Gregg M Turner - The New York and New England Railroad

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The New York and New England Railroad

Gregg M Turner

Copyright 2020 Gregg M. Turner

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2020

ISBN 978-1-6624-2361-1 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-6624-2362-8 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

For Cathy, La Reina

The wildest, weirdest story in all New Englands lore is not the legend of Chocoruas curse but the true narrative of the career of the railroad known in its later years as the New York & New Englandthe strangest, most loose-jointed, shambling, anomalous congeries of rails, with the most melodious name in all the six states. It was a system built on a hodgepodge of some two dozen smaller lines, the majority of which had no sound reason for existence. The NY & NE, and its preliminary incarnation, the Boston, Hartford & Erie, managed to make a terrific noise and keep competitors around it worried for thirty years by sheer nerve and bluff. Its history has something of the fantastic about it.

Harlow, Steelways of New England

Preface

Railroads were the first big business enterprises in American history. During the nineteenth century, the six states of New England would charter dozens, perhaps hundreds, of railroad companies. Many were built and prospered; others got opened and eventually failed or were absorbed by others while a goodly number never saw the light of day.

This workreally a short historyexplores the largely neglected story of the New York and New England Railroad Company. Few firms of that distant time can match its fascinating, often topsy-turvy, narrative. Yet for all its uniqueness, the companys story has been relegated to just articles or as a chapter within a book such as Bakers The Formation of the New England Railroad Systems , Harlows Steelways of New England , or Kirklands Men, Cities and Transportation .

My own interest in the firm began decades ago while researching Connecticut Railroads, an Illustrated History that the Connecticut Historical Society published in 1986. In it, I take up the NY and NE but just in my native state. However, its story also affected the transportation heritage of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and New York. That interest never flagged, and more than once, the idea of writing a book about the firm intrigued me. But the biggest obstacle, in addition to locating the welter of archival material, was finding the time to write it. Alas, eleven books, and nearly forty years later, that elusive goal has become a reality.

The 216-mile main route of the New York and New England Railroad swept down from Boston and crossed the uplands of Connecticut to reach Fishkill-on-Hudson, New York, today known as Beacon. Here, the company would eventually operate commercial ferryboats that shuttled railcars directly across the Rhine of America to historic Newburgh, which was served by a branch of the New York and Erie Railroad. The connection would afford the NY and NE, a gateway to the lucrative western markets of coal, lumber, minerals, grain, flour, hogs, and cattle.

Several branches or feeder lines would eventually stem from this main artery, such as from Providence, Rhode Island, westward to Willimantic, Connecticut, and from East Hartford northward to Springfield, Massachusetts. The company also leased firms, including the Norwich and Worcester Railroad with its famous steamboat line to New York City. At its greatest extent, some 680 miles of transportation lines were ultimately controlled by the firm. Although the New York and New England Railroad lasted less than twenty-five years, the story leading up to its creation remains vested in an almost bewildering number of underlying corporations. Chief among themas our Epigram relateswas the infamous Boston, Hartford, and Erie Railroad.

Among those individuals advocating for a railroad connecting Boston with the coal fields of Pennsylvania was Abbott Lawrence, the financier and millowner who founded Lawrence, Massachusetts. He believed that such a company must be built because area manufacturers had no security in a time of war that their coal-fired furnaces could be kept in operation. Consequently, Lawrence and other prominent figures invested in the Norfolk County Railroad in the late 1840s, one of many components of the Boston, Hartford, and Erie.

In retrospect, the NY and NE did a substantial local freight and passenger business owing to the numerous towns, cities, and industries that it served in four states. It also reaped revenues from through traffic, notably after its main line was fully opened to the Hudson River in 1881. At various points, the company intersected with other railroads, several of which furnished connections to New York City. The carriage of freight supplied most of the companys revenues followed by passengers, mail, and express.

That the firm paid its fair share of taxes was also true. Further, the company gave employment to many workersas many as four thousand persons in 1896. It also purchased vast amounts of supplies and materials from hundreds of vendors, from coal to steel rails, from tools to timetables. When funds permitted, not only were investors rewarded but its right-of-way was properly maintained. Often, the company would rebuild its locomotives and rolling stock or purchased such anew. The NY and NE also operated several famous passenger trains, among them the fabled New England Limited or White Train.

For certain, much about the companys financial history could be written. However, owing to space limitations, not every event can be recounted here despite the firm and its predecessors often presenting inviting opportunities for stock and bond speculations. Further, executives were often intermittently able. Perhaps the companys greatest asset was its terminal properties in Downtown Boston; its biggest handicap was the lack of such in New York City although the quest for such seemed never-ending.

Many prominent figures would eventually appear in our saga, men such as Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, the wealthy railroad contractor Sidney Dillon, New York speculators Russell Sage and Cyrus Field, the daring railroad operator Archibald Angus McLeod, and financier J. Pierpont Morgan. There were also politicos of every stripe, including state governors.

The opening three chapters herein focus on that trio of firms that, in reality, laid the cornerstones of what would become the New York and New England Railroad. The New York and Bostonsubject of chapter 1surfaced in Connecticut in 1846. Hailed in promotional material as the Air Line, the company desired to build a direct, diagonal rail line between New Haven and Boston. But financial mishaps occurred as well as stockholder and management disagreements. Moreover, a titanic battle ensued over whether the firm could bridge the Connecticut River at Middletown. In the end, the partially built concern would be acquired by the aforementioned Boston, Hartford, and Erie.

Faring marginally better was the Boston and New York Central, discussed in chapter 2. Several firms had joined hands to form the company, among them the previously mentioned Norfolk County Railroad. Its route began in Downtown Boston and proceeded southwesterlyvia Readville and Blackstoneto East Thompson, Connecticut, whereupon it descended to Mechanicsville (above Putnam), where a connection was made with the Norwich and Worcester Railroad. The goal of building to New Haven never manifested. Financial and legal difficulties would unfold, and service over parts of the route was, for years, suspended. After the firm failed, a series of almost comical reincarnations followed. Ultimately, the moribund propertyby then known as the Southern Midlandwas also acquired by the Boston, Hartford, and Erie.

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