The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1896-04-06
Il HISTORIC RAILROAD.
The First Track Laid In This Country
Its Evolution From n Stage Inc.


at intervals across the Delaware PENN
sula from fifteen to eighteen miles
south of the Pennsylvania line. This
embankment, sometimes almost level
with the cultivated fields, sometimes
filling an untitled ravine, is all that re-
mains of what was probably the earli-
est railroad in the United States, the
old New Castle and Frenchtown road,
connecting the heads of Delaware and
Chesapeake Bays. Long before there
was any such thing as a railroad in the
world, Augustine Herman, the peninsu-
la hero, who once had home, a garden
and an orchard near the corner of Pearl
and Pine streets in this city, projected
canal to connect the head waters of
the two bays. This was soon soon at
ter the middle of the seventeenth CEN
fury, when Herman had just been in
vested with the lordship of Bohemia
Manor. noble estate on the eastern
shore of Maryland.
Herman did not carry out his scheme
for canal, but he lived to see a wagon
road built from New Castle on the Del
aware to the shores of the Chesapeake
not far from his own manor house. An
earlier method of getting commerce
across the peninsula had been to sail
down the Delaware river and up Apo
quinimink creek, a crooked tidewater
stream extending inland toward the Ma
ryland line, and from the head of navi-
cation on the Appoquinimink to tran
ship goods upon carts which carried
them to the head of navigation on Be-
hemia river. After Herman's wagon
road had been worn into ruts by CEN
tury of traffic, business between the
bays had so far developed that regular
packets We're run to New Castle on the
Delaware side, and to Frenchtown ON
the Chesapeake side, to connect at eth
er shore with a turnpike and stage line
overland. This in time became the
highway from New York, Philadelphia
and New England to the newly founded
capital of the nation. All the early
great men of the region above Mason
and Dixon's line traversed that route
dozens, scores, perhaps hundreds of
times. Many political bargain of
those days was preached in the course
of that jolting journey, and the old taV
ems long the route are even yet redo
lent of stage coach days, while very
old fellows still tell stories of Daniel
Webster and Henry Clay AS traffic
grew and invention flourished, steam
boats were substituted for sailing pack
cts on the two bays, and the time Of the
journey was reduced. The captain of
the earliest steam packet on the Chesa-
peake side is said to have been greatly
astonished on discovering by accident
that he could make his craft move
backward by reversing the engine.
The Delaware legislature granted the
charter for SO much Of the turnpike as
ran through Delaware, and blundered
amazingly in the process The blum
ders We're corrected, however, and the
only striking popularity of the old
charter is the special provision it makes
for rebate on tolls to wagons having
very broad tires. The broader the tire
the lower the toll, and provision is
made for tires exceeding twelve inches
in width. There was also special pro-
vision for wagons so arranged that the
fore and hind wheels should not run in
the same ruts. These provisions seem
to have been made with a view to saw
ing wear and tear to the road, and like
concessfonsto broad tires seem to have
been known in other parts of the coun-
try.
But better days were coming for the
statesmen who travelled across the Pc
ninsula to and from Washington. Late
in the twenties there began to be talk
of railroad; not, indeed, to be run by
steam, but what Britons call tram
way, and in 1881 the Frenchtown and
New Castle railroad running seventeen
miles from bay to bay, was finished and
ready for business. The charter of the
railroad provided that it should MAIN
tain turnpike parallel to Its line. Only
sanguine persons believed that cars
would be taken across the Peninsula by
that new-fangled contrivance, the
steam locomotive engine.
The old line was a crude and curious
piece of railway building. The narrow
ness of the embankment would prove
that it was single track. The wooden
rails, six inches square and ten or
| twelve feet long, were laid at about the
| present standard gauge. They rested
| upon wooden plugs inserted in square
stones set about three feet apart, and
were affixed to the stones by means of
L-shaped irons. Upon these rails ran
something that may have looked like a
cross between the old-time stage-coach
and the modern street-car. Two or four
horses furnished the motive power and
| the journey was slow.
| Two years after the road was finished
| provision was made for using the loco
| motive engine. It was not thought ne
| cessary to take up the wooden rails in
preparation for this change of motive
power They were merely shod with
| fiat bars Of iron, spiked down as well
as they might be in the prevailing con-
| dition of railroad construction. When
| it was found that the rails tended to
spread beneath the weight of engine
and train, iron ties were added. The
| first locomotive was the Delaware.
| 1t was sent in parts to Newcastle, where
a machinist was set to work putting it
| together He got on slowly, and the
railway authorities discovered with
suspicion that he was making models
| of the various parts as he went along.
Perhaps there was no other available
machinist at hand to go on with the
| work. or perhaps there was further de-