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88 BETWEEN THE OCEAN AND THE LAKES
from Port Jervis into Pennsylvania, and running on
that side of the valley until the route could
once
more cross into New York State. This required
enabling legislation from both New York State and
Pennsylvania.
The Commission, or a majority of its
members, reported in favor of the change in the
route, a decision that results proved to be in every
way wise and proper.
While the Commissioners were in control of the
location of the road
between the summit of the
Shawangunk Mountains, near Otisville, to Binghamton,
130 miles, there was no work for the Company
to proceed with except the eight miles from Middletown
to Otisville, then under contract.
The decision
of the Commissioners, therefore, having been so
long delayed (unavoidably, they averred), the progress
of the railroad toward completion was necessarily
correspondingly suspended.
In a call made by the
Directors, May 14, 1846, for a second instalment on
the stock, they made a statement to the stockholders
in which the}' said, referring to the delay caused by
waiting for the Commissioners to complete
work:
their
Although the Directors have not been able to prosecute of way to the railroad. Philadelphia opposed the
the work of construction as rapidly as was desired, the time granting of such permission, on the ground that the
has been very advantageously employed in adjusting the unsettled
business of the company, arising out of the embarrassments
railroad would divert the trade of the upper Dela­
of former years. All liens upon the property of the ware Valley to New York, and Philadelphia would
company have been discharged, and all liabilities in the form
lose it, although the only trade the valley had at
of 6 and 7 per cent, certificates, unsettled claims, etc., which
were stated by the Directors in their address to the public in that time was trade in lumber, which could not very
September last, to be about $600,000. are now less than $475,-
000. The old stock of the company, which at that time
amounted to more than $1,500,000. has all been surrendered
well go elsewhere than to or toward Philadelphia,
for the reason that it was carried in the shape of
in compliance with the provision of the Act of May 14, 1845, rafts on the Delaware River during times of freshet,
except 247 shares returned to tlle Comptroller, leaving the and the Delaware River ran direct to Philadelphia.
present amount, made up from all sources, less than $840,000,
which, with the new subscription bearing interest, comprises But strong petitions went to the Pennsylvania Legislature
the whole stock account The first and second instalments
from the northern part of the State asking
have been paid on an amount considerably exceeding $3,000,-
000. A large number of stockholders have voluntarily paid
from 15 to 50 per cent., and others have paid in full.
for the permission to be granted, and during the
session of 1846 an act was passed granting the New
The road from Piermont to Middletown. which, in consequence
of the embarrassments of the company, was brought
York and Erie Railroad right of way into and through
into use in an unfinished state, with miles of high trestle and Pike County, right of way through Susquehanna
pile work, which, for safety, required to be filled up with County having been granted in 1841. The act of
embankments, has been put in good condition. A difficult
1846 was passed on condition that the Delaware
and expensive portion of the road from Middletown to
Shawangunk Mountain will lie completed and ready for use
early in the autumn.
The revenue of the road in operation is steadily increasing,
and every successive portion added to its length will increase
in much greater proportion the income. A fuller
acquaintance with its business, and the resources of the
country through which it passes and is intended to pass, confirms
the Directors in the belief that the estimate heretofore
made of the profits and the advantages of the work fall short
of what will be realized when the whole line is completed.
It was deemed so certain, however, that the route
of the railroad would be changed
from the hills of
Sullivan County to the Delaware Valley, that contracts
were let for the building of the road between
Port Jervis and Binghamton in October, 1846, the
work between
then under way.
Middletown and Port Jervis being
There were twenty-two contractors,
and each contractor accepted one-third of the
amount of his contract in stock of the Company.
The report of the Commission on changing the route
of the road, made to the Legislature in 1847, aroused
the people along the old route to great opposition,
and a bitter fight was made against the adoption of
the report.
The probability that the Commissioners
would adopt a route that would necessitate the taking
of the railroad out of the State into Pennsylvania
had alarmed certain commercial interests in that
State, and the Pennsylvania
Legislature, as early
as 1845, was petitioned to refuse entrance or right
River should be crossed by the railroad at a certain
point near Port Jervis; that it should not interfere
with or obstruct operations on the Delaware and
Hudson Canal; that it should permit connection