Untitled - Clpdigital.org

120 BETWEEN THE OCEAN AND THE LAKES
City was begun in 1856. In June of that year the to the engineers' strike and the extraordinary cost
contract was let to Stanton, Mallory & Co. of New- of that strike, and to the losses by snow blockades
burgh for putting the tunnel through Bergen Hill, and floods during the winter, was given in ex-
These stupendous operations required the use of planation of this discouraging showing. The most
large sums of money, and early in 1857 the Erie marked falling off in traffic reported was in freight,
management was face to face again with financial and the chief increase of expenses declared to be in
embarrassment. Erie stock had, in June of that repair of cars and engines.
year, depreciated from sixty-three to thirty-three, Superintendent McCallum had been forced to
under the combination of a clique of brokers whose resign in March, 1857. The engineers' strike had
operations were by no means a credit to the Board, cost the Company upward of $500,000, and left the
because Daniel Drew, an Erie Director, was one of road in wretched condition. After the resignation
them. The stock reached so low a point that many of McCallum the railroad, by order of the Board,
were afraid to sell it any further, more particularly March 12, 1857, was reduced from four divisions to
that as the price fell the stock was gradually bought two. One, from New York to Susquehanna, with
up by those who had confidence in its value, until the branches, were placed in charge of Hugh Riddle.
it became very scarce—so scarce, that on June 30th Of the other, from Susquehanna to Dunkirk, J. A.
the amount standing in the name of Wall Street brok- Hart was made Superintendent. President Ramsers
was less than 7,000 shares out of 110,000 shares dell acted also in the capacity of General Manager of
constituting the capital, the smallest amount known operations.
for seven years.
Added to its other difficulties, the Erie tracks, on The New York Central Railroad Company, unharthe
western end of the road and on the Delaware assed by pressing debts or urgent need of money,
Division, were so badly blockaded by heavy snow- had early assumed an aggressive attitude against
storms in January, 1857, that traffic was disastrously the Erie, and lost no opportunity of asserting it, in
suspended for days at a time during that month, spite of the assurance of President Ramsdell to the
In January, 1857, great ice-floods in the Delaware stockholders that amicable relations with its rival had
River destroyed or blockaded miles of track on the been restored to Erie. At a convention of railroad
Delaware Division, and swept away costly bridges, managers held at Buffalo in May, 1857, the representagain
crippling the railroad severely, and draining atives of the New York Central insisted that a fast
the Company's already scant treasury to repair the train should be run from Chicago to Dunkirk and
disastrous breaks in its transportation line. The Buffalo over the Lake Shore Railroad, and that an
same month, the Company being behind in its pay- Erie express train should connect with it at Dunments
to contractors for work on the Bergen tun- kirk, and another on the Central at Buffalo, to run
nel, the laborers to the number of 700 struck, the through to New York. The Erie people remonstrike
culminating in a long and bloody riot. In strated, but to no purpose. They were compelled
February, bridges that had been destroyed by the to put on the extra train, although it left Dunkirk-
January flood and rebuilt were swept away again by only a short time after their regular train from that
another flood. A June flood carried off extensive place. They soon found that the train was losing
bridges along the Susquehanna and Western Divi- money for them, and they withdrew it, giving notice
sions, and washed away great sections of the track. at the same time that any passengers bound for
Early in June the Company's statement of the New York from the Chicago train who would remain
business of the road for the six months ending March, over night at Dunkirk would be carried to New
31, 1857, was made. It showed that the expenses, York over the Erie at a reduced rate of fare. The
not including the $210,000 paid into the sinking Buffalo and State Line Railroad Company, whose
fund during that period, had exceeded the earnings road gave the sole connection the Erie had with
by more than $72,000. The decreased business due trains from the West, refused to honor tickets that