Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1871-07-20
Correspondence of the Burlington Free Press.
The Harlem Extension Railroad.
LEBANON SPRINGS, N. Y, July 3.

| Correspondence of the Burlington Free Press.
The Harlem Extension Railroad.
LEBANON SPRINGS, N. Y, July 3.
MeSsrs. Editors:
| Time was when you heard enough
about the new railroad connection from
Bennington to Chatham, n. Y. Extra
| sessions of the Vermont Legislature, call
ed to give it charter; bonding of towns,
Bennington Co. fights, and the turmoil of
the Western Vermont and Troy and Bos-
ton railroad controversy, gave this link of
railroad notOrity enough in its early ex-
istence. OF late it had been very quiet
for an enterprise begotten and born in
such stormy times, and your readers may
have forgotten that it is an accomplished
fact. I have assured myself by a trip
over it. that it is a live and running road,
with elements and advantages about it
which it ought to- and I doubt not in
time, will make it an important and pros
perous throu2hfare.
left Rutland for this place at half past
10 a. m, on Saturday. The ride from
Rutland to Bennington, over the old
Western Vermont road now consolidated
with the new link (the two forming the
You know how it is yourself-the beauti-
full scenery of mountain and valley and
stream, on either hand the thriving viii
lagos on the wav-Wallingford with its
pitch-fork factories, no tiny affairs though
their tines are legion, and which UW
pitch into each other, as rival fork firms
are naturally expected to; Dorset with
it's marble quarries, which yield nearly
million feet of sawn stone a year; Man
chester, with it's summer Equinox House
and Mountain of the same Equinootical
name, grand in summer or winter Ar
lington with it's shoe peg and wooden
ware and chair and chisel factories, to
which factory of freight cars will be ad
ded; and so on through the mountain
gap, through Salisbury to North Ben
nigton. Here the road, which here il
bending off to the west towards Troy,
turns at a right angle to the southeast, to
Bennington, by what used to be the
branch track to that village, in the old
days when there were through connec-
tions this way to Troy by the Troy &
Boston road.
At Bennington the new portion of the
road begins. 1t curves under Mount An
thony, by a rising grade which soon gives
a good look off over the village, and we
notice the factories and paper mills of Ben
nington, and the spacious grounds and the
fine residences of Mr.. Hunt, and Mr.. Put
nam, and Mr. Graves and others. Ben
nington i7 a neat and pleasant village, and
looks thriving, thanks to its manufactures
and not to its dissensions.
Bearing off to the southwest, the road
strikes off into New York state and the
valley of the Little Hoosick river, und
thence winds among tho hills to the south
through Patershnrgh with ita Siamneo
Twins mountains, Berlin, Stephentown
and Lebanon to Chatham Four Corners,
where it connects with the Boston 4 Alba
ny's double track, and with the great Har-
lem road to New York.
The villages along the way are quiet
country places, beginning, however, to
feel the impulse given by the opening of
railroad facilities. Lebanon Springs,
from which I write, is one of the most de-
lightful places of summer resort in the
country. The hotel, Columbian Hall,
has recently passed into the hands Messrs.
Gale-a well known name among hotel
proprietors. 1t is spacious house, with
ample stretch of cool piszzap, high up the
hillside, wit hsplendid views over the
broad and beautiful Lebanon Valley. The
spring pours its clear waters, in volume
almost enough for "mill privilege" from
A cleft in the rocks, in the grounds, and
supplies the bath honsRs, which are among
the attractions The house has been
newly re-ftted, re-furnised, enlarged and
newly re-painted throughout. 1t was
never so attractive as now, and it is fiji
ing rapidly with guests.
The Harlem Extension road, though
fair local freight business is developing
along its route, is not over crowded with
passenger travel Yet if its northern
connections could be what they should be,
it would certainly be a favorite through
route from Montreal to New York. At
present, there is a complete break of con-
nections at Rutland. The northern rail
roads do not seem to find it for their in
terest to permit q through connection.
But the public interest seems to demand
one, and I do not doubt that in time it
will be made.
The route is in its scenery much more
delightful, to my taste, than the Troy q
Boston or Rensselaer, & Saratoga routes.
It forms the natural southern outlet for
western Vermont. 1t connects at Chatham
with the Harlem Road, which carried last
year over thirty-eight million passengers
mile each without an accident, at two
cents mile for through passengers, and
which most travellers prefer to the Hud-
son River Road, which is such u noisy
road. from the incessant clatter and re-
verberations from the rocky faces which
wall that road for most of the way, on
the eastern side of the track 1t lands its
~ Narv VOrL in III oraat
Union depot of the Hudson River, New
York & Harlem, and New York & New
Haven Roads, on Forty second street.
The Harlem Extension has heretofore,
through causes which I need not discuss,
had rather a hard lime For many months
it did not pay even its running expenses.
Now, under the careful management of
Superinte tendent J. r. Faulkner, it is pay
ing it's way, and | trust will at no distant
day begin to give some return to its own
era. Commodore Vanderbilt, it is known,
has large interest in it; and as he has
recently sold out Ito the Delaware u
Hudson Coz his heavy ownership in the
Rensselaer, & Saratoga Road, amounting,
as I have heard, to a million dollars, he
has now no interest conflicting with this,
and can give his important influence to
the development of its business. And |
look forward to not a very distant day,
when the route by the Harlem Extension
will be the favorite route to and from
New York for all of western Vermont,
Burlington and Montreal.
Yours, G.
THE POPULATION OF NEW YORK
A. 4ha prasapt firpa the nationality of the