page_title: Orville Hungerford
section_title: Railroad President
hierarchical_section_title: Orville Hungerford / Railroad President
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of a train named Orville Hungerford taken probably in the 1860s.
context_page_description: Orville Hungerford was a two-term United States Representative for the 19th District in New York. He was also a prominent merchant, banker, industrialist, freemason and railroad president in Watertown, New York.
context_section_description: After his shot at higher political office ended, Orville Hungerford began to refocus his energies on establishing the Watertown & Rome Railroad. The Erie Canal was opened in 1825 and many in the North County thought it unnecessary to develop a new mode of transportation to move goods and people. In the early 1830s, Clarke Rice thought otherwise and built a miniature model train, which he and William Smith displayed in the upper floor of a house on Factory Street in Watertown, New York. Clarke believed that steam power on rail would supersede steam power dependent on a waterway. Clarke convinced his fellow masonic brother and the area's premier business person, Orville Hungerford, that Watertown was doomed as a backwater without a more modern connection to the commercial hub of the country, New York City. After all, the roads out of Watertown were slow and even slower in the rain and snow. 
  On April 17, 1832, the New York legislature incorporated the Watertown & Rome Railroad, naming Hungerford as one of its commissioners charged with promoting the line. Although, the initial act called for track to be laid within three years and the line to be completed within five years, a shortage of capital forced the promoters to seek extensions of the charter in 1837, 1845, and 1847 at which point Orville was elected its first president. He played a key role in raising the necessary capital. Unfortunately, he never got to see a train complete a journey because he died shortly before the inaugural run on May 29, 1851, covering the 53-mile stretch between Rome to the hamlet of Pierrepont Manor (originally called Bear Creak). The Hon. William C. Pierrepont, who owned the property where the railroad initially ended, followed Orville as president. At 11:00 p.m. on September 5, 1851, the first train steamed into the temporary passenger station on Stone Street in Watertown. 
  
  The railroad named its fifth engine, the Orville Hungerford, in his honor. Delivered to the railroad, on September 19, 1851, this engine, built by William Fairbanks in Taunton, Massachusetts, was twenty-one and a half tons in weight. 
   
  Furthermore, the board of the railroad, ever appreciative of Orville Hungerford's efforts, provided free annual train passes to his widow Betsy Hungerford and their daughters. 
  By December of 1856 the railroad stretched 97 miles, "terminating at Rome upon the Erie Canal and N.Y. Central R.R., and at Cape Vincent upon the St. Lawrence River, in good order, with ample accommodations at each end, in the way of storage ground, docks, warehouses, elevator, and with sufficient equipment for a large and profitable traffic." For the year ending 1856 the Railroad earned $440,290.63 and dispersed $219,218.34.
caption: The "Orville Hungerford" Engine
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