Last train to Van Etten leaves the Fifth Street Station in Elmira on June 25, 1938. Crewmen aboard were Engineer Thomas R. King, Fireman Miles Allen and Conductor William A. Stanton. At right is woodworking factory of H. C. Spaulding Co., at 115-157 East Fifth Street.
Elmira Star Gazette photo
Elmira, Cortland & Northern station, Fifth Street, Elmira, built 1885, partially demolished in 1950
. Richard Palmer collection
Elias Wheaton of Breesport was first and last passenger.
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Abandonment of Lehigh's Horseheads to Van Etten Branch
Brings Finish of Railroad First Constructed in 1870s
[Elmira Star Gazette, Sunday, June 26, 1938]
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When the Lehigh Valley Railroad Saturday ran its last train over the 18.5 miles of track between Horseheads and Van Etten, there resulted a sentimental ache in many a veteran railroader's heart.
The original of what became the Utica, Ithaca & Elmira R.R., later the Elmira, Cortland & Northern and finally, in the 90's a branch of the Lehigh Valley, was built by Joseph Rodbourn of Breesport, as a lumber road to take lumber off the hills around Erin and Park Station.
When it finally was surveyed as a part of a real railroad by Mordecai Rickey of Horseheads, the route was first laid out through what is now known as the Marsh Hill road. Finally it was continued straight into Swartwood, establishing grades among the steepest known on railroads in he East and requiring two great trestles, quite some bridge engineering feats for those days.
It was during the 1870s that Rodbourne built this road and among his first two engineers were Edward C. Tripp, father of Frank E. Tripp of Elmira, and Jonas Miller. Ed Tripp remained with the railroad for 50 years.
Breesport was the original rail headquarters. The shops were there and Breesport was quite a village. At that time the southerly end of the line was at Horseheads but trains entered Elmira via the Erie, crossing the Erie tracks by a switch which still exists just north of Horseheads village, now used as a switch for a cement block plant and coal yards. Across this the U.I.& E. trains reached the present Pennsylvania tracks and then the Erie via West Junction where the Pennsylvania now branches off the Erie.
Among old names associated with the old E.C.& N. are George Randolph, Albert Allen, Conductors McMartin, Elmer Hull, Dick Rundell, Ed Bosley, Floyd Zimmer, Tom Durant, Frank Knight, Jule Denton, Bob McDowell, Tom Donnelly, Mike Finn, Ira Jones, Tommy Swartwood, George Reedy, Tom Kane, Johnny King, Nobel Staples and many others.
About the first job John J.."Mugsy” McGraw, later of baseball fame, ever had was as a news butcher on an E.C.& N. passenger train. J.E. Turk of Breesport and Frank Stevens of Horseheads, who as chairman helped Rickey layout the road's route, later became great railroaders. Turk at one time was general manager of the Reading System.
The role of the abandoned section of trackage in history of the Elmira, Cortland and Northern and before that, the Utica, Ithaca and Elmira line, is well remembered by the few survivors of those earlier years. One of those with service going back to an early period of the railroad is Joseph E. Winters, 107 Orchard St., Horseheads. He first went with the E.C. & N. in 1887 and when he retired recently he had served 50 years and five months.
A native of Breesport, he was living in Elmira when as a lad of 19, he took a firing job and the man who "broke him in: was the late Edward C. Tripp, engineer. At the time according to Winters, he was working on a pusher engine. His first promotion came in 1889, when he came a combination fireman and extra engineer. He was advanced to the regular run in 1893. Three years after that, as he recalls it, the Lehigh system took over the trackage.
"The line did a good business in those early days," recalls Mr. Winters. Passenger business was good; there were numerous excursions and freight traffic was heavy. There were three brickyards between Horseheads and Breesport and the E.C.& N. had switches running to them. Wood was burned in kilns and the railroad carried this fuel. Running the brickyards was a man named Townsend, one by Louis Duhl and the other by Adam Kinley and sons Charles, William and George. The Kinley concern had a
tannery at Breesport.
Another who recalls earlier days of the E.C. & N. and the Lehigh is Fred Rick whose brother, Otto, dead two years, was for years station agent at Park Station between Erin and Swartwood. Fred Rick has been with the Lehigh since 1914. Mr. Rick points out that Park Station, without an agent since 1907, and now a decaying ruin, was an important stop on the Horseheads-VanEtten branch. There was quite a settlement near the station and Tom Brock of Spencer had a sawmill there.
James and Joe Rodbourn were conducting an extensive lumbering business around the 1870s. Timber was cut, shipped to mills at Erin. It will be recalled that it was the late Joseph Rodbourn, aided by the money and influence of Ezra Cornell, founder of Cornell University, who successfully fostered building of the E.C. and N. line.
Shown at Breesport with locomotive #165 are from left, Thomas King, engineer; George Aul, brakeman; Miles Allen, fireman; and William Stanton, conductor.
Fred Rick, now a carpenter with the Lehigh, relates how Park Station took its name. Close by on land now occupied by Fred Fitzgerald, Town of Erin, there was a large grove of trees. The E.C. and N. built a dance pavilion among the trees and had a road extending to it. This was in 1888 and may an excursion party stopped at Park Station for a day and evening of fun at the pavilion. Henry Parkinson ran a hotel there. It was a favorite spot for Elmira bird fanciers to hold cock fights. Dude to light traffic, Park Station became a flag stop in 1907.]
One of those affected by the abandonment of the Lehigh branch is Marcus H. Welser of 704 Benjamin St., station agent for Breesport and Erin. Mr. Welser has been with the Lehigh 20 years, starting as clerk and telegrapher at the Elmira terminal. With the abandonment of the line, the Breesport station will be permanently closed, although it may revert to other uses. The Erin station has been closed for some time.
Mr. Welser sighs as he thinks of the changes years have brought. "Even I can remember when the station here at Breesport was the center of interest in town. Crowds flocked to the station; hung around for hours to see the arrival and departure of trains. For some time before the abandonment only freight was handled here. No one, unless he was shipping freight, ever came to the station. It's been deadly quiet for years."
{Note: A special guest aboard the last train riding in the caboose was Elias Stanton, 81, of Breesport, who rode the first passenger train between Elmira and Breesport in 1872.
Other Abandonments of former Elmira, Cortland & Northern
A 2.5 mile section between Spencer and Van Etten paralleling the Ithaca mainline was abandoned in 1933. A short portion in Spencer remained to serve a feed mill. The 23 miles between Spencer and East Ithaca was discontinued in 1935; 9.2 miles from East Ithaca to Freeville in 1972; Freeville to Cortlandville, 10 miles, 1976; Cortland to Canastota, 48 miles, 1967; and from Canastota to Camden, 20.8 miles, in 1938.
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Lehigh Valley Station, East Fifth Street, Elmira
Elmira Star-Gazette
Friday, September 8, 1950
Old Lehigh Station, Once EC&N, Being Razed
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Landmark On Way Out
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Another Elmira landmark, the old Lehigh Valley Railroad passenger depot and freight station at E. Fifth and Baldwin Streets, soon will gone.
A crew of eight workmen in charge of H.T. Witting from the railroad’s Bridge and Building Department, Sayre, began Tuesday to demolish most of the structure. When the demolishing and remodeling is completed in about two months, all the old station that will remain will be a one-story section along Baldwin St. It will continue to be used as an office and freight station by the Lehigh.
The street floor of the section to be torn down was abandoned as a passenger station June 25, 1938, when the line between Horseheads and Van Etten was abandoned. The station was built in 1883 by the Elmira, Cortland & Northern Railroad, predecessor of the Lehigh Valley here. Stones bearing the initials E.C., & N.R.R. are part of the front of the two-story section. At the reader of the one-story west wing is another stone which reads: “E. B. Gregory, Elmira, N, N.Y., Architect.”
The Elmira, Cortland and Northern Railroad was originally the Utica, Ithaca & Elmira Railroad, known familiarly as the U.I. & E. and christened by some wag as the “Urope, Irope & Erope.” [later the E., C. & N. or “Empty, Crooked & Narrow.”]
It was built by Joseph Rodbourn of Breesport, aided by the money and influence of Ezra Cornell, and over its steep-graded line millions of feet of timber moved to market and the towns along its route flourished.
The railroad’s aim was to reach through Elmira to the bituminous coal fields at Blossburg by means of another new line being built from the southwest. This was originally the Elmira & State Line. In 1882 it became the Tioga Branch of the Erie. In 1870 the Lehigh Valley Railroad extended to Elmira, running on Erie tracks from Waverly. In the 1890s the Elmira, Cortland & Northern became a branch of the Lehigh.
Map of E.C. & N. by Herbert Trice
