REMINISCENCES OF A VETERAN CONDUCTOR. FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. BY CHAKLES B. GEOEGE SECOND EDITION. CHICAGO: R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS, PUBLISHERS, 1887. TF fir fff-7 eXCHANQI COPYRIGHT BY CHARLES B. GEORGE, 1887. TO THE CONDUCTORS OP THE UNITED STATES, AND OTHER FRIENDS IN THE RAILROAD SERVICE, THIS BOOK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY THE AUTHOR. M97081 PREFACE In preparing these pages for publication, the author has not attempted to give a complete or consecutive history of his life as conductor on the railroad during the past forty years, for that would be beyond the scope of a simple work of this kind. On a thread of autobiography he has arranged a series of sketches, drawn from his own experiences and from those of his associates in the service, dealing with all subjects from the stand- point of a railroad man. Some material for this work has been drawn from the literature of the day, especially as it appears in magazines and newspapers, but a series of memoranda, kept at irregular intervals during the past four decades, has been chiefly drawn upon, as have also letters from friends, and interviews with those who shared the author's experiences in early days. Should omissions or errors be noticed in the data of this volume, let it be remembered that the writer has necessarily largely depended upon his memory in its compilation. 11 12 FORTY YEAKS ON THE BAIL. Although this book is written by a railroad man and is dedicated to railroad men, it is hoped and believed that the general public will find herein a fund of information and entertainment that will commend it to all classes of readers. It is with this in view that the author gives these pages to the world C. B. GEORGE. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. THE START IN LIFE, - - 17 CHAPTER II. EARLY RAILROADING, . 27 CHAPTER III. A MILE A MINUTE, 47 CHAPTER IV. REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS, - 55 CHAPTER V. WESTWARD, 72 CHAPTER VI. IN WAR TIMES, 99 CHAPTER VII. FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS, - 129 CHAPTER VIII. NOTED PASSENGERS, 144 CHAPTER IX. RAILROAD MEN, - 164 CHAPTER X. "OLD RELIABLE," - 195 CHAPTER XI. HUMAN NATURE ON THE RAIL, 211 CHAPTER XII RAILROADING OF TO-DAY, 242 ILLUSTRATIONS. MY BOYHOOD HOME, - 25 THE AUTHOR FORTY YEARS AGO, 45 THE MEDFORD TRAIN, 65 THE SNOW-PLOW ADVENTURE, 85 BOUND FOR BENNINGTON, - 105 OLD COOK STREET DEPOT, CHICAGO, ----- 125 SNOWED IN, - - 145 THE FARMER'S ARGUMENT, 165 HOXIE AND THE TRAMP, - 185 THE VESTIBULE TRAIN, - 205 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL, CHAPTER ,Lv v i s ;.;V :;: : THE START IN LIFE. Early in 1847 my parents died and I was left alone in the world. The small farm in Massachusetts where I was born and where I passed my early life, fur- nished us a humble living, and that only after strict economy and hard work. New England's rocky soil was a poor field for getting wealth, and my father's life was that of other farmers of those days. Well do I remember our cottage home, with its slanting roof, low ceilings and small windows. I can see it to-day as plainly as I did when I was a lad living within its walls. The big fire-place was the favorite spot where we all gathered during' the long winter evenings. When the snow was piled high outside and the wind whistled about the corners of the house, we sat before the blazing logs on the hearth, told stories, ate apples, popped corn and drank cider. My good mother always sat near with her knitting-needles clicking busily. Down in front of 2 17 18 FORTY YEARS ON THE EAIL. the house I can still see the old fashioned well-sweep and the moss-covered, iron-bound bucket. Away in the distance ran the Merrimac, and all about, the woods and Chills: of: New England lent the scene a charm I little appreciated then, but which often liave: e&osiej to: tie :iix thought since I bade them fare- well so many years ago. Those were happy days. It is true that our life was simple^ but our tastes were in harmony with our lot, for we lived as our friends and neighbors did, and into the midst of our peaceful community had not come the restlessness, the pursuit of worldly pleasures, the glitter and show of these later days. Where no one possessed great wealth and was not sur- rounded by luxury, the rest of the community was not disturbed by any striking contrasts or disagreea- ble distinctions. We had our simple pleasures and recreations that were varied with the seasons. The Fourth of July was a great day to us, of course, *nd we had, in the autumn and winter, husking-bees, dancing parties, and sleigh rides to our heart's con- tent. I never thought much of the great future in those days ; my mind was busy with its surroundings. My mother's gentle ways and quiet industry made our humble home a place of rest for all, and, until my parents died, life went on quietly for me amid the dull routine of farm duties. My educational THE STAET IN LIFE. 19 advantages were such as the country schools gave me. Only three months of the year were allowed me for going to school ; the duties of helping to support the family having fallen to my lot very early in life. I had always been a diligent boy. Indeed, there was little chance to be otherwise. In those days everybody worked, and industry was taught us from morning till night both by example and precept. When not needed at home I helped the neighboring farmers, receiving as compensation only nine pence a day, or twelve and a half cents in our present money. At odd times I did work on shoes, " closing " them, as we used to call the process of sewing the parts together with waxed ends. Haverhill was largely occupied in the same industry. It was before the days of complicated machinery for manufacturing purposes, and nearly every cottage in our village contained one or more persons engaged in doing some branch of shoe-making. When at seventeen years of age I was thrown upon my own resources, I found myself poorly pre- pared to face the great world. By being very careful of my earnings, I had saved eight dollars, and with this I was to begin a new career. After my parents were laid to rest, and all had been done for them that loving hands could do, I began to consider my future. A good, kind-hearted woman, Mrs. Tibbitts, 20 FOKTY YEAKS ON THE RAIL. took me to her home to stay a couple of weeks, until I could settle upon some definite plan. Her motherly ways and her Christian counsel cheered me in those lonely hours, and I look back to her to-day with gratitude for her kindness to me in my day of need. Many friends came to give me advice. "Keep the old farm, Charley," said one old gentleman. "Your father made a living there, and why not you?" But the farm had only been rented by my father, and now that the old home was empty, I had not the heart to stay there. Besides, farming was not to my taste, now that I was free to make my choice. "How would you like clerking in our store?" another suggested. The salary of a clerk in a country store was not a temptation, even to me with my modest ideas. One day I met Mr. Taggart, a lawyer of the town, and he asked me why I did not study law. "If you \vill come to my office," he said to me kindly, "I will do my best to help you in your studies and make a lawyer of you as soon as possible." The question of board and clothes then presented itself, and I gave up all idea of going into the law office. The various counsels of friends and the failure of each to satisfy my desires, did not discourage me. To the young all things are possible, and with a THE START IN LIFE. 2l rugged constitution backed by a willing heart, I knew I could make life worth living. Haverhill, my native town, is thirty miles from Boston, and to our quiet home enough news of the city had reached us to make me feel that I had a better chance to make my mark there than in the country, where, to tell the truth, I had already begun to feel tired of my humdrum life. "I'll go to Boston," I said to myself one day, after studying over every plan I could think of, or the neighbors could suggest. " Surely I'll find some- thing to do there ; at any rate, I'll chance it. I'll make the world pay me the living it owes me." So, with my hard-earned capital, arid with the best wishes of friends, I started for the metropolis. Kind Mrs. Tibbitts had mended my clothes and packed my little trunk, putting in odds and ends of things that only a mother knows her boy will want, and which I found most acceptable in the trying days that followed. A tall, lanky youth I was; dressed in badly fitting clothes which I had outgrown, the trousers being so short that they showed off to advantage my coarse cow-hide boots. But, I was busy thinking of what the great future was to bring, and I cared not a whit for all that. Well do I remember the train as it came puffing 22 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. along toward Haverhill station, with cinders and smoke filling the fresh country air, and the little sa wed-off cars jolting along the uneven track. It was a great sight to me, and as I stepped aboard my heart beat wildly at the new experience. I timidly got into the car, and sat in the end seat. I knew that to pay full fare would make a great hole in my money, so I drew myself into as small a compass as possible, hoping to look very young to the vigilant official eye. Ansel Tucker was the conductor, and when he came up to me I timidly asked him if he would take me for half fare. " Where are you going, my lad? " he said kindly. " To Boston, sir." " Well, you're a pretty good chunk of a boy to be riding for half, but you look as if you were made of the right stuff, and I guess I will have to let you go." My courage rose at this first success and with a lighter heart I continued my journey, my mind being kept busy with the novelty of the ride, and with planning for my future." When I landed in Boston, I found a place where I could lodge at ten cents a night, and I took my meals wherever I could get food cheapest. Many an hour I went hungry, and then, with a piece of pie or a couple of doughnuts, which I could buy for five cents, I made a scanty meal. I had a lonely time of it, too, THE START IN LltfE. 2 for I did not see a familiar face from one day's end to the other, and I greatly missed the friendly and encouraging words I had been accustomed to in old Haverhill. Day after day I walked the streets, asking for work. My idea was to learn a good trade, but those were dull times and labor was not in demand. Often I grew discouraged, but a good night's sleep or some- thing to eat always revived my spirits. Then, to the country boy who had never gone very far beyond his native village, the busy city was filled with wonders that made me forget my trials. Many a time, after refusals from those to whom I applied for work, when I was tired and heartsick, I sat down in the old Boston Common, and while looking at the sights there 1 forgot my misery till I got rested, ready to start on a new search. My money was gradually melting away and my enthusiasm was on the wane, when one day I ran across Charles Minot, who had known me when he was practicing law in Haverhill. At the time I speak of, he was superintendent of the Boston and Maine railroad, and was known as one of the most capable and progressive men in the State. " Hello, Charley," was his greeting. " When did you leave Haverhill? What are you here for? " "Looking for something to do," I answered gloomily. 24 FOETY YEARS ON THE BAIL. " What have you tried to get ? " "To learn almost any trade, and I'm tired asking for a place." " Got any money? " " Not very much." " Cheer up, my boy, there's plenty of chance for you here," he said cheerily, slipping a five dollar bill into my hand. "So you have tried about everything, have you?" " Yes, sir." "How would you like to be a railroad man?" he said, after a slight pause. "Like it? " I echoed, eagerly jumping at the idea. "Like it? Just give me a chance, sir." As a result of our meeting, after a few days I became baggage-master of the train to Medford, about five miles out of Boston. "We had a small cabless engine, weighing about five tons, and the train was made up of a single car, which was baggage and passenger car combined.* This little train was in charge of John Sanborn, conductor, and Joe Seavey, engineer. To start with, I worked at seventeen dollars a month, which seemed almost a princely sum to the poor boy, who but a few days before had been walking about the streets homeless and almost penni- less. In four or five months, my work proving satis- factory to all, my salary was raised, and when I then THE STAR* Itf LltfE. MY BOYHOOD HOME. Page 17 drew thirty-five dollars for a month's pay, I felt richer than I ever did afterward. Forty years have passed since my accidental meeting with Charles Minot on the streets of Boston, when a few words changed the whole bent of my thought, and the aimless wanderer began a life work. It is by chance that many a career is thus begun. Indeed, rarely does a life follow out a carefully arranged plan, 26 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. but step by step fortune leads us on, and we must follow her bidding. Little did I think when I boarded the train in old Haverhill, that that short trip was the beginning of the vast aggregate of travel which I have made in forty years, an aggregate amounting to over two million, four hundred thousand miles, or nearly one hundred times around the globe. CHAPTEK II. EARLY RAILROADING. At the request of Ansel Tucker, the conductor with whom I had taken my first ride, I left the Medford train to go with him on the Portland run. Besides Mr, Tucker, the conductors on the road were Elbridge Wood, John Sanborn, Joe Smith, J. B. Wadleigh, Carter Thompson, Dennis Smart and Charles Hall. The Boston and Maine road was thought a wonderful through line forty years ago, though it was only one hundred and eleven miles long. My work on the Portland train was heavy and fatiguing. In those days the baggage-master had to take a turn at the brakes as often as the brakeman, and had to keep his own car clean, inside and out, as car cleaners were then unknown. The wheels had to be wiped with waste, which was no small task, splashed as they were with whale oil, the only kind then in use for such purposes. Part of the baggage- man's equipment was a long-nosed oil-can, from which we had to oil the wheels at nearly every station. 27 28 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL* In those days railroading had only fairly started on its career. Our trains would be laughed at by the present generation, so accustomed to more scientific methods. I cannot myself go back to Stevenson and the "Eocket," but the improvements in my time have been no less marvelous than was the building of that pioneer locomotive. The "Eocket" ran her first trip from Manchester to Liverpool when I was only seven months old. It weighed four tons and a quarter and, like most inventions that have revolutionized the world, it excited more ridicule than praise. The wise men of that day scoffed at the idea of an engine drawing cars. " The drive-wheels will slip," was their crushing argument. Yet even the " Eocket," small as she was, ran at the rate of over thirty miles an hour. The first iron road in the United States was the Granite railroad at Quincy, Massachusetts, built to draw stone for Bunker Hill Monument. It was run by horse power. Not until 1829 was the first locomotive brought over from England. About that time Peter Cooper constructed the " Tom Thumb," the first locomotive ever made in America, but it was very small and was only made to show what could be done. Several different railroads contend for the honor of having first used steam locomotives in this country, for regular service; but the preponderance of evidence EARLY RAILROADING. 29 is in favor of the road running from Charleston to Hamburg, South Carolina. That was the first built in America, with a view to using steam instead of animal power. It was also the first to carry the United States mail. When this road was finished on October 2, 1833, it was the longest railroad in the worjd. The first locomotive ever made in this country for actual service was the " Best Friend," built for the Charleston and Hamburg road under the personal direction of E. L. Miller at the West Point Foundry and was tested about 1830. Mr. Miller was an en- thusiastic advocate of steam power, but met with strong opposition from all sides. Undaunted by ob- stacles, he pushed on his purpose and proposed to construct an engine on his own responsibility, equal to the best then in use in England. He went to work on those terms and succeeded so well that he beat down all opposition by sheer force of his genius. The "Best Friend" had a vertical boiler without fire-tubes and looked more like a huge beer bottle than anything else. The furnace at the bottom of the boiler was surrounded by water and projecting parts ran out from its sides and top to make the heating surface greater. Tradition has it that the first boiler explosion was that of the boiler of this famous engine. A negro was working as fireman and, being annoyed by the 30 FOBTY YEAKS ON THE BAIL. hissing of the escaping steam, ventured on the experi- ment of shutting off the noise by sitting on the safety valve. There was too little of the fireman left to tell how he liked the experiment. Just before my day, cars had been of the stage- coach style on trucks, the latter being coupled with chains, or chain-links, leaving two or three feet slack, so that when the locomotive started it took up the chains by jerks that sent passengers headlong, or caused many bruises. The original coaches had room for from four to six passengers inside and room for two others outside on seats at each end. This plan was soon varied by building one car having the capacity equivalent to several coach bodies, and di- vided into compartments with two transverse seats in each, the conductor collecting fares by climbing along a foot-board outside. Into these boxes it was hard to crowd more than twenty passengers. I can remember an excursion on the Fourth of July, about 1847, when many of these cars were used. Improvements were made from time to time, but, compared with modern cars, those of my earliest railroading were nothing to boast of. They were lighted with whale oil lamps, from which the tops of the cars were made smoky and the sides were spattered with grease. The seats were stiff and uncomfortable, and were covered with horse- hair. Small sheet -iron stoves placed in the middle EARLY RAILROADING. 31 of the cars were used for heating on most roads, though many cars were without them. To these discomforts were added the showers of cinders and the dense smoke from the engine, for early engines were without spark arresters and the flame often streamed back as far as the rear car. Pitch pine was largely used for fuel and the amount of smoke, sparks and cinders may be imagined. The only way to get a breath of fresh air was by opening the windows, no attempt at ventilation being made. It was a long time before coal was used for fuel, engines being built only for wood. This, necessitated frequent stoppages to " wood up," when all hands turned in till the work was done. Freight cars in the early days were called "burthen cars" and trains were known as "brigades." Freight cars were mere boxes, a little longer than wide, with a wheel at each corner. They had doors on each side, and we trainmen had to walk around the sides on a foot- board, holding on by an iron rod running the whole length of the car. Freight cars were so small that we reported two as one, reporting a train of forty cars, for instance, as twenty. I remember a freight col- lision at Sommersworth, in 1849, when the cars were so small and light that many of them were thrown over a fence and scattered all over the neighboring farms. The brakes of all cars were on top, and the brake- man sat in that elevated position in a little cab, using 32 FORTY YEARS OK THE RAIL. a foot-lever such as is now used on omnibuses and heavy wagons. At first the brakes only worked at one end of the car, and when a man named Stevens invented a double brake, that worked on both trucks from the one wheel, it was thought one of the greatest inven- tions of the age. Until 1850, the three-chain links were used in coupling cars. The sills, and platforms were not on the same level, so that the line of resistance was not the line of greatest strength. The platforms often went crushing together and in case of collisions tel- escoping was of most frequent occurrence. When Miller made his inventions, these accidents became things of the past. It was before the days of teleg- raphy and in case of a break-down or wreck, the only way help could be brought, or other trains warned, was by hand-car or by messenger. In the old cars the bell-cord ran over the top and was wound on a reel, and we had to climb up to the top of the cars, no matter how fast the train was running, to use the cord or adjust it in case of mishap. An old engineer of the Erie road thus tells how the bell-cord came to be invented: "Once in a while the conductor found it desirable to eject some would-be dead-head passenger while be- tween stations, but as there was no means to let the engineer know except by sending word by a brakeman, EARLY RAILROADING. 33 and as he usually had to cliinb over a dozen freight cars before he could attract the engineer's attention, it frequently happened that the train reached the passen- ger's destination before it could be stopped. ' Pappy' Ayres, the pioneer Erie conductor, got tired of this and one day he tied a stick of wood to the end of a long rope, and hung the stick in the engineer's cab, and carried the rope over the cars to the rear of the train. His idea was to pull the rope*and agitate the stick of wood when he wanted the engineer to stop the train. He had to lick the engineer before the latter would consent to recognize such an innovation, but it worked to a charm and led to the introduction of the now universal bell and rope system of signaling cars." Some of the old strap-rails were in use on the Bos- ton and Maine when I went on that road. These were wooden rails on which strap iron was spiked. The iron often curled up, owing to the weight on the cen- tral part and to heat or frost. When the ends of the rails were struck by the wheels, they would be forced up through the bottom of the car. Passengers were often hurt in this way, these "snake heads," as they were called, coming up with great force. "We often had to stop and pound down the iron, or hold it down till the train had passed over. At first iron rails were but twelve feet long and weighed from thirty to forty 84 FORTY YEARS ON THE BAIL. pounds a yard. A man on our road could lift two of them at once. Gradually they were made larger and heavier and finally steel rails were introduced. The most approved kind now are thirty feet long and weigh from seventy to ninety pounds. Railroad stations at first were mere sheds, open on two or more sides to wind and rain. Frequently a pine box in open air by the side of the track served as the ticket case, and was the only landmark for a station. The little sheltering places built for the engines were mere play-houses compared with the round-houses of to-day. At first cars and freight were protected by sheds, until experience showed that it was a matter of economy to take good care of cars, and a matter of necessity to provide good storage facilities for freight. Side-tracks were built to connect with the main track at one end only. When we took a car out we had to push it by hand and shove it on a side-track by a running switch, switch-engines being unthought of. In making up trains, shifting the cars had to be done by hand or by horses. The old stage-travel custom of "booking" passen- gers was first adopted by railroads, but passed out of existence long before my time. Then no tickets were used, the receipts of the booking-clerk serving as evidence of the payment of fares. A little later the EARLY RAILROADING. 35 conductor made liis rounds carrying a large tin box into which the passengers dropped their fares in cash. Even when tickets began to creep into use, they were at first sold only to through passengers, while the " locals " had to pay cash. The tin box was often dis- pensed with, especially on western roads. One old conductor who ran a train in Ohio in those early days, tells how he took all the cash and kept it until Satur- day night, then paid off himself and the boys on his run, returning the surplus earnings to the company at the end of the week. Conductors were great men in those times. The first railroad tickets were simply thick white cards, bearing the name of the company and of the two stations the ticket could be used between, the agent at the selling point writing his name at the bot- tom for identification and to prevent counterfeiting. There were no complicated ticket cases, with tickets for hundreds upon hundreds of cities, towns and villages; no coupons, no station-stamps. Local tickets came into use late in the forties, but they were good only on the road by which they were issued, and a passenger traveling beyond the limits of any road must step off the train at the first station of each road on his route and buy a new ticket. For instance, a passenger could not bay a ticket from New York to Chicago. He had to leave the car at Buffalo, which SB FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. was the end of the first railway line on his route, and purchase another ticket over the connecting road, which ran as far as Cleveland, where the traveler again went to the ticket window to pay his fare to Toledo. At Toledo he bought his last ticket, which entitled him to passage to his destination. In those days there were no railroad pools or combinations. The cars of one line did not run over the tracks of another, and such a thing as monthly balances between railroad companies was unknown. Coupon tickets were intro- duced about the middle of the century. Thousand- mile tickets, half -rate tickets to clergymen, theatrical and other special tickets have all come into use since I began railroading. The first printed tickets were invented about the year 1836, by John Edmondson, who was employed at a small station near Carlisle, England. The first tickets consecutively numbered were printed at Buffalo by George Bailey, who was sent over by Edmondson with one of his machines in 1855. Previous to this, tickets were good for only a single passage. The distinguishing characteristic of the old-time conductor was his fine silk hat. Slouch and stiff hats were good enough for the ordinary citizen, but it was before the days of uniforms, and conductors followed their own taste in dress, usually selecting the best to be had. A leather strap, on which in silver letters EARLY RAILROADING. 37 was the word " Conductor," was buckled about the hat and taken off at the end of each run. I can remember when a mere lad, I thought I never saw a more awe-inspiring sight than Levi Wright, of the Boston and Lowell road, with his tall hat and impres- sive dignity as he waved his hand to the engineer and shouted " All aboard " in a tone worthy of a general. The first uniforms used by railway employees were on the Hudson River road, if I remember correctly. The Pennsylvania road next adopted uniforms, and only within the last ten or twelve years have they come into general use. How our railroading in the forties impressed the people of other countries, may be judged from the American Notes of Charles Dickens, who visited this country in 1842, or five years before I went into the service. Mr. Dickens thus wrote : " There are no first and second-class cars as with us, but there is a gentlemen's car and a ladies' car, the main dis- tinction between which is that in the first everybody smokes ; and in the second, nobody does. As a black man never travels with a white one there is also a negro car, which is a great lumbering, clumsy chest, such as Gulliver put to sea in, from the Kingdom of Brobdignag. There is a great deal of jolting, a great deal of noise, a great deal of wall, not much window, a locomotive engine, a shriek, and a bell. The cars 38 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. are like shabby omnibuses, but larger, holding thirty, forty, fifty people. The seats, instead of stretching from end to end, are placed crosswise. Each seat holds two person. There is a long row of them on each side of the caravan, a narrow passage up the middle, and a door at both ends. In the center of the carriage there is usually a stove, fed with charcoal or Anthracite coal, which is for the most part red hot. It is insufferably close, and you see the hot air flut- tering between yourself and any other object you may happen to look at, like the ghost of smoke. In the ladies' car there are a great many gentlemen who have ladies with them; there are also a great many ladies who have nobody with them, for any lady may travel alone from one end of the United States to the other, and be certain of the most courteous and con- siderate treatment everywhere. The conductor, or check-taker, or guard, or whatever he may be, wears no uniform. He walks up and down the car, and in and out of it, as his fancy dictates ; leans against the door with his hands in his pockets and stares at you if you chance to be a stranger, or enters into conver- sation with the passengers about him. * * * On, on tears the mad dragon of an engine with its train of cars, scattering in all directions a shower of burning sparks from its wood fire, screeching, hiss- ing, yelling, panting, until at last the thirsty monster EAKLY RAILROADING. 39 stops beneath a covered way to drink, the people cluster round, and you have time to breath again." Among the transportation interests which to-day ranks next to the railway and the telegraph as a private enterprise, is the express business. It was a feature of early railroading, having originated away back in 1839, by a man named Harnden, who was an employee of the Boston and Worcester railroad. Two conductors on that road first took hold of the idea. Bankers sent money to Boston by their hands; mer- chants ordered goods through them. Soon the con- ductors made more money expressing than they did on the road. The corporation interfered and the men had their choice to give up carrying parcels or resign. Some one proposed to make the carrying of money and parcels a trade by itself, and Harnden caught the idea. With a small trunk in his hand he began the express business between Boston, Provi- dence and New York City on steamboats running between those points. Soon after, or early in 1840, Alvin Adams met a friend in Boston who was full of the new business, and suggested that an express on the Worcester road would be just as successful as Harnden' s. Adams caught the idea, but he found that Harnden had already secured that line. The road would not listen to any proposition made by Mr. Adams. 40 FORTY YEARS ON THE BAIL. " There is not business enough for two lines," said the head official. "Harnden has the franchise of the road. He does his work well, and the company will not interfere." Mr. Adams then went to New York to interview Mr. Coit, of the Norwich boats, but this gentleman would concede nothing, and denounced the express men as nuisances. " One line is quite enough for the land," said Mr. Coit, closing the interview. The office of the Stonington boat was next visited, and different tactics adopted. " I want two season tickets between Boston and New York," said Mr. Adams. "How often do you want to travel?" "As often as I choose. That is what a season ticket means, I believe." . "I know what you are after," said the official, " but you shall have the tickets." Mr. Adams put one ticket in his pocket and gave the other to his associate. Mr. Harnden had just vacated his well known stand in Boston for what he thought better quarters, and his rival immediately rented the noted place, which he kept for years. A small trunk held the packages of the first day's work, and the money received for the first trip was two dollars and seventy- EARLY RAILROADING. 41 five cents. Mr. Adams carried his express packages as personal baggage, and went to New York one day, returning the next. He soon took William B. Dins- more to manage the New York end of the business. A little later Mr. Dinsmore found John Hoey selling papers on the cars, took him into his office and made him one of the ablest expressmen of the age. Thus assisted, Mr. Adams began to see brighter days. The Worcester road soon saw its mistake and sent word to him, "You can have our line if you want it." Stevens, of the Camden and Amboy road, was one of the greatest railroad men of his day. He looked on expressage as an intruder and an antagonist. Express matter had to be smuggled over his line, the packages being nailed up in boxes and sent as freight. Mr. Adams went to New Jersey' to see Mr. Stevens and try to win some concession from him. The latter accused the expressman of defrauding his company by smuggling express freight over the road. Mr. Adams met the charge like a man, explained his plan, and showed how much better it would be for the road to charge reasonably for express-freight than to send it by bulk. " Make a contract with Mr. Adams for thirty days, and see how it works," said Mr. Stevens to the vice- president, at the close of the interview. " This contract is for thirty days, It may last 42 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. thirty years," remarked the vice-president as the papers were signed, and it did. Thus did Mr. Adams beat down opposition until his business extended all over the country. Henry Wells and William G. Fargo later founded rival companies, express interests growing with every mile of track laid in the land. No sooner had railroads proved a success than a mania for constructing them sprang up in all quarters of the country. They were the talk of the day in newspapers, on street-corners, and in every other place where men gathered. They were the subject under discussion in excited town-meetings, and aroused feelings of bitterness between hamlets and villages that had previously lived in complete har- mony with one another. The fever was at its height in the States bordering on the Atlantic, but the West also had a good share of road-building. By 1832 nine- teen roads were either completed or projected in the United States. The first road in Ohio was started in 1835, and was known as the Mad Eiver and Lake Erie line. The first road out of Chicago was char- tered in 1836 as the Galena and Chicago Union, but owing to the financial crash of 1837, no work wa g done on it until 1847. In 1839, a line was con- structed from Lexington, Kentucky, to Frankfort in the same State, Henry Clay being among its warmest EARLY RAILROADING. 43 advocates and largest stockholders. In 1841, there was an immense excitement over the opening of the Western road from Boston to Albany. Everybody who amounted to anything took a trip " out West " on this wonderful line, and newspapers were kept busy reporting the exchanges of hospitality between the officials and other noted citizens of the two capitals. Up to 1850 there was but one line between the seaboard and the lakes. For several years afterward there were only three railroads to the West running out of New York City. These w^ere the Erie, the New York Central, and the Pennsylvania. The Erie and New York Central were early rivals. It was the plan of their projectors, as far as practicable, to avoid the mountain track, taking a north-westerly course out of New York City ; hence, their routes ran almost parallel, and, in consequence, in the struggle to get possession of a short line which was, however, a very important link, but which happened to occupy a piece of debatable territory between the two trunk lines mentioned arose the Erie railway war, one of the most fiercely contested of railroad strifes. Ground was broken for the Schenectady and Albany the second road constructed in New York State on the 25th of July, 1830. In 1853, in con- junction with several other disconnected local roads, it was consolidated into one corporation under the 44 FORTY YEARS ON THE BAIL. name of tho " New York Central Kailroad Company." Up to 1866 thirteen distinct local links had been merged into this one line. To William Wilson, of Fonda, New York, belongs the honor of having hauled the first train of cars between Schenectady and Albany. He drew it with a team of horses. When the first locomotive was put into use on this road he was employed, with other young men, in sodding the sides of thr embankment along the line. He said that the train ran so slowly that he often amused himself and provoked the engineer by running across the track in front of the engine with an armful of sod, and back again, while the train was making its best time.. My native State was one of the most conservative in adopting the railroad. The late Josiah Quincy left some particulars about his experience with the people of Dorchester, Massachusetts, from which I quote the following, as it illustrates so well the spirit of that day in many sections: " The Old Colony road passes over a route which I caused to be surveyed at my own expense, with the view of providing cheap transportation from the towns of Dorchester and Quincy, and others to the south of them. Now can the reader believe that the words I have italicized were chosen so late as 1842 by the inhabitants of the town of Dorchester, in regular town EARLY RAILROADING. 45 meeting assembled, to express their sense of the injury that would result to them and their possessions by laying a track through any portion of their terri- tory ? ' Resolved, That our representatives be in- structed to use their utmost endeavors to prevent, if THE AUTHOR FORTY YEARS AGO. 21. possible, so great a calamity to our town as must be the location of any railroad through it, and if that cannot be prevented, to diminish this calamity as far as possible by confining the location to the route herein designated.' ' 46 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. In addition to these words of Mr. Quincy, I will also quote an extract from a newspaper article pub- lished by a citizen of Dorchester soon after the meeting just spoken of. It is as follows: " What better or more durable communication can be had than the Neponset river, or the wide Atlantic? By using these, our thriving village will not be destroyed, our enterprising mechanics ruined, our beautiful gardens and farms made desolate, and our public or private interests most seriously affected. Look at the rapid growth of Neponset village, through which this contemplated road is to run (the citizens of which are as enterprising and as active as can be found, many of whom have invested their all either in trade, mechanical manufactures, or real estate), and all all are to be sacrificed under a car ten thousand times worse for the public than the car of the Jug- gernaut." It scarcely seems credible that these words were written in educated Massachusetts, less than fifty years ago. CHAPTEE III. A MILE A MINUTE. In these days of lightning express trains it is hard to realize that fifty years ago the locomotive was in its infancy, and its possibilities were not dreamed of. At that time a well known resident of Liverpool said that if it were ever proved possible for a locomotive engine to go ten miles an hour, he would undertake to eat a stewed engine-wheel for breakfast. Whether the gentleman lived to partake of this meal is not recorded. The press almost universally scoffed at the same idea of rapid locomotion, declaring it impossible and denouncing its advocates as lunatics and fanatics. " Twelve miles an hour ! " exclaimed the " Quarterly Eeview," about the time of which I have been speaking, "twelve miles an hour! As well might a man be shot out of a Congreve rocket." About 1830, George Stephenson was cross-examined by a Parliamentary committee in regard to construct- ing a railroad from Liverpool to Manchester, and a member of that body closely questioned the great 47 48 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. engineer, the interview being thus given in a recent work on railway history. "Well, Mr. Stephenson, perhaps you could go seventeen miles an hour? " " Yes," was the reply. " Perhaps some twenty miles might be reached? " " Yes, certainly." " Twenty-five, I dare say, you do not think impos- sible?" " Certainly not impossible." "Dangerous?" "Certainly not." " Now, tell me, Mr. Stephenson," said the Parlia- mentary member with indignation, " will you say that you can go thirty miles? " " Certainly," was the answer as before. Questions ended for the time, and the wiseacres of the committee burst into a roar of laughter, but Stephenson built the road, and on his trial trip astonished the world with a speed of thirty-six miles an hour. About the time England was ridiculing its early railroad efforts, in America people were laughing a good deal over the race between a horse and a loco- motive, in which horse-power won. In those early days Peter Cooper built the locomotive "Tom Thumb," for the Baltimore road, and ran a race with the A MILE A MINUTE. 49 gallant gray horse owned by the stage proprietors, Messrs. Stockton and Stokes. The horse was attached to a car on the second track. The race is thus described : "Away went horse and engine, the snort of the one keeping time to the puff of the other. The gray had the best of it at first, getting a quarter of a mile ahead while the engine was getting up steam. The blower whistled, the steam blew off in vapory clouds, the pace increased, the passengers shouted, the engine gained on the horse, the silk was applied, the race was neck-and-neck, nose-to-nose ; then the engine passed the horse, and a great hurrah hailed the victory. But just at this moment, when the gray's master was about giving up, the band which turned the pulley that moved the blower slipped from the drum and the safety valve ceased to scream, and the engine, for want of breath, began to wheeze and pant. In vain Mr. Cooper, who was his own engineer and fireman, lacerated his hands in attempting to replace the band on the wheel; the horse gained on the machine and passed it, to his great chagrin. Al- though the band was presently replaced, and steam qgain did its best, the horse was too far ahead 'to be overtaken, and came in winner of the race." This little engine was only meant for an experi- ment, but it was the first American locomotive ever 4 50 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. constructed. Next came Miller's engine, greater speed being attained each year. Even so late as 1841, it was stated as an astonishing fact that " after leaving Boston in the morning, travelers would in fifteen hours be in Albany." When the century reached its middle year, runs that may be regarded as fast even to-day were often made, and of these by far the most remarkable was made in 1848, on the road with which I was first identified. Mr. Minot, superintendent of the Boston and Maine railroad in its early days, was a progressive man, always on the alert for improvements that should make his line stand among the first in the country. One day in 1848 he conceived the idea of running a mile a minute, and when once the thought entered his mind, he enthusiastically bent every energy towards realizing it. He had a ten-ton engine built to order at the works of Hinkley and Drury, of Boston, and named it the "Antelope," in anticipation of its speed. It had single drivers, six feet in diameter. Mr. Minot watched the progress of the " Antelope " at the works with jealous care, and declared it should run a mile a minute, or go back to the shops. Lawrence, a station twenty-six miles out of Boston, was chosen by the superintendent as the terminus of the trial trip. Every detail was carefully arranged in order to give the new engine a chance to break all pre- A MILE A MINUTE. 51 vious records. Nothing escaped the eagle eye of the superintendent. He was especially careful in select- ing his men for the run. " Can you put me in Lawrence in twenty-six minutes, Pemberton?" he asked of the best engineer on the road. "It's as good as taking your life in your own hands, sir," replied Mr. Pemberton. "Not at all," said Mr. Minot. "If you won't do it, I'll make the run myself." As every man on the road knew, the enterprising superintendent besides being a natural mechanic, and as competent an engineer as ever handled a lever, was careful and conscientious about risking human life even to a scrupulous degree. " Will you do it, Pemberton?" again asked the superior officer, as the engineer still hesitated. " Yes, sir." " Good I'll ride with you." Choosing a day for the trial trip, men were sent over the road to spike down all the switches and see that everything was in perfect order. Station agents were warned not to permit any obstructions on the track. It was before Mr. Morse had introduced telegraphy, and to run a mile a minute, a speed until then unheard of, required the utmost forethought and most careful preparation. All trains were either side- 52 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. tracked or taken off the road for the trip, and an engine was sent ahead to see that all instructions were carried out. The coming trial of the " Antelope " was talked of far and near, and the event was awaited eagerly in railroad circles. Eepresentatives of the leading Boston papers were invited to accompany the superin- tendent, and when the appointed day arrived, they, with a few other guests, were given possession of the only car that was to make the run. A large crowd gathered at the station and amid cheers and waving of hats, the engineer pulled open the throttle, while Mr. Minot, who stood by his side, gave a parting salute with his hand. Slowly the engine gathered headway, then it went thundering on faster and faster, the six-foot drivers annihilating space at a rate before unheard of. Boston was soon left behind, and the " Antelope " plunged into the open country with the fleetness of the wind, Mr. Minot smiling with pleasure as he kept one eye on the steam-gauge, and the other on the rapidly receding fence-posts, ever and anon speaking a short, quick sentence to the brave engineer. Everything worked to a charm ; not the smallest detail in the engine was faulty. The pace increased amid the cheers of the passen- gers, notwithstanding the jolting over rough bits of A MILE A MINUTE. 53 road, which were numerous in those days, when track- laying had not reached its present excellence. It only added to the general excitement when they were nearly thrown from their seats as the train plunged around a sharp curve, or narrowly escaped jumping the track. Few of the guests had nerves steady enough to keep them from feeling a little fear, for after all they were simply making an experiment, and who could foretell the result? Mr. Minot never lost his confidence in being able to reach Lawrence in twenty-six minutes, when once the "Antelope" had fairly started on its new career. On they sped, now past a group of country people whose horses often took fright and started off in all directions to escape the snort of the monster. Then the train dashed by a station filled with a wondering crowd whose cheers could be heard but a second by the passengers of the lightning express, and again they passed over a stretch of down-grade. Half way to Lawrence Mr. Minot looked at his watch. " Fourteen minutes," he said. " That won't do, Pemberton; we are a minute behind." Shutting his lips more firmly, the engineer threw the throttle wide open, and the "Antelope" obeyed its master. Not a single mishap occurred; all the switches were in perfect order ; not a man had failed in his duty. 54 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. At the first glimpse of Lawrence Mr. Minot again looked at his watch. A smile lighted up his face and his eyes had a look of exultation. As they neared the station he stood with his watch in hand, and just as the engineer brought the train to a stand-still, the time-piece marked twenty-six minutes. A great crowd awaited the "Antelope's" arrival, eager to know whether the much talked of deed 'had been accomplished. "Did you make it?" cried out an excited on- looker. " Yes," shouted Mr. Minot in return. In a moment, cheer after cheer arose for the men who had first driven an engine a mile a minute. The guests and the rest of the spectators pressed forward to shake hands with the superintendent and his engineer, and to offer congratulations, while crowds flocked from far and near to look at the engine that had accomplished so wonderful a run. Glowing accounts of the event were given in all of the Boston papers, and Mr. Minot received an ovation such as seldom has fallen to the lot of a rail- road man before or since. CHAPTEE IV. REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS. In the East, as was afterward true in the West, it was often hard for out-of-town residents to get trains to stop at their stations, and to secure other privileges upon which the growth of their villages depended. When I began railroading in 1847, a little group of people had settled about a mile out of Medford, or six miles from Boston. They waited on the superintend- ent of the road one day, with a request that he would stop the train at their settlement. He refused, not thinking the venture would pay, but they persisted in their demand. When he still remained firm in his refusal, they went away declaring they would make him stop his train whether he wanted to or not. There was a heavy grade at the place, and when we struck it the next day the engine wheels began to slip, and after a moment or two we came to a full stop where several of the settlers were standing. They jumped aboard while the engineer got out to investi- gate into the cause of our delay. He found the track on the grade had been smeared with molasses, and he 55 56 FORTY YEAES ON THE BAIL. had to back up till lie could get momentum enough to carry him over the hill. In the face of such persist- ence, there was 110 use in trying to run past that station after that. While I was on the Portland run, John S. Dunlap was assistant superintendent, or what was then called transportation-master. His brother, George L. Dun- lap, now a Chicago capitalist, was then a lad about my own age and was a clerk in the ticket office. George Dunlap and I slept together in the large hall over the depot, and many a prank did we play at night, often getting in danger of severe reprimands from Superin- tendent Minot, who slept in a room adjoining. We boys made the depot watchman's life a burden to him. He was none too brave and his nerves were under a terrific strain as he made his half -hourly rounds at night and pulled a wire leading to a time-clock. Each pull drove a pin in the clock, and if one of these were missing in the morning, it cost him a fine of ten cents. One dark night Dunlap and I lay for the watchman behind a train of cars that had been side- tracked. We had a box of empty pop-bottles, and when the poor man came around the corner, peering about to see if anything had gone wrong, we com- menced a fusilade of bottles, which fell on the depot platform with such a rattle and a crash that they scared the poor fellow almost out of his senses. He REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS. 57 took to his heels shouting at the top of his voice for the police. Everyone was roused, but before the superintendent had reached the scene of action, George and I were in bed and apparently sound asleep. We may have been suspected of this and similar pranks, but we were lucky enough never to get caught. Dunlap in those days was very fond of going out to ride on an engine, and. when anything of unusual interest was in progress, he was always on hand. I remember one day there had been a fearful snow- storm, and huge drifts covered fences and small buildings out of sight and were piled high all along the road. We attached two or three engines to the snow-plow to clear the track. Dunlap, ever ready to perform some daring feat, got on the plow with the shovelers. All went well for a while and the boys enjoyed the fun, until the engines got near South Heading, when the plow jumped the track and went over the fence, throwing Duiilap and the rest in all directions. A pretty thoroughly scared set of boys they were for a minute, as they whizzed through the air, but they were not hurt and they soon joined in the general laugh. Dunlap says he never attempted to ride on a snow-plow after that. In those early days we boys often took liberty of action which would drive a man from the profession 58 FOKTY YEAES ON THE KAIL. if put into practice in our present times of perfect order and discipline. I remember baggage-masters Israel Lebay, Albert Prescott and myself once took it into our heads to change off trains, and without saying a word to Superintendent Minot about it, we went out on runs to suit ourselves. It only took Mr. Minot a day to discover that something was wrong. "What does this mean?" he demanded, as he looked over the schedule and saw none of us were on the right train. Naturally we could give him no satisfactory expla- nation, and he summarily discharged every one of us. However, he punished us thus severely merely as a lesson, for we were all reinstated after a few days. My misdemeanor gave me an unexpected increase in pay. When I went to Mr. Minot to ask him to take me back, and when he agreed to do so, I jokingly remarked that I had heard that when a man was discharged and hired over again, it had always been a custom to raise his pay. Mr. Minot laughed heartily and then said, " All right, Charley, I will give you five dollars more per month. I guess you have had discipline enough to earn it this time." After running the Portland train nearly two years, I married, when about twenty years old, and shortly afterward moved to Eeading, Massachusetts, where I was baggageman on the Beading train, with Elbridge REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS. 59 Wood for my conductor. I remember while on this run I told a straight lie to get off duty. It was in August, 1850, when my first baby was born. This is how it happened. Our cozy home was in plain sight from the road, across a broad field not far from Reading depot. I had told my wife before leaving home if all went well to have a white flag hung out of the window when the train passed through, and to put out a red signal if ill news awaited me. That day for some reason the regular conductor was off duty and George L. Dunlap ran the train. I tried hard to keep my mind on my work all day long, but did not succeed very well. There was a curve in the road just before the train came in sight of my house, and I remember now that my heart was in my mouth and my eyes were pretty dim as I swung myself out from the baggage-car to get a glimpse as soon as I could of the signal that I knew would be waiting for me. " Cheer up, old boy," said Dunlap, who stood near me, " I know it's all right." We passed the curve, and though my eyes nearly failed me at the moment, I saw the white flag. " What does it mean?" said Dunlap. Just then my desire to see that baby became so strong that truth and duty faded out of existence. "It means," I said hurriedly, "that I must goto my wife right off." 60 FORTY YEAKS ON THE HAIL. " Go ahead then," was ths hearty response, and ere long I was off duty, on my way to the cottage home. Long years passed before I confessed to Mr. Dunlap that I had deceived him, but we have often spoken of it since, in talking over the reminiscences of our early days together. About the time of which I have just spoken, Super- intendent Minot left his old road and accepted the superintendency of the famous Erie line. His loss was deeply felt, and many of his best men accompanied him. Among those who went were H. G. Brooks, Henry Sweetzer, Henry Hobbs, David Pasho, Santa Anna Sherman, William Hall, and Guy Clarke. H. G. Brooks, who afterward founded the mammoth Brooks Locomotive Works, which are located at Dun- kirk, New York, ran the engine " Andover " on our old road, and he and I were warm friends. Being a man of more than ordinary ability, he rose rapidly in rail- road circles, and his career may be given as an example of how promotions were made in the olden days. In November, 1856, he was appointed master- mechanic of the Ohio and Mississippi railway; in April, 1860, he became master-mechanic of the western division; in October, 1860, while still retain- ing his former position, he was made superintendent of the same division; in March, 1865, he became superintendent of motive power and machinery of the REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS. 61 Erie railroad, with headquarters at New York, and in 1869 he established the works that still bear his name, and that have grown to such enormous propor- tions. It will be of interest in these days when methods are so different to read what difficulties had to be overcome thirty or forty years ago, so I quote from a personal letter received by me from Mr. Brooks in March, 1887, in which he gives the following incident: "Engine No. 90, which I brought from Boston to Dunkirk, was shipped from the Hinkley works (then known as the Boston Locomotive Works), in October, 1850, on a coasting vessel for Piermont, New York, where she was transferred to a canal boat and trans- ported to Buffalo over the Erie canal, there trans- ferred to a schooner and brought to Dunkirk; the entire time occupied in the transportation of the locomotive from Boston to Dunkirk being forty-four days." On April 22nd, only six weeks from the day on which this letter was written to me, passed away my old friend, who was one of the greatest locomotive builders in the United States. H. G. Brooks was born in Andover, Massachusetts, and at the time of his death was fifty-nine years of age. He was a man of rare social qualities, was generous to a fault, and was much beloved by all with whom he came in contact. 62 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. His funeral was the largest ever known in Western New York, friends gathering from all parts of the nation to pay their tribute of respect to the noble man. The employees of the works gathered about the grave of the departed and as each dropped into it a branch of evergreen, their tears fell upon the last resting place of their beloved master and friend. Mr. Brooks was buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, Fredonia, New York. Not long after leaving the East, Mr. Minot and other friends who had gone with him urged me to join them. " It's too far," I answered, but the offer of a conductor's place at last induced me to accept the proposition made me and I started West. It seems queer now-a-days to hear how New York State was con- sidered " out West" then. I soon found the country too far from the " Hub of the Universe " to suit my tastes. I had never before been so far away from Boston, and I was too firmly attached to the good old city not to miss it sadly, so I started back home. After taking a trip over the road, I returned eastward by. way of Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River and the Rutland and Burlington road, thus taking a long journey for those days. Stopping at Rutland, I accepted the position of conductor on the Western Vermont railroad, of which Walter S. Johnson was superintendent, and soon moved my REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS. 63 little family to that city. W. P. Johnson, our general ticket and passenger agent at that time, and who was afterward the general passenger agent of the Illinois Central for a quarter of a century, is now with the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern in the same position. The corps of conductors on the Western * Vermont at the time of which I speak included only George L. Dunlap, Jesse Burdette and myself. In 1851 I began my duties in Yermont. Many a pleasant memory comes to me from those days, as they are full of reminiscences both curious and interesting. One dark, foggy night, as we pulled out of Bennington about nine o'clock, I warned my engineer, Mr. Nash, to run slowly through a deep cut about five miles from the station. " All right," he answered, and though he was a fearless, devil-may-care sort of fellow, who enjoyed nothing in the world better than a swift dash through the roaring tempest, he obeyed orders, and as a result averted a terrible accident. Just as we rounded the curve into the cut, the engine struck a huge bowlder that had been dis- lodged from the mountain side and had rolled to the center of the track and stopped. The engine and baggage- car were thrown from the track, but our speed was so slow that no one was hurt. Charley Moody, my baggage- master, was a comical genius who stammered badly. He was nearly 64 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. frightened to death at the accident, and when I asked him what he thought when the baggage-car was climbing up the rocks, he stuttered out: " I th-th thought it was the se-se-second co-co-coming." One day we ran into a wash out near Arlington, where the embankment had sunk in. We jumped it all right, but Moody was so startled that he made a flyingf leap from the car door and slid down the bank for seventy or eighty feet into the water below. We stopped and then went back for him, expecting to find his dead body, or at the best hoping he might have escaped with a broken leg or arm and no more serious injuries, but we found him scrambling up the embankment and starting, down the track plastered with mud fronrhead to foot. " What did you think, Charley, when you found yourself sliding down the hill ? " I asked him. "Th-th -think? Th - th - think ?" he answered. " Wh-wh-what did I th-think? I tli-th-thought the mi-mi-millennium had come." We three conductors, Dunlap, Burdette and I, gave a ball at the Orvis House at Manchester, Yermont, at one time. We were given the freedom of the house for the night by the genial proprietor, and conductors were there from the New York Central, the Vermont Central, the Kutland and Burlington, the Hudson River and other roads, the company numbering about REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS. 05 THE MEDFOBD TRAIN. Page 55. thirty couples in all. Everything wine, brandy, cigars, supper was included in the bill, and we had a grand time, as may well be expected. When the ladies had retired, about two o'clock in the morning Dunlap and a few others, including myself, sat up " to make a night of it," as we all said. Having been given the freedom of the place, we made ourselves perfectly at home, as we felt at liberty to do. We went up into the attic where we found a lot of old 66 FOKTY YEARS ON THE BAIL. revolutionary accoutrements, such as hats, bayonets, old swords, and the like. After a great deal of fun, we dressed Dunlap in some outlandish fashion, put a sword in his hand and proclaimed him captain. Having formed a mock military company, we marched with great state and noise to the rooms of those con- ductors who had dared to go to bed. We routed them out and made them join us in the night's sport, that only ended with the rising of the sun. We were not in very good condition for work in the morning, our heads feeling a little larger than usual, so the three of us got permission from Mr. Johnson to let our baggagemen take our runs. The president of the road lived at Manchester, and when we reached the station he saw us and inquired who was running our trains. We managed to make it all right with him, so our night's fun cost us nothing more serious than aching heads. Old Uncle Daniel Curtiss, as the trainmen all called him, was an eccentric station agent at North Dorset, Yermont. He never wore a hat in summer or winter, rough or pleasant weather. He was known far and near for his eccentricity and often went to Troy, New York, sixty miles, and back bare-headed. Before the railroad was built, he frequently trudged between these two towns on foot, but he was never under any circumstances seen with a hat on. It was REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS. 67 his custom to have a dance at his house every winter, and on one occasion he invited Dunlap, Johnson and myself to attend. It was amusing to us to watch the country lads and lassies who had come down from the mountains to have a night's fun. Some of the girls being at least six feet in height, dancing was a rather hard task for us boys who were so much shorter. Uncle Daniel drew us aside and whispered to us during the evening that he had bought some extra fine brandy especially for us, and had actually paid seventy-five cents a gallon for it. It is almost needless to remark that, although Ave enjoyed the evening hugely, we indulged but sparingly in the brandy. One day I happened to be on Dunlap' s train when we accomplished a remarkable and daring feat, the like of Avhich was probably never known before and doubt- less has not been since. The train consisted of a bag- gage-car and two passenger coaches, with the engine "General Stark," but recently built at the Lawrence Locomotive Works. The engineer was "Dick" Allen, now known to the world as Kichard Norton Allen, the inventor of the famous paper car- wheel called by his name, and a wealthy capitalist of Cleveland. About five miles from Bennington, the train ran over a steer and the engine and two cars were thrown off the track. It seemed to me that the only way to get another engine was to run a hand-car or walk. 68 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. "What's to be done, Dunlap? " I said. " I'll tell you," lie replied, "it's nearly all down grade to Bennington, so let's uncouple the last car and run her back to the station." In these days, anything like that would cost a man his position, but in the olden time quick expedients and great risks were often necessary. When the passengers got out of the rear coach, Dunlap, a brakemaii named Downer and I took the uncoupled car and started off. We went along finely from the first, half doubting what we should do when we got to a piece of up-grade that must be passed. However, fortune was in our favor, and the momentum we had gained took us over the rise of ground and on to the down-grade again. A wandering cow next threatened us and as we stood on the platform, with shouts and gesticulations we managed to frighten off the intrud- ing animal, and soon afterward our car rolled in triumph into Bemiingtoii station. With a relief engine we started back to the scene of the accident, pulled the other engine on the track and went on to Rutland at a terrific speed. The "General Stark" did noblv, for we made our time and connection with V ' the Rutland and Burlington train going north, while the daring deed was the talk in railroad circles far and near. I can remember a couple of fast runs that were REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS. 69 made while I was railroading in Vermont, which excited a great deal of interest, being thought remark able in those early days. While John S. Dunlap was superintendent of the Kutland and Burlington road in 1853, the government was about to let a contract for carrying the mail, and trial trips were to be made by trains on the Vermont Central and the Rutland and Burlington roads, the road showing the fastest time receiving the contract. Superintendent Dunlap called Silas Pearce, one of his best engineers, into the private office one day. " Pearce," he said, slowly and deliberately, " tke government is going to give that contract to the road making the fastest time. I want you to make the run and I want that contract. Do you understand?" "Yes, sir," respectfully replied the engineer, as he touched his cap and left the room. Pearce took especial pains to see that his engine was in perfect order, and when he made the run he beat all previous records between Bellows Falls and Burlington, and easily secured the contract. In the same year the run was made from Troy to Rutland, a distance of eighty-five . miles, over the Western Vermont and the Troy and Boston roads, in what was then considered the unusual time of two hours and thirty-five minutes, making four stops and chang- ing engines twice. 70 FORTY YEAES ON THE BAIL. I well remember about thirty years ago, that there was a railroad called the New Albany and Salem, which was proverbial for being poor and for paying small wages. It became a laughing stock and a by- word among railroad men, and it used to be said that a passenger would never live to get over the road, as accidents were so frequent. One day a conductor of that line got on board Chauncey Bowies' train on the Michigan Southern road. The poor fellow wore a dilapidated hat, had holes in his shoes, was out at the elbows, and had a most woe-begone expression of countenance. When Chauncey came along for tickets the man handed him a letter stating that he was a passenger conductor on the New Albany road. The letter being written and signed by the superintendent of that line, Chauncey accepted it. A few seats away sat the superintendent of the Michigan Southern, who asked Chauncey who that seedy-looking man was, and why he had passed him. " That, sir, is a passenger conductor on the New Albany and Salem. The poor fellow only gets twenty- five dollars a month, and boards and clothes himself." " That's right, Chauncey, pass him. Heaven knows he needs it," said the superior officer. In closing this chapter of reminiscences of my railroad experiences in New England, I shall give an incident which shows how true is the oft-repeated REMINISCENCES OF OTHER DAYS. 71 saying that our occupations leave their impress upon us, and that impress stays with us to our latest hour. Dennis Smart, one of the conductors on the old Boston and Maine road, whom I had known long and well, died a few years ago. Kind friends gathered about his bedside to go with him as far as they could on his new journey. For a long time they waited in silence, to take the last farewell of the veteran conductor. Finally the features of their friend lighted up with something akin to the light that once shone there, and raising his hands in the old familiar way, rang out the words from those dying lips, ''All aboard ! " The arm dropped; all was still; Dennis had passed to the other life. CHAPTEE V. WESTWARD. After the century passed its middle point, the attention of the East became more and more called to the Mississippi Valley, with its possibilities for growth and the accumulation of wealth. Eailroads began to creep mile on mile towards the great river, and eastern capital flowed into western enterprises. One city above all others now began to be the point to which attention was turned from all sides. Chicago had arisen by this time to the dignity of a population of thirty-four thousand souls, and capitalists saw that she was necessary to the development of the West, or, as some one has said, " that the wealth of the West must flow through her as the sand must through the neck of an hour-glass." The pioneer railroad of the Garden City, the Galena and Chicago Union, had in 1850 reached Elgin, a distance of forty-two miles. Next was pro- jected the Illinois Central. In 1850, Hon. Stephen A. Douglas had obtained the passage of an act of Congress, granting to Illinois every alternate section 72 WESTWARD. 73 of land to a distance of six miles on each side of the line of a railroad which was to be constructed. The original grant of land was 2,595,000 acres. In 1851, the Legislature chartered the Illinois Central Rail- road Company, transferring the lands to it, and, in 1852, the officers of the road got permission to enter Chicago along the lake shore. From the east the first road to approach the city was the Michigan Central. St. Joseph, Michigan, was for some time the terminus of railroad travel west- ward Travelers generally crossed the lake from that city to Chicago, and St. Joseph was connected by stage with the moving end of the track that was approaching from Detroit. In 1852, the last rail of the Michigan Central road was laid into Chicago. In the meantime the people of northern Indiana con- structed a rival line from Toledo, and this entered the Garden City just three months before its Michigan rival. Other roads followed in quick succession, and Chicago soon became the center of a network of rail- roads that led out to almost every point of the 9 compass. There were three or four years when the mania for railroad building ran high. In January, 1852, only about forty miles of road connected with Chicago, and at the end of twenty months the mileage had increased forty fold. During this era nearly all the extensions 74 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. and connections that were carried out in the following twenty years were planned, and most of them were completed as originally designed. The Illinois and Wisconsin Railroad Company was incorporated in 1851 ; the Chicago and Milwaukee road was built in 1854; the Chicago and Rock Island was commenced in 1852; the line to St. Louis was begun in 1853; the Chicago and Aurora was inaugurated in 1852; the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago, furnishing the third route to the East, was incorporated in 1852. Well may these years be entitled the Eailway Era of the Garden City. The tide of emigration set in with the laying of rails, and so strong was the current from Europe and from the Eastern States, that it was impossible to keep track of their numbers. Men of push who had their fortunes yet to make, as well as men of means who sought investment, gave up their homes in older communities to establish others in the new. Railroad officials and employees were caught in the prevailing fever, and large numbers of them soon became identified with the western roads. As the tide had set in to New York State when the old Erie line was opened, so it set in towards Chicago in the early fifties. How much the city grew under the impetus thus given is shown from the fact that her population increased from about thirty-nine thousand people in 1852, to nearly sixty thousand in 1853, a gain of almost fifty-three per cent, in a single year. WESTWARD. 75 It would be impossible to name even a fraction of those who left the roads with which I had been identified in New England to take positions on lines tributary to Chicago. As more and more left us, I began to think seriously of trying my luck with them ; accordingly, when in 1854, Walter S. Johnson, who had left Vermont to become superintendent of the Chicago and Aurora railroad, sent for me to take a train 011 his new line, I was prepared to accept his proposition. I started for Chicago soon afterward, but on my arrival at Cleveland I picked up a morning paper and read of the terrible scourge of cholera that was killing off Chicago people by the hundreds, so I took the first train for home. A few months later, accompanied by my wife and children, I once again started West, arriv - ing in Chicago on February 12, 1855. A terrible snow storm was raging at the time, and the city was by no means an attractive place. Under the unfavorable circumstances I first saw it, I did not dream that even in my day this western town would not only boast of possessing some among the most palatial residences and hotels and most costly business structures in the world, but would have a population of nearly a million souls, with a fair prospect of becoming the metropolis of the Western Continent. We spent only one day in Chicago at the time of 76 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. which I speak, and then went to Aurora, Illinois, where Superintendent Johnson had appointed me station agent, C. C. Wheeler, who was also from Vermont, being ticket agent. Before long Mr. John- son went to what was then called the Chicago and Milwaukee road, and soon I followed him to his new line. Before proceeding farther with my personal remi- niscences in the West, I will say a few words about the great railway system with which I became identified at the time of which I have just spoken. The road then only extended from Chicago to the Wis- consin State line, where it connected with the Green Bay and Milwaukee road. This was the beginning of the great Chicago and North-Western railway, which, by consolidation of small lines and by extension, has now become one of the finest, as well as one of the most profitable systems in the world, consisting of over six thousand miles of track. In 1859, the North-Western was formed from several roads, with William B. Ogden as president, Perry H. Smith, vice-president, and George L. Dunlap, superintendent, the latter becoming general manager in a few years, when John C. Gault succeeded to the superintendency. Many of the leading officers of this vast railway sys- tem have been associated with its history from early days, and are closely identified with its progress. Their WESTWARD. 77 names have become known all over the world and are almost household words in the West. M. L. Sykes has been with the road since 1858, succeeding: W. S. Johnson at that time. He was o superintendent during that and the two succeeding years, and for about twenty years has been its vice- president. He still holds the last named office, and is also secretary and treasurer, with headquarters at New York city. Edward J. Cuyler was with the road in 1855 as construction paymaster. He then became a sort of pioneer station-agent, being assigned to the various denned termini as rapidly as the track was laid to such stations. In 1804, he became assistant superin- tendent of the Galena division with his headquarters at Chicago, and, since 1876, he has been superintend- ent of the Wisconsin division. C. C. Wheeler was general superintendent of the old Chicago and Milwaukee railroad before its consoli- dation with the North- Western, and Avhen the latter change was made he became general freight agent. Leaving the North-Western for some years, he returned to it as assistant general superintendent, and, in 1880, became its assistant general manager. From December. 1883, to August, 1887, he filled the position of general superintendent of the same road, Sherb. Sanborn, who has been with the road since 1874, succeeding Mr. Wheeler at that time. 78 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Marshall M. Kirkmaii in 1856 was a messenger boy, then he became telegraph operator, then train- dispatcher. In 1860, he was placed at the head of the freight accounting department, entering the general freight department in 1864. He afterward had charge of the freight traffic accounts, then of all accounts and local finances, finally becoming comptroller of this great railroad in 1881. Among those who entered the service of the road later, are Charles E. Simmons, who has been con- nected with the land department since 1876, being its land commissioner since 1878. Marvin Hughitt became connected with the road in 1872 as general superintendent, then was second vice-president, then general manager, and is now president. With such men as these, and the many others of marked ability whom only lack of space forbids my mentioning, surely the Chicago and North-Western Kailway Company is ably guided, and has a brilliant future before it. The old road has been a friend to me for many a long year, and with all my heart I say, " Good luck to her ! " After a stay of four months at Aurora, as I have already said, I followed Mr. Johnson to his new field of labor. At first I was station-agent at Waukegan, Illinois, and after about six weeks became conductor on the road, the two other conductors being W. G. Denison and Luther Perin. WESTWARD. 79 While station-agent at Waukegan I established what was among the first, if not the first station eating- house in the United States. This is the way it came about. My wife, who was a thrifty New England house- keeper and noted for the excellence of her cooking, began to bake a few pies, a little cake, and some doughnuts for " the boys " who wanted some such refreshments. I had these articles set out on a little table for sale. One day Superintendent Johnson stopped at the station, and noticed this lunch-stand, with its modest, yet appetizing display. "Who's this for?" asked Mr. Johnson. " For anybody who'll buy," I replied. " That's a good idea," he said, " a good idea. You can have one end of the station for a lunch-counter, if you want it, Charley." So I fitted up a neat little refectory at one end of the dingy old station, and Mr. Johnson and the train- men soon got into the habit of lunching there every time they stopped. The superintendent had the con- ductors and the brakemen announce refreshments on their trains just before reaching Waukegan, and it was not long before there was a large and regular patronage. Within a year, the place was known from Maine to Minnesota for its neatness and excellent cooking. I ran the eating-house seventeen years, 80 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. fifteen of which I was a conductor on the road, and in all that time I never lost a day's pay on the pay-roll, though I was off duty from two to six weeks a year. Times have changed since, and now-a-days when a man is off duty he loses his pay. My passengers on the road were constantly doing kind things to help my eating-house along, making suggestions or giving presents as occasions came up. I may here mention that on few runs are so many fine people to be met as those I came in contact with during my long experience on the Waukegaii train. The university at Evanston attracts to that educational center people of culture and refinement, while other towns along the line can boast of citizens no less dis- tinguished. Judges, lawyers, doctors, college pro- fessors, and statesmen rode with me every day. Some of my passengers are mentioned on various pages of this book, but there are others to whom I would like to give at least a passing notice. Lyman J. Gage rode with me for many years. He is now at the head of* one of the richest banks in the nation, the First National Bank of Chicago. Mr. Gage receives the largest salary of any banker in the United States, and is known all over Europe as being at the head of this line of business. Ex-Governor Beveridge was for a long time one of my passengers. When first I knew him he was a lawyer. Entering the army at the out- WESTWARD. 81 break of the rebellion, lie became a general, and in after years was elected governor of Illinois. He has since been collector of the port of Chicago. Among the most successful business men who lived on my road were James S. Kirk and Dr. Y. C. Price. Mr. Kirk's business has something of historical interest connected with it, the site of his manufactory being the spot where the first house in Chicago was located, when the place was a mere Indian trading post. On that site Mr. Kirk started a humble business over thirty years ago. To-day the mammoth soap works of James S. Kirk and Sons astonish the world, their like in size and volume of business not being found elsewhere. My good old friend has passed away since I left my old road, but his seven sons most worthily conduct the enterprise which their father founded. Dr. Price, of whom I have just spoken, was the originator of the famous Price's baking powder, and his success has been as phenomenal as that of so many of the enterprising men of the Giant City of the West. I can well remember the day when Dr. Price gave me one of the first cans of powder that he made. My wife always used this preparation in her cooking, and often attributed a great part of the success of our eating-house to this fact. It would be impossible for me to enumerate all the 6 82 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. noted and successful men who rode on my Waukegan train, but I ought not to omit mentioning John Y. Farwell, well known for his work in the Young Men's Christian Association, and Charles B. Farwell, who succeeded our dead hero, John A. Logan, as United States senator. My eating-house caused quite a change in my church associations. After several years of railroading, I joined the Methodist Episcopal church, my wife also being, a member, and my children were in the Sunday school Among the various articles for sale at our little refectory was ale. Not long after, a committee of church members waited upon me and informed me that I must stop the sale of this beverage at my place. " Gentlemen," I said quietly, " I went into the church with ale, and I can go out with ale. I am sorry I cannot oblige you." Shortly afterward I joined the Presbyterian church of the town, where I remained twelve years, most of the time being leader of the choir. In 1859, at Waukegan, I identified myself with the Masonic fraternity, in that year becoming a Master Mason. In the two following years I took the degrees of Royal Arch Mason and Knight Templar. I am still a member of Waukegan, Lodge No. 78, F. & A. M., of Chapter No. 41, E. A. M., and of Commandery No. WESTWARD. 83 12, K. T. My Masonic associations have been most pleasant, and, being always an active worker in the order, I have thus come in contact with some of the noblest and the most efficient men I ever met. Thus I have formed many warm and lasting friendships, and from that connection come to me now delight- ful reminiscences of people and events that have done most to brighten my life. All the time I was running the Waukegan train, I had only one or two accidents and those were not of a serious nature. The first happened in this way. A freight had made an effort to run from "Winnetka to Evanston, but my engineer thinking it was side- tracked at Winnetka, ran into it. Little damage was done and one passenger was slightly hurt. Indeed, with all my railroading I never had a 'serious accident, where a passenger was killed, or much damage was done, and the only personal injury I ever received was in 1848 while making a coupling on an engine at Great Falls. My little finger was badly crushed, but refusing to allow it to be amputated, the doctor suc- ceeded in saving the finger. Back in 1856, while running on the Chicago and Milwaukee road, with a train made up of twenty freight cars, a baggage-car and a passenger coach, the second and third cars jumped out of the train entirely, leaving the other cars behind them and landing in the 84 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. ditch, where they lay exactly opposite each other. No damage was done to the rest of the cars, and the train was not stopped by the accident. In fact, it was such a peculiar occurrence that I could scarcely believe that the cars belonged to my train until I had examined the way-bills. No explanation of the cause of their jumping off the track was ever made that seemed plausible. This reminds me of another phenomenal jump in my experience, which took place near Boston. We were running in over a double tracked road, when the engine jumped to the second track, every wheel landing on the rails, and we ran side by side for over a hundred yards. My experience with trainwreckers has been limited. One day while on the Waukegan run, a man in a fit of delirium tremens rushed out in front of the train and the engine ran down on him, injuring him so that he died in a few hours. His brother, Mike Sweeny, tried to throw my train off the track several times after that in revenge. He placed obstructions on the track at different places, but fortunately he never succeeded in his malicious designs. The Pinkerton detectives finally caught him chaining ties across the rails, and he was sent to prison. In my early days on the Waukegan road, I had an engineer who was as devoted to his bottle as to his 86 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. engine. One night when it was time for me to pull out I found I had no engineer. I called out " all aboard " with my usual vigor, and when we failed to start up, I jumped off the train to investigate into the cause of our delay. Superintendent Johnson stood on the platform, and he asked : "What's the matter, Charley?" " I don't know," I answered, " but I'll soon see." Mr. Johnson walked with me to the engine, and there we found that the engineer had not been around all day. " I'll fix that," said Colonel Johnson pulling the whistle. In a moment the delinquent came walking toward the engine. "Who pulled that whistle? " said the fellow to me in a blustering tone. " Go and see," I replied, and he walked down the platform to find out. No other engineer being at hand, the superintend- ent simply gave the man a severe reprimand and let him go ahead. I gave the fireman strict orders to do all he could to watch the engine and avoid accidents. It was a dangerous run. We dashed over crossings contrary to orders, and ran on a schedule of our own throughout the journey. It was the last run that engineer ever made on the road. He was discharged the next morning. WESTWABD. 87 I can remember another experience I had with this same engineer. It was in 1855, and we were taking out three cars full of children, bound for Evanston where they were to have a picnic. The engineer was intoxicated, but none of us knew it at the time. When he reached Evanston, instead of stopping, he ran straight by the station at a high speed. We stopped the train with the brakes as soon as we could, the engineer claiming that something was wrong about the throttle, so that he could not shut off steam. Fortunately we stopped just in time, for another train was already in sight. I asked the fellow what in the world he was thinking about to do such a fool-hardy thing as that. "I was just thinking," said the half -drunken man, " that if I should hit that train, what a lot of little angels these children would make." Among the sad reminiscences of my Waukegan run were those connected with the many funerals going from Chicago to Eosehill and Calvary ceme- teries, which are among the largest on the continent. 1 remember away back in 1866, when the cholera was raging in Chicago, I ran one of the largest funeral trains that was ever known. I had thirty passenger cars containing over two thousand people, and one freight car in which were the dead bodies of forty persons who had died on the previous day. 88 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. The train with which I was connected so many years and of which I have spoken so often, ran from Waukegan to Chicago and return every day, and was the first accommodation train that ever ran out of the Garden City. When I began on this run, suburban traffic was in its infancy in the West. The vast increase in Chicago's population was then undreamed of. The small city of less than sixty thousand people lay closely built along the river and lake, while north, south, and west stretched a wide expanse of open prairie, broken only by a few farms and per- haps a little village here and there. The necessity for life outside of the limits had not yet arisen. It was thought a great thing when the first train was put on to accommodate the little towns along the lake shore, and it was only by great effort that the train was kept running after it was once started, so strong was the opposition of the directors of the road. I have always regarded it as quite a coincidence that I should have had so much to do with the starting of suburban traffic both in Boston and in Chicago, the cities next to New York, where it is now greatest on this continent. Superintendent Johnson was a progressive man, always on the alert to make improvements, and he desired to accommodate passengers in every possible way. When I went on the road we only had four WESTWARD. 89 engines of ten tons each for the whole service, or one- half the weight of a single locomotive of to-day. In 1857, Colonel Johnson added to our equipment two fifteen-ton engines, larger and heavier than any others on the road, and two extra large passenger coaches that could seat seventy passengers each. The directors regarded this action as a piece of extravagance, but the purchase in time proved a wise investment, as subsequent history plainly shows. After the Waukegan train had run about a year, the directors of the road met and passed a resolution to take off the accommodation, as it did not pay. " That will never do," Superintendent Johnson instantly remarked when he heard of the resolution. " Charley, you have had a great deal of experience in carrying commutation passengers in Boston; come with me and we'll see what we can do in this matter." We went before the directors and strongly urged them not only to continue the train, but to adopt a more liberal policy toward their patrons in the way of generous concessions in fares and a well regulated time-table. "This is the way it seems tome, gentlemen," I argued. "When a lawyer comes to town and hangs out his shingle, he does not get clients all at once. Months pass and they then begin to come in, slowly it is true, but it would be folly to take down the 90 FORTY YEAKS ON THE BAIL. shingle and leave town just as business showed signs of beginning, even if it didn't pay just then." The directors asked me many questions about suburban traffic in Boston, and I stated what I knew of its rise and steady development. " If you adopt that course," I said to them, " it will not be long before you'll have to put on a second train, then a third, and a fourth in fact, there is no telling where it will stop." After considerable discussion, the directors decided to act on our suggestions. The wisdom of their de- cision has been proved by the vast increase of sub- urban traffic. On my old run, where a single small engine and one coach did all the service for the mere handful of patrons, there are now twenty-six daily trains, carrying two millions and a quarter of passen- gers annually. No more beautiful and flourishing suburban towns exist in the world than Evanston, Winnetka, Glencoe, Highland Park, Lake Forest, Waukegan, and others along this line, while on other branches of this great railway, where a similar liberal course has been followed, towns scarcely less beautiful and prosperous have sprung up over the wide expanse of prairie. In the service of the suburban branch of railroad- ing the best of everything is now devoted. The traffic has been reduced to a system. During all seasons, WESTWARD. 91 notwithstanding the great extremes of our climate, there is hardly a variation from strict schedule time. Trains run during twenty hours of the twenty-four, accommodating all classes of patrons. Accidents are reduced to a minimum, owing to good management and to the double-tracked roads. Elegant cars, fin- ished in highly polished wood, handsomely cushioned and well lighted, run on well laid and carefully kept tracks, and the contrast between the puny engines of my early days on the road and the present locomotives strikingly illustrates the progress of railroad science. In place of the cheerless shed on Cook Street, our depot in the beginning, to which suburban patrons of our road struggled every morning and evening, through the snows of winter, the deep black mud of spring and fall, and clouds of dust in summer, there now stands an elegant brick structure which combines all modern improvements in point of beauty, convenience and comfort. For the accommodation of all classes of travelers, from the depot run lines of street cars, countless omnibuses, hansoms and other conveyances. In few things connected with the railway service has improvement been so marked as in the omnibus and baggage transportation facilities. In this line Frank Parmelee stands pre-eminent in Chicago, if not in the world. Chicago is a city of magnificent dis- tances, with its depots necessarily far apart; it is the 92 FOKTY YEAKS ON THE BAIL. greatest railroad center on the globe, is the chief con- vention city in America, and has a trade second only to New York. Such a metropolis has an enormous transient population, and to meet the needs of this traveling public has been Mr. Parmelee's aim from the first. How well he has succeeded, millions of people can testify. Compared with the lack of system in handling baggage which exists in England and continental Europe, our methods are too far ahead to admit comparison. In 1873, my Waukegan eating-house was aban- doned for lack of room, and because the establishment of a similar house in Milwaukee had rendered mine a poor location. The business had made a handsome profit, and with the money thus realized I had made investments in real estate in Chicago and elsewhere. I was lucky in these investments, and considered myself worth about fifty thousand dollars, when the Chicago fire of 1871 caused me to lose heavily. I had not recovered from that loss when the financial panic of 1873 came. At that time I still held a great deal of property, and hoping for a favorable turn of affairs, I was carrying a load of about twenty thousand dollars in debts on part of my real estate. The financial crash made it impossible to sell real estate except at a ter- rible sacrifice, and my affairs became so tangled that when my creditors began to press me I saw the WESTWARD. 93 savings of twenty years swept away at a breath. The crash left me deeply buried in debts that since then have been paid dollar for dollar, though the struggle has been a, bitter one. South Evanston, one of Chicago's most flourishing suburbs, had been my pet project. In 1867, I bought twenty-two and a half acres of land there and founded that well-known village. In 1872, I opened a subdivision of forty-five acres in Waukegan, in con- nection with Merrill Ladd, who had also been with me in the other enterprise. The money market had begun to grow tight by that time, and when we offered our new property for sale there were few purchasers. We had put all our available money into this project, and now found it impossible to stem the tide that had set in against us. My partner died soon afterward, leav- ing but the remnant of an estate that a few years before had promised to make him wealthy. In 1878, just about the time I had reached bottom rock in my financial troubles, and was anxious for a new opening, I met A. B. Pullman. " Can you give me one of your hotel cars to New York?" I asked him. " I can and will," Mr. Pullman answered heartily. Within a few days I was in charge of one of the elegant hotel cars on the New York and Chicago run. While on that route I averaged about twelve thousand 94 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. miles a month, which was a pretty hard task in itself, but for four years I stuck to the hotel car. In 1882, I gave up the New York run and went over to the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul road, where I was assigned to a dining car when the road was opened from Chicago to Council Bluffs. Many of the conductors and others connected with the line were old friends, and all were genial companions, so I found my new work very pleasant. At Omaha, I made my home at the Paxton House, and to its worthy pro- prietors, the Kitchen brothers, I owe much for their hospitality. Among the officials of the Council Bluffs run, I desire to mention a few with whom I came in contact most. H. C. Atkins, for a long time superintendent, won the respect and love of all as few men have done. When he died, at his bier men wept who for years had not shed a tear. At his funeral, which was the largest ever known in the West, hundreds gathered from all over the country to follow the remains of the noble man to his last resting place. Not content with tributes of flowers, praises of his merits and words of kindness and sympathy for his family, friends sought to testify their appreciation of the beloved superin- tendent in another way, presenting Mrs. Atkins with upwards of thirty thousand dollars as a slight testi- monial of what their hearts desired to express. A. J. WESTWABD. 95 Earling succeeded to the place left vacant by Mr. Atkins, and there met with unequivocal success. He is now assistant superintendent of the road. George O. Clinton, a man of marked ability, is superintendent of the Council Bluffs division. F. A. Nash, whom I met more frequently than anyone else while I was on the Council Bluffs run, ably fills the position of general agent for the West, with his office at Omaha. I was connected with the Pullman company on various runs, from 1878 to 1887, and of the officials I chiefly met during that time, I can speak only in terms of the highest praise. E. A. Jewett was my superin- tendent on the Chicago division, H. S. Billings of the Erie division, and L. M. Bennett, with whom I had most to do on the Council Bluffs run, was superin- tendent of the Pacific division. It is to such men as these that the great organization, of which I have made extended mention in another chapter, owes its world renowned prosperity and fame. I have thus outlined my personal experience with the railroad systems of the great West. When I stop to think of the changes I have witnessed, it often seems more like a dream than a reality. The watch- word of civilization all this time has been " West- ward," and the ''iron horse" has been the main factor in this progress. I have seen roads of a few miles extended into hundreds, and by consolidation these in 96 FOKTY YEARS ON THE BAIL. turn formed into famous trunk lines whose like do not exist elsewhere in the world. The little Chicago and Aurora road, extending only to Mendota, Illinois, when I entered its service, has become the great Chicago, Burlington and Quincy. In the same way the little road that crept along the shores of Lake Michigan for forty-five miles when I began to run its first accommodation train, now boasts of being a main artery in the vast system of the Chicago and North Western railway. From small beginnings the old Milwaukee and Prairie du Chien has become the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul, a superb trunk line of over six thousand miles. Chicago, from being the small city I first saw it, low down in the prairie mud, and with a few frame structures for depots, has be- come not only the great railroad center of the West, but the greatest center in the world, with fine railroad bridges and viaducts, magnificent depots, vast dock- yards, construction and repair shops that are the mar vel of the age. The most wonderful of all railroading feats in my day has been the crossing of the continent. In 1850, not a mile of track existed beyond the Mississippi. Those who thought of a road from ocean to ocean were called visionaries, to use the mildest word, and even later, when one enthusiast after another took up the idea, they did little else but impress upon the WESTWARD. 97 world an idea of their own foolishness. The first time I ever heard the suggestion made was in 1860, by John Evans, who was ' an almost daily passenger on my train. Mr. Evans was the founder of Evanston, now the site of the Northwestern University, and a town of which I have made frequent mention in these pages. He afterward moved to Denver, when that city was in its infancy, was appointed governor of Colorado Territory, and became interested in the rail- road development of the far West with such success that, by the sale of one of his roads to Jay Gould, he became possessed of enormous wealth. " Sit down here, Charley," Mr. Evans said, one day in 1860, when he was on my train. He had been figuring on some paper, and when I sat down he con- tinued : " Charley, I think that one of these days there will be a railroad over the Kocky Mountains." "It's possible, but hardly probable," I answered. " The cost would be enormous, the engineering diffi- culties next to insurmountable, and after you have your road where will you get your business?" "It will come in time, and that before many years," was Mr. Evans' reply, and he proceeded to unfold to me his ideas. To those who have never been across the continent, indeed, to those who did not follow the work step by 7 98 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. step, it is impossible to realize the gigantic task of constructing this great road. Nature was not the only obstacle to be overcome. Public opinion and financial pressure had to be fought. Eidicule was poured down on the projectors, laborers mutinied and demanded their pay in advance, and, so visionary was the scheme considered, that bankers dared not subscribe to the stock of the road lest they injure their credit. Even so late as 1860, the scheme was declared as impos- sible as a railroad to the North Pole. At length the battle was fought; the Indians, the rocks and defiles bathed its progress in human blood. For five years the tramp of feet was heard over prairie, desert and mountain, then the last spike was driven, the loco- motive passed in triumph to the Golden Gate, and there stopped its westward way. CHAPTER VI. IN WAK TIMES. For seven years after I went on the old Chicago and Milwaukee road, no great event happened to stir the public mind. From time to time the slavery agitation grew in force, until the nomination and election of honest old Abe stirred the people on that subject as nothing had done before, and my train became the scene of many an angry debate. Party feeling ran high, and among my passengers were some of the best men I ever knew, who took opposite views of the presidential candidates. Bitter words were spoken, and men who had been friends and jovial companions for years now looked at one another askance, and groups who had smoked and played cards together on the cars before the nomination were now divided by common consent. The inauguration of Mr. Lincoln passed without unusual excitement, but there came a day in the next month when men paused aghast as they read their newspapers; when cheeks grew pale and hands trembled. My train carried gloomy passengers that 100 FORTY YEAES ON THE RAIL. day, and well it might. Fort Sumter had been fired upon ! It seemed hard to believe, for we Americans have such firm faith in our institutions, that we can scarcely credit a disappointment when it comes. Early in the morning of April 12, 1861, the land batteries began their fire on Fort Sumter, and on my afternoon train discussion and excitement ran high. For thirty- four hours the bombardment was kept up, and then Major Anderson surrendered; our beloved flag trailed in the dust. What we said, how we felt, in those hours of anxiety, can hardly be recalled now that the space of over a quarter of a century separates us from those trying times. But we all know that party discussions stopped, and to a man loyalty to his country became the rule. The stars and stripes waved from spire and balcony, office and warehouse, mast and dwelling. As we looked upon the folds of the dear old flag fluttering in the breeze, we all knew it was the symbol of the United North's determination to stand by the general government forever. Well do I remember Sunday, the 14th of April, 1861, the day following the surrender of Major Anderson. It was one of those beautiful, cloudless spring days that so rarely visit our Lake Michigan climate at that season. In the mild April air floated the " flag of the free," and on every side were signs IN WAR TIMES. , lj)J that surely betokened ours was the ''Rome oJ the brave." From early morning until late at night the usually quiet Sunday streets were thronged with eager, indignant, troubled people, all swayed by a common feeling, and talking on one subject. The telegraphic despatches of the evening before had wrought every one up to a state of intense feeling, and how it was faring with cur boys down at old Sumter was the all-absorbing topic of conversation. Governor Yates was in the city, and his headquarters at the Tremont House were besieged by crowds of people anxious to find out what Illinois would do in the crisis. Even that early, the governor was tendered the services of several Chicago military 'companies. The excitement reached the pulpits of the churches, and pastors did not hesitate to take a bold stand on the question of the hour. On Monday morning my train was filled to its utmost capacity with people from all along the line going to Chicago to get the latest news. Nor did they all return to their homes that night, but many stayed in the city to attend the various meetings held to discuss the situation. That very day Governor Yates called for six companies of militia for immediate services. A grand rally was held at Metropolitan Hall, but this not being large enough to hold the throngs, another hall was opened and a double meeting 02 F P^ Y -YEARS ON THE BAIL. convened. Speeches were made and resolutions passed amid the wildest enthusiasm, which reached its height when was sung the new song by George F. Root, " The First Gun is Fired ! May God Protect the Eight." When on the day following the evacuation of Fort Sumter, came President Lincoln's proclamation calling for seventy-five thousand men to serve for three months, the answer to the call was enthusiastic from every corner of each free State. Recruiting offices were full of men, ready and anxious to enroll their names among the defenders of the stars and stripes, and only fearful lest the required number would be made up and their names left out. We felt so strong and proud in those early days that three months seemed long enough with our great power to crush the strongest nation on earth, to say nothing of what we considered a little uprising on our southern borders. We little dreamed of the dreary four years that lay before us; of the bloody battle- fields and broken hearts. No prophet came to foretell that of our brave "boys in blue" three hundred thousand would be either killed in battle, or die of disease in the field; that four hundred thousand of those who went away so full of hope and courage would return to us crippled, or disabled for life. It was well for us that the enthusiasm of '61 was not to IN WAR TIMES. 103 be crushed at one blow by such knowledge as this. Our troubles then, like all others in life, came one at a time, and somehow all bore them. In a few days the country was filled with volunteers. My train began to carry the " blue coats," and there were lively talks of the great deeds that were to be done. When off duty we were always watching some drill, or were at some favorite meeting-place discuss- ing the situation. Those were more like picnic days than anything else, until our first recruits had actually started and we felt that serious work had begun. The general cry was "On to Richmond," and, when in July from Bull Run our troops fled panic stricken to Washington, disappointment settled down on us like a pall. -Then for the first time we realized that a terrible war was upon us, and not a mere holiday parade as most people had at first imagined. North and South now set to work in earnest, and President Lincoln called for half a million of troops. It is not my purpose to follow our war step by step, for that has been done by many worthier pens. I shall only try to follow some of our railroad boys through the struggle, and to give a little idea of what an important part the locomotive took in the great civil strife, aiding its progress and mitigating its sufferings. Bravery seems to belong to railroad men. Indeed, 104 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. the service lias something about it which attracts those who are daring. No sooner was the sound of the drum heard in the land than hundreds of these men sprang into the soldiers' ranks. I well remember that one of the most fearless engineers on our old road in those days was George Bentley. He was always selected to fight snow or make a fast run, and was what we termed a " game engineer." George L. Dunlap was one of Bentley' s greatest admirers. At the breaking out of the war, Bentley promptly raised a company of railroad men and marched to the front. His bold, fearless spirit put him in the front of every battle, and while the war was yet young, the news came that our brave old friend had given up his life for his country. He was but one of many who gave their lives that the country might be redeemed, but his death cast a deep shadow over all railroad men. The trusty sword that he had so gallantly wielded was sent to his old friend, Mr. Dunlap, who still has it among his most prized souvenirs of early days. Illinois sent her full quota of railroad men to the war. At first they enlisted in any regiment that was being formed, but about sixteen months after the war began, a more organized effort was made among them and the so-called " Eailroad Regiment," or 89th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, was recruited in the State, being organized in Chicago under the direction and 106 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. superintendence of the various railroad companies of Illinois, in August, 1862, and, being composed chiefly of employees of these lines. Company C was made up of boys from the old Chicago and Milwaukee road, and Henry L. Kowell was captain of the company. The organization of the 89th was under the super- vision of Kobert Forsyth, of the Illinois Central, and W. D. Manchester, of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern road. Besides these the following were active in behalf of the organization: Colonel C. G. Hammond, of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy; Joseph H. Morse, Pittsburg and Fort Wayne; A. Bigelow, Michigan Central; Charles S. Tappan, Chicago and North-Western ; W. L. St. John, Chicago and Kock Island; S. C. Baldwin, Chicago and Mil- waukee; C. C. Wheeler, Chicago, Alton and St. Louis; E. Anthony, Galena and Chicago Union. The following were the field and staff officers of the 89th mustered into United States' service on Sep- tember 4, 1862: Colonel, John Christopher, U. S. A. ; Lieutenant-Colonel, Charles T. Hotchkiss; Major, Duncan J. Hall; Surgeon, S. F. Vance; Assistant- Surgeon, H. B. Tuttle;. Adjutant, Edward F. Bishop; Quartermaster, Fred. L. Fake, and Chaplain, Rev. J. H. Dill. The 89th was commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Hotchkiss, Colonel Christopher never having joined IN WAR TIMES. 107 the regiment, of which he resigned the command soon afterward, when the former officer became colonel. C. T. Hotchkiss in 1853 had entered the service of the old Galena and Chicago Union, when its western terminus was at Kockford, Illinois, and afterward was freight agent for the road in Chicago. The 89th having received orders to report to Louis- ville, Kentucky, as many of us as could get off duty went to see them start. They left Camp E. H. Wil- liams on September 4th, and arrived at Louisville three days after. General Bragg had then invaded Kentucky, his army being at Bardstown, while 'the forces of Kirby Smith were at Lexington. The seces- sion element at the time was jubilant, for things seemed to be all in their favor, and the Union people were trembling. Three days after the arrival of the 89th, Kirby Smith's forces got within seven miles of Cincinnati, threatening the invasion of Ohio and Indiana. The regiment, as a part of General Buell's army, marched from Louisville and encamped on the banks of the Kentucky river, opposite Frankfort, on the evening of October 6th, arrived at Lawrenceburg in two days, and drove a force of rebel cavalry from the place, following them to " Dog Walk," where, the next morning, it was attacked by a portion of Kirby Smith's force. On the llth of October the Second Division joined 108 FORTY YEARS ON THE BAIL. in the pursuit of Bragg to Crab Orchard, then return- ing to Bowling Green. A few days later the Second Division moved toward. Nashville, where the 89th was detached from the command, and for two weeks was stationed at Tyre Springs, on the railroad route, then rejoining its brigade near Nashville, where the Union forces, now under General Kosecrans, occupied a forti- fied position. On the morning of December 26th, Rosecrans' movement against Bragg' s forces at Murfreesboro' was begun. The 89th, as a part of Johnson's division, marched from Nashville, reaching Triune the next day. In the morning of the 29th our troops advanced toward Murfreesboro', and on the 30th the line of battle was formed. The dawn of the morning of the 31st saw the terrible attack of the enemy on the right flank, the brave defense of Kirk, his sad repulse, the capture of the Union batteries and the general dis- aster that befell McCook's corps. For two days longer the battle went on, and the struggle at Murfreesboro' or " Stone River," as it is sometimes called, cost our side fourteen thousand men. Without following the details of the battle, I shall simply say that the 89th fought nobly, and was pro- nounced by the brigade commander " by all odds the best for its age in the service." Their total loss in killed, wounded and missing, was one hundred and IN WAR TIMES. 109 forty-nine. Major Hall was captured and taken to Fortress Monroe, where he remained until spring, when he was returned to his regiment. The enlisted men of the regiment presented Colonel Hotchkiss, who had commanded them in the fight, with an elegant sword as a token of their appreciation and esteem. The Army of the Cumberland lay at Murfreesboro' until June of the next year. General Rosecrans advanced towards Tullahoma on June 24th, and then came the struggle at Liberty Gap. The following account has been given of the close of the battle and the part taken in it by the ''Railroad Regiment": " The whole rebel left, heavily reinforced, with supporting companies and a line of reserves, and sup- ported also by a battery on the hill, charged across the valley and up the hill, to within about twenty yards of the position of the two Union regiments, which quietly prepared to receive the shock. The weight of the rebel onset was directed against the center of the line, comprising the left of the 89th Illi- nois and the right of the 32d Indiana. " The regiments bravely held their position. The supporting companies rallied to their assistance, and for about twenty minutes a fierce and cruel contest was waged, the rebels being determined to force the Union line and occupy its position on the hill. That 110 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. position was the key to the southern entrance of the gap, and, once in the enemy's possession, the Federal force could be driven back through the defile. To this end repeated attacks were made on the position, but each time the rebels were driven back with a heavy loss. To support the Union regiments, Goodspeed's and an Ohio battery were hurried forward. The enemy also received reinforcements and added bat- teries, and their attacks grew more and more furious and stubborn. At this juncture, Captain Bruce H. Kidder, of Company E, 89th Illinois, discovered two rebel infantry companies moving toward the right of his regiment, with the apparent intention of attacking it on that flank. He immediately moved his com- mand, under cover of the crest of the hill, still farther to the right, and to a position of about two hundred yards in advance of the main line of battle. There, sheltered by a fence, he waited the approach of the rebels until they were within forty yards of his ambush, when he gave the order to fire. The ad- vancing companies recoiled before the well-aimed and fatal volleys, and fled wildly to the shelter of the wooded hills behind them, leaving eight dead and thirty wounded of their attacking party. " As the ammunition of the two brave regiments, so long and hotly engaged, began to fail, the 15th Ohio was ordered to their support. With the aid of IN WAR TIMES. Ill this regiment, one more determined effort of the enemy to plant his flag on the hill was repulsed with the most heroic bravery." During the last struggle, George Sinclair, who was one of the engineers on our road, was shot through the left lung, the ball passing through his body and out. He lived for twenty-two years afterward in his usual good health. A charge on the rebel position was finally made by the reserve regiment of the brigade, and Miller's bri- gade was ordered to the front to relieve the regiments which had, since morning, borne the brunt of the fight. As the 89th Illinois was withdrawing, the enemy, thinking it a retreat, once more tried to seize the position, but the railroad boys faced about, dashed down the hill, and, with their last remaining cart- ridges, charged the advancing "gray coats" and drove them back across the field, the enemy being finally driven from the hill which they had fortified, and re- treating toward Bellbuckle. Henry M. Cist, in his history of the Army of the Cumberland, says the fighting at Liberty Gap was the "most severe of the Tullahoma campaign," and among the brave regiments that took part in that struggle, none had a fairer, or more heroic record than the 89th Illinois. The next great struggle in which the 89th was 112 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. engaged was at Chickamauga Creek, where the battle raged fiercely for two days, September 19 and 20. The Union army, under General G. H. Thomas, fought stubbornly and bravely, but, beaten at last, they with- drew to Chattanooga. The railroad boys were among the bravest of the brave, and were among the last of the organized troops to leave the field. On the second day of the battle, while supporting Goodspeed's bat- tery, our boys were attacked by a force under L. E. Polk. The regiment fought valiantly in support of the battery, but, before it was safe, Lieutenant- Colonel Duncan J. Hall, of Chicago, a young and brave officer, had given his life in its defense, with his last breath urging his regiment to stand true to their country and their flag. The 89th Illinois, in November, took part in the attack on Mission Eidge, when the regiment formed a part of Willich's brigade, which occupied the center of the division. The story of the part our boys took in this battle is thus told: " In front of the lines was, first, a broken country, covered with dense woods; then an abrupt rise of ground, terminated by a narrow plateau, on which the enemy had located his camp. Beyond this rose Mission Eidge, its summit bristling with batteries, and strengthened with breastworks. Lines of rifle- pits were to be carried before its summit could be IN WAR TIMES. 113 gained. At the signal the troops swept forward, advancing steadily through the woods, and across the open field in front of the enemy's intrenchments at the foot of the ridge, each command striving to first reach the enemy. The first line was captured at the point of the bayonet, and the routed rebels thrown back on their reserves, killed or taken prisoners. Hardly stopping to re-form, or for an order, the Union troops grimly charged up the steep and rugged ascent, and, without wavering or halting, at last, with loud hurrahs, gained the crest and routed the enemy from his last position. Willich's brigade charged up the hill at a point where the ridge was formed like a horse- shoe, the Federal troops occupying the interior. Bat- teries to the right and left, and in front, poured upon them a terrific fire, but it reached the top with the foremost, and planted its colors on the crest. The enemy held their ground at this point, until the brigade was less than a dozen yards from their breast- works, when they broke in wild confusion and fled in panic down the opposite slope of the ridge. A portion of the brigade pursued them for nearly a mile, cap- turing and hauling back several pieces of artillery which they were trying to carry off." Among those of the 89th Illinois killed at Mission Ridge was Captain Henry L. Eowell, of Company C, a brave and gallant officer, who had been an engineer 8 114 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. on the old Chicago and Milwaukee road, leaving its service to enter the army. In the Atlanta campaign the " Kailroad Kegiment " formed part of the First Brigade (commanded by Willich), Third Division (General Wood), Fourth Army Corps (General Howard). They took part in the struggles at Eocky Face Eidge, Eesaca, New Hope Church, Pine Top Knob, and Kenesaw Moun- tain. They then went into camp about four miles from Atlanta, remaining about four weeks. Leaving Atlanta on October 2nd with the Fourth Corps, commanded by General Stanley, the 89th went in pursuit of Hood, who was marching toward the Tennessee Eiver. They participated in the engage- ments at Columbia and Franklin on the way to Nashville, which was reached on December 1st. In the engagements before Nashville the 89th lost thirty-nine in killed and wounded. The railroad boys took part in the pursuit of Hood, and then went to Huntsville, Alabama, where they remained in camp until February, 1865, when, with Colonel Hotchkiss still in command, they went back to East Tennessee, remaining in that section until Lee's surrender. The 89th then went to Nashville where it was mustered out of United States' service on June 10, 1865, and left the same day for Chicago. The day after their arrival, the boys received a public IN WAR TIMES. 115 reception, with the 88th Illinois, by the Board of Trade and the railroad companies of the city, when Colonel Hotchkiss, in responding to a speech of con- gratulation, said: " The 89th left Chicago at the same time as the 88th, or three years ago, nine hundred strong. It has baen recruited up to one thousand four hundred; that is, that number have been enrolled under its banner. It has lost by casualties very largely, and we return now with three hundred .men, two hundred others being in the field (transferred to the 59th Illinois). The balance have been lost. Among the lost are one lieutenant-colonel, seven captains, four lieutenants and over seven hundred men. Our history is written on the head-boards of rudely-made graves from Stone Kiver to Atlanta. Such a record we feel proud of." While the railroads were thus represented in the field by some of their bravest and noblest men, in the North the locomotive and its masters were keeping the wheels of commerce moving, and were the power behind the throne that sustained the great powers that fought for union and liberty. Up and down sped the "iron horse," carrying supplies of ammunition, food, clothing, saddlery, horses, wagons, and all the other necessaries of the march and the camp. The mothers, sisters, wives and children of the boys who had gone to the front were in the same need of food 116 FORTY YEAES ON THE BAIL. and clothes as before the war, and for them as for the soldiers mills and looms were busy, and the railroads transported the corn and pork of the West to the Atlantic seaboard, bringing back the products of the busy mills of the East. Back and forth went the locomotive, feeding, clothing, aiding the man who plowed at home to feed his brother who carried a bayonet at the front. Without her manufactures, her agriculture, and her commerce, the North could not have won her victories, and without her locomotive who shall say what her looms and her farmers would have done? The locomotive made a United North, bringing sec- tions together in feeling that had never before felt the need of one another. When the call rang from the White House for more men to send to the front, the locomotive was set in motion with redoubled energy and carried forward flashing bayonets in the hands of those who shouted as they dashed along the rail to the scene of conflict, "We are coming, Father Abraham, with six hundred thousand more." The railroad carried to and fro letters bushels upon bushels, tons upon tons of letters, bearing with them words of comfort and cheer. It bore to the needy soldier's side representatives of the Young Men's Christian Association; it also sent special mes- IN WAR TIMES. 117 sengers of all religious sects with supplies of good things not included in the regular army rations. It carried the Sanitary Commission on errands of mercy, and the scores of nurses who ministered to the sick and dying. The long and exhausting marches, which in olden times had killed more men than fell in battle, were done away with by the locomotive. Then, too, the wounded were not left as of old to die on the field, for the railroad enabled them to be taken to hospitals or other resting places, where the best of care was given them. It is said that the Sanitary Commission carried two hundred and twenty-five thousand men from the field of battle in hospital cars. They fitted up " rail- way ambulances " with elastic beds and provided them with as many conveniences and comforts as it was possible to get for them. It is impossible to tell how much the railroad shortened the length of our great civil strife, by afford- ing means for gathering and concentrating soldiers on short notice, and by furnishing food for them at every change of base as rapidly as commanding generals desired to move their troops. The slow methods that must have been resorted to had the locomotive not existed, can be judged from the estimate that, con- veyed by the common roads, five hundred horses and about thirty days would be necessary to transport one 118 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. day's supplies for an army of eighty-five thousand men, four hundred miles, while all this can be done by a single train of cars in forty hours. Even a short account of the part played by the railroad in the various campaigns of the late civil strife would be beyond the scope of this volume. Incidents of great interest might be given in connec- tion with each one, but perhaps Sherman's famous march from Chattanooga to the sea furnishes more than any other single campaign, and I shall be for- given if I dwell at length on that part of the war. During his celebrated march, a single pair of rails linked General Sherman to his base of supplies. Although he had an army one hundred thousand strong, it is said that not a man of that vast force for even twenty-four hours went without ammunition, nor were the troops without food a day at any time. A construction corps of about two thousand men had charge of the railroad repairs, and a large railroad transportation department was organized to meet the demands of the hour. The advancing column that set out from Chattanooga needed an enormous quan- tity of clothes, food and ammunition, and a single line of track from Louisville was all that could be depended on for furnishing these supplies. Sherman then ordered all railroad cars reaching Louisville to be loaded with supplies and sent to the front. Adju- IN WAR TIMES. 119 tant Hedley, who was in this great campaign to the sea, thus gives an account of this railway service in the pages of his " Marching through Georgia." " Henceforth, trains on the ' United States Military Railroad' were motley enough, and it may be said, without exaggeration, that in many of them there were not more than three cars belonging to any one road, and nearly all came from north of the Ohio river. "A few passenger cars were run as far south as Nashville, but none beyond that point; an officer or soldier seeking his command at the front was obliged, on leaving Nashville, to find a place on the top of a freight car, as a member of the armed guard which accompanied each train. He was frequently fired at by guerillas, from behind trees and hills, and often his train was thrown from the track by some obstruction or a displaced rail, and he was attacked at a great dis- advantage by a considerable force of the enemy. But this route, rough as it was, was one of pure delight compared with the dirt-road assigned to most of those returning from home or hospital. The latter were organized into temporary companies or detachments, and obliged to drive and guard beef herds, or wagon trains, until they reached their destination. "Notwithstanding the difficulty of securing rail- road transportation, and the urgent necessity requiring it entirely for military purposes, sanitary and Chris- 120 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. tian commissions and volunteer philanthropists from every State having a soldier in the field, sought the freedom of the road, only to be denied by the lynx- eyed Sherman. One of these well-meaning function- aries complained to his governor that the great general had treated his with discourtesy. The governor appealed to Staiiton, S3cretary of War, who lectured Sherman, whereupon the indignant general retorted in this characteristic way: 'Even a single passenger is a small matter, but he is two hundred pounds avoirdu- pois, and his weight in bread and meat would feed one hundred men for a day. For mercy's sake allow us for the period of our brief campaign to have the exclusive use of our single track of rail, every foot of which we must guard, and every inch of which has cost us a precious life.' "And this slender artery of life, upon which de- pended the very existence of a hundred thousand men, and perhaps that of the nation itself, was soon to be indefinitely extended, to keep pace with the army pressing southward, every additional mile costing more lives, adding to the risk of breakage by the enemy, and diminishing the moving column to the extent of the detachments left behind for its protec- tion. Important bridges and strategic points were guarded by veteran troops, posted in earthworks with artillery; but for the greater part the defenses were IN WAR TIMES. 121 block-houses and stockades, garrisoned by ' short term ' men enlisted for the purpose. It was a service of vast importance, but monotonous and inglorious, and the rudely painted sign displayed at each of these minor posts, addressed to passing trains, ' Please throw us a paper ! ' told a pathetic story of loneliness and anxiety. In many cases these little garrisons were fiercely attacked and made gallant and successful resistance. The heroic defense of Allatoona, referred to hereafter at length, is almost as famous as the 4 Charge of the Light Brigade ' it was certainly far more momentous in its results. " The Railway Construction and Eepair Corps, made up of civilians, was an all-important ally. Large detachments were stationed at suitable points and dis- patched to each break in the road as soon as one occurred. As a matter of fact, this corps was perpetu- ally in motion. So thoroughly was it equipped, and so zealously did it push the work, that the enemy frequently heard the engine whistle at the front within a few hours after they had inflicted damage which they believed could not be repaired in a week. Dupli- cates of bridges and important trestles were kept in reserve to replace those destroyed, each timber being numbered and fitted ready to put in place. Some of the work was almost marvelous. But the grandest achievement of the corps was the replacement of the 122 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. bridges over the Chattahoochee, Etowah and Oostan- aula, which had been destroyed by the retreating enemy. These structures, being within the enemy's lines, could not be duplicated from the storehouse, and most of the timber had to be cut out of the forest on either side of the streams. They were from six to twelve hundred feet long, and from eighty to one hun- dred feet high, yet they were repla'ced in two to five days. The moral effect was marvelous. The Union troops were led to believe that their communication with home could never be interrupted, save for a few hours at a time ; while the enemy was fully convinced that Sherman and his men were all but omnipotent, and that destructive measures were of little avail to arrest their progress. Indeed, there was a story in those days to the effect that Johnston had determined to blow up an important railroad tunnel in order to stop the invaders, whereupon one of his men remarked, ' There isn't no use in that, 'cause Sherman carries 'long duplicates of all the tunnels ! ' Adjutant Hedley has recorded several incidents in regard to the railroad service in Sherman's campaign which will be of interest to the readers of these pages. He tells of a remarkable adventure which took place at Big Shanty, a railroad station almost at the foot of Kenesaw Mountain. In order to break the Atlanta railway at this station to cut off the rebels' source of IN WAK TIMES. 123 supplies, General Mitchell sent twenty men to the place. It was then a rebel camp in the interior of the Confederacy, but the men were brave and thought not of the danger. Forming a plan before they started, they set out in disguise and by different roads, finally getting to Big Shanty in safety. There they stole a light freight train while its rebel crew was at dinner, and started off toward Chattanooga, intending to burn the bridges as they passed over them. Being closely pursued by another train they could not stop to do any work of destruction. Soon their wood and water supply gave out, and the engine was fast becoming useless, the brass journals having actually melted. Driven to desperation, at last the brave fellows jumped from the engine and started for the woods. It hap- pened that a regimental muster was being held at the place, and planters were there with bloodhounds and horses, so the fugitives were hunted down and cap- tured. Several were hanged by their pursuers, but almost by a miracle the rest escaped. Six of the latter were recaptured, but they were afterward exchanged and went to Washington. There honor awaited them. President Lincoln gave them a reception, conferred a medal on each, had their arrearages of money given them, and presented each with an extra one hundred dollars and a furlough so that they might visit their homes. 124 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Engineers were generally among the most daring men in the service. They delighted in doing an audacious act when opportunity was afforded them. One day while the rebel forces held the heights of Kenesaw, a daring Union engineer ran his locomotive up the road just under the mountain, and drew down upon him the fire from the enemy's batteries. Blowing his whistle in defiance of the attack, he backed away in safety, the federal troops giving him one round of cheers after another, while the grand old Hills of Georgia, as if in sympathy with their cause, gave back the echoes, sound upon sound. If the saying is true that we never appreciate the blessings we have until they are taken from us, surely Sherman's troops had a good opportunity to appreciate the railroad "when their general resolved to cut the last link that bound them to home, and to start off into the heart of the enemy's country toward the sea. They were at Big Shanty when the order came. For three days the railroad worked to its utmost limit bringing in supplies, carrying away all surplus artillery, the sick and the wounded. After dark on the 12th of November the last train bound for the North rolled past Big Shanty. " It would have been a windfall for the enemy," says Hedley. " It carried many officers who had resigned, and soldiers whose terms of service had expired. Large sums of money IN WAR TIMES. 125 - OLD COOK STREET DEPOT, CHICAGO. Page 91. were committed to them by their comrades for delivery to families or friends at home. One, a surgeon, had not less than twelve thousand dollars in his valise, enclosed in ordinary envelopes endorsed with the amount and the name of the person for whom it was intended. Fortunately, no accident befell the train, but it was more than two months before 126 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. this was known to the men who trusted so much to un- certain fate. The passing by of this train awoke strange sensations. Hearty cheers and ' God bless you,' came from scores of the homeward bound, as hearty cheers and fervent ' Good-byes ' from those left behind. But the brave words of both belied their hearts. The former gave an encouragement which was tinged with a feeling of dread; the latter felt an anxiety their shouts did not reveal. The departing train was the sundering of the last link connecting them with country and home." The personal memoirs of General Grant furnish numerous incidents which show the important part played by the railroad in the civil war. Every few pages narrate how the forces on both sides tried to get or keep control of different lines. Frequent mention is made of the rapidity with which our troops repaired damages to tracks done by the enemy, and built bridges as if by magic where similar structures had been destroyed by the retreating foe. In speaking of the destruction done by General Sherman's troops on their way through Georgia to the sea, General Grant says: " The troops, both of the right and left wings, made most of their advance along the line of railroads which they destroyed. The method adopted to per- form this work, was to burn and destroy all the IN WAR TIMES. 127 bridges and culverts, and for a long distance, at places, to tear up the track and bend the rails. Sol- diers to do this rapidly would form a line along one side of the road with crowbars and poles, place these under the rails and, hoisting all at once, turn over many rods of road at one time. The ties would then be placed in piles, and the rails, as they were loos- ened, would be carried and put across these log heaps. When a sufficient number of rails were placed upon a pile of ties it would be set on fire. This would heat the rails very much more in the middle, that being over the main part of the fire, than at the ends, so that they would naturally bend of their own weight ; but the soldiers, to increase the damage, would take tongs and, one or two men at each end of the rail, carry it with force against the nearest tree and twist it around, thus leaving rails forming bands to orna- ment the forest trees of Georgia. All this work was going on at the same time, there being a sufficient number of men detailed for that purpose. Some piled the logs and built the fire; some put the rails upon the fire, while others would bend those that were sufficiently heated, so that, by the time the last bit of road was torn up that it was designed to destroy at a certain place, the rails previously taken up were already destroyed." What this meant to the South can be appreciated 128 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. when it is remembered that the whole mechanical system of the country was an importation, and, having no workshops of their own, when northern markets were closed against them, railroads and everything else that required machinery fell into decay, for scarcely a cog-wheel could be manufactured by south- ern artisans. Enough has already been said to show of what vital importance were the railroad and railroad men to the successful conduct of the late war. Up and down, backwards and forwards went the " iron horse " on its unwearied way through the great struggle. Mile by mile the locomotive kept pace with our various armies on their march, keeping them refreshed and strengthened with provisions, and well supplied with ammunition, changing the base of supplies as often as occasion demanded it. "Who shall say how many more years of conflict would have been neces- sary, and how infinitely greater would have been their misery and woe had not Stephenson's great invention been not only the soldiers' ally in battle, but the great agent in carrying on the vocations of industry in the North? CHAPTEE FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS. In these days of scientific railroading, trains take no note of wind or weather. The thunder rolls, the lightnings flash, hail, rain and snow dash in fury, but passengers tuck themselves into their sleeping berths or cushioned seats, and the engineer starts out into the blackness of midnight. Quite a contrast is this with the engineer of 1839, who took out a party from Lexington, Kentucky, and when it began to snow, ran his locomotive under a shed for shelter, saying he would not go an inch further, as his track was so " slick " that the train would be thrown off the rails. In the infancy of railroading, owing to the extremes of temperature and the heavy storms of our climate, men suffered more and greater trials than they do to-day. The cabless engines gave no shelter for engineer or fireman. The old strap rails and even the iron rails, laid as they were on the road-beds of masonry or the badly constructed road-beds of a later day, were constantly being broken by frosts or injured by heavy rains. The poorly heated, poorly ventilated 9 129 130 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. and otherwise inferior passenger coaches made travel a great hardship in cold and inclement weather for even the richest travelers, as money could not buy what the progress of science nad not given to the world. With all its discomforts and hardships, however, primitive railroading was away in advance of the stage-coaching that preceded it. But with all the protection and conveniences of modern times, which have made it so that passengers know very little of the hardships of fighting the elements in our climate, the train hands have many of the trials that beset the same class of men in early railroad days. Even with his cab for shelter, the engineer suffers from the torrid heats of our summer, especially when he crosses the long, treeless tracts of prairie land, or the arid plains of our American desert. In winter even the best protection yet conceived of is inadequate to shelter him from the icy sleet, the blinding snows, and the bitter winds of our western blizzards. English engines are constructed without cabs. The Englishman pleads the mildness of his climate as an excuse for not providing his engineers with the same shelter that we give them. Leaving out of the ques- tion the cruelty of shooting a man sixty miles an hour, wholly unprotected, through a midnight storm, in pitchy darkness, the fact still remains that no man FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS. 131 can use all of his powers to advantage if half his vital force must be spent in keeping warm and resisting the fury of the elements. No one holds a place which calls for more keen thought, watchfulness and absorb- ing attention than the engineer of a locomotive, and it is simply a question of profit and loss whether he shall stand up to his work in the open air, subjected to all the extremes of temperature and other climatic changes, or have a seat in a sheltering cab. No one who has not ridden on an engine at night can possibly understand how trying the task is When once in a while an outsider tries the experiment, he soon finds it too great a strain on his nerves, and is glad to get back to the palace car to finish his jour- ney. Darkness that has not even a star to relieve it is awful enough, but when to it are added wind, snow, hail, or pelting rain, the trainman's task is one that no non-railroader can comprehend. Just stop for a few moments to take in thought a ride with an engineer on a night express in winter. A railway superintendent, Joseph Taylor, in a book on "The Modern Highway," thus describes his experi- ences, and let us go with him: " Carefully proceeding through the yard and fast freight trains that would follow us, we soon left the station lights behind and plowed into the darkness and storm. John Dobbs was one of the oldest and 132 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. best men on the road. It was his boast, and an honest one, that during the sixteen years he had been driving on that road he had not cost the company a dollar for any negligence or mistake of his. His record was clear. I sat and watched him from the opposite side of the cab. He was rather tall, thin, and of a nervous temperament; and although not even the smoke-stack of the engine could be seen for the darkness and the drifting snow, his piercing eye never wavered from its insubstantial mark. One hand on the throttle, the other on the reversing lever, he stood erect and firm, intensely propelling his vision into the abysmal dark- ness beyond. "The 'Greyhound' began to feel her feet; her speed increased with every stroke of the piston head. Her machinery quivered with its force; she leaped and reeled on each defective joint, but her iron mem- bers held her firm. The fireman never ceased to cast in the fuel, and the fierce flames darted ardently through the brassy veins. Suddenly a scream from the whistle, a quick movement on the throttle the fireman rushed to the other side of the engine a flash of light! We passed a station and a freight train on the side track. More fuel into the fire, and the ' Greyhound ' urged ahead, for now we had a straight piece of track before us. The storm abated and the sky cleared. We passed a few more stations FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS. 133 and freight trains, and at a tremendous speed bounded from the level down a grade, the steepest on the road. Steam was shut off, the fireman seized the wheel, the whistle screamed, and we finally came to a stand right under the hose of a water-tank. " ' Engine driving 1 is trying work such weather as o O / O to-night, sir,' said Johnny, wiping the perspiration off his face with his sleeve, 'when you can't see your signal-lights, nor even your smoke-stack, and you have to run like mad on a bad track to make up time so as not to lose connection. I tell you, it makes a man sweat if he's as cold as a lump of ice. You have to go it blind. You can't see if the switches are right. If trains you are to pass have got into a side track, you can't make out anything till you are right into it. It's trying work on the mind, sir, is driving an engine.' ' Out West travel is exposed to the greatest dangers. Forest and prairie fires are even now to be dreaded. Instances are recorded where trains at full speed rush through a sea of flames, the cars catching fire in several places, being also badly cracked and charred. On the great plains tornadoes, water-spouts and hail- storms cause great destruction. Once on the Kansas Pacific railroad in a thunder-storm and water-spout over six thousand feet of track were washed away, and eight feet of water covered the prairie. A freight 134 FOKTY YEAES ON THE BAIL. train was lost at the time, and, though great efforts were made to find it, not a trace of it has ever been discovered. Many times car windows and shutters have been broken by huge hail-stones. Cyclones are a source of terror to all who have ever heard of the terrible devastation caused by them. Snow has always been one of the greatest obstacles with which railroads must contend. No stronger argument was urged against the construction of a railway across the continent than the heavy snows. " When you get blocked up hundreds of miles from civilization, where will you get provisions to last till the spring thaws let you out?" the objectors argued. In the early days of the road all trains were sent out in winter loaded with supplies of fuel and blankets, and extra quantities of coal, wood and water, and relief trains with provisions were always on hand. Snowplows and snow- sheds solved the problem, and storms are no longer the source of anxiety and suffer- ing they were even a decade ago. The evolution of the snow-plow is a subject of great interest. The first ever constructed was made for the old " Granite railroad " at Quincy, Massachu- setts, which was thus described by a writer of that day: "Even the late snow, which was deeper than has before fallen for several years, has presented no obstruction. On first passing, while the snow was FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS. 135 light, two pieces of plank were placed before the car, meeting in an angle at the center, and drawn along the rails, and by this means the snow was effectually removed so as to render the traveling of the wheels as free as in summer." On this railroad, it will be re- membered, only horse-power was used. Another effort to clear tracks, which was made before my early days, was by fastening brooms to a car-truck, which was pushed along by horses, the locomotive not being brought out until the road was pretty well cleared. In 1836, the Utica and Schenectady railroad made a successful snow-plow somewhat after the modern fashion. Since that time inventive genius has been at work constantly making improvements, until to-day a snow-plow is quite a wonderful piece of machinery, often weighing as much as fifty tons. The huge plows of Western railroads, drawn by as many as twelve or fourteen engines, show how man with his brains can win the victory over seemingly invincible matter. Nature rears before him a wall of snow and ice that stretches away for miles in extent, and raises its head as if in scorn of diminutive humanity who gazes on the barrier. Nothing daunted, the hand of man is raised against his foe, and he sends his mighty agent forward to do his bidding. On plunge half a score or more of locomotives with 136 FORTY YEAES ON THE BAIL. the snow-plow attached. The avalanche is torn into atoms, as time and again its enemies make an attack, until at last the conquering engines give a shriek of victory and press in triumph over the broad path left by the retreating snow. In the days of old, with trains that would scarcely weigh as much as one engine does now, a big snow- storm was the greatest dread of railroad men. It meant to be stalled in the country, miles away from any house, perhaps, for two or three days at least, and lucky indeed was the train that escaped so lightly as that. My first experience with Western storms was in the winter of 1855, when, at Aurora, Illinois, Colonel W. S. Johnson narrowly escaped death. It was with great difficulty that he was revived from the stupor caused by the extreme cold. Six men lost their lives in that storm, within a few miles of the spot where Colonel Johnson had such a narrow escape. For six- teen days trains without number were buried under the mountains of snow that blanketed the prairie, and when I went down to see the last one pulled out I found that the whole train, engine and all, was buried entirely out of sight, so severe had been the storm. Back in 1856, when I was running between Chicago and Waukegan, a furious storm buried our tracks twenty feet in places. However, we did not wish to FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS. 137 abandon the runs, and at the usual hour I started out for Chicago with my train. Before we had gone five miles we ran into a snow-bank near Rosehill and stuck fast. There were only four little ten-ton engines on the road at that time, and all of them were at once set to work to force a path through the drifts. But the little pigmies made no impression on the mass of half frozen snow, and a heavier engine was borrowed from another road. It came out with a force of men and commenced operations just north of Nicker son's woods. The men broke the icy crust off and then the engine plowed into it full tilt. There was about a mile of clear track for the engine to start on, and when it came flying down the level for its first bout with the snow, our superintend- ent, Colonel Johnson, jumped on a fence, in his excite- ment, "to see the fun." I warned him he was too close for safety, but he laughed at the idea of danger, and there he stayed, while I hastened to the center of a big field. A moment later the engine went into the snow bank with a rush, and almost at the same mo- ment Mr. Johnson went off the fence in a back somer- sault, landing in a drift ten feet away. He had been struck by a section of the snow dashed aside by the engine, but fortunately was not hurt. The engine could make no progress against that enormous bulk of snow, and nearly two hundred men were set to work 138 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. shoveling it off the track. For over a week not a train passed over the road. All business was effectually blockaded until the men had slowly shoveled a clear track for many a long mile. During a tremendous snow-storm in the same winter, my train stuck in a field near Eosehill. Colonel Johnson sent a messenger to me saying I could return to Waukegan, so I started to back up. Two miles north of Eosehill we struck another drift which we could not get through, so we plowed our way back to our starting point. By that time night was near at hand and the thermometer registered ten degrees below zero. We had run out of wood for the engine and had to abandon it. With the prospect of a night of suffering before us, it became necessary to send some one to Chicago to carry word of our danger, so David Hillis, the engineer, Mr. Shedd, the fireman, and I started to walk to the city. We trudged through the deep drifts, struggling along for several miles with the utmost difficulty. Finally I could stand it no longer. Cold had brought a kind of lethargy upon me. I was too tired to drag one foot after the other. "I'm done for, boys," I exclaimed, insisting upon lying down on one of the deep drifts to go to sleep. "Brace up. Charley," Hillis cheerily returned. " We're almost there." Taking either arm, my comrades forced me to go FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS. 139 on, though sorely against my will, until at last we stumbled upon a fence belonging to the residence of P. F. W. Peck, in Lake View, one of Chicago's suburban towns, and adjacent to the city. We stag- gered across the wide grounds that surround the mansion, struggling and fighting our way until we reached the door. It was nine o'clock by that time. I rang the bell as vigorously as my weak hands could do it, and Mr. Peck opened the door. At first he looked at us sus- piciously. He was not inclined to receive us into his home, but I explained to him our situation, after which he kindly welcomed us within his hospitable walls. Routing up the servants, Mr. Peck soon had restor- atives to warm our chilled and weary frames. Then he had a lunch set out for us, and we ate with a relish such as only men in our exhausted condition can do. As soon as we were able to start, we left our place of shelter and pushed on to Chicago. Just as the clocks were tolling midnight we marched down the city streets. I went to the Briggs House and called Colonel Johnson, who promptly sent relief to the beleaguered passengers. All that winter we had a hard fight with snow, it being a season of unusual severity. No longer ago than 1SS2, while running a hotel 140 FOETY YEAKS ON THE BAIL. car between Council Bluffs and Chicago, I ran into a snow-storm that tied us up until we were six days making the run. The thermometer registered thirty degrees below zero, and the wind was whistling a gale, when we ran into the first snow bank and stuck fast, nearly buried out of sight in the drifts that the wind rapidly swept over us. We were about a mile from Belle Plaine station, and before we had been there long, our coal supply gave out. In the face of such a blizzard it would have been as much as a man's life was worth to venture away from the train, and with the prospect of slowly freezing to death our situation grew very desperate. The ladies bundled themselves in their wraps and huddled about the stoves, talking over the grave danger, with pale cheeks and tear-wet eyes, but they bore up bravely and not one of them weakened even in the face of what seemed almost certain death. The men gathered in knots at the ends of the cars and discussed some method of saving the helpless women. " Some one must face this storm and bring relief," said one of the gentlemen. "It is our only hope," answered a young man, and then with his teeth set firm, he added: "Gentlemen, I have no wife, no family depending on me. If I should die in the attempt, I could best of all this group be spared. I'll try it." FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS. 141 "Not much," replied the man who at first had suggested it, but before he could say more, a faint shout was heard, apparently from the depths of the snow-drift. There was a rush for the only door on the whole train that could be opened and, as we crowded on the platform, we saw, a few feet off, a sleigh loaded to the guards with eatables and fuel. The citizens of Belle Plaine had learned of our situation and, knowing what dire straits we must be in, had organized 'a relief corps and promptly sent it to our rescue. The men in the sleigh shoveled a narrow path to the train and a few minutes later a roaring fire was blazing in the stoves and the passen- gers were enjoying such a lunch as they had not tasted for many a day. With such a strain taken off our minds, we be- came as jolly a group of people as ever made the rafters ring. We remained there several days, and after plowing our way out we ran into another avalanche of snow near Boone, Iowa, where we were detained for nearly two days more. By that time my passengers were on the best of terms with each other, and our detention was more of a pleasure than a privation. I organized a male quartette, and our singing proved a most satisfactory means of whiling away many an hour. 142 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. One of the crowd improvised some verses which we sang to the familiar strains of "Good-bye, my lover, good-bye." I will give a few verses as an example of the whole song, not so much for their merit, as for the fun and good feeling they represent. There was a train blocked in the snow, Good-bye, my lover, good-bye ; The passengers all were anxious to go, Good-bye, my lover, good-bye. Dinner was served upon the car, . Good-bye, my lover, good-bye ; We'd beef and chicken and polar b'ar, Good-bye, my lover, good bye. Captain George is an elegant man, Good-bye, my lover, good-bye ; To please his passengers he tries all he can, Good-bye, my lover, good-bye. If to Chicago you would get back, Good-bye, my lover, good-bye; Just shoulder your grip and start up the track, Good-bye, my lover, good-bye. And if it does not hail or rain, Good-bye, my lover, good-bye ; You're sure to get there ahead of the train, Good-bye, my lover, good-bye. With these and other songs we cheerily spent the hours of waiting, and we had such a jolly good time that there was always a party of Boone residents with us on the train. Not long after that I started from Chicago to FIGHTING THE ELEMENTS. 143 Oruaha in a pretty hard snow-storm, and among the passengers were the Rev. David Millspaugh, an Episcopal clergyman, of Omaha, and John Dillon, the actor. Our train stuck in the snow out on the prairie the next night, and the following day being Sunday, we had religious services on board conducted by Mr. Millspaugh, with the singing in charge of a very good quartette hastily organized. " Give us a rousing sermon," I said to Mr. Mills- paugh. " It'll bring us help all the sooner." Sure enough before the clergyman had fairly com- menced his discourse, four engines came plowing through the snow to pull us out. It was none too soon either, for we had nearly exhausted our supply of provisions. We were four days and nights in making the trip. CHAPTEE VIII. NOTED PASSENGERS. During my long association with the traveling public, I have not only made warm personal friends, but I have come in contact with some of the greatest men of the nation. Men have been on my train whose careers are identified with our country's progress and whose lives are now embodied in its history. In New England I thus met many of the great men of the past generation. In those days the nation looked to the Atlantic seaboard for her leaders in all departments of thought and action. But I have seen in my forty years of experience the Hues stretched out, first by the Erie road to the outer boundaries of New York State, then into the states along the Ohio River, and finally to the Pacific Ocean, so that now greatness knows no North, no South, no East, no "West, but our nation looks to all sections of our country for her leaders, and the railroad carries noted passengers from every point of the compass. I have lived to see several historical epochs, and the representative* men of each have been many times 144 146 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. my passengers. When I began railroading the Mexican war was at its height; then followed the slavery agitation, then our great civil strife, and then the material progress when railroad extensions and internal improvements seemed to absorb the whole nation. The president who saw us through our strife with Mexico traveled with me when he was in the midst of the perplexities of that struggle. The greatest orator of our country rode with me just two years before his voice thundered out in the halls of congress in defense of the fugitive slave law, in 1850. The greatest editor, who gave his paper, the New York " Tribune," to the cause of the down-trodden black; the greatest preacher, who welcomed to the pulpit of his church the negro who had just escaped the lash of his master; the greatest president, who with a stroke of his pen severed the chains of the slave and set the bondsman and his children free forever all these mighty men of the past have been my passengers. I have carried back and forth hundreds of men less noted in a national sense, but men who were so strong in their noble work, so willing to help on the right, that though their fame is confined to the sections in which they lived, their good work remains as an enduring monument for all time. Many of them were hissed at and scorned for their opinions at first, but NOTED PASSENGEES. 147 they lived long enough to see the cause which they espoused vindicated and themselves appreciated and revered wherever they were known. Many of my passengers who lifted their voices in the cause of liberty were among the foremost in pro- moting railroad extensions and the progress of the great "West. Stephen A. Douglas, whose voice was raised in defense of free soil, and who bore the hoots and jeers of an angry mob to proclaim his defense of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, was the chief instrument in obtaining the enormous land grant for Illinois, which makes her to-day the banner state of railroads. On July 1, 1862, President Lincoln signed the bill for the Union Pacific railroad, and on the same day issued a call for three hundred thousand men, the first of which he felt was necessary for the future binding together of the parts of our country; the latter of which he knew would alone maintain the Union of our fathers. The same editor, whose "Tribune" took up the cause of slavery and the war, was among the fore- most to urge the development of our prairie and our mountain states, and to his advice, "Go West, young man, go West," do those states to-day owe many of their most enterprising and capable public men. In 1848, Daniel Webster was a passenger on the train on which I was running from Boston to Port- land. I was only a verdant youth then, and I was 148 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. struck with a kind of awe as I looked at the great orator. His fine face and noble bearing made an im- pression on me that I never shall forget. Mr. Webster noticed me, my face probably showing the admiration I so deeply felt. He asked me a few questions and then said: ''So you are going to be a railroad man, are you?" "Yes, sir," I replied modestly. " You will find it a life full of temptations, but you can be a good man for all that. Some of the best men in the world have had the most temptation. Do your duty, be honest, and you will come out all right." Many a time since that day I have thought with pride that I thus conversed with the greatest orator America has ever known. Mr. Webster was then considered at the zenith of his power. Three years before he had taken his seat in the United States Senate as the successor of the great Eufus Choate, of Massachusetts. In 1850, he became secretary of state in President Fillmore's cabinet. In 1852, he met with a serious carriage accident, and his health failed, so he retired to his home in Northfield, Massachusetts. Gradually his giant frame gave way before illness and he died in October, 1852, lamented by the whole nation. I can well remember the sadness that was universally felt on the day we heard of the great statesman's death. NOTED PASSENGERS. 149 James K. Polk was also on my train going to Port- land, in 1847. I remember him as being of low stature, with a mild, unassuming manner. His broad, high forehead, well-set, dark eyes, and his firm, ex- pressive mouth, marked him as a man endowed with rare gifts. If I recollect aright, his clothes were made loose, and, he being very thin, his dress thus gave him an appearance of being larger than he really was. Mr. Polk also spoke kindly to me, and wished me success in my new life, for I had told him I had tried my new vocation only a few months. In those days passengers made a great deal of rail- road men. There were no porters, nor Pullman coaches either, so dignitaries had to ride in the ordi- nary cars and put up with the same things as did people less famous. In the year I met Mr. Polk, he and his cabinet were wrestling with the problem of the Mexican war. In February, the Mexican commander-in-chief, Santa Anna, had been defeated by General Taylor, at Buena Vista, which battle secured to the Americans the frontier of the Rio Grande. In March, after a furious bombardment, the castle and city of Vera Cruz had surrendered to our brave General Scott, who, after a brilliant campaign, in September entered the city of Mexico in triumph. Mr. Polk did not long sur- vive the end of his presidential term, as three months 150 FORTY YEARS ON TflE RAIL. after his retirement, in 1849, he died at Nashville, Tennessee. In 1849, while baggage-master on the Boston and Maine road, N my conductor, Elbridge Wood, once called upon me to help him in putting an unruly passenger off the car. A short time afterward the latter brought suit against the road to recover dam- ages. Our attorney was George Minot, and that of the passenger was Benjamin F. Butler. The trial came off at Lowell, Massachusetts. I was called as a witness and gave my evidence in a straightforward way, in accordance with the facts. When Mr. Butler took me in hand he gave me a terrible going over. The passenger had testified that I had punched him in the face with an umbrella while in the act of put- ting him off. This was a gross falsehood, but of course his attorney made the most of it. " Gentlemen of the jury," said Mr. Butler, " look at that young man. Look at him, I say. To think that so nice a looking youth should thrust an umbrella into my client's face! Why, it's an awful thing. He might have put an eye out and disfigured my client for life." More of the same kind of talk followed, and soon I became so enraged at the slander being poured on my defenceless head that I wanted to go right up to the lawyer and give him a sound whipping. I made a NOTED PASSENGERS. 151 Vow then and there, however, that if I ever met him again I would give him the greatest thrashing ever known in history. Thirty-five years passed before I once more met Mr. Butler face to face. I was then running a Pull- man car from Chicago to Minneapolis, and Mr. Butler was on his way to St. Paul, being then engaged in his political campaign of 1884. A gentleman who was one of the general's party happened to be a friend of mine, so I told him the story of the trial in 1849. Taking me into the dining-car, where Mr. Butler and his friends were waiting for dinner to be brought in, my friend introduced me to the noted man. "General," I said in a few moments, "I have had a grudge against you for thirty-five years, and I just thought I would come in and settle with you." "A grudge? What is it, Captain?" asked the General. I then told the story of the trial. " That was a good while ago, Captain, and you won the case," said Mr. Butler, with a hearty laugh. " I have grown pretty old since then, and you don't want to thrash me now, do you?" The whole party burst into a roar of laughter, in which the presidential candidate heartily joined, finally inviting me to take dinner with him and his friends. " Now, Captain, seeing that we have made up and 152 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. are good friends, I suppose you will vote for me," said General Butler when we closed our pleasant inter- view. Jenny Lind, the " Swedish Nightingale," as she was called, made a flying trip on my train to Portland in 1851. An immense crowd of people were at the depot in Boston to see her off, and all along the road she was enthusiastically greeted. I well remember when a gentleman of Boston paid six hundred and twenty-five dollars for a single ticket to one of her concerts. It was said that during her engagement with P. T. Barnum the receipts were $712,151, of which Jenny Lind received $176,675. Barnum's con- tract was one thousand dollars a night for one hun- dred and fifty nights, but he voluntarily gave the great songstress more than he had promised her. During her stay in America Jenny Lind was hon- ored as much for her generous gifts for various chari- table purposes and her worthy private character as she was for her wonderful singing. At Boston she was married to Otto Goldschmidt, a young pianist, who had accompanied her during her American con- certs. The poet John G. Saxe was often on my train while I ran on the Western Vermont road. He was the most forgetful man I ever knew, and never got off a train without leaving behind his cane, or hat, or NOTED PASSENGERS. 153 overshoes, or overcoat, not being conscious of the fact until reminded of it. One day the poet was thus greeted by a friend as he was going up the street: "Hello, where's your hat?" 'On my head, of course," replied Mr. Saxe, put- ting up his hand to find out. " That's strange. Where can it be?" then said the puzzled poet. "Where have you come from?" inquired his friend. " From the train." "Then I guess your hat is still aboard." Sure enough, when the truth became known, the hat had been found by a brakeman in the car, and so it got safely back to its owner. Notorious people travel as much as others. Of these I remember Jim Fisk frequently rode with me on the Western Vermont railroad, in the days when he was peddling dress goods through the State. He had the finest peddler's wagon I ever saw and drove a fine span of horses with silver mounted harnesses. He sold silk goods chiefly, and bought them in New York, making a good deal of money. My wife bought a silk dress from him which is in existence to-day, proving to be all he recommended. Fisk afterward became a member of the New York Stock Exchange and then connected himself with Gould and the Erie railroad. 154 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. The story of his later life is well known to all and does not need repetition here. During mj long term of railroading in the West, I met a great many well-known people. Stephen A. Douglas rode with me on his way to Milwaukee in 1869, when engaged in his presidential campaign. At Waukegan the senator got out of the train and made a little speech, a great crowd having gathered there to see him. Just as Mr. Douglas alighted from the car an Irish woman, who was somewhat under the influ- ence of liquor, rushed up to him and exclaimed: " Oh, Mr. McDooglas, sure'n you're a great man and a sthrong man, an' we'll all vote for yez. Ye' 11 be the nixt prisidint sure, an' I want to kiss yez." It seems that this admirer of the Little Giant thought he was an Irishman, and that his name must have the prefix which she gave it. In the same year, Abraham Lincoln went to Wau- kegan with me during his presidential campaign. He was to make a speech at Dickenson's hall, at Wauke- gan, and I was on the platform as one of the com- mittee. Hon. H. W. Blodgett, now a judge in the United States district court of Chicago, introduced Mr. Lincoln to the audience, and the orator had just started his speech when the cry of fire was raised. E. P. Ferry, then a prominent lawyer, and who has since been governor of Washington Territory, was also on NOTED PASSENGERS. 155 the platform, and the instant the alarm was heard he jumped up and shouted: "Keep your seats! Keep your seats! This is a Democratic dodge to break up the meeting." This prompt action of Mr. Ferry probably pre- vented the death of many persons which excitement and a rush might have caused. His words produced such a calm that the crowd, which packed the hall to overflowing, departed quietly and quickly. The fire proved to be in a building not far away, and Mr. Lin- coln was not able, on account of the excitement, to deliver his speech that night. Back in those old days there was a fund of remin- iscence rich Avith interest, now a generation has passed since the scenes were enacted. I remember well the day when honest old Abe was nominated for the presi- dency. I was in the throng at the Wigwam and joined in the procession that was formed amid the wildest enthusiasm. We carried rails on our shoulders in memory of the day when our great leader was only a humble rail-splitter. The stirring scenes of Mr. Lincoln's campaign and of the civil strife that took place during his life are so familiar that I will not dwell upon them here. The day of his assassination I can never forget. Just as my train arrived at Evanston, twelve miles from Chi- cago, the news of the terrible deed reached us by wire. 156 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Quite a number of prominent Republicans were in the train. In the smoking-car was a jolly company, among whom were Judge Blodgett, and Mr. Ferry, whom I have just mentioned. Somebody's good joke had made the whole party burst into a roar of merri- ment, when I entered. " Gentlemen," I said, with the message crushed in my hand, and my voice husky with deep emotion, "gentlemen, President Lincoln is dead!" A silence fell upon the company, and many a cheek grew deathly pale, while words seemed denied them all. "President Lincoln dead!" gasped Mr. Ferry at length. "No, no; it can't be true; it can't be true." In answer I spread the message before them, and as some one read it aloud there was not a dry eye in the car. A pall seemed to settle down upon us for the rest of the trip, and a sadder lot of passengers never stepped from a train. Horace Greeley was once one of my passengers on the Waukegan run. We had orders to make ten minutes' extra time that day, and the Michigan Southern road held their train for New York fifteen minutes, so as to enable Mr. Greeley to make connections for the East in Chicago. When we arrived at the depot, the hack- men, who were a rough set of men in those days, sup- posed the distinguished man to be some verdant NOTED PASSENGERS. 157 countryman, his odd dress, big umbrella, his hat on the back of his head giving that impression. Several hackmen rushed up and seized the editor. " Here, old seed, get into this hack," said one driver, pulling Mr. Greeley to his conveyance. We rescued our noted passenger from the clutches of his pursuers and placed him in the elegant carriage which was awaiting him. "Look here," I said to the hackman, "that's Horace Greeley." "Jingo! Is that so?" exclaimed the man, for once in his life taken aback, and the crowd laughed at his expense. Mr. Greeley seemed to enjoy the joke as well as the rest, and departed amid the cheers of all the by- standers. There are few men who, in a private capacity, have had so much influence in this country as Horace Greeley, and few men have been so well known by all classes of society. The old white hat, the flowing gray hair and beard were as famous in his day as was the man himself. Never did a man live who was more generous. Indeed, Mr. Greeley 's generosity was carried to a fault, but we who knew him can never forget how the great editor took up the cause of the oppressed and the suffering everywhere. He was a humanitarian in the largest sense of the word. 158 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Hon. William Cody, better known as " Buffalo Bill," was once a passenger on my car " Cataract, 1 ' running to Jersey City. He had the exclusive use of the drawing-room, and ordered all his meals in the car. He liked good living, and good drinking, too, for that matter, as his b*lls on my car can show. How Mr. Cody has received his many titles is not generally known to the public, so I shall quote the following from a letter recently received by me from North Platte, Nebraska: " When William Cody was a small boy he lived hereabouts, while white men were few and Indians were plenty. One day when " Bill " was fooling with a little gun he shot an Indian, and thereby won a boyish fame and brought his name before the people at a youthful age. When grown to manhood he received the contract of furnishing buffalo meat to the builders of the Kansas Pacific railroad, at the rate of one hundred dollars a month for his services. He had a number of hair-breadth escapes in this business, but was fully compensated for all his dangers and hardships by winning the title " Buffalo Bill/' This, together with the chance acquaintance of a novel writer of the tomahawk and scalping-knife species, brought him fame, and his election to the Nebraska legislature, when there didn't happen to be anybody else to send, added " Honorable " to the name already NOTED PASSENGERS. 159 so well known. The " Colonel " was thrust upon him by the governor of Nebraska before Mr. Cody went to Europe, so that he might make a still greater sensa- tion than even his show." Henry Ward Beecher took a trip with me on a Pullman car while I was running from Chicago to New York, and I was impressed with his intellectual ability. He bore upon him the marks of greatness. The most striking characteristic of Mr. Beecher was his vitality. No one could see his big frame, the strong limbs and deep chest, the broad shoulders and great head, the loose hair thrown back from the full forehead, the large eyes, and the heavy lips, without feeling that he was a man of power. He was capable not only of bursts of energy, but of long and very exhausting work. Mr. Beecher prided himself on having made the pulpit of his church a free platform. From it spoke the heroes of the old anti-slavery fight, with Wendell Phillips in the van. There it was that they raised money to buy the liberty of slaves. It re-echoed with a welcome to Kossuth and with appeals for the oppressed at home and abroad. From it came calls for charity, for education, for freedom, and for humanity. I can well remember when Mr. Beecher startled the country with his bold denunciations of slavery. He began his work in this line at a very early day. In 1840, Boston 160 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. railways built a mean, plain car for negroes to ride in. It was called the " Jim Crow " car. Charles Lenox Redmond, an educated colored man, entertained in England by persons of rank and fame, and commis- sioned by O'Connell and Father Mathew to bear greetings from liberty in England to liberty in America, found, on going from Boston to Salem, his home, that he must ride in the " Jim Crow " car. In such a time Mr. Beecher began to ask the colored men to sit on the platform in his church, and thus the " negro car " was met in equity by the refuge of the greatest pulpit the world possessed. Mr. Beecher never missed a train, but he always calculated to the second, having a watch that was as true as the needle to the pole. Major Pond thus gives a characteristic sketch of how Mr. Beecher planned to get to the depot. " I went to where Mrs. Beecher stood looking out of the window. There in the middle of the street, with a lot of children around him, was Mr. Beecher in his cardigan jacket, a silk hat on his head, and a stick in his mouth, with strings attached, as children make bits, and he was prancing up and down and back and forth, and playing horse with the youngsters. You would have died laughing seeing that sight. " ' Henry,' exclaimed Mrs. Beecher, ' what on earth are you doing? Do you know what a sight you are? You will lose the train.' NOTED PASSENGERS. 161 "Mr. Beecher stopped, drew out his watch he always carried a first-class time-keeper and, replying as he put it back, " 'No I won't; I've got two minutes yet,' off he gal- loped with the children at his heels in high glse. He used up the two minutes, and we just caught the ferry in time." Mr. Beecher was a good traveler. He was always in the best of spirits on a train, and was as approach- able while on the rail as anywhere on earth. I doubt whether there ever was a public man with a similar taxing position, and subject as he was all his life to the most searching criticism from people and news- papers, who was so well known for his amiability and approachableness. A Chicago reporter thus tells of an interview with the great preacher : " ' Mr. Beecher, I am a reporter, and I ' " ' Ah,' he said, ' I thought you were a very good looking young man.' " ' Now, Mr. Beecher,' I said in breathless haste, ' I desire to roll the wheel of conversation around the axle-tree of your understanding for a while.' " ' I see,' he replied earnestly. ' You wish to unwind the thread of thought from the spool of my mind.' " Having got started in this sort of fun, it was several minutes before I could switch him off on the track of business." 11 162 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Many years ago I had the honor of the presence of James G. Blaine among my passengers. I gave him a hearty shake of the hands and said that I felt acquainted with him, as I had made my wedding trip to Augusta in 1849, and this, it seemed to me ought to make us a sort of cousins. Mr. Blaine took the joke in the spirit I meant it, and then I remarked that I hoped some day to see him president of the United States. This was long before the Maine statesman was ever spoken of for that office, or had won his noted title of the " Plumed Knight," but my admira- tion for the man led me to make the remark. Royalty has had only one representative among my passengers, and that was the Grand Duke Alexis of Hussia, who was making a tour of the United States. He was on his way to Milwaukee when he took his trip with me. Dr. Vincent, the founder of the Chautauqua Liter- ary and Scientific Circle, was often a passenger with me on my Waukegan train. He was then in the Garrett Biblical Institute at Evanston. Few men have done so great a work as Dr. Vincent. His pen, his voice, and his example, are always on the side of religion and education, and his influence extends around the world. Among the greatest reformers of the day is Frances Willard, of Evanston. When a little girl, NOTED PASSENGERS. 163 and during many succeeding years, she often was on my train going to and from Chicago, and her father, mother and brother, I knew well. Before beginning her temperance work, Miss Willard was dean of the Women's College at Evanston. It is as president of the Women's Christian Temperance Union that she is best known to the world, and her work in this great cause has already marked her as one of the most eminent women of the age. CHAPTEK IX. RAILROAD MEN. Forty years of experience have shown me that no finer men are to be found in the country than those connected with the railroads. They are men of more than average ability, more than average courage and strength. It is only natural that it should be so. Large salaries in the higher walks of the profession, and the opportunity for advancement held out even to the beginner, attract talent. The work itself has about it that which draws those who have in them any executive ability and the power to handle men. Rail- roads have been the foster-mother of genuine success, able and glad to reward by promotion capabilities adequate to the calls of the hour. There is a certain independence and self-respect that comes with having the care of other lives. Knowing that amid the darkness of night, the storms of winter, and the war of the elements, hundreds of human beings are to be kept in safety, carries with it a peculiar dignity and sense of responsibility that is felt all along the line, from the man at the switch, the 164 THE FARMER'S ARGUMENT. Page 229 166 FORTY YEA.RS ON THE RAIL. man on the locomotive, the man who controls the train, up through all the various ranks of superin- tendents and officers, even to the highest. The railroad is a potent ally of temperance. No employee, whether of the staff, or of the operating departments, is long retained in service if intemperate. A writer has said, " The locomotive has turned our coachmen into heroes. The exchange of leather rib- bons for steel has made out of the beer-soaked Tony Weller a brave captain; and if the man in the blue overalls and black cap is not as jolly and communica- tive as his predecessor in corduroy and gloves, he is at least sober, faithful and intelligent." Kailroading is rapidly advancing into the dignity of a profession, requiring a knowledge of many branches of science, training of a high order, and careful application as well as unselfish devotion to public and corporate interests. It has thus not only brought into being, by the persistent activity of traffic, an army of enterprising, pushing ousiness men the world would never otherwise have known, but it has taught order, punctuality, and business promptness to all classes of society, and is rapidly raising the world to a higher plane. The feeling of good fellowship that exists through- out the different circles of railroad men has often been noticed by outsiders. This is largely due to the fact RAILROAD MEN. 167 that the higher officers have come up from the rank and file, and so understand the feelings and hardships of their subordinates. There is an approachableness about even the highest that takes away from them the hated taskmaster element which is found in other employments. All " the boys " on the road will swear by their superintendents, and no matter what their grievance may be, they feel that if they can only lay it before the " old man " it will be properly dealt with. As a rule the latter is sincerely and heartily in sympathy with his subordinates, and in my experience I have met with many superintendents who were fairly worshiped by their men. Such a man was H. C. Atkins, or " Hub " Atkins, as he was generally known. When the sad news of his death was flashed along the wires there was not a dry eye on the road. While he was on the Milwaukee and St. Paul, the men, from section hands to conductor, would have gone to the ends of the earth to do him a good turn. Very few people who are not in the service under- stand the vast amount of responsibility and hard work that falls to the lot of the operating officials of a great railroad. People have become so accustomed to the smooth work clone by the various lines of the country that they never stop to think how it is done. To realize it let the reader follow the course of even the poorest emigrant from Europe to our Pacific slope. 168 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. From the heart of the Alps, perhaps, he starts on his way, and, from the time he takes the train nearest his home to the hour he touches the soil of California, though not able to speak any language but his own, ignorant of others' customs, without friends on his way, beset at nearly every step by sharpers, the traveler is cared for and his numerous boxes and bundles pro- tected. Day after day, after leaving Castle Garden, he goes speeding over this great continent. Engineers and conductors change. He passes from the care of one corporation to another, until he has been in charge of perhaps half a dozen companies. He eats and sleeps at the usual intervals, all the time passing over broad plains, huge viaducts and iron bridges, going through hills and mountains, or climbing over their sides; bounding by canons and cataracts, and traversing great stretches of uninhabited and desolate country. It all seems a very simple matter to the traveler, and even his wealthy brother, who has been luxuriating in a Pullman car during those many days of travel, does not realize what it all means to the brains that are back of this wonderful system of transportation. How much money has been put into this vast line of rails ; how much lost in making/ experiments before the feat was accomplished; how many millionaires have been ruined in the enterprise; how many hazardous risks surveyors and contractors have run to provide the RAILROAD MEN. 169 highway; and how many lives of common laborers and others have been sacrificed in the work of con- struction; how complicated is the system that is necessary to carry on affairs when an army of em- ployees are needed for its successful administration; how wide awake are engineers and firemen, conductors and brakemen during the long nights on the journey of all this the traveler does not think, nor does he care. For another illustration of the cares of railroad men let the outsider consider the questions that pre- sent themselves to ticket agents. Think of the scores of different kinds of tickets that must be made to meet the needs of as many kinds of passenger traffic. " The wants of the countless suburban towns that dot the line are manifold," says one who seems to know all about it; "tickets must be supplied for every emergency, from the amiable gentleman who occupies his villa and buys a ticket for a good round year, down to his envious neighbor with lean and hungry parse who wants a discount out of all proportion to the amount he pays. The excursionist, and the Sunday school picnic, the patriotic citizen, the humble politician, the subdued and somber dominie with large family and small means, the jovial circus man, the autocrat, the first-class passenger, the real estate man, the employee, the funeral man, the demure youth of 170 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. fifteen traveling as a lad of ten, the man who is con- tent to occupy the second-class carriage, the young miss going to the adjoining town to school, the ferocious drover, the friendly drummer, the man who won't buy a ticket, the man who wants a pass, the mendicant, the impostor, all require separate pro- vision and each receives the exact consideration his or her particular claim demands." The responsible working organization of each of the various railroad companies of the nation consists of the president, vice-president, treasurer and secre- tary, who are annually elected by the board of direc- tors. These men are possessed of absolute power over the destinies of the company's servants, and though the power is rarely if ever exercised, their wishes are law. They are generally men of wisdom and justice, kindly and considerate of subordinates, moved by no jealousies, and controlled by no cliques, being of such broad views as to make these feelings almost impossi- ble. Frequently knowing but little if anything of the practical operations of a railroad, rarely seen by its army of operatives, they are yet thought of with awe and are spoken of with profound respect, while many quaint and pleasant things concerning them are found floating around among the subordinate officers and employees. The peculiarities of many of our railroad presi- RAILROAD MEN. 171 dents and vice-presidents have become legendary upon the roads they once controlled, and in the lulls of business, even the obscurest employee delights in recounting the legends that have come down to him of the great officers of the company who have passed away. Dozens of such stories are in existence about Erastus Corning, who was well known for his eccen- tricity, and who had queer ways of dealing with his men. Mr. Corning was a lame man and not very prepos- sessing in his looks. He stood one day on the plat- form and when he was about ready to step into the cars, a conductor who did not know him shouted, kk Come, hurry up, old man; don't be all day about it, the train can't wait." "Do you know the gentleman you ordered on board?" asked a passenger of the conductor, when the latter went through the car to take up the tickets. " No, and I don't want to know him." " It may ba worth your while to make his acquaintance. He is your boss, the president of the road, and he'll take your head off." The conductor gave a low whistle, and looked as if he wo aid think about it. He put a bold face on the matter, sought out the president and offered an apology. " Personally I care nothing about it," said Mr, 172 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Corning. " If you had been so rude to any one else, I would have discharged you on the spot. You saw I was lame, and that I moved with 'difficulty. The fact that you did not know who I was does not alter the complexion of your act. I'll keep no one in my employ who is uncivil to travelers." Among the many stories afloat about Mr. Corning, the following is a good one. One day a conductor in search of a position went to Mr. Corning to apply for one. " Have you a diamond ring ?" asked the president of the Central. " No, sir," replied the conductor. "A fast horse?" " No, sir." " A house and lot, or money in the bank?" " No, sir." " Then you can't have a place on my road. You're sure to want all these things, and I don't want you to make them out of us," said Mr. Corning, closing the interview abruptly. The operating officers who have in trust the prac- tical working of /a road consist of the general manager, chief of engineers, solicitor, general agents, superintendents, auditor and local treasurer. In early days the chief of these officers was known as superin- tendent, then the title was changed to general superin- RAILROAD MEN. 173 tendent, and finally the present name was adopted. As can be readily seen, this officer must understand thoroughly every department and every branch of the service. He is always a man of quick intuitions, is resolute in action, self-possessed, active and energetic. He is made of the material from which great military leaders are formed. These same characteristics must also distinguish all the officers who are the aides-de- camp of the general manager. The operating officials of our great trunk lines have, in a majority of cases, come from the lower departments of the service, having been advanced as fast as their merits showed them worthy of promotion. Mention has several times been made in these pages of such progress. A striking illustration may be found in the life of A. N. Towne, superintendent of the Central Pacific railroad. He was a Massachusetts boy, and singularly enough, on the day of his birth there arrived in New York the first locomotive engine ever used in the United States the " Stourbridge Lion." Mr. Towne began his railroad experience as a brakeman on a freight train. He was bright, capable and winning. A telegram one day stopped his train, and he was ordered to the general office. He was pointed to a chair and told to take a seat at the desk. " I know nothing about clerking," said the young man. 174 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. " You can do as you are told, I suppose," was the response from his superior officer. He did as he was bid and did it well. Time went on and the Central Pacific was in search of a superin- tendent. The man whose career was thus so success- fully begun was recommended for the place. The liberal offer nearly took his breath away: " Twelve thousand a year to begin with ! " Success attended him in his new career, as elsewhere, and to-day he has few if any equals in his work. Of his methods, Mr. Towne says: "I systematize my work. It never drives me. I keep ahead of it. Every day's duties are finished before I leave my office. I use all persons alike, whatever may be their positions on the road. In business I consider every one entitled to courteous treatment. When I deny a favor I try to do it as though it was painful to myself." Most of my life has been spent on trains, and nat- urally it is with the men in the train service that I have had most to do, and with whom I am best acquainted. Of all these the engineer is least to be envied. To a non-railroading person who stops to think of this position, the responsibility seems almost unendurable. Ever on the alert, never relaxing his watchfulness while on the run, with the constant jolting and the exposure to the weather, the engineer KAILEOAD MEN. 175 passes his life under a most terrible strain on his nervous system. Hundreds of times have I pitied the poor fellows when I have watched them pull out of a station in a blinding storm and heavy fog, or a terrific gale, not knowing at what moment a broken rail, a weak bridge, or a misplaced switch, might land them in eternity. Engineers must not only look out for themselves, but for the hundreds who are back of them in the passenger coaches, and they never can be certain that the switchmen, on whose fidelity they are forced to depend, have done their duty, until the crossings or the sidings have been safely passed. Only a step lies between them and death, and it is the step of one traveling thirty or forty miles an hour. These men have not only physical courage, but a moral stamina and mental quickness beyond the aver- age man, and all of these qualities are put to the test from the moment they mount the foot-board to the time they run their engines into the round-house. Brave almost to recklessness, an engineer never deserts his post in time of danger, and many a hero's life has been sacrificed that the train might be saved. He must be a man of iron will, able to withstand pressure and outside influence in the hour of danger. He is often thought to construe instructions of caution too rigidly and passengers frequently grumble about delay- 176 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. ing trains, as it seems to them, needlessly. But the engineer knows best, and never yields to what he feels are unreasonable demands, when his better judgment points in a different direction. One of the most interesting features of the great railway exhibition held in Chicago in 1883 was an ovation to the veteran locomotive engineers of the country who were present in large numbers. A pro- cession was formed of the veterans, including Horace Allen, the pioneer locomotive builder, and they all marched to the annex of the exposition building to see the " John Bull," the oldest locomotive capable of steaming. A circle was then formed with the engi- neers in the center, and while the band played " Auld Lang Syne," the "John Bull" built in 1831, steamed up the central track. Three cheers were given for the engine. John Sexton was then introduced as the engineer of this old locomotive. Mr. Sexton made a speech in which he said : "I have railroaded for forty years; have tried to do my duty and obeyed orders. The 'John Bull 'was built in 1831. By the time she was in condition for service, on the Camden and Amboy railroad, there were five other engines built, she having been used as a pattern. In 1833 she was placed on the road and was in use up to 1866. I firad the engine in 1843 and 1844, and in 1847 I ran her, and have been running RAILROAD MEN. 177 her at different times since. I have run engines with from four to ten wheels, and in all my service have not lost four weeks' time." George Hollingsworth of the Rogers Locomotive Works was then called on for a speech and said : "I have been an engineer since 1836; have run an engine ever since that time and have never had an accident on the road, and never injured a person in all my life; not even a dog, that I know of." Mr. McAllister of the Shaw Locomotive Works, then spoke, saying he had once run the " John Bull." George Davidson, the old engineer of the " Samp- son," being called on for a speech, said he was born in England, had helped to build the *' Sampson," had come to this country with her, and had run her con- tinually until August, 1882. Among the other veterans present were Mr. Osborne of the Pennsylvania Company, who began railroading in 1852* Mr. Marsh of the Rhode Island Locomotive Works; Mr. Pickerell of the Pittsburg Locomotive Works, who began as engineer in 1848; and Mr. Pasho of the Brooks Locomotive Works. Many speeches were made, eulogistic and historical, and all through the evening the engineers were made to feel themselves the heroes of the occasion. From the ranks of baggagemen and brakemen have come some of the most successful railroad officials of 12 178 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. to-day. These places are important in themselves, and not less so because they are stepping-stones to the higher positions. In my early experience, hand- ling baggage was not so hard as it is to-day. Then people had fewer worldly possessions and so could not fill the enormous trunks that are now the bane of a bag- gageman's life. Commercial travelers with their heavy sample trunks did not exist as in these later times, while traveling theatrical and opera companies, that now are so numerous and which always go heavily laden with costume trunks, were then few and far between. The introduction of the Westinghouse air-brake has greatly decreased the duties of brakemen, this contrivance being operated as one brake by the fire- man or engineer. But the brakeman's duties are numerous, and on freight trains they are arduous and dangerous, on account of the coupling which is still done by hand. Of all railroad men those I know best are the con- ductors, and I have found them a whole-souled, brave set of fellows. Generous and open-hearted to a fault, their best nature never gets soured at the foibles of the race, though to no one else are the weaknesses of humanity shown so bluntly and obtrusively. To an outsider their work seems easy, yet from the moment a conductor takes a train till he lands it in safety at EAILKOAD MEN. 179 its journey's end, there is a constant and by no means light strain on his mind. His time-table must be kept constantly in view, with no forgetting of a single one of its figures, and he must not only see that his own train is exactly on schedule time, but he must know just where every train coming in an opposite direction will meet and pass him. All matters, all differences are referred to him, and with quick wits, keen eyes, and above all a cool head, he must be prepared to in- stantly meet every emergency that may 'arise, with a practical knowledge to help him with expedients when accidents occur, a ready judgment and nerve to act promptly in time of danger. There are occasions when a little mistake, a moment's hesitation might cost a score of lives, and no one realizes that fact more than the conductor himself. He must see that no time is lost at stations, must have an eye to the condi- tion of the track, the trestles, bridges, culverts, and embankments ; must be watchful of the cleanliness of each car, the examination of couplings and bell-ropes ; must be on the alert for signals from his engineer and from stations on his route; must have at his fingers' ends all the intricate system of rules and regulations issued by his superiors. Not only must a conductor be a good judge of human nature, but he must have tact to deal with every class, being quick yet courteous, firm and yet 180 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. agreeable. He must discriminate between the one who is really unfortunate in losing his ticket and money and the one who feigns misfortune so as to get a free ride, being always on the alert for the thousand and one ways in which passengers try to defraud him. yet so careful of appearances that he does not seem to be suspicious. He must keep his passengers con- stantly in mind, so as to see that they get out at their own stations, and must be sure to take up all tickets, often going through a long train thirty or more times on each trip to make sure of the tickets of those who get on at way stations. He must get off at every stopping place, no matter what the hour of night or the state of wind and weather, to see passengers off and signal the train to proceed, being always on time and never in undue haste. He must have plenty of leisure to give courteous replies to all questions, no matter how foolish they are, and must keep an accurate account and give an accurate report of tickets and fares collected. In fact, he is the captain of the train and the requirements of his position are legion. Unruly, noisy, unreasonable, drunken passengers are a source of constant annoyance, and often of danger. I have known of many cases where conduc- tors have been shot at by such passengers, or have been attacked in other ways. Nearly forty years ago I was baggagemaster of a train that pulled RAILROAD MEN. 181 out of Boston ill charge of Elbridge Wood, con- ductor, and David Pasho, engineer, and George Hunt, fireman. Three roughs got on board at the station, and when Mr. Wood went through the train they refused to pay fare. The men laughed in his face and dared him to try to put them off. Mr. Wood called the engineer, fireman and myself to his assist- ance, and after a rough and tumble fight we threw the fellows off the train. In the struggle half a dozen seats were wrenched from their places and kicked to pieces, and several windows were broken. One of the roughs fastened his teeth on Pasho' s middle finger, as they fell from the train together, and would not let go till he had been choked black in the face. Even to this day such scenes are not uncommon, though far less frequent than when railroads were new. Pasho is still living and is in the mammoth locomotive works of H. G. Brooks, at Dunkirk, New York. George Hunt has been a Chicago policeman for thirty-two years and had one of his arms shot off in the great beer riot of 1855. Considering the work they do and the responsi- bility of their duties, conductors are far from being well paid. Many ofiice men with no responsibility get twice as much as they do. Honesty ought to be encouraged by liberal pay. Put a premium on hon- esty and the service will be a thousand times better 182 FOKTY YEAKS ON THE KAIL. for it. By paying them more give the men a chance to save a little of their earnings. Many a poor fellow has faithfully worked for a railroad during long years, on poor pay, only to be dropped from the roll when old or disabled. Many sad instances are recorded where employees who have given long and faithful service to their roads, have been left in old age to the charity of the world. I remember a conductor, George Richardson, one of nature's noblemen, who lost the use of his legs after many years of active duty with his company. The poor fellow was dropped from the pay-roll, and when a brother conductor broke the news to him Richardson cried like a child. For sixteen years he has been in the same helpless condition, and only the kindness of friends has kept him from starvation. From his company he received nothing, but the atten- tion and care of others have given him less cause to grieve over " man's inhumanity to man." Conductors often turn an honest penny by carrying on a little commission business and thus accommoda- ting the patrons of their roads. Those who run through rural districts get farmers' products and sell them to city buyers at a good profit. In the early days of my running the Waukegan train, I made quite a good deal of money by purchasing goods in Chicago for my passengers in Waukegan. I took all this trade to RAILROAD MEN. 183 Potter Palmer, wlio is now known the world over for his magnificent hotel and great wealth, but who in the days of which I speak had just started in the dry goods business, having founded the firm which to-day is the vast house of Marshall Field & Co. Mr. Palmer never forgot me at Christmas time, and he always gave me my own goods at cost. Conductors have many good times among them- selves, and when off duty are fond of getting together to while away an hour or so in social converse. When I began railroading in Chicago, the cigar store of John C. Partridge was a favorite rendezvous. Often a dozen or more of us would congregate there to smoke or tell stories. Not only was the proprietor heartily liked among the boys, but equally as popular were his two clerks, William Best and Henry Russell. When Mr. Partridge died, we remained faithful to the old stand, and in the course of time, we saw the business grow into the largest in the entire West. The rise of these two young clerks strikingly illustrates the spirit and methods of Chicago. They began life when I first knew them on salaries of five dollars a week; they are now among the richest men of the Garden City. Mr. Best has acquired political prominence. He was at one time collector of the South Town of Chicago, and has declined office once or twice because of the pressure of private business. He is now South 184 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Park commissioner, and president of the Douglas Club. Another favorite gathering place of the conductors of long ago was the Tremont house, then kept by David and George Gage. Very popular among us all was the clerk, Sam Turner, who is at present at the Grand Pacific and is known over the whole country for his wonderful memory. John B. Drake took the Tre- mont House over twenty years ago. Mr. Drake is now a millionaire, and is at the head of the Grand Pacific Hotel, which he has made one of the most noted hotels in the United States. Chicago has become so vast a city that it would be impossible to speak of similar meeting places of the railroad men of the present. After all, I doubt whether these busier days ever witnessed the jolly times we used to have in " Auld Lang Syne." The conductor usually draws about him those of his passengers who are at all sociably inclined, and thus is started many a friendship that grows closer with each passing year. In the old days this was more often the case than at present. People were not so busy then, and they had more leisure for culti- vating old friends and making new ones. Then, too, railroading being in its infancy, few men were regular travelers, and nearly everybody depended on the con- ductors for advice and instructions. Many would RAILROAD MEN. 185 IIOXIE AND THE TRAMP Page 231. make it a point to wait for their particular con- ductor's train, and in a thousand and one ways showed their kindly feel- ings. My own experience has been so full of pleasant associations on the rail- road, and so many favors received, that a narration of them would alone fill a book, but I shall single out a few as examples of the many. 186 FORTY YEAKS ON THE KAIL. In 1849, after I had been running the Beading train on the Boston and Maine road for two years, a group of my passengers called ine into the depot at Boston, and before I had time to think what was coming, they put a silver watch into my hand, saying it was a little token of their regard for me. This was my first present, and coming without the slightest warning, I could only stammer out a few syllables in lieu of thanks. My watch was a valuable one for those days, and I carried it for ten years when it was stolen from my house by burglars. In a very short time my friends heard of my loss, and a few days later, as I stepped into the depot in Chicago, Rev. P. Judson presented me with an elegant gold watch as a testimonial of regard from the passengers of the Waukegan train. The watch was valued at two hun- dred and twenty-five dollars. For over a quarter of a century that time-piece has been my constant com- panion, and no better reminder could I desire of the friends and scenes of a generation ago. Five years later, in 1864, W. S. Johnston, of Lake Forest, who had been a daily passenger with me for years, beckoned me into the -Wells street depot, Chi- cago. At one end of the room stood a table covered with packages, and about it were gathered a number of friends. Mr. Johnston then presented me, in be- half of numerous passengers, a beautiful silver service RAILROAD MEN. 187 of nine pieces. The service was on exhibition at the office of the "Evening Journal" in Chicago, for several days, hundreds of people stopping to admire it. Two years later I was given an exquisite set of pie forks, of English make, and valued at seventy-five dollars. Since then friends have from time to time given me hosts of souvenirs, until I have curiosities and odds and ends enough to more than fill a cabinet. The newsboys on the trains deserve a place in this chapter. Forty years ago they were not known, books and papers not being sold on the road, but at the ter- minal stations. No fruits, nuts, or candies were sold either, and passengers had to carry such things with them or do without any. The newsboy now is considered a necessity, and while he is often abused by the traveling public he has his mission. In my day I have met many faithful and enterprising boys doing such work, and I have seen them get on steadily in this world's affairs. On my train twenty-five years ago was a little round-faced lad, who was the youngest newsboy I ever saw. When the road was let to a news agent, we all had a good word to say for little Johnny, and he was kept in the service. For a long time he ran on our line, and being saving and prudent, he finally got money enough to start a news stand in Waukegan, and now John Ponsonby is well known as doing a successful business in the book trade. 188 FOKTY YEARS ON THE BAIL. The newsboy is often among the bravest on the train. I can remember when my train was snowed in during one of the terrible storms of which I have already spoken, Tom Smith, who has been a newsboy on the Chicago and North- Western railway for over twenty years, volunteered to make his way through the blinding storm and the deep drifts to the nearest town. He knew he would be risking his life, but he was willing to take the risk, and was about to do so when help came. Railroad men have formed not only a new class or element in society, but records of their lives and characters have become a part of the literature of the day. Poets and novelists have .taken them up, glad of a new field in which to work, and they have found in this field characters rich in all that can make a novel or a poem of interest to the reader. Heroes are to be found in every grade of the ser- vice, and the engineer who gives his life for his train, the man at the switch, the man who faces the robber in the baggage-car, the conductor who springs from his train to save a child playing on an adjoining track whom a coming locomotive is threatening to dash upon, all furnish examples of true heroism as bright and worthy of imitation as are to be found in the records of Greece or Eome. " The Man at the Switch " is a poem by which audiences have often been deeply RAILROAD MEN. 189 moved, and hundreds of similar verses have been written. Among the higher ranks in the railroad service the energy, perseverance, and success of officials have fur- nished subjects for moralists and writers of fiction. The world is never tired of reading about Stephenson's early struggles, and not a book on noted men is with- out an account of some one who has come up from a humble position on the railroad to the ranks of great men. Dickens gave his genius to railroad subjects. We all know how he speaks of the railroad in the " Uncom- mercial Traveler." In " Mugby Junction" he takes up many phases of the same subject, dealing with each in his humorous style. Newspapers every day abound in items and editor- ials about this great power. They give columns to reports of the meetings of railroad men, to accounts of their travels, sayings and prophecies, and fill their funny columns with stories about queer happenings on the rail, or the witty sayings of railway employees. The market reports are affected by a word or a whisper of some railroad magnate, while bankers and great stock exchanges often care much more to know the course of a railroad king through the country than they do that of the official head of the nation or the greatest statesman in the world. When such a king 190 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. looks at a piece of land, examines a bridge, takes a trip up a river, or entertains certain guests at dinner, newspapers tell all about it in long columns of matter with big headlines. Magazines give their best efforts to biographies of such men, and employ the finest artistic effects in producing fine pictures of their homes, their various possessions and the places associ- ated with their early history. It is no wonder that, when all the world is thus poring over such literature, Young America should have seized on a new idea of greatness and an ambition that did not exist when I was a boy. When the school inspector makes his rounds nowadays and puts the same questions to the small boy that school in- spectors did long ago, he may do so with the following result : " Johnny, you must be a good boy and study hard, for you want to be president of the United States some day, don't you?" "No, sir." " What ! Not want to be like Washington ? " "No, sir." " Well, Johnny, what do you want to be?" " A railroad president, sir." Johnny has read many books and papers. His mind has been filled with accounts of magnificent homes, country residences, yacht trips around the RAILROAD MEN. 191 world, and private cars fit for an emperor's use. He thinks 110 man could wish to be greater than the rail- road king who travels in a palace, and whenever he moves every subordinate on the entire line of thou- sands of miles must obey his wish. Johnny knows that the head of the nation cannot at all times travel with a special engine and a special time-table, while with all other trains kept out of the way, this special car travels a hundred miles in a hundred minutes. He had read that a railroad president can and does do all this. Thus the literature of the day is molding the minds of the rising generation. More stories are afloat in books and newspapers about engineers than any other class of railroad men. There is a fascination about the position that seizes upon the public mind, and even the greatest writers have taken it up and have woven about it many a story that strikes deep into the heart because of its pathos, its wit, or the inspiration born of the bravery and self-sacrifice it portrays. The engineer at Mugby Junction is well known. This is how the great English novelist puts his thoughts into words: " I never was nervous on an engine but once. I never think of my own life. You go in for staking that when you begin, and you get used to the risk. I never think of the passengers either. The thoughts of an engine-driver never goes behind his engine. If 192 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. lie keeps his engine all right, the coaches behind will be all right, as far as the driver is concerned. But once I did think of the passengers. My little boy, Bill, was among them that morning. He was a poor little cripple fellow that we all loved more nor the others, because he was a cripple, and so quiet and wise like. He was going down to his aunt in the country, who was to take care of him for a while. We thought the country air would do him good. I did think there were lives behind me that morning; at least, I thought hard of one little life that was in my hands. There were twenty coaches on; my little Bill seemed to me to be in every one of 'em. My hand trembled as I turned on the steam. I felt my heart thumping as I drew close to the pointsman's box: as we neared the Junction I was all in a cold sweat. At the end of the first fifty miles I was nearly eleven minutes behind time. 'What's the matter with you this morning ? ' my stoker said. ' Did you have a drop too much last night?' 'Don't speak to me, Fred,' I said, ' till we get to Peterborough ; and keep a sharp look-out; there's a good fellow.' I never was so thankful in my life as when I shut off steam to enter the station of Peterborough. Little Bill's aunt was waiting for him, and I saw her lift him out of the carriage. I called out to her to bring him to me, and I took him upon the engine and kissed him ah, RAILROAD MEN. 193 twenty times I skould think making him such a mess with grease and coal-dust as you never saw." Among the recent contributions to literature are some autobiographical sketches by a locomotive en- gineer, in which he gives an account of some queer inci- dents that have come under his observation. He says that during his twenty-five years of experience, his loco- motive has been overturned six times, and each time he had dreamed beforehand of the accident, seeing in the dream the exact place, the direction in which the train was going, and the side on which the engine was overturned. At various times his dreams have been the means of preventing collisions, of saving many lives and much property. He thus tells of one of these experiences: " At another time, I was in charge of a construc- tion train, being engineer, conductor and gang-boss combined. One night I saw in a dream the collision of an express with a through freight train at the station where I stopped. The engines and coaches were badly used up, and many killed and wounded. The dream was very vivid and distressed me all the next day. The second morning my train was ready to start, but the through freight, which was late, came along, passing the station seven minutes on the express time, a very reckless thing, as it was in a cut, with a sharp curve, through which the express always came 13 194 FORTY YEAKS ON THE BAIL, at full speed, the whistle of which I at that moment heard. It recalled my dream at once. Seizing the red flag, I signaled the freight train, and ran down the curve to flag the express, whose engineer reversed at once, and the engines came to a halt within ten feet of each other. As it was not my duty to flag other trains, or to pay any attention to them, had it not been for the dream and its effects on my mind, causing me to be doubly on the alert at that time, there would have been a serious collision, as the express had nine very full coaches. Some considered it a lucky coinci- dence, but these in my experience have been too frequent, and the dreams too real for me to consider them as such." It would be impossible to enumerate the many directions in which railroads have influenced the literature of to-day, and in how many ways railroad men have gotten into print. One can hardly help thinking that if so much has been done in the past fifty years, the next century will witness developments in the same direction that will astonish the world. CHAPTER X. Since the first quarter of the century benevolent and mutual benefit societies have sprung into exist- ence by the hundreds all over the land, and especially among all classes of wage-earning people. No organi- zations are so popular with the masses, no others boast of such membership rolls, and to no others do different cities open wide their gates with the same hearty welcome when they meet in their annual assemblies. These societies, with different names and forms of government, some with secret rites and others with nothing of the kind, being based only on business relations, have after all the same general object in view to aid humanity that needs aid. They have distributed large sums of money for the relief of the sick, the burial of the dead, the education of the orphan, the support of the widow and the aged, and thus have lightened the burden of sorrow of many a broken heart, and gladdened the desolate home of the mourner. " The great good accomplished," said the president 195 196 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. of one of the railway men's associations in an annual speech, "who dare try to fathom it? Go ask the lonely widows throughout our land. Go ask the thou- sands of orphan children, clinging fondly to their widowed mother, and the dear little home that is theirs. Go ask the aged father, as with trembling limbs and faltering voice he rehearses to you the story of the death of his son. Go ask the loved mother, perhaps now entirely alone all gone and the sweet, sad expression depicted indelibly upon her features will tell far better than spoken words, the true source of her womanly resignation. Go ask true manhood, or true womanhood everywhere, and the answer will be rolled back in words of fire, so that it may be stamped indelibly and forever on your minds." The desire to provide for the loved ones who sur- vive him is strong in every man, but few men are able to gather a competency while they are struggling to keep their families well provided for. Then, too, acci- dent or disease may carry off a man before he has had a chance to make a good start in business. All these considerations led to' the birth of these societies just mentioned, and keep the ranks full to-day. The growth of railroad interests in this country was so rapid that before people were aware an army of men were in its service. To-day it is estimated that in the United States there are upwards of seven hun- 197 clred thousand railroad men, commanded by nearly six thousand general and division officers. The railroad man who is in the train service is in the midst of dangers that threaten life and safety, and to him natu- rally come thoughts of providing for those near and dear to him in case he is summoned suddenly to the Great Unknown, or is left to the charity of friends when disabled from any cause. Life insurance compa- nies in early days offered one solution of the problem, but they demanded high rates, for railroad men were placed among the "extra hazardous risks." Then associations based on the co-operative and protective plan, formed by the men themselves, sprang into being, and have proved so satisfactory that it can be no longer a matter of doubt that they are best adapted to the wants of wage-earning people. These organiza- tions now exist in great numbers among railroad men ; engineers, switchmen, station agents, conductors, in fact, all grades of the service having societies of their own of which they may well be proud. Until 1880 no effort was made in the United States by a railroad corporation to establish any kind of relief association for its employees. In this respect our nation has been and is far behind Great Britain and other European nations, where, since early days, relief funds, pensions, and even orphanages have existed for the benefit of railway employees and their 198 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. families, all being provided by the corporations them- selves. In the United States the Baltimore and Ohio rail- road was the first to take steps in this direction, in the year just named. The sum of one hundred thousand dollars, which was afterward increased to five hundred thousand, has been set aside by that company as the nucleus of a fund for insurance payments in case of death, allowance during disability, and pensions for those incapacitated in the service of the company, the amounts paid being based on the wages received. A few other corporations have followed the example set by President Garrett, in a small way, but, after all, the vast aggregate of railway employees are left to look out for themselves in this country, and the prospects are they will do so for many a long year to come. The press has begun to agitate the subject some- what. Taking up the cause of those who are in the service of railroad corporations, the "Railway Age" thus writes : " That our railroad companies must in time make some provision for competent and faithful employees who have grown old or become disabled in their service C5 may be regarded as indisputable. When a man devotes himself for life to the service of a railway corporation, he surrenders to a certain extent that which, especially in this country, is his dearest privilege, namely, the 199 right to go into business for himself and be inde- pendent. The more competent he is, the greater the sacrifice. It may be taken for granted that many departments of our railway service can be conducted most satisfactorily by men who, if they had gone into business for themselves, would have been at least fairly successful and attained a modest competence for their old age. There is no branch of the service, either on the road or in the office, in which brains are not needed. But the ambition of the man who has brains and energy is to be independent, to plunge into the thick of the unending struggle for fortune and fame and win the great prizes if he can. It is just such men that a railway system needs in all its departments'. For the ablest of them it is right that it should have high rewards in the positions and salaries to which they may attain. But it is possible for only a few, comparatively, to rise like a Potter, from shoveling coal into the furnace of a locomotive; like a Merrill, from heading a section gang; like a Hughitt, from the operator's table; like a Towne, from running a freight train ; like scores of others who have climbed from the lowest to the highest positions in railway service. And if a railway company says to these ' give to the service the ability which you have, and, though you may not win the highest prizes, you shall be remem- bered and cared for ' is that more than a fair return for the service that such men would render?" 200 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. In 1868 the army of conductors established the " Old Reliable," an insurance organization, the first of its kind among conductors to take and make a name for itself in this country. Its object was to " provide for the widows and children, heirs or representatives of those of its members who lose their lives or die amid the dangers and perils of their hazardous vocation." When the organization originated its members were few, but its vast opportunities for benefiting our ranks were so apparent at a glance that it spread like wild- fire. Being a member from the first, and secretary of the Milwaukee division at the founding of the associa- tion, I have an interest in its welfare that could come to me in no other way, and its annual meetings are full of some of the pleasantest memories of my life. We have reason to feel proud of what we have done, when we think that up to October, 1886, one million, ninety-three thousand, two hundred and forty dollars were paid out to beneficiaries, or an average of over two thousand dollars to each. Who can estimate the good this money has done ? Our first president was James Marshall, who served five years, when he was succeeded by J. W. Seymore for three years. The presidents since have been M. B. Waters, Samuel Titus, A. C. Sinclair, W. S. Sears, O. A. Brigham, E. P. Brown, George L. Harrison, Ward Nichols, Edwin Morrell, F. Champlin, and George F. Hanford. 201 Loyalty to " Old Eeliable " has always been a marked characteristic of its members, and few organi- zations can show more enthusiastic workers. There are many who rarely miss attending every convention, and whom only the stern calls of duty elsewhere can keep away. Samuel Titus, one of the oldest conduc- tors on the New York Central road, and who was elected president of "Old Eeliable" at our Atlanta meeting in 1877, has attended every convention since the organization. George L. Harrison, so well known for his unceasing work in the cause, and who was elected president at Milwaukee in 1882, has been at eighteen consecutive annual meetings, or every one except the first. Our conventions have been held in some of the most important cities of the country, from the Atlantic seaboard to the Eocky Mountains. We have held them as far south as Atlanta and New Orleans, as far north as Montreal ; from Boston on the east to Denver on the west. The meeting of this year, 1887, will be held at Portland, Maine, and promises to be second to none in attendance and enthusiasm. It would be impossible for me to give an account of all the good times that we enjoyed when we assem- bled each year, but I cannot refrain from mentioning a few meetings of the members of " Old Eeliable " at which I enjoyed myself particularly, and around 202 FOETY YEARS ON THE BAIL. which cluster memories for us all that are of peculiar interest. Our fourth convention was held at Chicago, in 1871, on the Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday before the great fire, which gives to it something of historical interest. We "Chicago boys" had been very anxious to have the conductor's convention gather in our won- derful city, for we felt proud of it and wanted to show off what we had been boasting about so many years. We then had a population of about three hundred and thirty-five thousand. The Garden City had, in the ten previous years, been literally raised by jack screws, eight feet above its old grade, sand and mud being taken from the river and harbor to fill in the space. Huge warehouses and stores had been thus lifted up and now rested on substantial masonry and brick work built up from below. We opened the eyes of our visitors by showing them these buildings, and we felt proud to tell them that George M. Pullman had taken a prominent part in the work, and was the first to show how a whole block of brick or stone edifices, with all their contents, could be lifted up without even disturbing the transaction of business inside. We had also hundreds of new and elegant build- ings. Our Chamber of Commerce had cost a quarter of a million of dollars ; our Crosby Opera House had 203 cost upwards of four hundred thousand dollars, and our theaters were among the finest in the country. We pointed to our many handsome stone churches, costing from forty thousand to ninety thousand dollars each, and to our numerous fine school buildings. Our guests were quartered at the Palmer House, the Tre- mont, the new Sherman, the Briggs, and a dozen other hotels, as fine as any in the land. We showed them our Lincoln, Central, and Union parks, and explained to them the boulevard and park system which is to-day the admiration of the nation, and which even then showed many fine features. Our tunnels under the river, and our water works, including the tunnel under the lake, the crib, the water-tower, and the four pumping engines with a daily capacity of over seventy million gallons, all excited special interest. Among the railroad features of the city we had much to boast of, for Chicago was even then a great railroad center, her lines running in every direction for thousands of miles. It was estimated that over these roads a total of not less than ninety-six passenger trains and one hundred and seventeen freight trains moved each way, making a total of four hundred and twenty-six both ways, or an average of three in every ten minutes through the whole twenty- four hours of each day. 204 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Among the many pleasant circumstances that made our reunion of that year so enjoyable, may be men- tioned the renewal of acquaintances formed many years before. I have already spoken of the fact that when Chicago began to attract the attention of the country as a railroad center, even so far back as the fifties, scores of railroad men from the East were attracted here, and the migration had kept up every year since. In consequence, the conductors found the playmates and school friends of their youth on all sides, being in the employment of different roads in various capacities, both in the train service and in the offices. Many were the hours they spent with these old friends in talking over days gone by, and in comparing their present lots, for fortune had not dealt with any two alike, smiling on some and having only frowns for others. We kept our guests busy during the three days they were with us, visiting different places and admir- ing the great features of our city. Little did we think that most of us were looking at Old Chicago for the last time, and that in forty-eight hours from our adjournment only blackened, smouldering ruins would exist in the place of all of which we were boasting. On Thursday night we held our annual banquet at the Briggs House, then kept by George French. On Friday we went to Milwaukee on a special train of OLD RELIABLE. 205 Pullman cars furnished by the Chicago and North- Western railway, of which John C. Gault was then superintendent. William Knight had charge of our train. Landlord Cottrill served an elaborate banquet for us at the Plankington House, and as usual the George family was called on for a few songs. We THE VESTIBULE TRAIN. Page 243. started back to Chicago at four o'clock on Friday afternoon, and dispersed on Saturday in time for most of the guests to escape the great fire that broke out that very night. Many of the conductors staid in the city to spend Sunday, and most of these lost all their baggage. Many met with thrilling experiences in the great con- flagration, being at hotels in the very center of the burned district. Of that season of terror I shall not 206 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. stop to speak ; its history has often been told, and needs no repetition here. I shall only quote the verses of Bret Harte, which seem to tell the story of Chicago's fall in words of striking imagery. ' ' Blackened and bleeding, helpless, panting, prone On the charred fragments of her shattered throne Lies she who stood but yesterday alone. " Queen of the West! by some enchanter taught To lift the glory of Aladdin's court, Then lost the spell that all that wonder wrought. " Like her own prairies by some chance seed sown, Like her own prairies in one brief day grown, Like her own prairies in one tierce night mown." It was well for Chicago that she had become so great a railroad center, for in her hour of need her tracks stood by her in noble service. If ever philanthropy had a faithful handmaid she found one then in the locomotive. The suffering and needy were carried to places of safety by different railroads free of charge, while provisions, medical and other supplies were literally poured in from all quarters of the globe on these roads. That Chicago bears the title to-day of the " Phoenix City " and occupies the proud position she does among the cities of the world is due more to her railroads and her railroad men than to any other single agency. During the second convention of " Old Eeli- able," held at Columbus, Ohio, in 1869, we accepted 207 an invitation to take a run over to Louisville, Ken- tucky, where we were royally entertained at the Gait House by the conductors running into that city, who tendered us a fine banquet. So pleasant were the memories of the hospitality of the fair Kentucky me- tropolis, that we all were unanimous in desiring to hold our convention there in 1872. The latter was a memorable occasion. Our party from Chicago made the run in a special train in charge of Conductor George Hewitt, over the Illinois Central road. My wife and two daughters, all accomplished singers, accompanied me, and our singing was often alluded to by our fellow passengers in after years as one of the most pleasant episodes in the memorable jaunt. Our voices frequently aroused the echoes in the Gait House during our stay. One day, while we were get- ting ready to start on an excursion to Cave Hill Ceme- tery, we were singing in the parlors to entertain a party of friends who had gathered there, when Mr. Johnson, the proprietor, came in to listen to us for a few moments. After we had sung two or three selections our host said, " I have a surprise for you." In a few moments the folding doors of the parlor were rolled back, and in the adjoining room was spread an elegant lunch. Mr. Johnson then made a few remarks, in which he said he would be proud to eDtertain the year around 208 FORTY YEAliS ON THE KAIL. such a company as the conductors and their friends, and bade us welcome to the feast he had prepared. After a speech of thanks by Mr. Seymore, of the Illi- nois Central, we proceeded to partake of the collation, which was in every respect worthy of the famous Gait House. -That night we wound up our session with a reception and ball at the Louisville Hotel, when my family and I entertained the guests with many of our songs, acceding to loud and frequent calls for such music. To tell of the good times we had at all of our con- ventions would alone fill a book. But I cannot refrain from mentioning another reunion, held at Denver, in October, 1886. I took out six Pullman coaches, filled to overflowing with a genial company of conductors hailing from all parts of the country. We left the North-Western depot at Chicago on October 4th, in a jolly mood, and before we had been on the road more than an hour or two I had made up a quartette whose singing was a pleasant feature of the entire trip. The company had supplied every guest with a bouquet, and had taken pains to see that our train was equipped with everything that could in any way con- tribute to the comfort and pleasure of its guests. Arriving at Denver, the conductors were soon quar- tered at the Windsor, the St. James, and the Albany, all good hotels. We had our usual conductors' ball, 209 and just before the close of the convention our quar- tette was loudly called on for songs. We responded and were encored repeatedly. Our sojourn at Denver was made memorable by frequent excursions to various points. We visited the mint, the smelting works and other places of note at Denver; we went to Georgetown, ten thousand feet above the level of the sea; to Leadville, the famous mining town, two thousand feet nearer the clouds than Georgetown; to Manitou and Colorado Springs, and every place of interest within a radius of a hundred miles from the capital city. To attempt to give even a brief description of the wonders of Colorado scenery would be impossible here. Perhaps our most enjoyable trip during this convention was to the Garden of the Gods, at Manitou. Here majestic rocks are piled in mountain masses almost as far as the eye can reach, and stretched over acre upon acre are gray and red heaps of limestone grouped in picturesque and majestic confusion. Gro- tesque shapes, huge caricatures of animals in all imaginable positions, castle walls pierced by windows, slender spires, leaning towers, mammoth gateways, and hundreds of fantastic shapes no pen can describe, form a picture which, once seen, will never be forgot- ten. This famous place is truly regarded as among the wonders of the world. 14 210 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Our trip to Georgetown showed us a curious and interesting specimen of difficult railroad engineering, and this was the famous loop. The road slants its way up the mountain side, and actually crosses itself, just about Georgetown. One section of our train stopped on the upper grade, while the other section passed beneath the first, fifty feet lower, the trains going in opposite directions, though bound for the same place. An enterprising photographer took pic- tures of our cars at this point. The loop is a mar- velous exhibition of the triumph of engineering skill. In spite of the apparently insurmountable impediments thrown up by stern old nature, the locomotive has pressed its way in triumph. CHAPTEE XI. HUMAN NATURE ON THE RAIL. If the poat who wrote "The proper study of man- kind is man," had been a conductor he might have indulged in that study to his heart's content. Per- haps no other place furnishes a better opportunity than the train does for the study of hujnan nature. No one has a better chance to learn the peculiarities of mankind than the conductor, going backward and forward as he does through the train and passing his days thus from one year's end to the other. The mask that is worn so successfully in church and society is dropped before him without reserve. All kinds of people are to be found traveling on the rail. There is the man who acts as if the rest of the world, and especially all railroad officials, were in league against him. 4 'This is a free country, and I'm in for all the law allows," he says. So he puts his valise in the seat beside him to pre- vent anyone from sitting next to him, opens the window without regard to the feeble woman back of him, or 211 212 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. the sick child across the aisle, and then spits tobacco juice all over the floor. This is the man who always rides on a pass when he can get it by hook or crook, or resorts to scalpers for tickets when passes give out, or is determined to use a limited ticket long after the time of limitation has expired. It is against his prin- ciples to pay a good, honest fare. " There's nothing like cheek in this world," he remarks, when giving advice to a traveler not so en- dowed with this article as himself. " There is nothing like cheek, and if a thing's to be got by it, why I'm there every time. When I put on my coat in the morning I put on my gall with it, and I tell you I never get left." Once in a while the selfish passenger gets a fitting rebuke, as the following story shows: On a suburban train going out of Boston a well- known vocalist appropriated to his sole use and com- fort two seats. While this luxurious wayfarer was occupying so much room there entered the car a man considerably under the influence of liquor. The ine- briate could find no seat except that which the first - mentioned passenger had appropriated, and going up to the latter the bibulous traveler said: ; 'Move o-over, p-please (hie) ; I want a seat." The other glanced up with a look of intense scorn, but did not deign to take further notice just then of HUMAN NATURE ON THE KAIL. 213 his interlocutor. The intoxicated individual returned again to the charge with: " Can't you move o-over (hie) and give a fellow a seat?" "No, I can't and won't; you are drunk," was the curt response. "Well," stammered the other, "I know Tm drunk (hie), but I'll get over that; you're a hog, and will never get over it." Speaking of car-windows and the perfect disregard shown by most people in opening them, reminds me of a rebuke once given a couple of selfish travelers. " Conductor," called out a woman who could scarcely be called a lady when her voice was heard, " come and open this window or I shall die! " The window being opened according to this request, a lady sitting near exclaimed, ' Conductor, come and shut this window, or I shall die!" " Conductor," shouted an annoyed passenger not far off, as the official was leaving, " conductor, come and open this window and kill one of these women; then shut it and kill the other! " On every train there is the timid traveler. He is afraid of accidents, and anxiously asks who is the engi- neer and how long he has been on the road. He is afraid to speak to any one lest he be swindled in some 214 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. way, and neither offers nor accepts favors. He eyes his neighbor suspiciously, keeps his coat buttoned up, will not look at his watch lest it get stolen, and either reads or stares out of the window so as to avoid being spoken to. Ladies are usually the most suspicious travelers. I remember many funny incidents that illustrate this trait. One night while I was on watch in my sleep- ing-car, running from Chicago to New York, a big, fat woman jumped excitedly from her berth and began to scream at the top of her voice, "Oh dear, oh dear, I'm robbed, I'm robbed!" "What's the matter, madam?" I cried, running down the aisle. "Matter?" she shrieked, beside herself with fear. "What's the matter? Matter enough, sir. I've been robbed. I had six thousand dollars' worth of diamonds under my pillow, and where are they now? They've been stolen, that's where they are, and the thief's on this train, right in this car, and you've got to find him, sir." " Calm yourself, madam," I said to her. " Calm yourself. Don't disturb everybody on the train. We'll soon find your diamonds if they're still in the car." First we carefully searched her berth, taking it to pieces in order to make the hunt thorough. While we were busy at our work I heard a smothered exclama- tion from my passenger. HUMAN NATURE ON THE BAIL. 215 " Oh, dear," she muttered, " I shall faint away." "What's the matter now?" I sternly demanded. ' k Here they are, sir," she meekly answered, putting her hand in the bosom of her dress and drawing the diamonds out. "I put them away and forgot it." " Get into bed and don't let me hear from you again," was all I could say. During the rest of the trip she was the meekest woman I ever saw. On another trip a Boston lady claimed to have lost four dollars, which she was sure she had put in her purse before retiring. " Oh, I am sure I put it there," she said to me, " very sure. It's all the money I had with me, too. What shall I do? " Tears were brimming in her eyes, and there would have been a flood of them in another minute but for a thought that struck her. " I know who took the money," she asserted, with her eyes flashing spitefully. " There's the man! He took it." And she pointed to the darkey porter who stood near by. "I hardly think so, madam," I answered. "He's been with me a long time and I've always found him strictly honest." "He's got it, I know he's got it," was all she would say in reply. Colonel Welsh, then our general superintendent, as on the car, and I told him of the lady's charges against the porter. 216 FORTY YEARS ,ON THE RAIL. We decided to await developments, confident that before long the porter would be exonerated and the money found. About an hour later the lady came up to me looking very much ashamed of herself. "I beg your pardon, conductor," she stammered, her cheeks covered with blushes, " I have found my money." She had put it in the sleeve of her dress, and not in her pocket-book. The inveterate questioner is a nuisance to the con- ductor. He begins after the first mile by asking the time, then the distance from point to point, and so questions are kept up until the name of nearly every station has been given him, the time has been told him over and over again, and the contents of a good- sized gazetteer or guide-book have been imparted to him. It is no wonder that railroad men sometimes give way to their feelings of irritation, for the provo- cation is often very great. Many years ago a conduc- tor had the following experience: " What's the next station? " asked a passenger of a conductor who was going through the train on his first round. " Smithville." " That's what I thought," said the passenger. "What is the next station?" again interrogated the man as the conductor macle his second round, HUMAN NATURE ON THE KAIL. 217 "Jonesville." "That's what I thought," quickly responded the questioner. Time and again, whenever the conductor went through the train, the man had some question ready and always concluded with, " That's what I thought." Finally the railroad man could endure it no longer and the conversation ended thus: "How far is it to Toledo?" "Twenty miles." " That's what I thought." "Do you know what I think?" exclaimed the irate official. " I think you're a fool." " That's what I thought," said the passenger. The last remark was followed by general merri- ment, in which the passenger joined as heartily as the rest and then invited the conductor to take a bottle of wine with him at the terminus of the road on the strength of the joke. Some people seem born to try to make the conduc- tor's life a burden to him. Once a man in ordinary citizen's clothes boarded a train and quietly took a seat. "When he was asked for his ticket he replied, "I have no ticket." " Then you must pay cash." " I won't do anything of the kind, and you can't make me," 218 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. " We'll see about that," said the conductor, pulling the cord to stop the train. "So you're going to put me off, are you?" said the man. " You can't do it. Here's my pass." The pass was properly made out, and though vexed enough to say something far from pleasant, the con- ductor left the car without a word. After leaving the next station the conductor in his round came on a new passenger. The same conver- sation took place as before, and reached the same climax, and when the pass was produced it was the very one offered by the other man. The explanation was that the passenger had drawn up his overcoat collar, hunched his shoulders out of position, put his hair and beard in disorder, and pulled his hat down over one eye, besides changing his seat. Later in the trip the conductor saw, in the end seat by the stove, a new passenger, who had his coat off, wore a remarkable looking checked shirt and a peculiar hat. As before, a ticket was asked for, then cash, and finally the cord was pulled. A general laugh arose in the car when the self-same pass was produced and several people identified the man as the owner. The man proved to be a veritable Proteus, for he next disguised himself as a sufferer from neuralgia and rheumatism, and had his face tied up and wore a HUMAN NATURE ON THE RAIL. 219 huge muffler around his neck. The conductor was again deceived. His patience was all gone by that time, but he held his peace and resolved not to be taken in again. He felt sure he knew his man. At the next station a passenger got on board whom the official recognized at once as the practical joker who had worried him all day, feeling sure the man had got off one side of the train to get on board at the other. As the conductor took up the tickets he passed this man, giving him a wink and a broad smile. A little further on the man, who was really a new pas- senger, got off, and as he left the car he said: " I don't know what I've done to ride free, but seeing it's all the same to you, I don't care." The conductor considered himself the worst fooled man in America that day. I remember once having an inveterate talker on my train, who bored the passengers and then tired me out, till I felt it my duty to put a stop to his talk in order to get some peace for the rest of us. " Hold on, hold on, my friend," I interrupted him about the time he had got well under way with a full head of steam on. " Excuse me, but I want to tell you a little story." " All right, Captain," he assented, putting the brakes on his tongue, though he looked as if he felt very sorry to stop even for a few moments. " Let's hear your story." 220 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. " A neighbor of mine has a parrot," I commenced, "which has learned to say almost everything. One day my neighbor went away and the parrot sat on the front porch calling to the horses and cattle that were passing. The parrot finally called out to a big bull- dog, who turned on the bird and tore nearly all her feathers off before she could escape. When my neigh- bor came home he said to polly, ' Well, you're a pretty looking bird. What's the matter with you?' 'I guess I talk too much,' sadly answered the parrot." My passenger looked at me calmly for a moment, and then walked away. The rest of the passengers and I had a peaceful trip after this. Travelers are very often inconsiderate. Of opening windows, and occupying seats without reference to others, I have already spoken. I have heard ladies complain about each other in the way of monopolizing the dressing-rooms on sleeping cars. The lady who rises first in the morning often takes possession of this room for an indefinite time, keeping other ladies and many children with incomplete toilets waiting for breakfast. I once heard a lady say that a fashionable dame thus kept many for nearly an hour, and when she emerged from the dressing-room, she was resplendent in a fine silk dress and accessories to match, having laid aside a traveling dress for this less suitable attire. Her fine clothes did not win forgive- ness from her fellow passengers. HUMAN NATURE ON THE BAIL. 221 Kace prejudices are too strong to be overcome even by the democratic railway trains of our country, and incidents often bring this out in a strong light when colored people enter a car. In my early days on the road, the " Jim Crow car," as it was called, was used in New England for negroes and was considered good enough for them, though it was scarcely better than a cattle car of to-day. This miserable convey- ance was usually painted black, probably to sug- gest its use. Out West the negroes fared better, but in the border States, on the Mason-Dixon line especially, many a serious struggle took place about the admission of a colored person to the privileges of first-class coaches, even when he was traveling on a first-class ticket. The aristocratic southerner, who had no idea of objecting to the presence of a negro valet or nurse in the same seat with himself, or wife, or children, would not tolerate the same negro in the car if he were traveling as an equal on a ticket he had purchased for himself. The fifteenth amendment by no means wiped out these feelings, though it has given a solution for outward actions toward the colored race which saves railway officials from many of the unpleasant situations of the past. Nabobism has taken a very strong hold even in this country. Away back in 1835, an old Bostonian groaned over the fact that " the rich and the poor, the 222 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. educated and the ignorant, the polite and the vulgar, all herd together in this modern improvement in traveling." Although, if he were living now, he would not have quite so much to complain about, still first- class cars, drawing-room and sleeping coaches are to be had by all who can pay for them, and this by no means excludes the different classes complained of by the old resident of the Hub. It is often amusing to notice the way some people try to draw a line between themselves and their neighbors even in a palace car. There are many Americans 'who have affected foreign notions, and after even a short stay abroad they come back home filled with so many aristocratic ideas that they can find nothing in their own country good enough for them. Such people would be glad to supplant our present democratic coach by the compartment cars of Europe. This they can never accomplish, but they find consolation in the private car. The number and the elegance of the private cars of our country is a source of wonderment to foreigners who visit our land. Our money kings and railroad magnates outrival European sovereigns in this regard. Costly woods, velvets, and glass are used in the manu- facture of these palaces on wheels, while art treasures in the form of pictures, vases, china, silver and crystal ornaments decorate their walls and niches. They HUMAN NATURE ON THE RAIL. 223 contain different rooms, and are equipped with every convenience and luxury money can procure. President Vanderbilt's private car cost over twenty thousand dollars, and contains a state-room, card-room, sitting and dining-room, observatory, kitchen, larder, with fittings of the utmost elegance. Human nature displays itself in a thousand dif- ferent and often unexpected ways on a railroad train. Some think, "I'll never see these people again; I don't care what I do." So the deacon, who is so pious and exact at home, takes a hand at cards on the train and joins in laughs and discussions that are caused by very different topics from those he approves of at home; the fair lady who smiles upon her five hundred and one particular friends in the drawing-room, in the rail- way-car is disagreeable to her neighbor, exasperating to the conductor, cross and overbearing to her child ; the pretty girl forgets her simper and her company manners; the youth assumes a swagger and an air of arrogance to give the impression that he is of age; the man who passes for the polished gentleman at home proves himself an intolerant boor on the rail ; he who is wont to serve his superiors in his usual circle desires to rule here, and the man who is smarting under some injury or injustice received in business or social circles takes his revenge on his fellow passen- gers or the railroad employees. 224 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. I have often thought that trains would be good places for missionaries. I am sure a person who longs to be a public benefactor does not need to go to foreign lands to get good material to work on, when he has a place right at home in which to try his skill. Lessons on the golden rule could be given in every single car of every train in the land every day in the week. Some people have a very nice way of giving such lessons, and I have often seen a reproof administered in such a manner that the one reproved could never forget it. The following story shows how in one case this was successfully done: A gentleman, prominent in legal circles in Boston, was recently riding in a train, and in the seat before him was a young and gayly dressed damsel. The car was pretty full, and presently an elderly woman en- tered, and finding no seat vacant but the one next to the young woman mentioned, sat down beside her. She was a decently dressed woman, but apparently of humble station, and she carried several clumsy bun- dles, which were evidently a serious annoyance to her seatmate. The young woman made no effort to conceal her vexation, but in the most conspicuous manner showed the passengers around that she considered it an impertinent intrusion for the new comer to presume to sit down beside her. In a few moments the old woman, depositing her HUMAN NATURE ON THE BAIL. 225 packages upon the seat, went across the car to speak to an acquaintance she discovered on the opposite side of the aisle. The lawyer leaned forward to the offended young lady and courteously asked if she would change seats with him. A smile of gratified vanity showed how pleased she was to have attracted the attention of so distinguished looking a gentleman. " Oh, thank you ever so much," she said effusively, " I should like to, but it would be as bad for you as for me to sit beside such an old woman." " I beg your pardon,''' the gentleman responded with undiminished deference of manner, " it was not your comfort I was thinking of, but the old lady's." People often try to act like old and experienced travelers and in some small way show they know little of life on the railroad train. This is particularly noticeable in sleeping-cars. One day, on my New York run, a man who had evidently not been far away from his secluded home before, came into my car and instead of turning to the right to get through, rushed straight ahead to the drawing-room. When he saw himself in the mirror, not recognizing his own reflec- tion, he reached for one of the brass rods nailed across the glass to open the supposed door. At the first pull the door would not budge, and seeing the other fellow holding it from the other side, he gave the rod another wrench and shouted, " Open the door, I tell you!" But 15 226 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. the door did not open, and lie was just about to give the other man a thrashing when I hastened forward and explained the situation to him. As he came out of the drawing-room door he started a roar of laughter among the passengers by exclaiming, " Well, he's a hog, anyhow." On another occasion a passenger on his way to iAe dining-car came out of the day coach into the ladies' end of my car. Not quite understanding just how to pass through, he looked in the glass of the toilet-room door and said to his own image, "I want my supper. Will you please show me the way to the dining-car?" There was no answer, so he shouted louder, " Sup- per! I want my supper! How can I get to the dining- car?" Still getting no reply, he walked off indignant at the insolence of the sleeping-car attaches, but after awhile he found his way to the desired car. It seems the prevailing disposition of the traveling public to cheat railroads whenever they can. They evidently think that, as corporations have no souls, defrauding them is not a moral crime. Pious people, church deacons and members who would be horrified at the idea of stealing a penny from a neighbor, seem to have no compunctions of conscience about little fraudulent practices of this kind. Hundreds of such people think nothing of using limited tickets after HUMAN NATURE ON THE RAIL. 227 they have expired, "also tickets and passes made out to other persons, or of riding on family passes when they have no relationship to the family for whom the passes were made out. Many cases have been reported where in punch-tickets the bits of pasteboard punched out have been saved and carefully glued in the old places so as to be used again. A very common practice among passengers is to buy tickets for a station just this side of their desti- nation, so as to save money, the conductor often not noticing the fraud. One day a man on my train went by the station he had paid for, but he said he did not care particularly about that, and would go on to the next stopping place. I mistrusted that there was something wrong about the man, and thought that perhaps he lived at the next station. So after having some controversy with him I concluded to put him off the train. I pulled the bell-rope and forced him off. When he was on the ground he turned around to me and said, with an air of triumph, " This is all right. I live just over there," pointing to his house across a forty-acre lot. In all lawsuits the same principle prevails. " Get all you can from a railway" is the public motto. Many amusing incidents have come to my knowledge which illustrate this human weakness. I remember once, down East, a dog was run over by a locomotive, 228 FOKTY YEAKS ON THE RAIL. and the owner went to the superintendent of the road to make his claim for damages. " That, sir, was the finest dog in the State, There's nothing that dog didn't know, sir. He knew more than half the folks. I wouldn't take a thousand dol- lars in hard cash for that dog if he was living to-day." "So your dog knew a good deal, did he?" asked the superintendent. " I tell you, sir, there wasn't a thing that dog didn't know that I told him. I wouldn't take a thou- sand dollars for him this minute." "If your dog knew so much," added the official, "why didn't he have sense enough to get off the track when the train was coming?" The dog's master was a Yankee and his quick wit did not fail him for more than a second. " You changed your time-table a couple of days ago, didn't you?" he asked. "Yes," replied the superintendent, wondering what was coming next. " That's just it. I never saw the new time-table, neither did my dog. If you had sent one around to my place the dog would have been told what time the express was due and wouldn't have been on the track." Before the Inter-State Commerce Bill became a law everybody who was at all acquainted with a rail- road man, or could get a pretext for asking, wanted a HUMAN NATURE ON THE BAIL. 229 pass. Hundreds of funny stories might be told show- ing this side of human nature. A farmer once called on a superintendent and asked for a pass. " On what ground do you expect one?" asked the official. "I see yer cars are runnin' quite empty," replied the farmer, " and I thought you could take me 'long as well as not, there bein' so much room." The superintendent explained that a pass could not be given on those grounds. The farmer paused a minute and then said: "Wall, now, Mr. Superintendent, if I was a drivin' 'long with my wagon in the country, and I had plenty of room and you was a walkin', and you should ask me to let you ride, and I refused, you would think I was a darned hog, now wouldn't you? " The superintendent laughed heartily at the granger's argument, turned around to his desk and wrote him out the desired paper. Officials with a sense of the humorous often gave laughable, but no less cutting rebukes to those who applied for passes. The following story is told of a general passenger agent in the South. A gentleman came in, whom the agent knew somewhat, saying: " I want to run down your line, can you help me out?" "Where are you going?" asked the railroad man. 230 FOKTY YEARS ON THE BAIL. The gentleman named a station a couple of hours' ride distant. "All right," said the agent, and then gave direc- tions to a clerk to make out the pass. " Thanks. By the way, I would like to run over to Washington while down that way. Could you fix me over your connecting line? " "No," the agent answered. "I have none of their blank passes; besides, you could not ride on their passenger trains." "Why, how is that?" "Well, you see, their classification requires that gall in large quantities shall be transported by freight," said the railroad man, and his visitor de- parted without a smile. A good joke on railway people is always appre- ciated. Everybody seems to enjoy a story in which the railway gets the worst of the joke. At one time, when Superintendent Hoxie was on the Missouri Pacific road a tramp got aboard of the train, deter- mined to steal or beg a ride. He told a pitiful story to the conductor, but the latter refused to let him ride free. " I can't do it," said the conductor. " Superintend- ent Hoxie is aboard, and he has given strict orders against free rides." " I'll see Hoxie myself," said the tramp, and sure HUMAN NATURE ON THE RAIL. 231 enough he did, but Mr. Hoxie rewarded his impudence by having the train stopped and the man put off. By climbing aboard again in some way the tramp got his ride, and when the train stopped at the next station, which was quite a distance away, there stood the tramp on the platform as Mr. Hoxie stepped from the car. The superintendent recognized the man with surprise and said: "How did you get here? I thought you were put off." The tramp with a keen sense of humor, took hold of Mr. Hoxie' s coat and drew him a little aside. "Just step here, sir. I don't want to give it away to the whole mob. I walked." This remark, spoken so loudly that the whole crowd could hear, had in it such a reflection on the slowness of the road's trains that a roar of laughter followed the tramp as he walked slowly away. Tramps are curious specimens of humanity, and conductors find it hard to deal with them. They show an amount of perseverance that, if directed in some useful occupation, would surely bring them to the top of the ladder. But, unfortunately they devote their quick wit and their stick-to-ati veness to " sponging " for a living. When a tramp sets his mind on anything he is sure to get it. Once while I was on the Council Bluffs run a conductor met with one of the race of 232 FORTY YEARS ON THE BAIL. tramps who showed this characteristic to a marked degree. At first the fellow was put off the train com- paratively gently. How a tramp gets on trains without having every bone in his body broken, is one of the mysteries the railroad service has never solved. Well, the man was once more discovered and once more put off, the second time with considerable emphasis of the conductor's foot. After kicking the fellow from the train several times, and finally coming to the conclu- sion that there was a look in his eye which said, "I'll fight it out on this line if it takes all summer," the conductor said: "Where are you bound for, anyhow?" " I'm going to Omaha, if your boot leaves enough of the seat of my pants for me to get there with." Such monumental perseverance got its reward at last. " Well, I'm going to Council Bluffs," said the con- ductor with a laugh. " I guess you've earned your way as far as I go." The unpleasant side of human nature is by no means the only one shown by the traveling public. Agreeable, patient, accommodating and generous people do not all stay at home, hiding their lights under a bushel. There are travelers whom the weari- ness and annoyances of railroading do not seem to incommode, and who prove themselves veritable Mark HUMAN NATUEE ON THE RAIL. 233 Tapleys on all occasions. Like Mark, they seem re- solved " to come out strong," as lie phrases it, under the most disadvantageous circumstances. On long trips such a person is an invaluable acquisition to any train. He soon becomes authority on all subjects, helps all parties to achieve something which, left to themselves, they could not possibly accomplish, and perhaps would not even dream of doing; is always jovial and generous; is hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, gets into the good graces of all the ladies and children, has a group of men at the end of the car or in the smoker laughing at his jokes, and never fails to join in the laughter himself with a right good will. Thousands of commercial travelers are on the road to-day who illustrate every phase of human nature at its best. The lives of train men would be monotonous indeed if it were not for the genial spirits among the passengers. The smoking-car is the favorite resort for the jolliest men on the train, and as the conductor passes along he is always drawn into whatever fun is going on, and he has his share of good cigars every time. In these respects travelers on American railroad trains differ from those of any other country. The Englishman is shut up' in a compartment car with a few others, and scarcely a word is exchanged by his fellow passengers. Introductions are necessary in that 234 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. country before an acquaintance is begun, and the Englishman regards a friendly remark made by a stranger as an intrusion, usually rewarding it by a blank stare. In this country friendliness of manner varies in degree according to the section through which the traveler passes. It is almost universally conceded that people of the East are far more reserved than those of the West. It is true that the former are courteous and accommodating when occasions demand, but they volunteer services or begin conversations far less fre- quently than their Western cousins. The hearty " Wall, stranger," with which a Far Wester greets his neighbor on the train, immediately does away with reserve, and his frank manner of telling his personal history, that of his family, also his present and pos- sible business, dealings, quite puts a stranger at his ease and makes him almost equally confidential. Out West everything is done on the broad-gauge plan. The vast prairies, large rivers and lakes of the region give it a certain stamp that has left an impress on its people, making insularism and narrowness of spirit an impossibility. The good Samaritan is often found on the train, ever ready by some kindly act to benefit others. For the sick she has some simple home remedy in her satchel; for the hungry she has a sandwich or biscuit, HUMAN NATURE ON THE BAIL. 235 or some fruit; for tlie fretful child she provides enter- tainment and relieves the careworn mother; for the sorrowing one, who is on her way to the bedside of a sick relative, she has a word of comfort; and is, in short, a general benefactor. Many a young girl, who is alone on the cars and is taking a journey for the first time in her life, owes her safety to such noble women. In our large cities ladies have organized societies for the care of young women who come from the country or from other towns, having placards posted in the waiting-rooms of depots requesting the friend- less who come in on the trains to go to the homes pro- vided by the society until they have secured the situa- tions they desire. Only those who are familiar with the dangers of metropolitan life can realize what a good work is thus done, but when he does realize it he says with all his heart, "Woman God's noblest gift to man God bless her!" The presence of children on trains often calls out the best nature of travelers, Large numbers of chil- dren travel alone, even for long distances. They are usually put in charge of the conductor at their start- ing place, but as officials change it is impossible for them to keep track of these little waifs. I once had a small boy on my train who was bound for some distant Western state, having come all the way from New England alone. He had lost both 236 FORTY YEAltS ON THE BAIL. parents, and friends had started the child off to an uncle living on the Pacific slope. The little fellow had a tag tied to a button-hole of his coat, on which was written his own name and the name and address of his uncle. It was a long and venturesome journey for one so young; but the child was too innocent and unworldly to think of danger, and he made himself quite at home, chatting with all who spoke to him. He made friends everywhere by his many winning ways, and was as carefully looked after by train officials and passengers as he could have been had he been accompanied by any of his relatives. Kind ladies saw that he was kept clean and had his hair brushed. The daintiest contents of many lunch baskets were given him, and he was amused in every possible way by first one passenger and then another. We were all sorry to have him leave us when we reached the end of my run. The child was carefully placed on another train by a kind gentleman, and he probably reached his destination without a mishap of any kind, though I have never heard of him since. Once a brother conductor, on making his round through his train after leaving a small station, found, curled up in an end seat, a little flaxen-haired boy who was sound asleep. The child had evidently been crying, as tear-stains were on his chubby, dirty face. His long curls were in a tangled mass, and his clothes, HUMAN NATURE ON THE RAIL. 237 though of the best quality, were soiled and torn. One hand tightly grasped a toy sheep, whose wool showed hard usage, and the other hand rested under the tired head. The conductor gently touched the child and the little fellow woke up. "Where are you going, my boy?" asked the official, in a kindly voice. " Going to see mamma," replied the child, rubbing his eyes wide open and hugging the toy sheep closer to him. " Where is your mamma? " " Gone off on cars with papa." "Where do you live?" " Up on the hill." "Is anybody at home with you? " " Just Mary, and she's cross and whips me." Here an angry look came into the little face and the wool of the toy sheep was firmly grasped by the baby fingers. "When will your mamma come back?" continued the official, anxious to get some clue that would help him to return the stray child to his friends. " Don't know. Papa put her in a big box and carried her off on the cars, and Mary says mamma will never come back. But I'm going to find mamma my own self and bring her home. I know she'll come if I ask her." 238 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. The truth flashed across the conductor's mind; here was a child whose mother had died, and whose father had been obliged to leave him to the care of a servant while he took the dead body of his wife away for burial. Not knowing what else to do, the official told the little one to lie down and go to sleep again and he would try to find papa for him. At the next station a telegram was received describing the child, and asking to have him put on the return train at the next stopping place. In my day I have known many brave and chival- rous deeds done by travelers of the railroad, scarcely a day passing that did not bring something of the kind under my observation. When a conductor is on the same run for a long time, his passengers become his personal friends, and he knows their family griefs and joys and everything else that interests them. He sees little children grow into young men and maidens, and often watches the progress of romances that lead to wedding bells. Men form life-long friendships from casual meetings on the road, and many a little act of kindness has reaped a rich harvest after long years. I remember once, when on the run between Council Bluffs and Chicago, we were delayed a long time by snow. One of the day-coach passengers was a man who was taking the dead body of his wife to the East HUMAN NATURE ON THE RAIL. 239 for burial. He had several little children with him, and our long stops had used up his last cent. I explained to the passengers the poor fellow's sad lot and passed the hat. Bills and silver rained into the improvised cash box, and when I had gone through the train I found nearly thirty-six dollars had been deposited in the hat. As I put the money into the man's hand, tears streamed down his cheeks and he could hardly find words to thank the donors for their generosity. At another time, when my train was delayed and was three days and nights in getting to Chicago, an old lady about seventy years of age was in my car. H. Lee Borden, of Elgin, Illinois, was also aboard. Mr. Borden is well known for his generosity and benevolence wherever he goes, and to him many a poor family is indebted for tons of coal and large supplies of provisions. He saw the old lady eating a little lunch from a basket she had with her, and then quietly drew me aside saying: " Captain, take that lady into the dining-car for all her meals, and I will settle the bills." The old lady enjoyed her fine meals hugely, and never knew whom she owed for the favor. After all, it is in the presence of sorrow, or in times of danger that human nature is shown in its true light. A long train starts out from the station, 240 FOKTY YEAKS ON THE RAIL. crowded with passengers, rich and poor, good and bad. Perhaps a long run will be made, and little will occur to show the individual traits of this great multitude, except here and there a stray incident such as those I have already mentioned. But let an accident occur, be it ever so slight, or a panic be caused, and, as if by magic, a veil seems drawn from every soul and its innate characteristics will come to light. Listening to the numberless stories of experiences told by survivors of a great railroad disaster, and those who first go to render them assistance, one hardly knows whether to admire most the heroic deeds of some, or despise the despicable acts of others. There are heroes, such as one looks for only on battle- fields, in that terrible hour, and there are also some wretches for whom hanging would be far from adequate punishment. One is glad to turn from the stories of the latter to dwell only on the deeds of the former. The engineer has acted nobly, and doubtless has given his life in his efforts to save his train. The officials have died with him, or are working with might and main to alleviate the suffering of the pas- sengers. Men have died in agony to save wife or child; the mother has shielded her babe to the last and closed her eyes in death, happy that the little one is unharmed; delicately nurtured girls cast aside all timidity and go to and fro among the dying and the HUMAN NATURE ON THE RAIL. 241 suffering, ministering to each with the heroism of a Florence Nightingale. Even the bootblack, who had been " sneakin' a ride under de trucks," when he finds he can do nothing for his pal who has been killed outright, manages to rescue a little baby from danger into which it has fallen, and through the horrors of that night he soothes it in his arms and watches it as tenderly as a mother till the dawn enables him to carry it to a place of safety. Men and women alike set aside all thoughts of hunger, fatigue or exhaustion, to give untiring assistance to the suf- ferers, till the last one is aided and the last body has been taken from the wrecked train, tenderly wrapped in a shroud and sent afar to the desolate home that awaits it. Wealth and position know naught of pre- cedence here; those who suffer and those who help are alike in the presence of death. 16 CHAPTER XII. RAILROADING OF TO-DAY. Shortly after I had left the Chicago and North- Western railway I had a peculiar dream. I fancied I was at the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern depot, where stood a magnificent train of coaches mounted in burnished gold that glistened and sparkled in the bright light with dazzling splendor. As I stood admiring the brilliant spectacle, John C. Gault, who I thought had been appointed superintendent, came along swinging a gold lantern in his hand. " Hello, Captain," he greeted me, " you're just the man I've been looking for." " What's up?" I asked. "Anything I can do for you?" " Yes; run this train out." " I can't do that, Mr. Gault," I answered, looking at the gorgeous coaches through whose windows could be seen a large number of passengers. " I don't know the road." " Nonsense," he retorted with some impatience, " you must take it out." 242 RAILROADING OF TO-DAY. 243 So I went forward to the engine, which was trim- med with gold to match the coaches, and when the time was up I gave the signal and off we started. But we did not go far, for when I commenced to collect the tickets and saw there was not a single cash fare in the train of seven cars it surprised me so much that I woke up. The cars of my dream came forcibly to my mind not many weeks ago, when I saw the vestibule Pull- man train ready to start from the Pittsburgh and Fort Wayne depot in Chicago. The cars of this train have their platforms enclosed with heavy, highly polished hard wood and glass doors, thus forming a continuous passage from end to end of the train, and enabling passengers to go from one car to another without being exposed to the cold of winter, the unpleasant- ness of rain or snow-storms, or to dust, smoke and cinders. These cars represent the perfection of the car-builders 1 art, being, in beauty of finish and in their elegance, finer than anything before put on the rail for public use. On this vestibule train are all the luxuries and con- veniences a millionaire could desire at home. The different cars provide for him dining-room, parlor, bedroom, barber-shop, dressing, smoking and reading rooms, while his table is supplied with all the delica- cies of the season from a well appointed kitchen, 244 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. larder, and wine-cellar. Of such a modern wonder as this it has been well said: " Monarchs of old had their castles distributed at different parts of their vast domains, so that they need not forego the luxu- ries of life while visiting any portion of their empires. It remained for the American to put the palace on wheels and furnish the transit of royalty or of citizen- kings and princes with luxury at every mile." It seems as if nothing will ever be made more nearly like the train of which I dreamed, and as I stood looking at this recent triumph of car-building I could not help going back in my thoughts to the little cabless engine and sawed-off cars of my boyhood days. Railroading has not reached its present high state of excellence by a sudden bound. Ever since I began -on the road improvements have been steadily going on, and while it would be impossible to make mention of all, I cannot refrain from speaking of a few ways in which progress has been made. Perhaps the locomotive has in itself more evidences of the wonderful onward march in railroading of the past forty years than anything else connected with the service. Man's genius seems materialized in the " iron horse," and no one can look upon a locomotive of to-day without having a feeling come over him that is akin to awe. It would be impossible for me to give RAILROADING OF TO-DAY. 245 even the briefest description of the improvements made in my day within the limits of these pages, so many have there been. Whether art and science will produce greater triumphs in this direction remains to be seen, but it certainly seems as if they can go no farther. When Miller introduced the platform, coupling and spring buffer that go by his name, a great step was taken in advance in railroading. By these inventions the dangers of hand coupling are done away with, telescoping has become almost unknown, and the lia- bility to derailment is greatly lessened. In 1869 George Westinghouse patented his atmos- pheric air-brake, which is now generally used in this country. Each car has beneath its floor a cylinder and piston; this piston acts on levers and rods to set the brakes against the wheels, the brakes being con- nected with the ordinary braking apparatus at" the platforms of the cars. Compressed air is conveyed to the cylinder by tubes leading from a reservoir or air- pump at the locomotive, the engineer or fireman send- ing the air to the cylinders by simply turning a valve - handle. The application of electricity to railroading has been of untold advantage, and its possibilities are infinite. It has already given us electric signals and has provided for us the invaluable work of the train- 246 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. dispatcher and telegraph, operator, who, by its assist- ance, direct the movements of a multitude of trains on a vast network of roads. Track-laying is now what in the early days was never dreamed of. In the olden time, rails battered so much that it was necessary to have blacksmith shops at intervals on the road to mend them. About eighteen o years ago the fish-plate came into use, which makes a continuous rail, decreasing the wear and tear on ac- count of the smoothness of the track. Steel rails are no longer an innovation, and steel sleepers are proving a happy experiment. Very decided improvements in passenger-cars are being introduced on some of the principal roads. Their simplicity is always desired, as in the decrease of dead weight to the paying weight a great source of saving is found in operation. An improvement in the lighter weight of moving trains will be another step forward. Railway men complain of the weight of passenger-cars as they are now built, and show by figures that an engine hauls between five and six pounds of dead weight for every one pound of paying passenger weight, reckoned when all the seats are filled. The paper car-wheel may be mentioned as one of the greatest inventions of these later days. It was given to the world by B/ichard Norton Allen, of whom RAILROADING OF TO-DAY. 247 I have spoken in previous pages, and the great works of the Allen Car- Wheel Company at Pullman, Illinois, form one of the most interesting features of that city. There the visitor may see the circular pieces of paper used in the manufacture of each wheel put under a pressure of a ton and a half to the square inch. These wheels are considered by most people much safer than any others in use, as they do not shrink or spring under climatic changes, and sustain sudden jars better than the old style of wheel. Thousands of travelers select routes on which the Allen wheel is used, in preference to any others. The handling of freight and cattle is now done with ease and dispatch, and refrigerator-cars have done away with all the old difficulties in transporting per- ishable articles. . Several patents have been taken out on these cars, and have been used with great success. Of these I know best what is known as the " Tiffany " car. In this, insulation is accomplished with two dead air-chambers lined with felt paper. The car has a V- shaped tank overhead, running from end to end, also two end tanks which receive the drip water from that above, and also hold ice for use when extra refrigera- tion is wanted. Each car holds about forty-five hun- dred pounds of ice, and is kept at the uniform tempera- ture of thirty-five degrees all the year around, being made to withstand the cold of winter as well as the 248 FORTY YEARS ON THE HAIL. heat of summer. Eefrigerator-cars have revolution- ized the shipping of food stuffs. They have brought the cattle ranches of Texas to the doors of New York; have poured the tropical fruits of Florida and Cali- fornia in profusion upon the tables of the North; in short, they have made the whole nation one in the matter of eating, and given to the poor man what a decade or two ago was only found in the homes of the wealthy. Smoking, buffet, drawing-room, boudoir, dining and sleeping cars have all been added to meet the needs and tastes of this enterprising age. As early as 1856 a mechanic by the name of Woodruff constructed the first sleeping-car ever made. The coach had seats for sixty passengers, and at night these seats were changed into flat berths. Webster Wagner, in 1858, designed and built four sleeping-cars for the New York Central road, and in 1867 made his first palace car. Wood- ruff, who afterward received royalty from both Wagner and Pullman for infringement on his patent, died worth a large fortune. Wagner also became very rich. He was killed while traveling in one of his own cars by a railway accident at Spuyten Duyvil, in 1882. But for the modern luxuries of travel the world is most indebted to George M Pullman and his brother, A. B. Pullman. The latter was superintendent and also a conductor on their cars when they were first RAILROADING OF TO-DAY. 249 made, afterward becoming general superintendent, then vice-president and chief of construction. In 1859 the Pullmans fitted up two ordinary passenger coaches of the Chicago and Alton road for sleeping purposes. In 1863 they began building their palace cars, and assigned one called the "Pioneer" to the Alton road, and another to the Chicago and North- Western, naming the second " The City of Dubuque." These cars excited a great deal of inter- est, and though considered by many a foolish extrav- agance, the managers of the Michigan Central, the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy, and the Great Western of Canada soon made contracts with Mr. Pullman for the placing of his sleeping cars on their roads. The Pullman Palace Car Company was organized in 1867. I think the first dining-car in the country was run on the Chicago and North-Western railway to San Francisco, in 1869, with the well-known H. M. Kinsley, of Chicago, as caterer. In May, 1880, the famous town of Pullman, ten miles south of Chicago, was founded. There are located the vast shops of the company, in which are made cars of every description, and there also are the Allen Car Wheel Works. Perhaps no one thing in the world can give a better idea of what railroad interests have done and can do than this model city. It was 250 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. founded for making railroad cars, was built by money made from railroads, and is filled with a thriving population earning support in railroad industry. Seven years ago the bare and open prairie existed where the city of Pullman now stands. "Skilled architects, landscape gardeners, civil engineers, and trained artisans," says an anonymous writer, "with the best machinery within the power of man's ingenuity to make, together with the lavish expenditure of money, have brought into being a large city, filled with thousands of prosperous people, and complete in all that constitutes city life in the advanced state of civilization of the nineteenth century. " In this town, which has been dedicated to the work of mechanics, the higher nature of man has not been forgotten. Utility and beauty have here been so combined that the workingmen may acquire that taste for the beautiful and orderly that makes their lives brighter and happier. The car works themselves are most attractive. They are built in the round-arched Gothic style of architecture, and are sufficiently varied to prevent monotony. The ornamentation is not lavish, but is exceedingly tasteful. The homes of the employees have a very pleasing appearance. They are chiefly of the Queen Anne style, variously modi- fied. Of course some are more pretentious than others. There are large, elegant houses for the super- RAILROADING OF TO-DAY. 251 intendent and other officials. Those of a second order are for the highest classes of artisans, and there are still others more modest in appearance, besides great flats capable of accommodating several families. But no matter what may be the size and for what class they are intended, all are attractive and have the same pleasant environments. Evergreens and a variety of trees and shrubs abound. The streets are well graded and paved, and are bounded with beautiful lawns. In season, foliage plants and flowers are found in great profusion. In front of the shops is the artificial lake with its grassy banks, upon which are disposed many urns filled with tropical plants. Here the eye may find delight in beautiful colors and in watching the sunbeams dance upon the water; the ear may catch the splash of the fountain and the melody of birds." Among the many improvements of these later days of railroading must not be forgotten the adoption of the so-called standard time. When railroads were chiefly east of the Mississippi, no special notice was taken of the inconvenience caused by different stand- ards, but as soon as great lines branched out west, northwest, and southwest towards the Pacific Ocean, this diversity became not only a source of annoyance, but of danger. There were at least fifty-three stand- ards in use by the different railroads of the country, and it often happened that into a single city, which 252 FORTY YEAKS ON THE HAIL. was a converging point for ten or a dozen different roads, nearly as many different standards were in use by these lines. In going from New England to Wash- ington six standards were observed. In 1883, the system planned by W. R Allen came into use, by which the whole of the United States was divided into four great sections, and we now have only " Eastern," "Central," "Mountain," and "Western" time, the change from one to the other being an hour, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean the difference of time being four hours. Railroad men are contem- plating doing away with another old fashion, and having clocks number the hours from one to twenty- four, abolishing the A. M. and P. M. method, which makes time tables very confusing in long runs. The Canadian Pacific road adopted the twenty-four hour system from the very first. Another improvement in modern railroading is the railway mail service. For this the public is chiefly indebted to George B. Armstrong, who located in Chicago in 1854. At the breaking out of the war he was appointed assistant postmaster, and in 1862 was called by President Lincoln to go to Cairo, Illinois, to find the best way of forwarding a vast accumulation of war mail matter, amounting to thousands of tons. This he accomplished in so short a time that his ser- vices were publicly acknowledged. While at Cairo RAILROADING OF TO-DAY. 253 Mr. Armstrong conceived the idea that a letter could travel with the same speed as an individual. For two years he revolved the scheme in his mind before ven- turing to put it to a practical test. In 1864, he got permission from the government to equip a car and try the experiment, but as no appropriation was made by Congress to defray the cost, Mr. Armstrong, rather than give up the project, fitted up a car at his own expense. The service proved a success, and from this small beginning the system has grown to its present magnitude, extending from ocean to ocean, covering all lines of rail, employing thousands of postal clerks, who distribute daily thousands of tons of mail matter, in cars running from twenty to forty miles an hour day and night, securing to all mail matter the same rapidity of transit that can be attained by the indi- vidual. In another chapter I have spoken of the tickets in use in the early days of railroading. It would be impossible to give an account of the improvements in this respect within the limits of this book, for this subject alone would fill a volume. About the middle of the century there was a marked change in the style of tickets and a heavy increase in the number issued. It was to General Ticket Agent Marshall, of the Lake Shore railroad, that the idea of coupon tickets, reading from point of departure to destination, first occurred. 254 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. Mr. Marshall sent out a circular to the head officials of other roads inviting them to a meeting, at which he explained the workings of the proposed system. " Yes, that may be a good plan," said one official, " but the agent of the road selling the ticket would get all the money for the whole distance traveled. How is it to be divided?" " That's so," said another official, " and suppose we change our rates, what then? " "My plan," said Mr. Marshall, " is to have a book to be called the division book kept by each company, in which all amounts due to other roads can be entered, together with the number of tickets sold, etc. At the end of the month a statement can be made from each of the roads to the other, so that they can see just how they stand, and if one road has sold more tickets over another road than the other road has sold over it, the balance can be paid to the company to which it is due. It is a very simple matter." The plan was adopted and is in existence to this day, with some modifications as to detail. Before its adoption the office of ticket auditor of a railroad was a sinecure. Now it is one of the most important parts of the machinery of a well-conducted road, with a host of clerks and a library of figures. When a modern railway passenger asks for a ticket over a certain route comprising half a dozen roads, he takes but little RAILBOADING OF TO-DAY. 255 thought, if indeed he has any idea of the careful pre- arrangement which permits of his being supplied with a single ticket reading to his point of destination, no matter whether it is in Maine or Florida, Oregon or Arizona. The movements of the ticket agent and his manipulation of the ticket stamps and punches, together with the detachment of coupons and the addition of "pasters," are a complete mystery to the majority of travelers, even to this day when everybody knows everybody's business. Mileage tickets, as they are called in railroad phraseology, have been issued in many different forms, each ticket usually entitling the purchaser to travel one thousand miles over the railroad by which it is issued. The old style of one thousand mile tickets was simply a piece of bristol-board, on which appeared first the name of the railroad company, then the date of issue, and the name of the person by whom the ticket was to be used, followed the figure representing the mileage. When a passenger presented his ticket for passage, the conductor punched enough of the figures to make up the full distance from starting point to destination. There were sometimes a row of halves at the top of the table, but as a rule, where the passenger rode only a half mile, the conductor canceled a figure represent- ing a mile, and if he rode five-and-a-half miles, six 256 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. were canceled, the difference always being in favor of the company by whom the mileage ticket was sold or presented. One thousand mile tickets were formerly used chiefly by shippers and commercial travelers, to whom they were sold at a reduced rate. Some of the less liberal railways gave them to members of State legislatures instead of annual passes, the mileage tickets generally being more limited as to time. Many roads, however, placed no limit on the time in which the ticket was good for passage. The first book-mileage ticket ever used in this country was the invention of Ben Patrick, chief clerk in the office of Ben Hitchcock, general passenger agent of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy railroad, about eight years ago. Patrick's ticket differed some- what in style from that now in use, but it answered the same purpose. Formerly all employees above the position of ordi- nary day laborers were given annual passes. Now, however, only trip passes are given, except in the case of the higher grades of clerks and the smaller officials. The heads of departments not only get annual passes over their own line, but every year receive from all the railroads of the United States complimentary annual tickets. The giving of passes by one railroad to all the head officials of the others necessitates in itself the printing of large numbers of KAILKOADING OF TO-DAY. 257 passes, but this was only a small item of the list until the Inter-State law came into existence. It is said that some of the eastern roads annually gave out twenty-five thousand free passes. The Union Pacific, according to the statement of its president, four years ago gave out " free transportation " to the amount of twenty-five hundred dollars a day. This was, of course, computing each free passenger at full rates. What soured the milk of human kindness with respect to the issuance of free passes more than any- thing, was the sale of them by their holders to scalpers and others. Then, too, though passes were always marked "not transferable," it often happened that the same pass was used by a dozen different persons. Land-grants may be considered among the institu- tions that have been a prodigious power in railroading since the middle of the century. The number of rail- road land grants has been very large; some were given by charter to States, some to corporations none to individuals It is estimated that there have been given to rail- way corporations, mainly for the construction of trans- continental lines, one hundred and thirty-five millon acres. These grants were at no time a party issue. The first land-grant made by the United States government was of a million acres to the Mobile and Ohio road in 1848. 258 . FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. In 1851, the first land-grant charter was issued to the Illinois Central Railroad Company. In 1853, Congress passed an act authorizing a survey for a trans-continental line. The State of Maine granted the first charter for the building of a railroad to the Pacific coast; but it was found that a State charter was not potent enough, so the sanction of the general government was asked. In July, 1864, Congress gave the great Pacific roads their first land- grant. This liberality of the United States government toward the railroads and the unexampled prosperity of our nation during the years since the war, have resulted in an extension of roads such as can be seen nowhere else in the world. On the first day of January, 1832, there were nine- teen railroads in this country, either completed or in process of construction. In 1840 the average yearly building was about five hundred miles; in 1850 it had increased to fifteen hundred miles; in 1860 to nearly ten thousand; and in 1871 it was stated that railroad enterprises requiring an outlay of $800,000,000 and involving the construction of twenty thousand miles of road, were in actual process of being carried out. No comprehensive figures of railway business are attainable previous to 1871. In that year the total capital invested (stock and bonds) was stated to RAILROADING OF TO-DAY. 259 amount to $2,664,627,645, and forty-four thousand, six hundred and fourteen miles were operated. In 1880 the capital invested, including funded debt, was estimated at $4,897,401,997, and eighty-four thousand, two hundred and twenty-five miles were operated. The "Eailway Age" estimates that over sixty-four hundred miles of new track have been laid the present year, during the eight months ending September 1st a record never before equaled except in 1882, when seven thousand miles of road were constructed during the same period. The "Age" says it is probable the total for 1887 will reach twelve thousand miles, and surpass that of 1882 eleven thousand, five hundred and sixty-eight miles now the largest on record. What will be the record of the year 1890 it is hardly possible to foretell, but judging from the work being done to-day the close of the present decade will show statistics that will surprise even the most san- guine believer in the century's progress. The public mind has been so .busy in carrying out the great projects of these later days that it has not had time to consider many of the problems in law and equity springing out of our marvelous progress. People have scarcely realized, until a comparatively recent date, that railroading needed any governmental regulation. At present no question occupies more 260 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. generally the national thought. It may be regarded, in fact, as the problem of to-day. Undoubtedly no act of Congress has ever called out such diverse interpretation, or undertaken to con- trol interests of such vast extent, as the Inter-State Commerce law which went into effect on April 5, 1887. The subject of national regulation of common car- riers took definite form in 1886, in the passage by the Senate of the Cullom bill. The House refused to concur in .this bill, but passed what is known as the Eeagan bill. The Senate failing to concur, a confer- ence committee was appointed by each body, and the result was the law as it now stands. The different sections of the bill relate to unjust discriminations, providing equal facilities, long and short hauls, pools, rates and their publication, con- tinuous carriage, liability of carriers, action for dam- ages, penalties for violation, the appointment of a commission; and it further details the duties and power of that commission. " The complexities and difficulties of governmental administration of railway rates," says George R. Blanchard, commissioner of the Central Traffic Asso- ciation, " are greater in the United States than in any other country. This is caused by its greater area, larger railway mileage, longer coast lines, more numerous navigable lakes and rivers, diversities of KAILBOADING OF TO-DAY. 261 soil, climate and products, differences between rates on high mountain gradient and level lines, the rapidity of traffic development, our desire to grasp foreign markets, the crudities and dissimilarities of railway charters and legislation, the proximities of foreign governments and carriers, and the anomalies and contrarieties of state and national authority within and across non-physical lines. " It has taken half a century in insular and parlia- mentary England to reach its present legal stage there, and it is still incomplete and unsatisfactory. How much more difficult here! " The work of the railroad commission is still in an embryonic condition, but it is not to be expected that questions of such vast importance can be dealt with in a brief space of time. Let the pessimist and the grumbler look back over the history of our country and note the difficulties with which we have coped and the triumphs we have met in every epoch of our career. Surely we have no reason to fear that failure awaits us in this new work as our ultimate reward. These pages contain only a brief survey of the important epoch in railroading covered by the last forty years, as it has come under my observation. It often seems to me as I look back that the world will never again see such an age, yet I know that we live 262 FORTY YEARS ON THE RAIL. in a time of wonders, and it may be that another generation will see fulfilled what are only dreams with us, and the advancement of the last four decades may be the herald that ushers in grander progress in every line of work and thought. 2 54.1 o 3 .. U .i C .-..P.!!?. K .? LEY LIBRARIES C0311E7fl77