The Bamberg herald. [volume] (Bamberg, S.C.) 1891-1972, 1913-11-06
BUILT PARADISE LIKE RT. TRAIN
The Tragedy of a Man Who Didn't
Know How to Plan q Home.

the early DAYS OF Iue bdlllLuOle duu
Ohio Railroad, went to Russia to
build the railroad through the Cars
dominions from St. Petersburg to
Moscow, another man, with whom
this story has to deal, followed fast
upon his heels, says writer in the
New York Times.
The Baldwin Locomotive Works
scented in the building of that road
the chance for them to secure lu-
crative contract for equipment and
thev sent one of their highest salaried
employees, Frank w. Cummings, to
get the ear of the Car while Winans
was building the famous line whose
route is said to have been determined
by means of a foot rule laid across a
map by the Car himself.
Cummings was a Maine man and at
the time he started for Russia he had
just begun the erection of house in
Portland, which he designed to be an
ideal bachelors home. He had pur-
chased a magnificent site overlooking
Fort Allen Park. He planned his
| house so that from one side the win
dows looked out upon the old revolu-
tionary fort, where ancient smooth
bored cannon still poke their noses
through the grass-clad embrasures
which have stood for over an 100
years, and beyond that up Casco bay,
where little islands dot the water as
far as the eye can see.
From the rear of the house where
Cummings located a huge billiard
room lighted from three sides, one
looked over the whole Portland har-
Dor, and beyond that to the open sea
and down the coast to where one of
the oldest lighthouses on the Atlantic
shore still stands white upon rocks
whence it first sent it's warning light
forth from bonfires of pine wood in
1891.
His bachelor paradise was dear to
the heart of Cummings and as often
as he could leave Europe he would
come to Portland and overlook the
work that had been done since his
visit. He saw fit to change his mind
sometimes and would order work torn
out that had been constructed so as
to substitute other plans. The result
was that when the house was finally
completed it had been rebuilt in great
part. The building alone cost him in
the neighborhood of $4,000, and
years of time.
1t is unlikely that any one would
have mistaken that house for any
thing but the creation of man, and
a railroad man. There was not
dressing room or boudoir in the en-
tire structure, which was sufficient
evidence that no woman was conSid
cred in it's planning. There was but
one closet in the whole mansion, and
that was attached to a servants
room on the top floor.
The bed chambers were all separ-
ate, opening from the hall alone, and
none of them connecting, while there
was but one bath room. This was
strongly reminiscent of the wash
room in a Pullman car, for it had a
row of four washbowls along one wall
where the guests whom he expected
to entertain could wash in company.
The woodwork of the house and of
the furniture was black and French
walnut, hand carved. The ornamen-
tation was almost identical with that
in vogue on the sleeping cars of 40
years ago, and the headboard of the
beadsteads looked exactly like the
wooden facings of upper berths.
The builder must have had the
swaying railroad train in mind when
he designed the furniture, for the
heads of the beadsteads were set
immovably into the plaster of the
walls, the bookcases were similarly
built in and some of the small tables
had one edge set into the wall, the
legs being built out from the plaster.
A bowling alley occupied much of
the basement. Here the owner had
also planned a sort of curiosity shop
of his own, for in long room he had
built tiers of cupboards for models of
locomotives. On the walls of this
room, when the house was dis
manteled, hung dozens of time-stain-
ed photographs of the locomotives
that were sold to the Car and put in
operation by an American on the first
railroad constructed in the gigantic
Russian Empire.
Cummings began to designate the
rooms by means of silver letters at
tached to the doors, but the alphabet
gave out before he had finished, and