CONTENTS

PAGE
Navigators of the Blue[6]
A Deceased Canadian Railroad[7]
Ontario’s Twin Sister—Grand Trunk Railway[12]
William H. Biggar[16]
Sir Thomas Dakin’s Locomotive[19]
Toronto and Nipissing Railway[20]
An Old Campaigner’s Career[21]
Knights of the Swinging Lanterns[25]
Credit Valley Railway—Milton Celebration[26]
Crusade of “U.S.A.” Railway Interests in Canada[28]
Thomas A. Edison[47]
A Gigantic Human Hive—C.P.R.[52]
William B. Lanigan[54]
James Charlton[56]
Uncle Sam’s Adopted Sons[61]
Samuel R. Callaway[74]
Thomas N. Jarvis[77]
Geo. J. Charlton[79]
A Reveler’s Dream[83]
Andrew J. Taylor[87]
Business Getter’s Competition[90]
Lines to Queen Quinte[94]
The Canadian Northern Railway System[95]
A Tenderfoot in Temiskaming[99]
William P. Duperow[106]
Those Undignified Box Cars[112]
Frederic P. Nelson[123]
A Pilfered Pot Pourri[126]
The Trail of the Serpent[129]
A Haphazard Chronology[136]
Ballad to the Brotherhood[145]

NAVIGATORS OF THE BLUE
Carrier pigeons—pioneers in aerial transportation

Decoration by Alberta L. Tory

Aloft in the frigid lanes they soar,

High over dormant farm and city’s roar:

Their tireless pinions wrestle with the breeze

That wails athwart the solemn, leafless trees.

Above the brooks asleep ’neath crystal shrouds,

And o’er white winter’s mantle from the clouds,

Swift pigeons wheel and spiral t’wards the sun,

Exultant in new triumphs daily won.

Atoms these—of pulsating life on wing,

Each flouts the sordid earth and ether’s sting:

Unconsciously, they realize a Plan

Which mortals match with faulty ships of Man.

A DECEASED CANADIAN RAILWAY
The Sheriff Runs Away From His Spoils

S. E. MacKechnie

Mayor of Cobourg, 1853.

When Sir John Franklin, arctic navigator, with canoe crews of Indians and voyageurs, eastbound after exploring the Great Lakes, pitched wigwams in the summer of 1839 at the confluence of stream and lake where the nucleus of present Cobourg, Canada, was taking root, little did these adventurous and actual forerunners of easy steam locomotion think that from a point where they camped a railroad would thirteen years later bisect the unbroken forest. Yet, it is so, and the whirligig of time has, likewise, seen recorded the obituary of that railway—has witnessed the effacement of the name of those early laid metal ribbons from the time tables of a young country which still hungers and lobbies for more and more tracks and trams.

Cobourg and thereabouts, is ancient territory as settlements go nowadays. In 1796 the district was surveyed. Eluid Nickerson, who espoused the United Empire Loyalist cause, took out the first patent in 1802 during the reign of King George III., but in spite of its monarchial predilections, the locality has long been of interest to our cousins of high and low degree living south of Lake Ontario, and a few years after the construction of Cobourg and Peterborough Railway, of which I speak, several iron masters and capitalists from Pittsburg acquired the property, altering somewhat its original mission.

The prospectus of this pioneer Canadian line was mooted in 1851 by local promoters: it took definite form in 1852 and on February 7th, 1853, Lady Mayoress, Mrs. S. E. MacKechnie, officiated in the ceremony of turning the first sod amidst tremendous public enthusiasm. As early as 1844 a daily stage ran in winter from Peterborough to Cobourg and Port Hope, and in summer the steamboat “Forrester” plied to Harwood and connected with the stage coaches. Close in the wake of this propitious beginning construction advanced, while feathered and furry prowlers of the virgin woods had their curiosity piqued by strange sights and sounds. Under the supervision of chief engineer Ira Spaulding, contractors Zimmerman and Balch pushed the line through valley and glade to Rice Lake’s fertile, sloping shores at Harwood where, later, sawmills sawed the stately pines that arrived in drives from Otonabee. During the following year Mr. Zimmerman collaborated in the extension as far as Peterborough, his tragic death in the des Jardins Canal disaster at Hamilton, March, 1857, terminating a useful life. Steel rails were an experimental luxury, iron scarce and expensive and timber often replaced them. Antique locomotives with impossible superstructures coughed and squeaked along, meanwhile eating a mighty hole in the wood pile, for coal and oil burners were not contrived, and what a risk it was to venture between the oscillating cars. Though crudely equipped, the road was nevertheless, a startling and welcome innovation for abbreviating space. The Grand Trunk Railway had not yet been built and the saddle horse and coach were the only substitutes for pedestrianism. Picture, if you can, a journey inside a two teamed springless stage, tediously winding westward past bear haunt, swamp and river; for instance, over the historic, old military road from Kingston. It must have been a hunter’s paradise.

The bridging of Rice Lake was a large undertaking at the period and proved a burden from which the management never recovered. This structure became notorious later for several reasons. From Harwood to Tick Island, some distance off shore, a filling was made and the bridge trestles were projected two miles across the westerly loop of the lake to where Hiawatha Indian settlement still harbors the fishing and rice gathering sons and daughters of sires long since passed to the happy hunting grounds. You may see them any summer day vieing with “Alderville” redskins from near Roseneath, in deftly wielding the paddle, as of yore when their forebears fought fiercely all around that favored camping place.

In winter of 1857, when the frost and ice heaved the bridge, four-horse sleighs transported passengers inland between Harwood, the Indian village and station at Ashburnham, seven miles north. To take charge of this old depot, which afterwards became a canoe factory, Donald Sutherland was the first appointed and Mr. Roe Buck became the Cobourg representative. William Von Ingen, now collector of His Majesty’s Customs levy at Woodstock, Ont., collected tickets covering the run of about twenty-five miles which cost $1.00 per capital and entitled one to all privileges save the compartment sleeper and electric fans, which had not yet been adopted.

It is said that John Fowler, charter corporation member and first manager, whose regime did not fill the company’s coffers, made towards the close of his term, a financial coup d’etat with the Midland, Port Perry, Lindsay & Beaverton Railway. He was succeeded by Lieut.-Colonel D’Arcy E. Boulton, a Cobourg aristocrat who rented the “C. & P.” property in 1857 and battled valiantly against odds in an endeavor to place the road on a paying basis. This railway’s legitimate traffic—forest products and lumber—were hauled for several years from the interior to the docks at Cobourg, thence by schooner to various lake ports, but time wrought changes and debt became the most formidable obstacle to progress.

Lady Dufferin.

A distinguished passenger who rode over the C.P. & M. Ry., 1874.

It is recounted that one forenoon long ago the sheriff unexpectedly boarded a northbound “C. & P.” train on which the superintendent was also travelling. Although the latter was not a mind reader he had a presentment that the sheriff’s presence might not auger well for his particular department. Everything was as placid as the lake itself until the train approached the height of land at Summit, nine miles up from Cobourg, when the brakes controlling rear car in which the court official sat in tranquil state, were locked and the coupling pin withdrawn. A retrograde movement quickly followed and the sheriff was powerless to stem the progress of his unwilling hurry. As though the evil one was after him, down grade rolled the flustered occupant of the flying carriage to where it started. Nothing daunting, the sheriff procured a team and drove thirteen miles back to Harwood, but found on arrival that everything not nailed down, including attachable railway equipment, etc., had forsaken Northumberland and was transferred across the bridge to the next county.

Early in the day of September 7th, 1860, a “special” moved over the “C. & P.” conveying Edward, Prince of Wales and suite from Cobourg to Harwood en route Peterborough. As the old bridge was considered unsafe for this precious young patron and entourage, they were much interested in being ferried across Rice Lake to the Mississauga Indian settlement near the mouth of the winding Otonabee River, from which point the late Robert White, highly respected for leagues around, enjoyed the honor and privilege of driving Royalty and his retinue to Peterborough.

After the Civil War the road came into possession of a genial Virgianian, Colonel William Chambliss and his confreres, Messrs. Schoenburg and Fitzhugh from the South, with interests in Pennsylvania. Colonel Chambliss was elected managing director, the title was changed to Cobourg, Peterborough & Marmora Railway & Mining Company, and its new purpose was hauling iron ore destined Cleveland from Marmora mines to vessels at Cobourg. This ore was moved on scows from Blairton to Harwood.

The old Parliament of Upper Canada had incorporated the earlier organization and in 1869 an Act was passed legalizing the amalgamation of railway and mining company.

During the summer of 1874 the Vice-Regal couple, Lord and Lady Dufferin, participated in an eleven hour outing from Cobourg via C.P. & M.R. & M. Co., Harwood, Rice Lake steamer and Hastings, and extracts from the Countess’ description of their ore mine inspection and experiences, as set down in Her Ladyship’s diary at the time, reads as follows:—

“I did not expect to care the least about it as we had seen so many untidy, stoney, barren places called mines, but this one was really an interesting sight. We found ourselves at the top of an enormous hole or cavern, 140 feet deep, large in proportion, perfectly open and light as day. The men looked like imps as they worked below and it was the sort of thing one sees represented, in miniature, in a fairy play. The sides were walls of iron: but, alas, coal is found only in the States....

“When we returned to the steamer we found a barge tied to its side covered in with green—a floating arbor—in which lunch was laid: and very glad we were of it, as we had breakfasted at 7.30 a.m. and it was now 2.00 p.m. The managers of the mines, the steamers, etc., are Americans, and we were their guests. Colonel Chambliss and General Fitzhugh, with their wives (two sisters), were our hosts. They lived in the hotel at which we stayed and are charming Southerners.”

It would appear that the bridging of Rice Lake was costly, but on account of engineering difficulties, not permanent. The alternate rigors of winter and spring reaction upset calculations as well as the bridge’s equilibrium. Those piles which had no foundation in fact—in the lake bottom, to be more exact—dangled from the upper work, an encumbrance instead of a support and many of the bolts disappeared, some claim by design of wrongly disposed persons. One autumn night, after a southbound train from Peterborough had passed over, the shivering spans succumbed to a gale and disappeared. To-day they remain the abode of lunge, bass and other amphibious denizens of the waters.

When the G.T.R. failed to popularize the line to Harwood for excursions, several rearrangements of the railway’s name and financial status subsequently occurred. Acts were passed by the Ontario Legislature and in 1887, after the sale of the Company’s bonds under an order of the Chancery Court the Federal Parliament incorporated the Cobourg, Blairton & Marmora Railway & Mining Co. to take over the property. The Municipality of Cobourg became at one time a guarantor in further reorganization. Presently, operation of the miniature system ceased altogether and protracted litigation was the precursor of dissolution. Thus did a budding nation in a constructive age behold a once famous railway rust into oblivion.

* * * * *

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND CHIEF PASSENGER DEPARTMENT REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY’S NUMEROUS AND SCATTERED FAMILY.
JANUARY, 1916

J. E. Dalrymple,

Geo. T. Bell,

Vice-President.

Passenger Traffic Manager.

Top rows—W. J. Moffatt, C.P.A., Toronto; L. L. Grabill, Asst. Gen. Bge. Agt., Toronto; M. O. Dafoe, C.P. & T.A., Montreal; J. E. Quick, Gen’l Baggage Agent; F. P. Walsh, G. M., Crosby Tpn. Co., Milwaukee; C. P. Orttenburger, C.P.A., Chicago; J. P. Shea, T.P.A., Boston; A. A. Gardiner, G.C., Montreal.

Centre Row—O. C. Bryant, T.P.A., Chicago; S. R. Joyce, T.P.A., Toronto; F. W. Hopper, G.A.P.D., San Francisco; R. L. Fradd, Montreal, Sec’y to G.P.A.; E. C. Elliott, C.C., P.T.D., Montreal; W. S. Miller, T.P.A., Montreal; C. W. Johnston, A.G.P.A., Montreal; D. B. Smith, C.P. & T.A., Portland, Ore.; A. B. Chown, T.P.A., Pittsburg; J. H. Burgess, G.A.P.D., Seattle; E. H. Boynton, N.E.P.A., Boston; C. S. Proctor, T.P.A., Toronto; J. E. Reilly, C.C., Chicago; J. D. McDonald, A.G.P.A., Chicago; F. P. Dwyer, G.A.P.D., New York; E. W. Smith, Supt., D. & P.C. Service; A. Kirk, Ex-C., Montreal; R. E. Ruse, C.P. & T.A., London; J. Quinlan, D.P.A., Montreal, and W. J. Gilkerson, G.A.P.D., St. Paul.

Lower Row—J. Anderson, C.P. & T.A., Hamilton; G. W. Norman, T.P.A., Chicago; D. P. Drewery, T.P.A., Buffalo; R. McC. Smith, C.P. & T.A., Detroit; J. E. Crossley, T.P.A., Montreal; C. E. Horning, D.P.A., Toronto; F. W. Wherrett, T.P.A., Detroit; W. S. Cookson, Gen’ Pass’r Agent, Montreal; G. N. Wilson, T.P.A., Kansas City; J. H. Corcoran, T.P.A., Moncton, N.B.; C. E. Jenney, G.A.P.D., Vancouver, B.C., and H. R. Charlton, Gen’l Advertising Agent.

Type of Grand Trunk Locomotive in use 1853