New York to St Louis: March 1867

scott 13 November 2021

Letter to the Alta California:

St. Louis,
March 15th, 1867.

HAPPY

EDITORS ALTA: We took passage in the cars of the New Jersey Central at 8 P.M. of the 3d of March, and left port in the midst of a cheerful snow-storm. I call it cheerful because there is something exquisitely satisfactory in whistling along through a shrouded land, following blindly wherever the demon in the lead may take you, yet sensible that he knows the way, and will steer his unerring course as faithfully as if it were noonday; sensible also that you are as safe there as anywhere, sitting with back against the bulkhead, and feet crossed on the next seat, and hat drawn down to shade the eyes from the lamp overhead - sitting thus by the comfortable fire, smoking placidly and dreaming of other times and other scenes, taking small heed of the storm without, yet scarcely conscious that it is snowing and is blowing drearily across the bleak moor as well, and that some people are out there suffering in it, and distressed, but that you ain't; that, on the contrary, you are perfectly happy, and tranquil, and satisfied, sitting thus, and smoking, and dreaming, and being timed and soothed by the clatter of the wheels - well, you know there is something unspeakably comfortable about it.

UNHAPPY

That was the way I felt from eight till a little after twelve; (the sleeping-cars were full and I had to sit up all night.) I had been talking latterly to a young soldier who had been all through the wars, from Bull Run to Lee's surrender - a beardless veteran full of battle experiences and tales of camp and prison life and was now within a hundred miles of his home, almost, for the first time in six years - handsome, modest, honest, good-hearted boy of twenty-three, and more ready to tell about his school-boy days than his six charges at Antietam - but gone the warrior was, and I was alone. Then I began to feel crampy a little, and then chilly - and presently I noticed that the fire was very low, and remembered that I had seen no one doctor it for over three hours. I got up and tried to open the stove door, but could not do it. A drowsy neighbor said it was locked, to keep the passengers from burning too much coal! I looked again, and found the keyhole - so it was true. The man said this was done "on all them d-----d Jersey monopoler roads." I grew chilly fast, then, and gradually grew peevish and fretful, also. I observed that the furniture was mean and old, and that the train moved slowly, and stopped to land a passenger every three hundred yards. After that, every time we stopped I cursed the railroad till we started again, and that afforded me some little satisfaction. I observed, also, that the usual mean man was aboard, who kept his window a little open to distress his fellows. And after that I noticed how fearfully dismal and unhappy the passengers looked, doubled up in uncomfortable attitudes on short seats in the dim, funereal light - like so many corpses, they looked, of people who had died of care and weariness. And then I said I would rather walk than travel that route again, and I wished the Company would burst up 60 completely that there wouldn't be money enough left to give the Directors Christian burial, but I hoped they might need it shortly.

I shall never be able to express how glad I was when the gray dawn stole over the plain, and the sun followed and cheered the scene, and the train stopped and I gave my limbs a grateful stretch, and steeped my sorrowful soul in inspiring coffee.

INSIGNIFICANCE IN OFFICE

The conductor was pompous and discourteous, as natural wood-sawyers in office are apt to be. Your dog with a brass collar with his master's name on it, is ever prone to snub the undecorated dog. Brown plied the fellow with questions at every opportunity, and scorned all rebuffs. He asked him with fine irony, if that train ever ran by a town before they could stop it; and when he was fiercely answered "No," he said he thought such a thing might be possible, but he had not gone so far as to consider it probable. And he wanted to know if this was the country where the "Jersey lightning" of history came from, and if they had any of it aboard that train. When we finally ran over a cow, he felt better satisfied about the speed of the train, because, as he said, he knew we must be going along tolerably lively else we could not have overtaken the cow.

Brown said to the brakeman, "Your brother, the conductor, gets forty or fifty thousand dollars a year, maybe, I reckon?"

"No-he gets ten or fifteen hundred, if it's anything to you."

"Possible? Why I wouldn't have thought that a man could afford to put on forty-five thousand dollars' worth of frills for fifteen hundred without losing money and getting discouraged."

PHOTOGRAPH OF PITTSBURG, ETC.

We got to Pittsburg at 2 P.M., 431 miles, 18 hours out, 25 miles an hour. Pittsburg, as we saw it, is a vast, impenetrable bank of black smoke, and two or three long bridges stretching across a river. It is very picturesque. All through Pennsylvania the houses looked old and shabby - that is, all through the country .

Railroads from New York to Pittsburgh:

New Jersey Central: Sam Clemens probably crossed from New York to New Jersey on the Communipaw Ferry, between Communipaw Terminal in Jersey City and Liberty Street Ferry Terminal in Manhattan, then taken the New Jersey Central to Easton. After this I have found no information on his route. What I suggest here is based on the 1861 and 1870 railroad routes plotted in the collection of University of Nebraska kmz files.

Lebanon Valley: From Easton to Bethlehem, the road was acquired by the Reading Company on 20 March 1858, The Lebanon Valley Railroad was chartered in 1836 to build from Reading west to Harrisburg.

East Pennsylvania: From Bethlehem to Reading. It opened a line between ,Reading and Allentown, Pennsylvania, in 1859. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, predecessor of the Reading Company, leased the line in 1869.

Philadelphia and Reading Sam’s route may have followed only a short length of track in the town of Reading. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad (P&R) was one of the first railroads in the United States. Along with the Little Schuylkill, a horse-drawn railroad in the Schuylkill River Valley, it formed the earliest components of what became the Reading Company. Primarily, the P&R was constructed to haul anthracite coal from the mines in northeastern Pennsylvania's Coal Region to Philadelphia.

Philadelphia and Erie Along Sam Clemens’ hypothesized route, the only Philadelphia and Erie track he may have been on was a bridge crossing the Susquehanna River just north of Harrisburg.

The company began as the Sunbury and Erie Railroad Company, chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1837, to build a rail line between Sunbury and Erie, Pennsylvania. Construction did not begin until the state passed legislation reducing tax assessments, in 1852. By December 1854, 28.5 miles of track were completed between Milton and Williamsport. The line reached Sunbury in 1855, a total of 40 miles. The company continued to experience financial problems, exacerbated by the Panic of 1857. The tracks reached Lock Haven in 1859. To speed completion of the line, the Sunbury & Erie also started building towards the southeast from Erie. That portion of the line reached Warren, a distance of 66 miles, by 1859; little construction occurred in 1860 amid the politics leading to the Civil War.

In 1861 the Pennsylvania General Assembly passed additional legislation to strengthen the company's financial position, and changed the company name to the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad (P&E). Other, related legislation authorized various railroad companies to lease the lines of other companies, and the PRR entered into a 999-year lease with the Philadelphia & Erie in 1862. That same year the PRR assumed control of the P&E. Labor shortages due to the Civil War further delayed construction.

The main line was completed to Erie in October 1864. The P&E opened a large coal transfer terminal at its Lake Erie terminus in 1866. In 1867 the pier at Erie was expanded to handle ore shipments from the midwest. Despite these improvements, the P&E did not thrive, as it faced strong competition from the New York Central Railroad. Over the next three decades the P&E also experienced serious setbacks due to several major floods, storms, a bridge fire, and various operational accidents.

Pennsylvania : From Reading to Pittsburgh. The Pennsylvania Railroad was an American Class I railroad, established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia. By 1882, the Pennsylvania Railroad had become the largest railroad (by traffic and revenue), the largest transportation enterprise, and the largest corporation in the world. Its budget was second only to the U.S. government. The corporation still holds the record for the longest continuous dividend history: it paid out annual dividends to shareholders for more than 100 consecutive years.

Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne and Chicago From Pittsburgh, possibly to Crestline. Where he turned south to Indianapolis is unknown. The PFW&C was a major part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system, extending the PRR west from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, via Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Chicago, Illinois.