EARLY RAILWAYS BETWEEN
NEW ENGLAND AND CANADA.
Engineering NewsAugust 4, 1894
Railway communication between Canada and the Atlantic coast
was suggested nearly 50 years ago, when railways were beginning
to be recognized as a coming power in the development of the United
States, and the first proposition for a railway from Montreal
Que., to Portland, Me., and then eastward to St. John, N. B.,
and Halifax, N., S., was made in 1843, by Mr. John Alfred Poor,
of Portland, who became one of the leading men in promoting railway
enterprises in New England. Mr. Poor recognized the advantages
of a railway between the upper and lower provinces of Canada,
traversing the state of Maine, and advocated the construction
of a line for its international importance as shortening the time
between Great Britain and the North American continent by establishing
an eastern port. Mainly through this enterprise the railway was
built by which the Grand Trunk Ry. now runs from Montreal to Portland,
as well as the eastward line from Portland to St. John, and Halifax,
above referred to. Mr. Poor was born in Jan. 1808, at East Andover,
Me. He studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1832, and started
a practice at Oldtown, twelve miles from Bangor. He was enthusiastic
and energetic in advancing the interests of his native state,
but it is with his work in railway enterprises that we are concerned
here. His ideas were large, but practical, and 50 years ago he
foresaw the construction of air international railway between
Canadian and American ports, and of a transcontinental railway
from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Up to the time of his death
in September, 1871, he was actively engaged in railway promotion
and construction. The above particulars are abstracted from a
recent publication, "The First International RailwayLife
and Writings of John Alfred Poor," edited by Laura Elizabeth
Poor, and from this book we have compiled the following description
of the growth and development of railways in Maine and the Lower
Provinces of Canada. It may be mentioned that in 1849 Mr. Poor
purchased the "American Railway Journal," of New York,
which was afterward owned and edited by Mr. Henry Varnum Poor.
Mr. Poor was present at Boston on April 16, 1834, when the
first locomotive engine, with passenger cars attached, ran over
a railway just built from Boston to Newton, and afterward extended
to Worcester and beyond. This is said to have given him the idea
of the great future of railways which led him to devote so much
time to promoting and encouraging their construction. In 1836
the first railway operated by locomotives in the state of Maine
was built between Bangor and Oldtown. The legislature adopted
measures which led to fire survey of several routes for a railway
between the seaboard of Maine and the St. Lawrence River, in Canada.
The shortest and most practicable route was from Belfast to Quebec,
and a report was made upon it by an engineer but nothing was done.
In 1839, a survey was made for a railway between Portland and
Lake Champlain, but this enterprise also came to nothing. Mr.
Poor was thoroughly acquainted with the geography of the state
and its resources, and in 1843 he made public his plan for two
great railways, one from Portland to Montreal, and the other from
Portland to Halifax, his project being to shorten the steamship
route to England. In 1884 he began to agitate for the former line
by means of public meetings, memorials, etc., and he traveled
over the proposed route. A company was organized, a preliminary
survey completed before December, and a charter was applied for,
but before it was granted it was found that agents from Boston
were in Canada trying to secure aid in the construction of a road
from Montreal to Boston. Before the railway to Montreal had been
suggested in Portland, three lines from Boston to Montreal had
been chartered. These were the Boston, Concord & Montreal,
R. R., chartered in 1844, acting in connection with the Passumpsic
R. R., whose charter was of earlier date; the Vermont Central
R. R., in connection with the Northern R. R. of New Hampshire,
and the Rutland & Burlington R. R., as an extension of the
Fitchburg R. R. All these had agents in Montreal before Portland,
and during the whole time that the railway policy of Canada was
under discussion in 1845. Mr. Poor at once went to Montreal by
a sleigh in February, and after a dangerous journey arrived in
time to prevent the adoption of a resolution by the Board of Trade
in favor of a line to Boston. Later a race by, team was made from
Portland, and Boston to Montreal with English mails landed at
both places by the same steamer. Teams were stationed along the
route, and the mail from Portland arrived twelve hours before
that from Boston. This led to the adoption of the Portland line
by the Canadians, and the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Ry. Co.
was incorporated to build the American portion of the line. Work
was commenced at Portland on July 4, 1846, and soon after the
Atlantic & St. Lawrence Ry. Co. was incorporated to build
the Canadian portion, and commenced work at Montreal.
The distances of the two routes were as follows:
Montreal to Sherbrook |
91 miles |
Sherbrooke to Canaan |
30 miles |
Canaan to Colebrooke |
10 miles |
Colebiboke to Andover |
43 miles |
Andover to Portland |
72 miles |
Total |
246 miles |
Montreal to Sherbrooke |
91 miles |
Sherbrooke to Stanstead |
34 miles |
Stanstead to Haverhill |
80 miles |
Haverhill to Concord |
70 miles |
Concord to Boston |
76 miles |
Total |
351 miles |
The question of gage was a disputed one, the Chief Engineer,
Mr. A. C. Morton, advocated the 5 ft. 6 ins. gage adopted by the
British. Government as the standard for India, while others advocated
6 ft. and 4 ft. 8½ ins. The Canadian Parliament passed
a law fixing the, gage of the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Ry.,
at 4 ft. 8½ ins., unless the Governor in Council should
within six months determine upon a different gage, and Mr. Poor,
with delegates from the Atlantic. & St.. Lawrence and St.
Lawrence & Atlantic companies, succeeded in obtaining an order
in council establishing the gage of' 5 ft. 6 ins. In 1851 Mr.
Poor successfully urged the adoption of this gage for the Great
Western Ry. of Canada. His idea was to avoid such a connection
as would enable the standard gage railways of Massachusetts to
control the railways of Maine.
The project of a line from Portland to St. John and Halifax
was now taken up, and it was proposed to use the Atlantic &
St. Lawrence Ry. as far east as Lewiston, and then make an extension
to Gardiner and Augusta, with a branch at Brunswick and Bath.
As soon as this was proposed the Kennebec Valley people began
a rival line, on the standard gage, east from Portland, in 1845.
In 1846 a broad gage line, the Androscoggin & Kennebec Ry.,
was started eastward, from Danville Junction, under the auspices
of the Atlantic & St. Lawrence, the latter assuring connection
with railways leading out of Portland on the west. For this purpose
Commercial St. was built, and tracks laid along it to connect
the two eastern and western railways. The war of the gages was
closed by the consolidation of the parallel and competing lines
from Portland to Waterville, by Boston capital, with the Boston
or standard gage.
In 1848 charters were applied for in New Hampshire and Vermont
for the construction of the Atlantic & St. Lawrence Ry. across
these states, and were granted after much opposition. In 1849
a suspension for want of money was feared, but was avoided by
the plan suggested by Mr. Poor of letting the whole road as one
contract and paying a high price, as the only means of saving
the contractors from failure. The contract was let to Black, Wood
& Co. In 1851 Mr. Poor was chosen President of the New York
& Cumberland Ry., now the Portland & Rochester, and he
also secured the extension of the line from Gorham to the Saco
River. When the line from Portland to Halifax was suggested, a
rival project from Quebec to Halifax was started and a survey
was made. The lower Provinces made offers of money and public
lands if the home or imperial government would undertake the accomplishment
of the scheme, but the British Ministry rejected the application
in 1850, and the lower provinces then supported the Portland line.
The city of Quebec proposed to connect with the Portland and Montreal
line at Richmond, thereby obtaining connection with Montreal and
Portland, and ultimately with the lower provinces. In 1850 the
Maine Legislature was petitioned to authorize a survey to discover
the best and most practicable route between Bangor and the New
Brunswick boundary, and $5,000 was appropriated for the survey.
In 1853 a charter was granted to the European & North American
Ry. Co., of Maine. Mr. Poor claimed that by means of this railway
to Halifax and a steamship line to Galway, Ireland, 2,000 miles
from Halifax, the transit between the two continents could be
reduced to five days, and between London and New York to seven
days. The Britannia tubular bridge across the Menai Straits was
opened in the spring of 1850, enabling the London & Northwestern
Ry. to run through trains from London to Holyhead, whence steamers
crossed to Dublin in 3½ hours, and from Dublin the Midland
Ry. of Ireland had been built half way to Galway.
In 1851 New Brunswick granted a charter for the Portland and
Halifax line, with a land grant and cash subsidy. In Nova Scotia,
the Hon. Joseph Howe, of the Executive Council, had taken the
ground that the railway should be a public highway, and as such
should be built by the government, and he sent to England to secure
an imperial guarantee to the Nova Scotia lands to be issued for
this purpose. This was granted in 1851, on condition that by the
co-operation of New Brunswick and Canada a connection should be
secured from Halifax to Quebec through British territory. Such
a line had been surveyed by the imperial government when the Portland
and Montreal railway was begun, and the colonial line, was the
revival of the same project, three times .abandoned but eventually
built. The condition was too heavy, however, and Mr. Howe's mission
came to nothing. He made a speech at Portland in favor of this
line in 1851, and was answered by Mr. Poor, speaking for the European
& North American Ry., as "international and commercial
rather than intercolonial and political."
In 1852 Hon. Francis Hincks, a Canadian statesman, went to
England to seek assistance from the imperial government toward
building a trunk line of railway for Canada. It would extend from
Quebec to Montreal by the branch from Quebec to Richmond, on the
St. Lawrence & Atlantic, and from Montreal would run to Toronto.
The delays of the Colonial Office disgusted him, and he made arrangements
with the English firm of railway contractors, Messrs. Jackson,
Brassey, Peto & Betts, for the construction of the line. Mr.
Poor's suggestion for a connection between Canada and the lower
provinces was adopted, the plan being to build a cut-off from
Bethel to Bangor (by which Bangor would be only 30 miles farther
than Portland from Montreal), and the extension by way of Calais
and along the shore to St. John, N. B. The English contractors
proposed to build this line from Waterville, Me., to Halifax,
N. S., advancing 80% of the money, intending to bring out the
entire scheme in London. The charter was refused by the Maine
Legislature, and the Grand Trunk scheme was delayed for the Bangor
part until April, 1883, and then brought out alone in London.
Another adopted suggestion of Mr. Poor's was the lease of the
line from Montreal to Portland in order to secure a winter port,
the Canadian idea having been to provide only for local traffic
between Montreal and Toronto, but the contractors saw the necessity
of a through traffic and wished to provide for extensions at both
ends. In August, 1853, this line, owned by the two companies,
was formally leased to the Grand Trunk Ry. Co., and in 1856 the
Grand Trunk line to Toronto was opened. The western extension
has been carried out to Sarnia, Ont., and thence on American soil
to Chicago, as the Chicago & Grand Trunk Ry.
In 1857-1858 Mr. Poor advocated the construction of branches
of the European & North American Ry. to the Aroostook and
Piscataquis counties, of Maine, and advocated also the development
of the resources and water power of these districts. In 1863 the
Oldtown & Lincoln, The Penobscot and the Aroostook roads were
united with the European & North American. When Massachusetts
was applied to in 1865 to discharge the debt due from Maine in
favor of the European & North American Ry., aid was declined
on the ground of a Maine law of 1860 forbidding the change of
gage. Mr. Poor applied to the legislature to repeal this law,
and for leave to lay a third rail on the Portland, Saco &
Portsmouth Ry., with a view of extending the broad gage from Halifax
to Boston and New York. The law was repealed. At this time there
was mulch agitation in the lower provinces over the proposed confederation
of all British North America, and New Brunswick strongly opposed
the confederation.. In 1865 Mr. Poor, in behalf of his company,
proposed to complete the lines in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
for an annual subsidy of $80,000 from the two provinces, guaranteed
until the lines should pay 6% of the cost. The former government
declined this arrangement, but voted $10,000 a mile to complete
the line from St. John westward to the boundary. Mr., Poor, as
president of the Maine company, made a contract with the New Brunswick
company, and then made a contract to build the entire line of
the European & North American Ry. through the state and the
province. Work was commenced at St. John in November, 1865, and
at Bangor, Me., in 1867. In 1867 the repeated offer of the imperial
government to build the Intercolonial Ry. from Halifax to Quebec,
conditional upon the confederation, induced both New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia to accept the confederation. The European &
North American Ry. was opened in October, 1871 (some years before
the opening of the Intercolonial Ry.) with a grand celebration
in which the President of the United States and the Governor-General
of Canada took part.
In addition to this "international" railway, Mr.
Poor also projected a line to connect Portland with Chicago and
ultimately with the Pacific coast, recognizing the importance
of a transcontinental line of railway. In 1869 he wrote that for
30 years he had contemplated as a certainty the completion of
such a line, and in 1845 he had correspondence with Mr. Asa Whitney
on the subject. Mr. Whitney's and other early projects for a transcontinental
railway were described in our issue of Feb. 16, 1889. Mr. Poor
secured from the legislature a charter for a railway from Portland
to Rutland, Vt., by way of the Ossipee valley, White River Junction
and Woodstock. The route then proposed was to Whitehall, Oswego,
Buffalo, Detroit and Chicago. The city of Portland, however, did
not foresee the advantages of the line and opposed the plan, but
favored the Portland & Ogdensburg Ry., in spite of Mr. Poor's
arguments against that line, which was ultimately built but which
after taking nearly $2,000,000 from Portland, passed into the
control of Boston railway men. In 1869 the Portland, Rutland,
Oswego & Chicago Ry. Co. was organized, and in 1871 a bill
was presented in Congress for the payment by the Treasury, of
$50,000 per mile, in 30-year bonds, as each section of 40 miles
was built and equipped, the road to be double track, with steel
rails and iron bridges. Five of six railway companies along the
projected route agreed in July, 1871, to unite as one company,
and the meeting was deferred until Sept. 29 owing to the delay
of the other company. Mr. Poor, however, died on Sept. 5, and
the project fell through, He had formed a scheme for Atlantic
and Pacific steamship lines in connection with his transcontinental
railway, and looked forward to through traffic between China and
England under one company's management, a plan which has never
been carried out in the United States, but has been carried out
by the Canadian. Pacific Ry. There is, however, a through train
summer service now between Portland and Chicago, by way of the
Portland & Ogdensburg (Maine Central), the Rome, Watertown
& Ogdensburg and the Michigan Central railways.
The accompanying map shows the present railway system of New
England, and, by short dash lines, the several early projected
railways referred to in the article. The route of the Bangor &
Aroostook Ry., the contract for which has recently been let, as
noted in our issue of July 21, is shown by a dotted, line.
New England
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