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136 BETWEEN THE OCEAN AND THE LAKES
will soon be placed on the ferry.
The convenience
and comfort of passengers, and greater regularity in
running the trains, have been secured by the establishment
of the ferry, and the want of suitable station
accommodation in New York has been supplied
by spacious and well-arranged ticket offices, passenger
and baggage rooms."
The last payment of the Receiver was made in
December, 1861, and he was ordered to turn the
property over to the Erie Railway Company.
The
New York and Erie Railroad Company had passed
out of existence, after nearly thirty years of struggle
and vicissitude.
The expenses of the foreclosure
had been $64,753.17, and of the three years' receivership
$55,150.22. A few years later a Receiver of
the Erie Railway Company, who was in office but a
month with nothing to receive, was paid $150,000 as
his reward. Receiver Marsh turned over the property
of the Erie Railway Company with every claim paid,
and a balance of $181,451 in the treasury.
The total cost of construction and equipment of the
New York and Erie Railroad had been $35,320,907
Its capital stock paid in was 11,000,000
Its bonded debt was 26,351,000
Its existing floating debt, i860, was 2,725,620
It had earned during the 19 years of its operative
existence 51,098,106
At a total operating expense of. 32,346,029
Leaving its net earnings for the 19 years 18,752,077
And dividends had been paid to the amount of 3,481,405
While interest on bonds, and other drafts on the
treasury, had absorbed 15,270,672
The Articles of Association by which the Erie
Railway Company was formed were entered into
April 30, 1861, pursuant to the Legislature in New
York State of April 4, i860, and of April 2, 1861,
both relating to the foreclosure and sale of the New
York and Erie Railroad. The associates were
Dudley S. Gregory, J. C. Bancroft Davis, Nathaniel
Marsh, Samuel Marsh, Daniel Drew, Robert H.
Berdell, William B. Skidmore, Don Alonzo Cushman,
Henry L. Pierson, Ralph Mead, Cornelius Vanderbilt,
and Henry A. Tailer of New York; Ambrose S.
Murray of Goshen; Thomas D. Wright of Binghamton
; John Arnot and Alexander S. Diven of Elmira;
Horatio N. Otis of Westchester County, N. Y.
May 1, 1861, these associates organized as a Board
of Directors, and elected Nathaniel Marsh as President,
Samuel Marsh Vice-President, Horatio N.
Otis Secretary, and Talman J. Waters Treasurer.
Thus the Erie Railway Company came into existence
on the eve of the great civil war, when the
country was rent by the uncertainties and fears and
forebodings that preceded the awful clash of arms.
But for that the career of Erie during the exciting
period of the national struggle might have been attended
by other than commonplace incidents. As
it was, the affairs of the Company, now that they
had been freed from embarrassing entanglements,
and were placed in condition that practically gave
the Company a new start in life, attracted no more
attention, and deserved no more, than those of
any other corporation that was attending quietly to
its business. The war brought an increase in traffic
that taxed the capacity of the railroad to care
for, and that this business was handled successfully,
with the equipment and facilities the Company then
had, is something to be wondered at to this day.
Erie stock and bonds steadily advanced in the market.
The earnings warranted the payment of eight per
cent, dividends on the common, and seven per cent.
on the preferred stock. January, 1861, Erie stock
was quoted at thirty-eight and a half. January, 1862,
it was strong at fifty-five and a half, and the year
1862 closed with common stock at sixty-five, and the
preferred at ninety-six and three-quarters. Erie first
mortgage bonds were 116; second, 116; third, 109^;
fourth, 102^ ; and fifth, ninety-seven and a half.
The construction account, for some reason,was of not
much significance during these years, and there was
undoubtedly much cause for the management that
came in toward the close of the civil war to declare
that the road and its equipment were entirely inadequate
and deplorably out of repair. The years of the
Marsh management were certainly the most barren
of exciting incident of any previous period in the
history of Erie; yet the important record is, that
that administration saw the dawn of many interests
that are among the vital ones of Erie to-day, and
the beginning of conditions that predominated all
Erie's subsequent history.
The development of the coal trade on the road