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THE STORY OF ERIE 77
at a public meeting of citizens held in the fall of should make an effort to have their village sele
1829, the Legislature was applied to for a charter as the Eastern terminus of the New York and Ericincorporating
the Hudson and Delaware Railroad Railroad. It was also alleged that to give New-
Company. The charter was granted on April 30, burgh a chance to obtain legislation that would
1830. Thomas Powell, whose son-in-law, Homer secure that end, contracts were let and work was
Ramsdell, subsequently became a power in New begun on the New York and Erie Railroad in the
York and Erie affairs; Christopher Reeve, David Delaware Valley, in November, 1835, instead of at
Crawford, Joshua Conger, John P. DeWint, Charles some point on the Eastern section of the proposed
Borland, John Forsyth, and William Walsh were route.
named as the incorporators of the company. The Soon after work was begun on the Erie between
capital of the company was placed at $500,000, Deposit and Callicoon, the people of Newburgh,
with power to increase it to $1,000,000, and it had moving,it was alleged, on the hint they had received,
authority to construct a railroad from any point in took decisive action. At a public meeting held at the
the village of Newburgh through the county of Orange Hotel on the evening of November 30, 1835,
Orange to the Delaware River, with three years in to discuss the course Newburgh ought properly to
which to begin work upon it. Just how a railroad take on the question of the proposed appeal of the
from Newburgh to the Delaware River was to con- New York and Erie Railroad Company to the State
nect the former place with the coal regions does not for aid, that course was clearly seen, and the meeting
appear, for from the nearest point where it might unanimously resolved that the people of Newburgh
have reached the Delaware River in Orange County would unite in the petition that the State should
the coal regions were sixty miles distant, with any become a subscriber to the Company's stock. They
number of high and forbidding ranges of hills inter- also united in a petition for a charter for a railroad
vening. But whatever might have been the supple- from Newburgh to the Delaware River, pledging
mental intentions of the projectors of this railroad, their liberal support to the building of such a road.
they were never made known, for, although sub- This railroad, according to a resolution under which
scription books were opened to give Newburgh and a committee was appointed to confer with the Directother
Orange County citizens an opportunity to con- ors of the New York and Erie Railroad Company,
tribute money toward building the Hudson and Dela- was designed to be a portion of the railroad of that
ware Railroad, the three years' life of the charter Company, and was to be the means through which
passed away before a beginning was made, and Ron- the efforts of the people of that vicinity were " to
dout remained the tide-water terminus of the anthra- be united with that (the Erie) Company in the succite
coal trade.
cessful prosecution of the project for constructing a
It was not until 1835, after the New York and railroad from Lake Erie to the Hudson River."
Erie Railroad project had been nearly four years in The struggle for the Eastern terminus of the New
o-ettino- any kind of a start, that Newburgh awoke York and Erie Railroad that followed was not long,
to the fact that the time was probably ripe for her to but it was a fierce one. New York City opposed
become a railroad terminus. Differences had come the Newburgh terminus because it left the railroad
among the men who had been instrumental in carry- too far from the metropolis. The Newburgh route
ine- the New York and Erie scheme to public notice, would also have left Middletown, Goshen, and all
Some of these were not in favor of having the East- of Southern Orange County, and Rockland County,
ern terminus of the railroad at Tappan Slote, among without a railroad. The claims of Newburgh were
them the President of the Company, James G. King, not sufficient to overcome the great opposition the
and his friends in the Board of Directors. The New- proposed change aroused, and Tappan Slote was
burgh people had received a hint from King or his officially selected by the Board of Directors of the
friends in the Board, it was alleged, that the situa- Company as the Eastern terminus of the New York
tion was such that it might avail them much if they and Erie Railroad. But the men who had taken up