Map showing Carthage Railroad
Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, March 21, 1898
First Railroad Into Rochester
____
A Bit of History Concerning the
Old Carthage Railroad
___
Cars Drawn By Horses
___
Wooden Rails Capped With Iron - Stone
and Wood Ties - The City of Carthage
Never Developed - Outstripped by Rochester.
____
There has been an evolution in the railroads of Rochester. The “oldest inhabitant” will admit the truth of that assertion; in fact the old residents are the ones that really that such has been the case. The younger generation knows little of the advance of the steam horses except what it has gained from history, but the residents of Rochester who have lived on the banks of the Genesee since the city was a village or a small city, know of the time when they could not enter Rochester drawn by a steam locomotive, and it is to this class of people and to the histories of the city and vicinity that “modern Rochesterians” have to look for information regarding the subject.
Imagine the bustling business man of Rochester rushing out of his office to catch a train that leaves the aqueduct near where it runs out to South St. Paul street. The cars, two in number, are drawn by horses that go loitering along through the city until opposite Lowell street, and then follow the track along the high banks of the Genesee to a point near Brewer’s landing. After the tedious journey is over with, the enterprising passenger who reckons time as money, boards a steamboat which wheezes and snorts its way down the river out onto Lake Ontario. The Rochesterian will likely reach his destination sometime before his death, barring accidents.
This is a taste of the manner that old Rochesterians traveled when they chose to go by rail. Many went by stagecoach and after many weary hours spent on the hot dusty roads or in the cold blinding storms, reached their destinations. The world is now too far advanced for sick things, and it is well.
The first railroad that Rochester possessed was of the sort described. It was known as the Carthage road, and ran from the eastern end of the old aqueduct at the at the head of Water street, to a point on the high banks of the Genesee now Brewer’s landing. That section was then the village of Carthage, and was laid out to be the most important settlement in tis vicinity. The road was four miles long. Work on the road was started in 1831, and the road was completed in January, 1833. It cost about $10,000 a mile. The railroad company consisted of Elisha Johnson, Joshua Bissell, Everard Peck, John T. Trowbridge, Eleazar Hills, and others. The Rochester Canal & Railroad Company was the corporate name, and the capital stock was $30,000. The company was organized in 1825, and in March, 1831, an act was passed by the legislature empowering the company to construct a road with with a single or a double track. The road was a single track, and there was but one turnout, at Hart avenue.
The equipment of the road consisted of several flat cars about the size of the old horse street cars, and two passenger coaches. The latter were more in the manner of buses than cars. The cars were drawn by two horses hitched tandem, and the driver rode on the top of the covered coach. The road was mostly used for the cartage of freight, and sometimes three or four flat cars would compose a “train.”
There were some steep grades on the road, and the descent over the distance of four miles was a little more than 254 feet; 157 feet of that within 1,000 feet of the northern terminus. The cars were open at the sides, and the track lay for some distance along the side of the river on the high banks, and within a few feet, in some instances, of perpendicular banks several hundred feet high. The ride on a fine morning is said to have been very invigorating, if one was not in a hurry.
A platform was located at the Carthage terminus of the road, and this being at the top of the bank of the river, an incline was necessary to carry the freight up and down. The incline was a double-track affair, and in the early days of the Carthage road the car on one track was drawn up by the weight of the other car which was filled with stone, and this was in turn drawn up by a windlass. Later an engine was used for hauling the cars up and letting them down. The banks at that point are about 200 feet high, and very steep. But few of the passengers of the Carthage road patronized the incline, preferring to walk up or down the stairway.
The road followed the high banks of the river from Lowell street down to its northern terminus, and over some of tis distance the grade can still be seen. A few of the stones that acted as ties in lieu of wood ties, are still to be seen along the route, some even with the holes drilled in them for the spikes that held the rails. Some of the ties were of wood, however. The rails were of the strap sort- a six by six scantling and the thin strip of iron two inches wide and three-fourths of an inch thick along the top. This, of course, gave considerable trouble, as the weather would warp the rails, pulling the pins out, and the ends would stick up, making travel dangerous.
The Rochester Canal and Railroad Company had offices in the building that lately occupied the northwest corner of Court and South St. Paul streets. The building was torn down when the new pavement was out on South St. Paul street.
The officers of the company were John Craig, of Canandaigua, president; A.M. Schermerhorn, treasurer; F. M. Haight, secretary. The road was leased by Horace Hooker & Company.
Prior to the building of the canal it was thought that Carthage was to be the city and Rochester but a small village, and at the time that the road was inexistent there were five taverns in the village of Carthage near the terminus of the road. In fact, some of them were but a few rods from the platform that answered for a station. Two of these buildings are now standing. At the corner of North St. Paul and Norton streets there stands an old building that needs but a glance to show that is an old tavern. This building, the old Andiniga Green tavern, stands today on the identical spot that it did when it accommodated patrons of the old road.
The other hotel building now standing is used as a house for help of the Deaf Mute Institute. The building stood with one end towards St. Paul street, near where the brick building of the institute now stands. It was moved north some years ago. The railroad ran along one end of it, and St. Paul street along the other, so that persons passing the inn by rail could have a chance to get a drink from the west end of the hotel, and people driving past the hostelry could stop and get a drink at the other end. But a little to the n north there formerly stood an old distillery.
Not a little of the information contained in this article was gathered through the kindness of John Stewart, a horticulturist, living at No. 42 Norton street. Mr. Stewart came to Rochester in 1836, and during the existence of the old Carthage road he too many a ride thereon. What was expected to be the main street in the prospective city of Carthage runs directly south from the dooryard of Mr. Stewart. The street is now called Reynolds place. It was laid out to be a fine, broad street, and has retained its breadth but never acquired the importance that it was expected it would.
The building of the canal killed Carthage. Until then thee was great rivalry between the two places, and the sound of the steamboats landing at Carthage and the passing if the trains on the railroad imbued the Carthagenites with enthusiasm in contemplation of the future prosperity of their “city.”
At this time steamboats landed on the west side of the river across from Carthage, and near what was later the old Glen House, now burned down. The road running down the bank to the river to the water’s edge was then, as now, called Buell avenue. As is well known, the road leading from what is now Brewer’s landing to the high banks above is very bad, and never was much better, but Mr. Stewart says that on many occasions he has paid taxes to improve the road so that the east side might conquer over the west. Busses and drays were driven down Buell avenue, and the passengers and the freight landed on the west side were transported from the landing to the city in that manner. The building of the other railroads into Rochester killed the little horse railroad, however, and when the lease ran out in 1843 the road was abandoned.
Near the lower falls on the east side of the river were several mills, and the Carthage road carried the product of these manufactories to the city and to the boats below. The ridge of the road is still quite prominent through the grounds of the Deaf Mute Institute. Considerable of the hill just below the grounds has been filled in, so that the steep grade that was formerly there cannot be seen.
This was the first railroad that Rochester had, but no steam cars ever ran over it. The first steamer road to enter Rochester was the Tonawanda road, which was built west to South Byron in 1834, to Batavia in 1836, and to Attica, a distance of 43 miles, in 1842. The first locomotive to be used on the road was brought here in 1836. Slowly but surely other roads followed, until Rochester grew in importance and became the center of a network of railroads.
____________
Dr. Porter Farley, in a paper read before the Rochester Historical Society on February 12, 1892, said the northern terminal was “the old landing place, where were situation the extensive warehouses of Hooker & Company, two hotels. another large warehouse and cooper shop, all go which have since been either destroyed by fire or pulled down. These buildings were on the plateau above the river bank. Down under the bank, which is here some two hundred feet high, were the warehouses and a hotel standing on or just above the dock.
“The old horse railroad was constructed with cuts and fillings yet remaining to be seen, and its strap rails were laid on stringers which rested in two parallel likes of large red sandstones, manny of which remained in situation until within the last fifteen years. The building which was used as the uptown business and ticket office stood on or near the corner of Main and Water streets. At the landing place, the upper and lower warehouses were connected by a double track inclined railway. While one car ran down on one track, the other ran up the other, the two cars being connected by a cable which took a double turn around a drum in the upper warehouse, which drum being propelled by horse-power furnished the motive for the operation of the inclined road.”
Extract from article in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. January 30, 1927 entitled “Horse-Power Railroad Operated From Village to Carthage in 1833” by James M. Angle. He noted:
The completion of the Erie Canal had brought an ever increasing volume fo trade between the location of the village and the port of the commerce carrying vessels on Lake Ontario was a space of four miles over which the conveyance of passengers and freight was limited to the carrying capability of wagons and horsepower. From this condition came the incentive for a better means of transit which resulted in the passage by the Legislature of 1831 of Chapter 89 of the session laws of the year authorizing the incorporation of The Rochester Canal and railroad Company.
Under this law the company named was authorized to construct a side canal, or basin, on the level of the Erie Canal, on Lot No. 10, or on some adjoining lot, in the town of Brighton, and extend northerly to some point near the Genesee river as near the head of ship navigation as the nature of the ground would concede ninth admit.
The corporation was also authorized to construct a double or single railroad from the Erie canal to the most convenient point on the high bank of the Genesee river, as near as conveniently may be to the head of ship navigation of the said river, and from the termination of the said railroad to construct railways, inclined planes and roads as may be required for carrying property up and down the bank of the river, to and from the docks at the head of ship navigation.” Authority was also given to the company to expend so much money as it might deem necessary in building and keeping in repair carriages, steam engines or machinery of any kind, or teams for transporting property along the railroad passing the same up and down the bank of the river.“
Additional information regarding the Rochester Railroad is contained in a paper, “The Rise and Fall of Carthage,” by Susan Huntington Hooker, read before the Rochester Historical Society on March 10, 1902:
“There were four switches, one of which at Central avenue, connected with the Cleveland race. Cars were driven like coaches, the driver sitting on the top where there was a platform with a double seat through the center. The magnificent view down the river made it a favorite road for visitors. Squire Wheeler was the driver, and took great pride in his cars. Teddy Tyler blew the bugle and is ignorance of music was only equaled by his zeal in the cause. The fare, a York shilling, was collected by George Darling, then quite a boy, well known to many. They were always on the lookout for trouble through Dublin, and Squire Wheeler would stand no liberties in the way if free rides or obstructions.
“At the steamboat landing there was a gravity railroad consisting of a double track on trestle work. One car loaded with stone came up while the other loaded with freight or passengers went down. This operation was facilitated by a windlass worked by horse power, later by steam. This was used for both freight and passengers and on one occasion at least the gearing gave way and a carload of flour was precipitated into the river.
“If the timid traveler had scruples, a stairway was ay his service with convenient seats on the way. S. V. Pryor remembers climbing the 254 steps holding his mother’s hand when he first lan did at Carthage. Five steamboats touched ten times a week at the Carthage landing. The early directories give alluring advertisements for these trips. There were few mills in Canada in those days and most of the wheat was brought here to be ground and sent back as flour.
“The freight cars were in charge of C. H. Green and there was great competition in carrying freight.
The railroad was leased to Horace Hooker, and for a time was a financial success. The business of Carthage which had been diminishing, grew in volume. Five steamboats touched ten times in a week at the landing and a large number of schooners were engaged from the port to Canada. Hanford’s Landing, on the west bank of the Genesee and nearer to the lake than Carthage, had until 1816, when Carthage had begun to grow, been the lake port for Rochester. But as Carthage increased in importance the shipping trade at Hanford’s Landing faded away. A large warehouse with a grain elevator was built there and a hotel established.
A line of omnibuses carried passengers to and from the city, and the milling interests on the west side of the river in Rochester, found it more convenient and economical to use the west side port. When the lease of the Rochester Railroad Company to Mr. Hooker expired the road was abandoned. The project for extending the road through the streets of Rochester was never carried out.
Rochester Union
Monday, Oct. 1, 1832
The Rail-Road between the Erie Canal and the head of navigation on the Genesee River was yesterday opened for passengers. The pleasure carriages were for the first time, placed on the tracks. The Duncan and the Greig, which headed the line made a beautiful appearance; and all the conveyances were crowded with citizens, many of whom afterwards partook of a sumptuous entertainment prepared in Mathies’ customary style at the Clinton House.
The road is not quite finished to the landing at Capt. Trowbridge’s. The cars stop at present at North Rochester Hotel - a situation overlooking some handsome scenery below the lower falls. It is a pleasant, though brief jaunt.
New York Spectator
Monday, November 7, 1840
[From the Rochester Evening Post]
Dastard Attack - $50 Reward
One of the most dastardly and cowardly acts which ever disgraced the county of Monroe, was perpetrated on Friday night in this city. The members of the Clay clubs, of the 4th and 5th wards, engaged the cars of the Carthage railroad company to convey them to Carthage, where a meeting was to be held in the evening. When near Franklin street, stones were throw at the cars, one of which struck a young man on the temple with such force as to produce a severe, and what was for a time deemed a dangerous wound. Twenty-Five dollars will be paid to any person who will give information which will lead to the detection and conviction of the ruffians by whom the attack was committed.
But this base act did not seem to satisfy the villains. Another and more infamous attempt was made upon the lives and limbs of the delegation. The cars returned about 10 o’clock, and when opposite the embankment near Andrews street their progress was retarded and an obstruction placed in the road. The cars were fortunately proceeding slowly, otherwise they would inevitably have been thrown from the track, and precipitated down the embankment.
We do not wish to cast the odium of this villainous act upon the loco foco party; because we know that every honorable man would discountenance an act so infamous. Yet we ate constrained to believe that the outrage was dictated by that destructive spirit which belongs to loco focoism, as proclaimed and practiced by the ultras of that party, in the agrarian purlins of Tammany Hall.
The undersigned will give a reward of $25 for the apprehension of the perpetrators of either of these outrages, or $50 for the apprehension of both.
By order of the members of the 4th and 5th Wards Clay Club. D. R. DARTON, President.
A. Lathrop, Secy.
