The Portland daily press., 1877-06-19
raE OGDENsBURG RAILROAD.
Gen. Andersons Account of the Litigation
in New Hampshire.

The following communication appears in the
Concord Monitor:
MEssRs DEMONSTRATING you for the
privilege you have granted me, of communicate
ing with the peope of this state through the
medium of your Journal, L will ask you to in
sert the following hasty sketch of the Portland
q Ogdensburg railroad. The corporation is
poor, embarrassed, and cannot, if it would, con-
troll the appliances sometimes put in operation
by rich and independent corporations; but it
asks justice and fair play. If 1t has been mis-
taken in regard to what is supposed was its le-
gal rights, it asks the Legislature to pardon its
error and interpose its authority to prevent hos
tile interests from sacrificing great national
thoroughfare that will soon connect the waters
of the great lakes with the ocean at Portland
Portsmouth and Boston.
In 1867, the New Hampshire Legislature
Chartered the Portland, White Mountains and
OgdeDsburg Railroad Company, authorizing it
to locate its road through the Notch, and thence
to the Connecticut river by the route it might
select. subject only to the approval of thu Rail-
road Commissioners. The Legislature of Maine
the same year, chartered the Portland & Og
deusburg Railroad Company. The latter cor
poration proceeded to raise money aud build
its road. The New Hampshire corporation did
nothing. In 1869 some of the directors of the
latter road proposed to surrender their charter
and let the Maine corporation raise the money
and build through New Hampshire, if it could
New Hampshire Legislature asking it to au-
thorize the Maine corporation to prolong it's
road through the state At the same session of
the Legislature, the Boston, Concord & Mon
treal Railroad Company asked for charter to
build read up the Amonoosuc Valley over the
identical ground already covered by the char
ter of che Portland, White Mountains & Og-
dtnsburg Railroad Company. The former Cor
poraton mad money, lawyers, lobby ard
friends. The latter company was poor and
stranger.
The Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad was
opposed TO giving up its rights to the Boston,
Concord and Montreal, yet in order to avoid
contest in the House, compromise was enter
ed into between the friends of the two roads,
by which both were to be built on the same
road bed, wherever the valley of the Amonoo-
sue was so barrow as to preclude th- possibility
of more than a single location, it being then
claimed by those best acquainted with the two
routes that the cost of building ard the grades
were such, oy the Litteton route, that the
Portland and Osdensburg would never build
farther down the river than the Twin Mouu
tain House Bat in orGer to leave it open for
the company to make a full and careful survey
and to satisfy all parties, the act was framed SO
as to make the corporation the judges of the
practicability of the Litteton route. the lam
guage of the actIbriug-"in case the corporation
tiUd 1t impracucable TO locate aud build" &c
not the Railroad Commissioners or the courts
of the state, or the town of Ltt'rtou, or the
pany, but ''sa,d operation" that is, the Port
land aHd Ogdeusburg Railroad Company.
The mpauy then employed au experienced
engineer, who made a careful examination of
the several routes-the grades, the curvature,
cost of construction, ETC., aud 10 long and ex-
haustve report, giving the facts and reasons tor
his judgment, pronounced The Littleton route
iaDrdcticabe not impossible: for it is possible to
build road to he top of Mount Washington
or through the Notch. But giving reasonable
Interpretation to the word, as it would BE- held
by any business man when applied to affairs,
and comparing the Littleton with the Dalton
route, he reported it imDracucable The ''said
corporation then made their location Dy way
of Whirefeld and Dalt o, ana in Sept miner,
1876, commenced t, build the two-aLd "a h alf
mules of said route from SCOTS Mills in Dalton
to the Vermont lIne.
The towDs of LItIletOn and Bethlehem then
procured an injunction, and stopped the work
with loss 10 t0- company OF several thousand
dollars A hearing vas had. and art two
days thus spent, the attorneys of the towns pro-
posrd compromise, which ended ia the rail-
road company's paying some $1,000 and agree
ing to certain other d. mands, whe the actions
were oropped only to be commenced again as
soon as work was resumed. Those proct ed,pgs
are now pending before the Supreme Court,
pressed by the Attorney General of the state,
and if successful. will result in an order of the
court to remove the bridges across the Connec-
ticnt and Johns rivers, take up the rails and
DESTROY piece of road that cost the company
some $4,000. 1t Will also break the con nection
between the lines IN Vermont and New Hamp-
shire.
Is this just? Is it fair? Is it the usual cour-
tesy of one state toward another?
Respectfully, SAM j. ANDERSON.