Ithaca & Owego Railroad

The First Passenger Railway in America 

                                 By Alvin Merrill (1908)
   Very few people of the present generation know that the Lackawanna railway that connects Ithaca with Owego was the third railroad constructed on this continent and the longest when it was finished -- thirty miles long. The other two were short and unimportant, one near Schenectady, N.Y., and one in Massachusetts. Fewer still know that Ithaca was a famous commercial and shipping center at that time, in the thirties. And hardly anyone knows that Ithaca was the headquarters for the planning and building of this railway, to connect the Erie canal with the Susquehanna river, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Hudson river near the Catskill mountains.
   Although the history of the intellectual beginning of the Ithaca and Owego railroad (chartered 1827, as the Cayuga & Susquehanna Railroad,) under the guidance and ambition of Senator Ebenezer Mack, his brother, Horace, Francis Bloodgood, and other Ithacans, would be interesting. The purpose of the article is to show the practical and manual side of its construction as a public utility.
   A description of the construction of the primitive railway calls for a mixture of humor and good sense that sounds more like a chapter from the novel of a satirist and wit rather than a truthful narrative of what was considered a great industry and financial achievement. It would be, if published at length, an excellent contribution to the historical literature of the state.
   In 1835, when I was nine years old, and a resident of Caroline, Tompkins county, N.Y., I drove my father's horse, "Granny Young," riding bareback, hauling a flat car up Lane's hill. The car ran itself ran 
down the hill, a mile or more, in that town each way. It was used to haul gravel for grading the road-bed.    
  The car brake was a handspike pressed against the car wheels with skill and bravery. I followed along on "Granny Young" until the car stopped, hitched on to it and took it to the end of the route. Two years later I was driving horses on the top of the inclined plane at Ithaca. The horses went round and round like those that work a threshing machine. The cars were let down and hauled up the high, steep hill by that windlass-like system. While two cars were going down it aided in hauling one car up the plane. A man went along with them carrying oak plugs to use as brakes in case the rope cable broke. The plugs were thrown into the car wheel spokes and caught the wheel against the car.
   The train to Owego generally consisted of sixteen car. There were two "engine" houses, the lower one being on the Danby road at the brow of the hill. Four horses worked this windlass down in a pit. They were necessarily blind, for safety's sake, and simply rushed against iron yokes, fastened in a bean The belly-bands of the harness were wide and strong and often held the horse up clear from the floor when the cars got under too rapid headway on the steep plane and held them suspended in that position until the cars reached the level and ran into the car houses and were stopped by men who threw oak plugs into the wheels. The the horses were lowered again to their feet. When I was eleven (1839) I was promoted to the lower end of the plane where I hitched cars to the rope. In 1840 the first steam locomotive came to our relief. It came by canal, weighed seven tons, and was drawn up the hill be the company's horses.
   One morning Superintendent Bishop said to us: "Boys, put your teams back and we will hitch up the engine and have some fun trying her today. Couple the cars together". Our coupling was white oak scantling from three to sixteen feet long, and often much longer than the cars, for the cars were only twelve and fourteen feet long at the most. "We will try her once before the celebration of her first regular trip," he said. We were greatly pleased at the much talked-of change from horse power to steam power, and very curious about it. There was no bonnet on the smoke-stack, and when we started out the fire flew up, we thought to the sky, it was exciting to us.
   But what a sight for the country people! Their horse quit their quiet grazing as we passed through the fields and forests, and ran like mad animals, with heads up and tails flying; cattle bellowed and pawed the earth and took to their heels as fast as they could until we parted sight of one another. They must have thought that our locomotive was an animal-devouring monster that spitted smoke and flame and fire from its nostrils. We traveled very fast then -- five miles an hour.
   When we arrived at Lucky's where we had been in the habit of stopping the trains to water our horses at a boiling spring we stopped our fiery steed and filled his tender with that boiling spring water. We then moved two miles slowly, for our steam had gone nearly to zero. Before we stopped again, while going that two miles, and old gentleman jumped off the train and exclaimed: "Go to h--l with your locomotion, and I'll go on for I'm in a hurry!" We thought him a lunatic for not having patience with our first trip with the steam power.
   We fired up and got to Wilseyville, where we were stalled completely. Superintendent Bishop sent me for a barrel of tar and I got it from Dolly, Hurd & Whitcomb, local merchants. It was poured on our wood (we did not use any coal for many years afterward) and soon had steam enough to take us to Gridleyville, our horse-changing station. We hitched on a big team and hauled our engine and tender back to Ithaca, where we arrived at midnight, and where the locomotive was laid up for repairs and improvements for three months. Three tons were added to her weight.
   When three months had passed she was in fine shape and trim. A gala day was announced, a free ride was offered to all the world from Ithaca to Owego, and return. It was called a grand celebration: and such it was. Our train of sixteen flat cars stopped at every crossing for passengers. We made the roundtrip under Conductor Hatch with only one accident: John Haviland was crowded or fell off the train and was killed.
   There were no fences along the railroad. The cattle and horses became accustomed to the fire, smoke, steam and noise of our monster, and too familiar with us. They grazed on the track between the rails and the train hand were obliged every little distance to jump off, run ahead and drive them off the track, which delayed us every time until it became monotonous and annoying. Conductor Hatch's genius rose to the necessities of the occasion. He secured an old banded flintlock musket, and a bag of dried peas. One of us train hands always sat on the front of the locomotive when it was running, and shot peas at the cattle and drove them from our pathway.
   We ran no trains winters for that was impossible. Winters then were severe. Heavy snow and zero weather being common.
   In 1845 I was appointed repairer of road on a five-mile section, from Puddleville to Smith's Gate. My main duty was to follow the locomotive and spike down "snake heads" and put in new "ribbons" wherever need. Snake heads were the ends of three-quarter inch thick strap iron rail turned up by the weight of the locomotive. The "ribbons" were made of oak, fastened with a wooden plug three feet apart, one on a tie.
   The locomotive was called "Pioneer" (but nicknamed "Old Puff.) She went down through a bridge at Woobridge's, north of Catatonk, and killed Engineer Hatch and Fireman Dickinson. We brought her to Ithaca and returned to horse-power again. I bossed a lot of men while tamping the new roadbed, our tamping bars being made of oak planks nearly a foot wide. The first locomotive run over the new "T" rail was the "G.W. Scranton," Joe Weed, Engineer. William R. Humphrey was superintendent and built a new station house on the hill above Ithaca. Civil Engineer McNiel, with Calvin Bogardus, Horace McCormick, Daniel Stevens, John Miller and myself laid out the seven mile zig-zag route down the hill to gain a distance of one mile, that made the inclined plane a thing of the past. No change has ever been made in that zig-zag route.
   The next year I was made a brakeman, and with the fireman and conductor went ahead of the locomotive and spread pebble-stones on the rails to make the locomotive wheels hold to the track on the hill, because there were no sand boxes in those days. The next year I was made baggage master on the train, my duties being to act as baggage man, brakeman, and change mails. I had an accident occasionally when the car bounded off the track, but was not hurt much.
   When the line was extended and completed from Ithaca to Scranton, and to Great Bend, I was sent to help establish the companies coal trade in Binghamton. In 1857 I was appointed station agent at Pugsley's station. It was so far out of the way for shippers that in three years I built the Caroline depot (1860) and remained in that depot for thirty years.
   The first passengers coaches were built almost like the old stage coach, hung on leather springs and carried twelve passengers. The drive drove one horse, sat on "the boot" and carried the mails. We changes horses at Smith's Gate and at Owego and at Ithaca. Some part of the train jumped off the track from one to eight time between Ithaca and Owego every trip.
   When we met freight trains we took our coaches off the track, with aid of horses and passengers. They helped us to put the coaches back on the track when the freight train had gone on their way. Time was of no account then to passengers.
   One thing ought to be given to history. I remember well a little red car which the company purchased in Syracuse. We called it a "peach." It had a brake of its own and held twelve passengers. One day the driver let the horse loose, while the car was on the down track on the hill above the incline plane above Ithaca. He set the brake and depended upon it as an experiment. He did not intend to go down the hill, but expected to just before he struck it, where the village stage awaited the car and passengers. The brake failed to operate and the car ran away with its twelve passengers. All but one of them managed to scramble off. 
   The car kept on the rails down that dreaded steep incline, about three-quarters of a mile, bounding like a rubber ball, to the bottom of the hill just in this way, and hit just right. The biggest piece of that car when it was picked up where it struck down town on the level ground was that man passenger. He was badly cut, and arm was broken and his body was bruised, but strangely enough, and fortunately, too, he was not killed. Ten years ago that man, a Mr. Babcock, came to Ithaca to look again at the place over which he took such a furious ride.
   I have seen many travelers on horseback ride up to the coaches, mount them and lead their horses behind on the railroad track. But no one in this generation of railway "flyers" and "cannon balls" that glide at an every day speed of a mile in forty-five seconds, can comprehend the changes that have taken place since I rode "Granny Young" in 1835, hauling the gravel train that consisted of one flat car that ballasted and graded the then great and only Ithaca & Owego railroad bed. It seems much like a vast, drawn out dream to me, but it is a grand historical reality. I am sure that the evolution of the railway and its speed will continue until the real flying machine will replace it.
                                               ___

[From: The Street Railway Journal, December, 1890]

 

                       A Pioneer Horse Railroad.

                                        ___
   The second railroad charter granted by the State of New York was that to the Ithaca & Owego Railroad Co. This company was incorporated June 28, 1828 and the right was granted to construct a single or double track railroad from Cayuga Lake at or  near Ithaca to the Susquehanna River in the village of Owego.
    The road was constructed in 1833 and opened in April, 1834. The line was about thirty miles long, single track with turnouts, and the method of constructing the roadbed was quite different from present practice. Most of the line was const rusted in the following manner, as we learn from parties who were engaged in its building:
   A foundation of hemlock plank 3 x 12 inches was first bedded in the soil and across this oak ties were laid about three feet apart. Inserts of  about four inches deep were cut near the ends of the ties and into these were keyed oak stringers.
   The rail proper consisted of a rolled strap of iron two and one-fours inches wides and one-half of an inch thick, the ends cut diagonally. These were placed on the oak stringers, and held in place by four-inch spikes, oblong holes being punched in the rail for this purpose. The inside of the stringer was then chamfered off to make room for the very deep flange of the car wheel.
    The proposed mode of construction as detailed by the United States engineer, who made the survey and printed a pamphlet in 1828, but which does not seem to have bedded followed except on a small portion of the line, was as follows:
   Pits two and a half feet in depth and three feet square were to be dug at intervals and filled with broken stones. Within three inches of the surface of the ground flat stones were placed. Resting upon these were oak sills ten inches square and seven and a half feet in length, placed eight feet apart. Oak sleepers 6 x 10 inches and from sixteen to twenty-four feet long were laid upon these lengthways of the track and fastened with wooden pins. Upon these the rail was laid as before described.
   At first only platform cars were run for carrying freight, but a few passengers wee carried when they could find seas upon the boxes and bundles of eight. The trains were drawn by two horses driven tandem, and started from the terminals about four o'clock in the morning. The speed was not very fast and, our informant remarked than when people were not in a hurry they would ride.
  Passenger cars were afterwards added; these were about half as long as the present steam cards and would seat forty-five passengers. The seats were on the sides so that the passengers sat facing each other.
  In the village of Owego the line had two branches. One led down to the wharf where freight could be loaded upon arks and rafts and thence floated down the Susquehanna River. The other track led along the bank of the river under the stores that extended over the bank, so that freight consisting of salt, plaster. etc., could be discharged directly into the buildings through trap doors.
   About the year 1840 a locomotive was built at Albany and brought to the line by means of the Erie Canal and Cayuga Lake. This locomotive was not a success, the steam chest being too large for the boiler capacity. This was afterwards alerted and the engine ran for about a year, until, on March 21, 1847, when on a trip from Ithaca to Owego, it broke through a bridge about six miles from Owego, killing the engineer, D. C. Hatch, and the fireman, A. Dickinson. The locomotive was never afterwards used do draw trains, and horses were employed till the road was rebuilt in 1850.
   Accidents were common on the line, and the most serious of these were caused by breaking off the heads of the screws which held the rail to the sleeper. This would allow the pointed end of the rail to curl up forming "snake heads" as they were termed, so that the wheel would run under the rail, causing the end to tear through the floor of the car, often injuring the passengers.
   In 1855, the line was leased to the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, and is still operated by that company.
   Previous to 1842 there were two incline planes at the Ithaca terminal which was 602 get above the village over which by means of hemp rope and windlass, the cars were let down to the village from the hill above.  One plane was 1,733 feet long with a grade of about twenty-five percent, and the other 2,225 feet long with a grade of five percent. One was operated bay a steam engine and the other by horse power. At one time, by the breaking of a cable, a car was allowed to escape down the incline, killing and injuring a number of passengers.
   The financial history of the road is interesting, but we only have space to mention that the State made a loan to the company in 1840 taking a lien upon the property, but the company defaulting in the payment of interest, the road was sold at auction by the comptroller in 1842. A new company was formed called the Cayuga & Susquehanna, the lined rebuilt, the inclines abandoned and the present zigzag (switch-back) descent was constructed into Ithaca.

   For the above information we are indeed to several gentlemen whom we met during our summer outing, who assisted in the work of building the line and still reside in the vicinity, also to the files of the Owego Gazette.

     

By Richard Palmer

Plagued with financial difficulties, many of the early railroads in upstate New York were compelled to use horses for motive power until they could afford the "luxury" of a steam locomotive. It wasn't until 180 that the Ithaca & Owego, the second railroad chartered in New York State, secured a small locomotive which was built by Walter McQueen at his machine shop in Albany. 

The engine was built to the specifications of its actual owner, Richard Varick DeWitt, who was treasurer of the Ithaca & Owego at the time, who was "somewhat of a mechanic." Although officially known as the "Pioneer," it was dubbed "Old Puff" by those who operated it. 

"Old Puff" closely resembled models built by major locomotive manufacturers such as Norris, Baldwin and Rogers. It was transported by canal boat to Ithaca and hauled up the incline planes to the summit of South Hill. From there the railroad ran on fairly level ground the rest of the distance to Owego.

One day, Superintendent Daniel L. Bishop told the crew to leave the horses in the barn. "We will hitch up the engine and have some fun by trying her today." Railroading at this tine was still in its infancy and was rather informal as far as operations were concerned. Alvin Merrill, who worked on the line as a boy, recalled: "We were greatly please at the much-talked-of change from horsepower to steampower, and were very curious about it."

Accounts conflict as to the size of this locomotive. One states the weight of the locomotive with water and wood was 10 tons. Another says it was nine tons. One account states the driving wheels were 54 inches in diameter and the cylinders had a 14-inch bore and an 18-inch stroke. The other states the cylinders had a nine inch bore and 16-inch stroke.

The cylinders were attached to the frame instead of on the boiler. The connecting rod was outside (without a crank axle) and the pumps were operated through eccentrics on the driving wheel axle, independent of the pistons.

The driving wheels had cast-iron hubs and wrought-iron spokes and tires with a diameter of 48 inches. The diameter of the boiler was 30 inches; height of the stack, from the rail, 12 feet; the overall length of the engine was 17 feet.. The frames were of wood, 6 by 4 inches, to which were bolted cast iron pedestals for the driving wheels. It had a hook motion of the Norris type. The steam pipes came out at the sides of the smoke-box, and were bolted to the valve chest covers.

Recalling the trial run, which was sometime during the spring of 1840, Alvin Merrill said there was no "bonnet" or spark arrester on the smokestack, " and when we started the fire flew up, we thought, to the sky. It was exciting to us. Merrill continues:

But what a sight for the country people! Their horses quit their quiet grazing as we passed through the fields and forests, bellowed and pawed the earth and took to their heels as fast as they could until they and we parted sight of one another. They must have thought that our locomotive an animal-decvouing monster that emitted smoke and flame and fire from his nostrils. We traveled very fast then - five miles an hour.

When we arrived at Lucky's, where we had been in the habit of stopping the trains to water our horses at a bubbling spring, we stopped our fiery steed and filled his tender with that boiling spring water. We then moved on for two miles and slowly, four our steam had gone down to nearly zero. Before we stopped again, while going that two miles, an old gentleman jumped off the train and exclaimed: "Go to hell with your locomotive, and I'll go on, for I'm in a hurry!" We thought him a lunatic for not having patience with our first trip with steam power.

We fired up and got to Wilseyville, where we were stalled completely. Superintendent Bishop sent me for a barrel of tar and I got it from Dolly, Hurd & Whitcomb, local merchants. It was poured on our wood (we did not use any coal for many years afterward) and soon had steam enough to take it up to Gridleyville, our horse-changing station.

We hitched on a big steed and it hauled our engine and tender back to Ithaca, where we arrived at midnight, and where the locomotive was laid up for repairs and improvements.

Mr. Merrill's son, Jason, said that when the locomotive was shipped to ithaca, it was accompanied by an "expert engineer." According to Jason, "his attempt to put it into commission failed. Its construction was thought to be too light, and it was sent back to Schenectady, and its weight and power were increased so much that new complications arose. The additional weight proved to be too much for the strap rails, and the idea of operating the road by steam was abandoned for a short time."

According to existing accounts, the locomotive lost steam because of leaky joints where the steam pipes were bolted to the valve chest covers. Also, the safety valve was checked by a weight instead of a spring. Alvin Merrill continued:

When the three months has passed she was in fine shape and trip. A gala day was announced, a free ride was offered to all the world from Ithaca to Owego and return. It was called a grand celebration; and such it was. Our train of 16 flat cars stopped at every crossing for passengers. We made the round-trip under Conductor Hatch with only one accident; John Haviland was crowded off or fell off the train and was killed.

There were no fences along the railroad. The cattle and horses became accustomed to the fire, smoke, steam and noise of our monster, and became too familiar with us. They grazed on the track between the rails, and the train hands were obliged every little distance to jump off, run ahead and drive them off the track, which delayed us every time until it became monotonous and annoying.

Conductor Hatch's genius arose to the necessities of the occasion. He secured an old banded flintlock musket, and a bag of dried peas. One of us train hands always sat on the front of the locomotive and shot peas at the cattle and drove them from our pathway.

Railroad historian Herbert T. Walker wrote that the engine on the whole was poorly designed and cheaply constructed. The tank was a cask mounted in a small tender. A second tender carried wood. 

He had it on good authority that the railroad experienced problems with the engine. Oldtimers told him it had poor traction and was "slow" to steam. He said these defects "rendered the engine almost useless in bad weather; in fact, it only ran in summer, horse cars taking its place in winter time, or when it was laid up for repairs." About all it could pull were eight four-wheel cars with a maximum load of 30 tons. Alvin Merrill, as well as official reports confirm the fact that the locomotive was not operated during the winter. Operations usually resumed in April.

The daily routine for "Old Puff" was to leave from the summit of South Hill at Ithaca at 7 a.m. and arrive at Owego at 11 a.m. Returning, it left Owego at 5 p.m. and arrived back at South Hill at 9 p.m. "This speed," Walker noted, "gave passengers ample time to view the beautiful scenery of Tompkins and Tioga counties."

"Old Puff" and its little train of cars was far from being a "flyer." Once a horse trader sat in the last car holding the reins of his horse, which trotted along on the track behind. Others recalled that the engine gained such an evil reputation that good walkers declined to take passage in the cars because they couldn't wait. On one occasion a load of passengers bound for a political meeting at Owego arrived there with the train - but on foot and pushing the cars!

As time passed, the public began to clamor for improved rail service, and the engine was sent back to the shop once more to be overhauled. John Aldrich, who was claimed to be a "mechanical genius," was called in. He lived near Mott's Corners, now known as Brooktondale. After looking over the machine he said he believed he could improve its efficiency by adding even more weight to it. But this only raised havoc with the primitive wooden track structure. The strap rails would roll up and puncture the bottoms of the cars in "snakehead" fashion.

Track hands would then follow the train and respike the strap rails on the stringers. Alvin Merrill was one of those section men. he said "My main duty was to follow the locomotive a spike down snakeheads, and put in new ribbons wherever needed. Snakeheads were the ends of three-quarter-inch-thick iron strap rails, turned up by the weight of the locomotive. The ribbons were made of oak, fastened with a wooden plug, three feet apart, one to a tie."

Owego historian Roy O. Kingman gives some additional details about "Old Puff." He wrote:

"Its smokestack was similar in shape to a piece of stovepipe. Its frame was of wood. Its boiler was painted drab. The boiler was supplied with water by a hand pump through a hose. The water was kept in a large hogshead (barrel) on a flat car.

"The engine was a failure. The steam chamber was too large for the boiler, and steam could not be made fast enough. The chamber was subsequently altered. The locomotive was afterward reconstructed and the wooden frame was replaced with an iron one.

" The locomotive was a slow affair. It ran only about as a fast as a horse could trot. On its first trip from Ithaca it ran all right until it reached a point a little north of Candor, when it could run no further, as the engineer could not obtain sufficient steam. It had to be hauled back to Ithaca by horses. Frequently the steam would run down, causing the train to stop running entirely. Then, while the fireman was getting up more steam the passengers would sit on the bank at the side of the track and pass away the time playing cards or pick berries along the way. This is said to have been the origin of the term 'huckleberry train.' Later a more competent engineer was found and no further difficulty was experienced."

It is related that in 1844 a mass meeting of the Whig Party was held in Ithaca. That day a load of Owego Whigs rode up to Ithaca to attend the convention. At Candor the track was so slippery with oil that the locomotive could not proceed until the rails had been covered with sand. The story circulated that the Democrats had greased the track, but an investigation revealed that the cause of the incident was a leaky barrel of oil being transported on the train.

On this same day, Philip Mosher of Owego decided to leave Ithaca on the railroad track with his horse pulling an improvised passenger coach. It had previously been the custom to allow practically anyone to operate their contrivances over the tracks. Growing impatient, he said if the steam train did not leave in 10 minutes, he would start out, which he did.

Kingman wrote:

" He had hardly got out of sight when the train started. Some idea of the speed of the train can be gathered from the fact that after Mr. Mosher had reached the Half Way house and had stopped to water his horse, the locomotive came in sight just as he drove on. While the iron horse took water Mr. Mosher obtained another good start. When he drove into the park in this village (Owego) the train was behind him, about where Temple Street is now. he made the trip in a few minutes more than three hours."

While this locomotive was in use it was not allowed to run any further in the village of Owego than the south end of the village park. Previously, horse cars operated through the streets and down to the north bank of the Susquehanna River. It was feared that the commercial wooden buildings along Front Street would catch fire from the sparks of the locomotive.

A small rectangular enginehouse stood on what was later the southwest corner of Central Avenue and Temple Street. It was weather-beaten and unpainted and was just large enough to shelter the locomotive and a car or two. A small armstrong turntable stood just south of the enginehouse. The line into the village through the streets was abandoned when the New York & Erie Railroad was completed to Owego in 1849.

A comical experience relating to this railroad is related in the "Tompkins Volunteer," a local Ithaca newspaper, on May 3, 1842:

"We were amused the other day while coming from Owego on the railroad by a simple expression made by a fellow passenger. A spark of fire had accidentally fallen under the cushion of one of the seats, and was well underway before it was discovered. A lady was in the apartment alone and seeing the smoke gave the alarm of fire. After considerable ado the whole train was stopped, by the hallowing of our friend, who was much agitated, by seeing the lady somewhat alarmed, and who was making preparations to leap from the car while yet underway, exclaiming to her, in a bustling way, 'Oh, don't be alarmed, madam, a little cold water will put it out.' Three cheers for the Temperance reformation."

John Aldrich, the mechanic spoken of earlier, acted as engineer on "Old Puff" until he became apprehensive about the safety of the wooden bridges. He said he felt they were too light to safely sustain the weight of the engine and cars. The management, however, failed to heed his warnings. Finally, Aldrich quit and a man by the name of Eddy took over. 

On the evening of May 21, 1847, "Old Puff" was heading north with a train. Mr. Eddy had gone back into the train and Daniel C. Hatch, the conductor, was spelling him on the engine. About six miles north of Owego, at 6 p.m., the locomotive crashed through a bridge over Catatonk Creek at a place called Woodbridge's, instantly killing both Hatch and his fireman, Al Dickinson of Danby. Hatch fell under the locomotive and was crushed.

Samuel Parker of Ithaca recalled that the engine lay in the creek for three weeks before it was pulled out and placed back on the rails. Alvin Merrill said "We brought her to Ithaca and returned to horsepower again." For some time afterwards before the bridge was rebuilt, horse-drawn cars would exchange passengers at that point.

Frustrated with steam locomotion, the railroad company relegated "Old Puff" to storage. In its annual report for 1847, the railroad, now called the Cayuga & Susquehanna, reported the locomotive was " not in use" and employed 40 horses, five passenger cars and 55 freight cars.

"Old Puff" never again saw service on this railroad. Kingman said for a time it stood on a switch just west of North Avenue in Owego. During this time some dramatic changes occurred and the line was reconstructed. By 1850, the incline planes had been replaced by a switchback on the north end. The old strap rails were discarded. Alvin Merrill said he helped lay the new "T" rail with his team of horses. "I bossed a lot of men while tamping the new roadbed; our tamping bars being made of oak planks nearly a foot wide."

Basically, the Cayuga & Susquehanna had become a segment of the burgeoning Delaware, Lackawanna & Western which was in the process of being built from Scranton Great Bend, Pa. under the guise of the Leggett's Gap Railroad. At the latter place it connected with the New York & Erie Railroad. The Leggett's Gap Railroad had a trackage rights agreement with the Erie to transport anthracite coal to Ithaca.

A locomotive to power construction trains was needed so it was decided to resurrect "Old Puff," or "Pioneer" and somehow get it to Scranton. The story is it was loaded on a raft in Owego and floated down the Susquehanna River to Pittston, Pa.

This is plausible, since slack water navigation had existed on this river for generations. In 1849, some 2,243 rafts were counted floating down the river by Wilkes Barre. 

"Old Puff" was then unloaded at Pittston and transported over the Pennsylvania Coal Company's gravity railroad to Scranton and transferred to the D.L.& W. at Plane No. 6. The engine was taken to the shops where the axles of the engine were pieced out. The frames were widened, and a saddle cast installed to conform to the D.L.& W.'s six-foot gauge. 

In the order book of Rogers, Ketchum & Grosevenor there is an entry under date of April 15, 1851 stating that George W. Scranton, general agent for the Leggett's Gap Railroad, had ordered a new smoke pipe, scale and lever for the safety valve and "one good steam whistle" for this locomotive. 

The engine was fitted out and went into service on the work train in April, 1851 and had the distinction of being the first locomotive to operate between Scranton and Great Bend. But it continued to be a problem to operate even after being rebuilt several times. It is said its cylinders were mounted too far apart and the boiler was too small to generate sufficient steam.

The D.L.& W.'s "List of Locomotive Engines" for 1854 shows the "Pioneer" in the "fourth class" category and "useless." The 1855 list states that it had been on the road for four years and seven months and was "useless as a locomotive; now used as a stationary engine for pumping water from the new well at Scranton.'

Sources

(Newspapers cited)

New York State Assembly Document 314, April 14, 1840; Letter of Daniel L. Bishop.

Gerstner, F.A. Ritter von: Die Innerten Communicationen des Vereingten Staaten von Nord Amerika (Vienna) 1842 Vol. 1 p. 197.

Walker, Herbert T., History of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad and its Locomotives. Railroad Gazette, May 30, 1902 pp.388-9.

Merrill, Alvin, The Third Passenger Railway in America, ca. 1910 unpublished manuscript.

Merrill, Jason P., History of the Development of the Early Railroad System of Tompkins County, Ithaca Journal Centennial Edition, Aug. 28, 1915.

Kingman, Roy O., Early Owego (1907)

Parker, Samuel J., A picture of Ithaca as I Saw It in Childhood. , unpublished manuscript, Cornell University Special Collections.

Hollister, H., History of the Lackawanna Valley, 1857. The Pennsylvania Coal Co. gravity railroad extended from Pittston to Hawley, where it connected with the Delaware & Hudson Canal.

Overlay map showing location of incline planes and switchbacks in Ithaca - by Russ Nelson

                  Painting by Glenn Norris

Inclined Planes of the Ithaca & Owego Railroad

By Richard Palmer

    The steep rolling hills surrounding Ithaca, New York offered great challenge to early-day railroad builders. Prior to its abandonment in 1956, the Ithaca Branch of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad entered the city by way of switchbacks. After the D.L. & W. was abandoned a segment of this was later used by the Lehigh Valley Railroad to serve Morris Chain.

    The Ithaca & Owego Railroad was  organized in 1827 and is reputed to have been the third railroad built in North America. It was the missing transportation link in an otherwise water route between the Great Lakes and Chesapeake Bay. It connected Ithaca, on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake with the Susquehanna River at Owego. Ithaca was a rapidly-developing small city with a population of 5,000 by 1840.

     Pre-dating a "zig-zag" or switchback system were two inclined planes which overcame the steep South Hill. From the summit it was a “flat land”  30-mile railroad to Owego. Although the planes were abandoned in 1850, they have long captured the interest of railroad historians.  For generations remnants could be found on the Ithaca College campus. A similar operation existed with the Mohawk & Hudson Railroad in Albany.

    Acting upon requests from local pubic representatives the U.S. Army Topographical Engineers in 1828 assigned Lieutenant (later captain) William H. Swift to survey two local railroad routes. One was between Ithaca and Owego and the other between Ithaca and Catskill. Swift secured the necessary surveying instruments to Ithaca. In a letter to Swift,  General Alexander Macomb, chief of the Topographical Engineers, wrote:

    “There is a young Gentleman at Ithaca, a Mr. Hughes, who was formerly at the Military Academy, who will be a very able assistant to you and I desire that you employ him in order that he may be useful to the Company after you have completed the location of the road.” 

     Swift began his surveys in May of the two suggested routes between Ithaca and Owego. These routes had originally been suggested for a proposed canal that never materialized. He determined that one along Six Mile Creek and the East Branch of Catatonk Creek was more feasible than the other along Cayuga Inlet valley via the Village of Spencer. In retrospect, the latter course might appear preferable. The first route was chosen for a number of considerations.

    The country from the top of of South Hill to Owego was not as expensive to construct. The only costly construction would be for two incline planes.  The total cost for building and equipping the railroad up to the end of 1838 was $575,393.05. In defending his South Hill proposal, Swift said most traffic would be southward from Ithaca to Owego and this route had the easier grades; an important factor in the days of horse-drawn trains. Swift then turned his attention to surveying a route for a railroad from Ithaca to Catskill. He also surveyed what became the Catskill and Canajoharie Railroad.   

    About this time, Simeon DeWitt, Surveyor-General of New York State; and other local businessmen became identified with the effort to build the railroad. With renewed interest and capital, John Randel Jr. was secured from the New Castle & Frenchtown Railroad in Delaware to do the engineering work. In his report to the directors and officers of the Ithaca & Owego in 1833, Randel said overcoming the elevation between Ithaca flats and the summit of South Hill “was one of the most formidable obstacles that presented itself in the location of this Rail Road.”

    Randel said the total elevation to be overcome was 511 feet, in a distance of 4,193 4/10 feet. His solution was to “to divide the whole elevation between two inclined planes in such proportions as would give each a grade that would pass nearly along the general slope of the hill, or rock, and thus lessen the cost of excavation through it."

    The foot of the first plane was located about 400 yards southwest of a bridge over Six Mile Creek on South Cayuga Street; and 114 feet northwest of the foot of South Hill. From here, it was 1,733 feet to the head of the first plane. A “middle yard" was provided for at this point, for a length of 250 feet. The upper plane then extended 2,226 feet to the summit of the hill. An engine house was constructed at the head of each plane. The lower plane had a rise of one foot in about every 4 1/4 feet, making a total rise of 405 feet. The upper plane rose one foot in twenty-one.

    Samuel J.  Parker, in his reminiscences of early-day Ithaca, said:"At the foot of the lower inclined plane was a high fill of stone dug out in making the plane, through which was a road culvert for the common wagon road up the valley.  I often went to see the rock blasted out; the heavy long pine timbers laid 12 to 16 inches square, the strap iron, spiked on the timber, the cable wheel for the large rope that was to, and did for years draw the cars up the hill; and at last the extraordinary long cable two and a half

inches in diameter laid in these wheels; the great power house at the top of the first incline plane; which building was 85 feet wide, and 80 feet long, and stood on an artificial mound made of rock excavated above it, for the second incline plane. This building was just below the road, running just above the upper switch of the present  D.L. & W. Railroad a little southwest of the present stopping place of passenger cars."

    Contracts for grading the first nine miles of the railroad were signed in February, 1832, and work on the planes soon commenced. From Cayuga Inlet the route extended in a semi-circle to the foot of the planes, closely following what today is Titus Avenue.

   On February 13, 1834, the inclined planes and 13 miles of railroad were “opened for transportation and travel.” The American Railroad Journal of February 22, 1834 reported: "The incline plane at Ithaca was for the first time used, and successfully. A car loaded with two tons of iron and thirty passengers, passed up the great plane, an elevation of 405 feet, in eight minutes."

   At the top of each of the incline planes there was an “engine house" containing a horse-operated winch with the necessary gearing for drawing up the cars. Windmills regulated the speed of the descending cars. Four horses were employed continually on the lower plane and two on the upper. Only two loaded cars were drawn up the planes at one time.

    An old time railroad employee,  Jason P Merrill, recalled: "The Ithaca end of the road had two incline planes, the first one beginning at a point about where South Geneva Street intersects the Spencer road and ending on East Hill. Here the main power house, used for hauling up and letting down cars, and where incoming passengers were discharges and outgoing ones boarded the cars. The second or upper plane as it was called was located about a half mile south. From this point to the main power house, cars were run by gravity, the speed being regulated by hand brakes." 

    Alvin Merrill, father of Jason, recalled working on the plane driving horses when he was 11 years old. "The horses went round and round like those that worked a threshing machine. The cars were let down and hauled up the high, steep hill by that windlass-like system. While two cars were going down it aided in hauling one car up the plane. A man went along with the train carrying oak plugs to use as brakes in case the rope cable broke. The plugs were thrown into the car wheel spokes and caught the wheels against the car.”

    To save money, horses were substituted for steam engines for hauling up the planes. Large amounts of "Cayuga Lake Plaster" were shipped to Owego, while much of the incoming freight to Ithaca was lumber.

No records have been found detailing the operation of the planes. Mr. Parker said the “short little cars” were loaded at the storehouse at Cayuga inlet. The cars were then drawn by horses to the foot of the first 

plane, where they were attached to the cable or rope. After one or two cars were thus attached, a flag was waved to indicate it was all clear to go up the plane. Then the winch was set in motion by the moving horses. As the rope moved up the one side of the plane, other cars were lowered. This procedure took about 20 minutes. The horses were then hitched to the opposite side of the arm of the driving wheel, and the process was reversed.

    Mr. Parker said, "It was a lucky day when 25 cars thus went up the two planes, and on to Owego; the same number reaching Ithaca." The Ithaca & Owego soon was floundering in financial difficulties and could not meet expenses. Parker said, "It cost more to get plaster. to Owego and lumber to Ithaca, and keep the road in repair, than to use horses traveling the usual wagon roads." He said the line fell into  disrepair.

    In spite of financial problems, however, the railroad was able to secure a steam locomotive; primarily through the efforts of one of the leading stockholders, Richard Varick DeWitt. This locomotive was built in Albany by Walter McQueen, a noted 19th century locomotive builder, and shipped to Ithaca by water  via the Erie Canal, and Cayuga Lake. It  was hauled to the top of the planes by several teams of horses.

    To lighten its financial burden the State of New York loaned the railroad company $300,000 with the stipulation that if interest payments were not made, the Comptroller could sell the company at a public auction. In 1840, the state loaned the railroad another $28,000, with the total interest commitment to the State now being $14,000 a year.

    Total revenue for freight between  1834 and 1839 was $117,577.13 for freight and $20,97.14 for passengers

   The railroad failed to financial and the state foreclosed. It was auctioned off in Albany on May 20, 1842.

It was picked up by a new organization called the Cayuga & Susquehanna Railroad Company, which was incorporated on April 18, 1843. No action was taken towards improving the property until 1849, when attention was given towards eliminating the inclined planes.

   A serious accident in 1842, told in detail below,  resulted in the discontinuation of the lower plane for passenger travel.They were met at the foot of the upper plane by stagecoaches and carriages. However, work on replacing the planes with switchbacks as well as reconstruction of the entire railroad did not start until 1849. By that time, the Cayuga & Susquehanna Railroad fell into the hands of George W. Scranton of Scranton, Pa. and others who were building the  Leggett's Gap Railroad from Scranton to Great Bend. This evolved into the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western. 

    Superintendent William Humphrey directed the laying out and construction of the new alignment into Ithaca. From the steamboat landing at the inlet it ran up the valley to Butternut Creek, where it swung to the northeast on a gravel filled trestle. It then gradually climbed up the, hill. To avoid the cost of bridging ravines near the level of Six Mile Creek,  a reverse switch in the form of a Z was built on the South Hill. The new line struck the old grade four miles from the top of the inclined planes.

     For more than a century, trains would back up and go forward in a spectacular ascent and  descent in and out of Ithaca. During reconstruction, the Ithaca depot was located at the top of the inclined planes, which had been abandoned before the new line was completed. 

Reconstruction work commenced on September 1, 1849, and the switchbacks were completed in March, 1850. The whole work was completed on May 1, 1850.

    Alvin Merrill recalled, "Civil Engineer McNiel, with Calvin Bogardus, Horace McCormick, Daniel Stevens, John Miller and myself laid out the seven mile zig-zag route down the hill to gain a distance of one mile, that made the incline plane a thing of the past."

                     (Slide image back and forth)

                                           _____

Tompkins Volunteer, Tuesday, May 3, 1842

A FRIGHTFUL, YET MIRACULOUS ACCIDENT

On Saturday last, our village was nearly panic struck by the intelligence  that a passenger car had accidentally broken loose, and gone down the incline plane. The facts as near as we can glean, and from what we have seen are these in the first place, there are two incline planes, leading from the summit of

the railroad into the village. The upper one is about 2,200 feet, descending one foot in 22, we believe, and the second plane, eighteen hundred, descending one foot to four. 

    It has been the practice invariably to let the passenger car down the first plane, with the aid of what is called a brake, with the passengers in it. As usual the train from Owego arrived, and after detaching the

car from the rest of the train, they proceeded down the plane. After they had gone some one hundred feet Mr. Hatch, the superintendent of the road, and who always stands at the Brake, felt something give way. 

    He spoke, to some one near him to assist him, as the car began to move with double rapidity. But he soon discovered that the brake was of no avail, and he leaped off thinking he could stop by blocking a wheel. But in jumping off, the car moved with greater velocity than he supposed, threw him, and before he could warn the passengers of their danger, the car was out of hearing distance of his voice.

    Some of the passengers seeing that all was not right, began to leap out, injuring themselves more or less. Before the car reached the foot of the first plane five or six had jumped out. Judge Dana of this place, and one or two more escaped from their perilous situation after the car had entered the Engine House where the other plane commences. 

    Judge Dana, we understand had his wrist either broken or sprained, we have not learned which, and one or two more were considerably hurt. A Mr. Wm. D. Legg, one of the passengers, deserves unusual praise, for his almost unparalled presence of mind, in saving himself, and a Lady who was in the apartment with him. He  says he was unconscious of any danger, until he happened to look out and saw two or three jumping out, and the lady looking out at the same time exclaimed, " Oh we shall all. be killed.“ 

    He told her he would save her, and at the same instant clasped her around the waist, opened the car door, carried her out and walked to the back of the car and stood down on the step, and there watched for a favorable place where he could let her fall, without coming in contact with the timbers of the road.

   The car then under swift motion, as it entered the Engine House he let her fall, and immediately leaped off himself, when the car was within ten feet of the other plane. He struck on his feet and received no injury whatever, and ran back to help the lady. He found she had received but little injury, comparatively speaking, but was much frightened.

   But the worst is to be told. The car passed on, and says our informant, so great was its velocity, after it had left the second engine house, that it was scarcely visible, leaving behind it as it were, a pillar of smoke. It kept the track for nearly 1,700 feet, when it ran off with tremendous crash, and went end over end some one hundred feet, and was literally dashed to atoms, not a wheel or any part of the heavy iron works of which it was composed remained whole. They were either twisted or broken to pieces. 

   And what makes this accident remarkable is, that a Mr. Babcock who remained in the car the whole way, was picked up from among the wrecks of the car alive!!!-- But he was a horrid spectacle - his nose was nearly cut off, his right arm, between the shoulder and elbow, was broken in two places, his head was mutilated in several places in a shocking manner; but neither of his legs were broken, and we are informed that serious internal injury has been discovered.

    He was immediately conveyed to the nearest house, and Dr. Hawley dressed his wounds. The chance of his recovery is about two to five. We were by during the dressing of the wounds and few can describe the excruciating pain he underwent. He could be heard to hallo for twenty rods. If ever the tortures of the rack were exhibited it was at that occasion. He still continues deranged and the only fear that the Doctor apprehends of his recovery is that a concussion of the brain will take place, if so, death must ensue.

   We do not think that any blame can be attached, either to the Superintendent, Mr. Hatch, or the Company. It has been the custom for years to let the car down in that manner, therefore in our opinion, it can only come under the head of accident, and not carelessness. We were told soon after the “tragedy” had taken place, that we should "blow up“ the Company, but we are not of that “kind of folks." The deed is done, and experience,  although dearly bought, will, we are in hopes, induce them to abandon forever the practice of trusting passengers to come down on the plane in any vehicle whatsoever. 

(Follow-up article from the Tompkins Volunteer, May 10 1842)

                                        The Railroad Accident

    We made a most woeful mistake in our last, as respects the upper plane of the railroad, that is, the one that they have been in the habit  of letting the car down by the aid of a brake. We were  misinformed. The plane is 2,200 feet long, instead of 1,200 feet, descends one foot in twenty-two, or in other words, 104  feet in 2,200. 

   We deem it proper to correct this error, from the fact, that any person of ordinary intellect, would at once see that plane of one foot to six descent, would be attended with imminent dangerveven if every wheel was fastened.

                                    Bibliography

Brooks, John J., The Story of the Inclined Plane,  Mss.

 Cullum, George Washington, Biographical Sketch of Captain William H. Swift, of the Topographical Engineers, United States Army, 1832-1849 A.G. Sherwood, Printers, New York, 1880.

Hill, Forest G.,  Roads, Rails & Waterways - The Army Engineers and Early Transportation, University of Oklahoma Press, 1957

Merrill, Alvin, The First Passenger Railway in America. Mss.

Merrill, Jason P., History of the Development of the Early Railroad System of Tompkins County, Mss.

Bishop, Morris, The Journeys of Samuel J. Parker, New York History, Vo. 45 No. 2, April 1964,  pp. 135-150 , New York State Historical Association

Swift, ,William H., Report of the Engineer in Chief to the Stockholders of the Ithaca and Owego Railroad, American Railroad Journal, September 7, 1833

von Gerstner, F.A., Die Inneren Communicationen  des Vereinigten-Staaten von Nord Amerika, Leipzig, 1842

Walker, Herbert T., Early History of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad and Its Locomotives. Railroad Gazette, May 30, 1902

Miscellaneous newspaper articles of the period.

                                   _____

The First Passenger Railway in America 

By Alvin Merrill (1908)

   Very few people of the present generation know that the Lackawanna railway that connects Ithaca with Owego was the third railroad constructed on this continent and the longest when it was finished -- thirty miles long. The other two were short and unimportant, one near Schenectady, N.Y., and one in Massachusetts. Fewer still know that Ithaca was a famous commercial and shipping center at that time, in the thirties. And hardly anyone knows that Ithaca was the headquarters for the planning and building of this railway, to connect the Erie canal with the Susquehanna river, the Chesapeake bay, and the Hudson river near the Catskill mountains.

   Although the history of the intellectual beginning of the Ithaca and Owego railroad (chartered 1827, as the Cayuga & Susquehanna Railroad,) under the guidance and ambition of Senator Ebenezer Mack, his brother, Horace, Francis Bloodgood, and other Ithacans, would be interesting. The purpose of the article is to show the practical and manual side of its construction as a public utility.

   A description of the construction of the primitive railway calls for a mixture of humor and good sense that sounds more like a chapter from the novel of a satirist and wit rather than a truthful narrative of what was considered a great industry and financial achievement. It would be, if published at length, an excellent contribution to the historical literature of the state.

   In 1835, when I was nine years old, and a resident of Caroline, Tompkins county, N.Y., I drove my father's horse, "Granny Young," riding bareback, hauling a flat car up Lane's hill. The car ran itself ran 

down the hill, a mile or more, in that town each way. It was used to haul gravel for grading the road-bed.    

  The car brake was a handspike pressed against the car wheels with skill and bravery. I followed along on "Granny Young" until the car stopped, hitched on to it and took it to the end of the route. Two years later I was driving horses on the top of the inclined plane at Ithaca. The horses went round and round like those that work a threshing machine. The cars were let down and hauled up the high, steep hill by that windlass-like system. While two cars were going down it aided in hauling one car up the plane. A man went along with them carrying oak plugs to use as brakes in case the rope cable broke. The plugs were thrown into the car wheel spokes and caught the wheel against the car.

   The train to Owego generally consisted of sixteen car. There were two "engine" houses, the lower one being on the Danby road at the brow of the hill. Four horses worked this windlass down in a pit. They were necessarily blind, for safety's sake, and simply rushed against iron yokes, fastened in a bean The belly-bands of the harness were wide and strong and often held the horse up clear from the floor when the cars got under too rapid headway on the steep plane and held them suspended in that position until the cars reached the level and ran into the car houses and were stopped by men who threw oak plugs into the wheels. The the horses were lowered again to their feet. When I was eleven (1839) I was promoted to the lower end of the plane where I hitched cars to the rope. In 1840 the first steam locomotive came to our relief. It came by canal, weighed seven tons, and was drawn up the hill be the company's horses.

   One morning Superintendent Bishop said to us: "Boys, put your teams back and we will hitch up the engine and have some fun trying her today. Couple the cars together". Our coupling was white oak scantling from three to sixteen feet long, and often much longer than the cars, for the cars were only twelve and fourteen feet long at the most. "We will try her once before the celebration of her first regular trip," he said. We were greatly pleased at the much talked-of change from horse power to steam power, and very curious about it. There was no bonnet on the smoke-stack, and when we started out the fire flew up, we thought to the sky, it was exciting to us.

   But what a sight for the country people! Their horse quit their quiet grazing as we passed through the fields and forests, and ran like mad animals, with heads up and tails flying; cattle bellowed and pawed the earth and took to their heels as fast as they could until we parted sight of one another. They must have thought that our locomotive was an animal-devouring monster that spitted smoke and flame and fire from its nostrils. We traveled very fast then -- five miles an hour.

   When we arrived at Lucky's where we had been in the habit of stopping the trains to water our horses at a boiling spring we stopped our fiery steed and filled his tender with that boiling spring water. We then moved two miles slowly, for our steam had gone nearly to zero. Before we stopped again, while going that two miles, and old gentleman jumped off the train and exclaimed: "Go to h--l with your locomotion, and I'll go on for I'm in a hurry!" We thought him a lunatic for not having patience with our first trip with the steam power.

   We fired up and got to Wilseyville, where we were stalled completely. Superintendent Bishop sent me for a barrel of tar and I got it from Dolly, Hurd & Whitcomb, local merchants. It was poured on our wood (we did not use any coal for many years afterward) and soon had steam enough to take us to Gridleyville, our horse-changing station. We hitched on a big team and hauled our engine and tender back to Ithaca, where we arrived at midnight, and where the locomotive was laid up for repairs and improvements for three months. Three tons were added to her weight.

   When three months had passed she was in fine shape and trim. A gala day was announced, a free ride was offered to all the world from Ithaca to Owego, and return. It was called a grand celebration: and such it was. Our train of sixteen flat cars stopped at every crossing for passengers. We made the roundtrip under Conductor Hatch with only one accident: John Haviland was crowded or fell off the train and was killed.

   There were no fences along the railroad. The cattle and horses became accustomed to the fire, smoke, steam and noise of our monster, and too familiar with us. They grazed on the track between the rails and the train hand were obliged every little distance to jump off, run ahead and drive them off the track, which delayed us every time until it became monotonous and annoying. Conductor Hatch's genius rose to the necessities of the occasion. He secured an old banded flintlock musket, and a bag of dried peas. One of us train hands always sat on the front of the locomotive when it was running, and shot peas at the cattle and drove them from our pathway.

   We ran no trains winters for that was impossible. Winters then were severe. Heavy snow and zero weather being common.

   In 1845 I was appointed repairer of road on a five-mile section, from Puddleville to Smith's Gate. My main duty was to follow the locomotive and spike down "snake heads" and put in new "ribbons" wherever need. Snake heads were the ends of three-quarter inch thick strap iron rail turned up by the weight of the locomotive. The "ribbons" were made of oak, fastened with a wooden plug three feet apart, one on a tie.

   The locomotive was called "Pioneer" (but nicknamed "Old Puff.) She went down through a bridge at Woobridge's, north of Catatonk, and killed Engineer Hatch and Fireman Dickinson. We brought her to Ithaca and returned to horse-power again. I bossed a lot of men while tamping the new roadbed, our tamping bars being made of oak planks nearly a foot wide. The first locomotive run over the new "T" rail was the "G.W. Scranton," Joe Weed, Engineer. William R. Humphrey was superintendent and built a new station house on the hill above Ithaca. Civil Engineer McNiel, with Calvin Bogardus, Horace McCormick, Daniel Stevens, John Miller and myself laid out the seven mile zig-zag route down the hill to gain a distance of one mile, that made the inclined plane a thing of the past. No change has ever been made in that zig-zag route.

   The next year I was made a brakeman, and with the fireman and conductor went ahead of the locomotive and spread pebble-stones on the rails to make the locomotive wheels hold to the track on the hill, because there were no sand boxes in those days. The next year I was made baggage master on the train, my duties being to act as baggage man, brakeman, and change mails. I had an accident occasionally when the car bounded off the track, but was not hurt much.

   When the line was extended and completed from Ithaca to Scranton, and to Great Bend, I was sent to help establish the companies coal trade in Binghamton. In 1857 I was appointed station agent at Pugsley's station. It was so far out of the way for shippers that in three years I built the Caroline depot (1860) and remained in that depot for thirty years.

   The first passengers coaches were built almost like the old stage coach, hung on leather springs and carried twelve passengers. The drive drove one horse, sat on "the boot" and carried the mails. We changes horses at Smith's Gate and at Owego and at Ithaca. Some part of the train jumped off the track from one to eight time between Ithaca and Owego every trip.

   When we met freight trains we took our coaches off the track, with aid of horses and passengers. They helped us to put the coaches back on the track when the freight train had gone on their way. Time was of no account then to passengers.

   One thing ought to be given to history. I remember well a little red car which the company purchased in Syracuse. We called it a "peach." It had a brake of its own and held twelve passengers. One day the driver let the horse loose, while the car was on the down track on the hill above the incline plane above Ithaca. He set the brake and depended upon it as an experiment. He did not intend to go down the hill, but expected to just before he struck it, where the village stage awaited the car and passengers. The brake failed to operate and the car ran away with its twelve passengers. All but one of them managed to scramble off. 

   The car kept on the rails down that dreaded steep incline, about three-quarters of a mile, bounding like a rubber ball, to the bottom of the hill just in this way, and hit just right. The biggest piece of that car when it was picked up where it struck down town on the level ground was that man passenger. He was badly cut, and arm was broken and his body was bruised, but strangely enough, and fortunately, too, he was not killed. Ten years ago that man, a Mr. Babcock, came to Ithaca to look again at the place over which he took such a furious ride.

   I have seen many travelers on horseback ride up to the coaches, mount them and lead their horses behind on the railroad track. But no one in this generation of railway "flyers" and "cannon balls" that glide at an every day speed of a mile in forty-five seconds, can comprehend the changes that have taken place since I rode "Granny Young" in 1835, hauling the gravel train that consisted of one flat car that ballasted and graded the then great and only Ithaca & Owego railroad bed. It seems much like a vast, drawn out dream to me, but it is a grand historical reality. I am sure that the evolution of the railway and its speed will continue until the real flying machine will replace it.

________

History of the Development of the Early Railroad System of Tompkins County 

Source: Ithaca Journal Centennial Number - August 28, 1915, Page 26 

By Jason P. Merrill

   As I look back into the forest of time covering a period of more than a half century, to my first connection with the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad for materials I find that owing to the disappearance of all early records pertaining to the road I am compelled to rely upon tradition and personal reminiscences for the subject of this article.

The Ithaca & Owego Railroad company was organized in 1827 and chartered in April, 1828, it being the second chartered road in the State and it is a mooted question if not the second in operation in the United States. The project was conceived by Ebenezer Mack while editor of The Ithaca Journal.

Its first officers were Francis A. Bloodgood, president; Richard Varick DeWitt, treasurer, and Ebenezer Mack, secretary.

Surveyor's Field Notes

   Preliminary surveys were made following the selection of officers and in this connection it might be interesting to know that the only original and authentic scrap of paper to be found relating to the old Ithaca and Owego road was in the possession of Samuel W. Reed of this city setting forth the personnel of the first organized corps of engineers, it being the first page of the surveyor's field book, and while the ancient and mildewed document has been subjected to the ravages of time it is still in a good state of preservation and in a bold, legible hand, presumably that of Mr. Willsey. Here it is:

"Ithaca, Dec. 1st, 1831 I.& O. Railroad - surveying party with G. Willsey, surveyor. David Lee, chains, flag and axe. Cornelius Hardenburg, axe and stakes."

   The road was opened for traffic in 1834.

                                            Horses Drew Cars at First

   The rails were strap iron, spiked to stringers and the cars were drawn by horses from the time of the opening in April, 1834, to 1840, when an engine, built in Schenectady, was brought to Ithaca to take the place of horses. An expert engineer accompanied the locomotive. His attempt to put it into commission failed. Its construction was thought to be too light, and it was sent back to Schenectady, and its weight and power were increased so much that new complications arose, the additional weight proved too much for the strap rails, and the idea of operating the road by steam was abandoned for a time.

   A mechanical genius by the name of John Aldrich, who resided near Mott's Corners (now Brooktondale) expressed a belief that he could improve the engine's efficiency to the extent that it could be operated successfully. He was engaged to try his hand and he made good.

   Mr. Aldrich made material improvements, but in doing so the weight was further increased and when he made his initial trip over the road the weight caused the ends of the strap rails to roll up and forced themselves through the bottom of the cars. Track hands were employed to follow the train and spike the snake heads, as they were called, down to the stringers or ribbons. Mr. Aldrich continued to run the engine for some time when he concluded that the bridges were too light to safely sustain the weight of the train.

   He reported his apprehensions to the officials who neglected to heed his warning. Aldrich refused to take the train out and "Kirk" Hatch was employed to take his place.

                                  First Fatalities

   Hatch made but few trips when the engine broke through Smith's bridge near Candor and Hatch and his fireman, "Al" Dixon were killed, this being the first fatal accident on the Ithaca & Owego railroad, and probably the first fatal railroad accident in the United States. The next accident, serious though not fatal, was sustained by a passenger at the time the road was being operated by horse power. The Ithaca end of the road had two inclined planes, the first one beginning at a point about where South Geneva street intersects the Spencer road and ending where the Driscoll coal office on East Hill is now.

   Here the main power housed, used for hauling up and letting down cars, and where incoming passengers were discharged and outgoing ones boarded the cars. The second or upper plane as it was called was located about a half mile south. From this point to the main power house, cars were run by gravity, the speed being regulated by hand brakes.

   On the day in question a coach containing several passengers, Judge Dana of Ithaca, being one of them, was brought down by the brakeman who lost control of the car. All efforts to check it failed and he gave warning for all to jump. The command was heeded by all except one passenger named Babcock, who lay asleep in the coach. The car plunged through the lower house and like a cannon ball sped on its way down the steep incline, landing at the bottom, a mass of splinters. The largest one was said to be the sleeping passenger, who eventually recovered.

   In the second fatal accident Charles Hill, a freight conductor, lost his life while making a flying switch at the upper switch. The third was that of Sam Williams, a trainman, killed at Candor. The last employee to lose his life was Engineer Orlando Seely in the passenger train accident at the South Aurora street crossing in this city. I am unable to recall or find any record showing a single fatality to a passenger on this road, the Cayuga Division, and I venture the assertion that this record, covering a period of eighty years, is without equal in its application to railroad passenger service.

                                 Road Sold in 1842

   On May 20, 1842, the Ithaca & Owego railroad defaulted in payment of interest and the road was sold to Archibald McIntyre and others of New York City. In 1855 the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad Company leased the road for ninety-nine years and the Ithaca & Owego was designated as the Cayuga Division, which marked the beginning of the great Lackawanna system of today.

The Ithaca & Owego road was originally standard gauge, changed to broad gauge when it became the Cayuga & Susquehanna, and in 1878 the gauge was changed back to the narrow standard. The upper plane was 2,225 feet long with a descent of one foot in twenty-one feet and the lower plane had 1,733 feet with a descent of one foot in every four and a quarter feet.

   In 1863 the writer came to Ithaca in the employ of the Lackawanna as its first telegraph operator on the Cayuga division. The personnel of the executive and clerical force at that time was W.R. Humphrey, superintendent; J.P. Merrill, superintendent's clerk and train dispatcher; Horace Hill, station agent; Harlan Hill, ticket agent; Harmon Hill, freight clerk; Thomas Nelligan, baggage master; W.W. Bardon, road master; Frank M. Brown, master mechanic; Cyrene Elmendorf, master car builder; Cornelius Leary, coal agent; Henry Billings, B.A. Dana, John Barden and Charles Haydon, conductors; Griff Pultz, Isaiah Robinson, Orlando Seely, Jeremiah Burnes and Hicks Hillaker, engineers.

   Alvin Merrill, my father, now in his ninetieth year, hale and hearty, when a little lad rode and drove an hold horse, Granny Gray, ballasting and grading the road in Caroline. His memory is clear as to work but not as to the dates. He makes it about 1832-33. He was one of the hands, the boys who sat on the cow-catcher, the front of the locomotives and with a pole drove the cattle off the track to make way for the locomotives to proceed upon their journeys.

   At first horses snorted and stuck up their tails and ran in great fear away from the iron monster that was belching forth sparks, and flame and smoke from the wood-burning fire pots, but they became used to it. Cows made the same ado over it. They, too, became accustomed to it. Father was one of the hands that followed the train and nailed down the bent ends of the thin strap rails. He also attended the horses working the windlass in the pit at the top of the incline plane.

   All but the writer have responded to Conductor Time's "All aboard," and taken passage to that land from whose border no traveler returns.

   The present network of railroads in this county known as the Lehigh Valley Railroad system is comparatively modern and its divided histories are well known to our older inhabitants.

Charter of Ithaca & Owego Railroad, granted 1828; opened to traffic, 1834; sale to Archibald McIntyre and others, 1842; leased to Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad, for 99 years; broad gauge track changed to narrow, 1878.

Ithaca & Athens Railroad and Cayuga Lake Railroads opened to traffic, 1872; Geneva & Ithaca opened to traffic 1873.

   The last railway to be chartered and constructed in this county is the Ithaca-Auburn Short Line. It is of very recent date. The Ithaca Street railway is not so recent in its history, but it has a record and is today doing the work it was designed to and has the reputation of being a surplus earning plant while giving general satisfaction to the traveling public.

   Ithaca has had an extensive railroad history and it has the oldest running line in the state and nation. The Journal's editorials during five long years, from 1825 to 1830 really built the Ithaca & Owego Railroad and connected the Erie canal with the Susquehanna River and later with the then great and wonderful Erie Railroad.