Middletown transcript., 1869-01-02
For the Middletorn Trunscript.

the columns Of your valuable paper, few
practical thoughts and suggestions. Is it
not passing strange, that while the Union
Pacific Company can move rapidly forward
with their stupendous work, that the Queen
Annc's Company, in sister county, now
only have about five miles of their road to
grade, with 18, 600 cross ties delivered on
the line of theroad and 28, 900 more ready
to be delivered with the Md. Il Del. road
now under contract to Easton, that the
Board of Directors who represent the Kent
Co. Company have met and adjourned for
two years, and to-day are without a con-
tractor, and large portion of the stock
holders despair of ever getting road, and
during the freeze farmers from near Ches-
tertown hauled their grain to Middletown,
distance of 30 miles ? There is mys-
terry about the matter, and many of the
stockholders have come to the conclusion
that majority of the Board are either
governed by sinister, selfish motives, or are
totally incapacitated to discharge the duty
of railroad director. Gentlemen, for
more than two years you have been shift
ing and vacillating, obstinatcly persisting
in coming through Cecil Co. and Delaware
to Middletown, when any man of ordinary
capacity, upon reflection, must have known
that the Kent Company had all they could
do to construct a road from Masseys Cross
Roads to Swan Greek. Time and sad ex-
perience must by this time have convinced
you OF the danger of procrastination, and
the supreme folly in even thinking about
building a railroad ON first mortgage
bonds. In less than three months after
you made contract, your iineratiRg con-
trdctor abandoned your work, threw up
the contract, and to-day iron from SO to
$40 per ton higher than it was last Spring.
When the Delaware road magnanimously
offered to build branch road from Town
send to Massey's Cross Roads, which will
cost as least l50, 900. this acise Board, for
more than year refused to pledge connec-
ton, losing thereby more favorable con-
nection at Massey's than can now possibly
be made, giving entirely the location of
the junction at that point to the Queen
Anne's company, at a cost of several thou
sand dollars to the Kent company. 1t is
confidently believed by many of the stock
holders that this refusal to connect with
the Del. branch at Massey's had its main
object and motive in first securing the
building fthat nuisance, viz, the wharf at
Chestertown, deluding many into the be-
lief that the connection could be made at
Middletown, and on first mortgage bonds
of the Kent company the whole road could
be speedily completed. We, however,
give you credit, at a very late day in pass
ing resolution connecting with the Del.
branch at Massey's, and now on the first
day of next May, Mr.. Parker will cause
his engine to whistle at Massey's Cross
Roads. The cars to-day would have been
running to Massey's Cross Roads, if you
had passed a connecting resolution as the
Queen Anne's Road did last Spring But
you hesitated until the season had well
nigh expired, but did agree, and | hear
have completed wharf on Chester river
in the town of Chcstertown.
Will any director explain to the stock
holders why they voted away thousands of
dollars of the Company's money to build
wharf on Chester river? Now what bene-
fit will wharf at Chcstertown be towards
building the Rail Road? Besides. we are
informed that more money has been ex-
pended in constructing that wharf than the
town subscribed towards building the road.
Directors, how can you justify yourselves
In taking the company's money to improve
your county town? | hear that the pre-
tent for the wharf was to land iron from
Germany. What an sbsurdity A ves-
sci large enough to cross the ocean could
not come up to Chestertown, but must
land her iron in Baltimore, then reship-
ped on smaller boat to Chestertown, then
landed on wharf largely mail up nl pine
piling, which any practical man knows the
| worms will eat up in five years: th.n re-
moved back from this wharf on fast land.
then put on car to be run out of the town
over expensive building lots which if COW
cred over with greenbacks would not sat
isfy the owners. Gentlemen, YOU who vo-
ted to put that wharf on Chester river, had
a right to do it with your own funds, but
in the name Of the stockholders you repre-
sent we protest against your taking the
company's money and wasting it on the
banks of Chester river; and in Justice to
the company every director who voted to
build that wharf ought to divide its cost
between them and at once reimburse the
treasury to that amount.
Now, gentlemen, as time has ed
and as nine-tenths of the stockhold be-
lieve your total .incapacity to put this great
enterprise into operation, for the 20
all interested call meeting at once and
tender your designations. and let us have
a Kent County Rail Road, instead of 4
Chestertown Rail Road Elect such mcr
as DR.. Kennard, John p. Cochran, O.
Del. VIM. Welsh. John Kennedy, Sam'l
Hurlock, with Senator Vickers as YOU,
President; let your road go under con.
tract to such men as Parker, or Stearns
or Quigley; let the grading commence al
Massey's Cross Roads, and in less than ,
year Chestertown will hear the snort o
the iron horse, demonstrating what practi
cal men can do when stripped of prejudic,