The City of Detroit, 1701 -1922, Volume 2 by Clarence Monroe Burton

Author:Clarence Monroe Burton [Burton, Clarence Monroe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Geschichte
Publisher: Jazzybee Verlag
Published: 2017-11-08T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER XXVI. THE RAILROAD ERA

The Detroit & Pontiac Railroad, with its successors and extensions, passed through pretty much every range of experience that has fallen to the lot of pioneer enterprises, including raw experimentation, bankruptcy, reorganization and endless litigation. It was planned first to connect Detroit with the rich agricultural region of Oakland County, and the flouring mills which were already operating in that section. Its charter bore date of July 31, 1830, and this was the first railroad incorporated within the limits of the Northwest Territory. It was also the first to actually lay rails and to use a locomotive for the operating power. The charter stipulated that the road should be completed to Pontiac within five years, but the incorporators failed in some of their plans. The charter was abrogated, and in 1834 another was granted to the Detroit & Pontiac Railroad Company, an entirely new corporation, which was subsequently authorized to establish the Bank of Pontiac. The principal promoters and stockholders of both institutions were Sherman Stevens and Alfred Williams, the latter commonly known also as "Salt" Williams on account of his once having broken a corner in that commodity. He and his associate seem to have had a genius for high finance. They not only succeeded in borrowing $100,000 from the State of Michigan, but a like sum from the State of Indiana. That commonwealth happened to have idle money in the treasury, but it must have required an enticing persuasiveness to induce the officials to invest the funds in an unbuilt railroad backed only by a wildcat bank in another state.

Actual construction had to wait on finance, and even after work was commenced progress was slow. It was not until April, 1836, that the contract was let for grubbing the first fifteen miles, and then a swamp with a few deep sink holes near Royal Oak delayed progress. In 1837, while the internal improvement fever was on, the state was authorized to purchase what there was of the road, but no action was taken under this authority. Instead of that, the state loaned the company $100,000 and in the end had neither the money nor the road. In July, 1838, the road was opened to Royal Oak, and August 16, 1839, to Birmingham. Up to this time the cars had been drawn by horses, but now a locomotive was purchased. It was built by Baldwin of Philadelphia, founder of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, which to this day are the largest works of the kind in the country. The engine was first named the "Sherman Stevens" and afterwards the "Pontiac." It was evidently of superior workmanship, for it was in use as a switch engine nearly forty years later.

In 1840, parties in Syracuse having claims upon the road, procured its sale under an execution. It was bid in by the late Gurdon Williams, of this city, and Giles Williams and Dean Richmond, of Albany, New York, but soon after transferred to other parties in Syracuse. It

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