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.