, and Minot was directed to put them in force. He did not approve of some of them. He refused to promulgate the new code, and resigned. general superintendent May 1, 1850. Charles- Minot had succeeded James P. Kirkwood as He was born at Haverhill, Mass. His father was a judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court. Charles Minot was educated for the law, but his mind was of a more practical bent, and he learned to be an engineer on the Boston and Maine Railroad, of which railroad he subsequently became superintendent. He was one of the first to learn telegraphy, and his knowledge of that new science stood him well in his career as superintendent of telegraph to the use of the railroad. the Erie, as we have seen in the account of his adapting the He came to the Erie from the Boston and Maine Railroad. The Erie was then in operation as far west as Elmira. Charles Minot was a large, fleshy man, very democratic in his manner with his men, meeting them always on an apparent equality. He was a bluff and rude man in his speech, and hasty of temper. A peculiarity of his character was that if he summoned any of the men to his office to "blow them up," he would deliver his pent-up feelings on the first person who happened to come in, although that one was in no way concerned in the trouble on hand, and perhaps knew nothing about it. Minot's mind relieved, all would be serene again, and when the man he had summoned came in, he would be dismissed without a word. Superintendent Minot was continually travelling over the superintendents of to-day are sumptuously equipped with. He had no special car or retainers, such as general "Any car is good enough for me," Minot used to say. He frequently travelled with the pay car, to save expense. Until his car ahead of the engine. He acknowledged that this one day in the summer of 1853, he invariably travelled with was a dangerous thing to do, but he said "he could see things better." On the day in question, the car jumped the rails near Almond on the Western Division, at a high embankment there. With him on the car was President Homer Ramsdell and H. G. Brooks. Minot was a powerful man. He was standing on the platform as the car left the track. |