It Port Jervis, a distance of about twenty miles beyond Middletown, where its termination then was. was ascertained that the money could probably be raised in the manner proposed, if the act would make good the security offered. That the character of the security might be satisfactorily established the question was submitted to legal counsel, from whom the opinion was received that the waiver of the State lien was made dependent on the completion of the road in seven years from the date of the act, and that so far as that event was uncertain, there would be a corresponding risk to the bondholders. In view In view of this opinion, it was evident to the management that the bonds could not be sold, and the measure was therefore abandoned. Thus, all its efforts to raise money for the renewal of the work having come to naught, it was evident that the Allen management was powerless to lift the Company out of its pressing difficulties, and at the annual meeting of the stockholders at New York, October 23, 1844, Allen and his Board resigned, a new Board was elected, and Eleazar Lord was unanimously chosen to take the direction of Erie affairs for the third time. The members of the new Board were George Griswold, Jacob Little, John C. Green, James Harper, Eleazar Lord, Paul Spofford, Stewart C. Marsh, Henry L. Pierson, Henry Sheldon, C. M. Leupp, J. W. Alsop, Silas Brown, Robert L. Crooke (and Sidney Brooks, who declined), of New York City, and Daniel S. Dickinson of Broome County, A. S. Diven of Allegany County, and Elijah Risley of Chautauqua County. The retiring Board, in a pessimistic address to the stockholders, said that it was aware that views were entertained by some of the earnest friends of the road that were entirely opposed to the position taken by the Board, that the work should not be resumed on private subscription, unless the means of its completion were fully provided. "It may be contended," the address declared," that with a subscription of one or two millions the road could have been so far carried forward, that its completion would have been secured almost as soon as by a full subscription at this time. The Board believes that The Board believes that a sum sufficiently large to make it judicious to commence the work at all could not have been obtained on the principle alluded to." The confidence that the Board expressed, when it took charge of the Company, that remunerating dividends would be paid to persons subscribing to the stock (so this address explained), rested solely on the completion of the railroad to Lake Erie, and that therefore it could not, consistently with its view of responsibility to subscribers to the stock, ask for their subscriptions on a principle that left that event in great uncertainty. "The contingency may not be very great,' the address declared, "and by some may even be considered small, but it has been deemed by the Board of sufficient magnitude to involve a responsibility which they do not feel themselves called on to assume." Referring to the lien which the State had on the entire property of the Company, the address said that there was no resource which could be relied upon as a means of insuring the construction of the road, and comply with the stipulations of the act to the completion of certain portions in assigned periods. "Attention is called to this position, so that if it be found to be correct, those who are hereafter intrusted with the management of the interests of the Company may at an early day take the measures which it renders necessary. The Board are of opinion that unless the State will agree so to amend the act as to allow the property of the Company to be pledged as security for the expenditure of new capital on the extension of the road from place to place as circumstances permit, there is little reason to believe that any efficient measures can be taken at present for the extension and ultimate completion of the road." The following curious report was submitted during the Maxwell administration. It is interesting as showing that the Company was carrying the United States mail at that early day, and was being paid for it-how much the report does not show. The "Middletown Association" referred to was the associa CHAPTER IX. THIRD ADMINISTRATION OF ELEAZAR LORD-1844 AND 1845. Optimism Succeeds Pessimism Mr. Lord Sees Nothing Discouraging in the Situation - He Tells the Public that it is only Necessary to Raise Money, which will be Easy-Thinks the Act of 1843 does not Offer Doubtful Security for Erie Bonds, but is Rather an Eligible Reliance - Probable Reason why New York had Always Disregarded Appeals for Aid to the Erie Project - The Public Share the Late Management's Opinion of the Act of 1843, and Decline to Invest - Mr. Lord becomes of the Same Opinion, Resumes Work, and Asks the Legislature to Modify the Bonding Act-Story of how the Needed Legislation was held up until the Company Agreed to Build a Railroad to Newburgh - Trouble over the Change of Route through Sullivan County, and Eleazar Lord Retires, to Interest Himself no more in the Building of the Railroad. He THE cheerful, confident, assuring words with which Eleazar Lord greeted the situation were in marked contrast to the hopeless, melancholy strain that dominated the farewell address of the Allen management. Lord prepared an address intended particularly to appeal to the interests of New York City in the Company's prospects, and it was made public immediately on his taking charge of Erie affairs again, and while people were still discussing the pessimistic deliverance of the late management. declared, in strong language, that it was the influence of those concerned in "the northern route that had defeated all the efforts the New York and Erie Railroad Company had made toward completing its railroad-the "northern route" being the chain of railroads then being constructed between Albany and Buffalo, in conjunction with the proposed railroad on the east side of the Hudson River, all now included in the New York Central Railroad system. The American Railroad Journal, which had been a stanch supporter of the Erie project from the start, took President Lord and the Directors severely to task for this assertion. What is the use," wrote the editor, "of declaring war against the more northern route to the lakes,' and exciting the hostility of the Central counties from Albany to Buffalo, and of the counties on the eastern bank of the Hudson? We have never heard it hinted that the appeal of the late Board to the public last spring failed from any opposition created by the friends of the more northern route to the lakes,' and we doubt whether any such influence will be exerted against the pres ent address, notwithstanding its-as we believeunfair, and certainly unfortunate, insinuations. It is less wounding to our self-love to ascribe our failures to the machinations of rivals, real or supposed, than to our own incapacity. The present Board, that is, the acting portion of the Directors, have long controlled the management of the New York and Erie Railroad, and we would venture to suggest the bare possibility that some part of their present difficulties may be owing to the circumstance that their past course has not been quite as satisfactory to the public, and especially to the stockholders, as it appears to have been to themselves." It is difficult for one at this day, contemplating the situation of the Erie project at the period of its existence now under review, to comprehend the conduct of its New York City sponsors toward it. The railroad had been projected with the avowed purpose of making it a means to the establishing of that city for all time as the center of the trade of the entire country, by giving it such communication with the growing West and such superior means of transportation to and from the marts contiguous to and beyond the great lakes, and to and from the valleys of the Ohio and Mississippi, as neither Boston, Philadelphia, or Baltimore, the active and progressive rivals of New York in the struggle for commercial supremacy, could hope to secure; yet there is no record, in all of the reports of the ostensibly earnest endeavors of the conspicuous citizens of the metropolis who had charge of the affairs of Erie from the |