The Sunday morning news. [volume] (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1886-1891, 1890-07-20
VANISHED VANITIES.
How Piermont Changed from
RAILROAD Centre to a Coal Depot.

The great tunnel was finished
The greatest engineering feat known to
Americans had been successfully com
pleted aud Jersey City was in gala day
attire to celebrate the event. The first
train OF cars drawn by locomotive was
to pass through the Bergen tunnel. now
known as the Erie tunnel. As the ho ur
approached on that memoir able day in
1861, cannon roared out congratulations,
bands played lively tunes and thousands
of people thronged the brow of the Hill to
witness the experiment.. On this train " ere
the men whose engineering skill and en-
uerprise had revolutionized the entire
system of railroading on the Erie road.
They were Robert "A. Berdell, president
of the Long Dock Company, and Diree-
tors Daniel Drew Nathaniel Marsh, A. @.
Zabriskie, Ralph Meade, Chief Engi-
neers james p. Kirkwood and Joseph W.
Alien and Resident Engineer John
Houston. Besides these gentlemen We're
scores of other eminent railroad and
scientific men. The tunnel was con-
structed by the Long Dock Company
which was virtually the Erie Railroad
Company, being wheel within wheel.
When the locomotive announced with
a shrill whistle that the train was pre-
pared to start, there were hundreds watch
ing it who fully believed 1t would never
go through the bill, q distance OF q triile
more than a mile. 1t was with breath
suppressed that they watched the engine
near the enormous hole and then with a
shrek of defiance boldly poke its pilot in
the dark. uninviting passageway, fol-
lowed by the two or three cars. Then
came d scauper over the hill to see the
train come out In this they failed, for
the train, without trouble of any kind
sped through the hill at the rate of tweil-
ty miles an hour and was miles away
from BERGEN hill when the anxious peo-
pie had reached the exit.
Before this event the terminus of the
Erie road had been lat Piermont, where
the company had bnilt dock more than
one milo long over the flats to deep water
in the Hudson river From this dock
passengers were transferred to steam
boats and carried to New York and freight
was shipped by packets, canal boats and
barges and toWed down the river. The
depot in this city was at the foot OF Duane
street. Piermon5 was in those days the
livelies5 town in Rockland county. To
day it is the reverse. Then thriving
village and railroad centre existed there,
now the people depend principally on
farms and city boardeTs Ter a living.
Hundreds of men found employ
mens at this terminus and Pier
mont was considered TO have
great future before her. All this the
new tunnel destroyed. and the day
the first train passed through the
Bergen hill the downfall of Piermont
began, for Immediately afterward the
railroad company transferred its ternli-
nus Co the Long Dock, this city, where it
now has one of the best depots in the
country With this change business
came TO a standstill at the old terminus
The large hotel on the eud Of the pier
was deserted and ultimately removed,
the tiny ferry boat that piled from the
pier to Irvington discontinued its trips,
and the pier that was once a great termi-
nus became only coal depot.
For years this was the case and the
only freight over the road that found its
way to Piermont was coal. After the
great strike of the 'longshoremen and
coal handlers in this city and Perth
Amboy three years ago ended the Erie
Railroad Company profted by the lesson
il taught, never to run short of coal, and
it at once transformed the old dock at
Piermont into gigantic coaling station
for emergencies that may in the future
arise They made a storage place for
200, 600 tons of coal, which quantity is now
always kept on hand. They have two
other coal storage depots capable Of con-
taining nearly the same quantity, and so
far as coal is concerned have now no fear
of strikes. Ii was the great scarcity of
this article that troubled them more than
ANYTHING else during the last strike.