| By Author | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Title | [ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z | Other Symbols ] |
| By Language |
|
Download this book: [ ASCII ] Look for this book on Amazon Tweet |
Title: The Trail of the Swinging Lanterns - a racy, railroading review of transportation matters, methods and men
Author: Copeland, John Morison
Language: English
As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available.
*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Trail of the Swinging Lanterns - a racy, railroading review of transportation matters, methods and men" ***
This book is indexed by ISYS Web Indexing system to allow the reader find any word or number within the document.
LANTERNS ***
Transcriber’s Note: Italic text is enclosed in _underscores_.
[Illustration:
The TRAIL
_of the_
SWINGING
LANTERNS
A RACY, RAILROADING REVIEW
OF
TRANSPORTATION MATTERS, METHODS AND MEN
_By John Morison Copeland_
]
For additional copies of this book, or duplicate prints of the
illustrations for office, den or mailing communicate with
J. M. COPELAND
5 Dalton Road, Toronto
Telephone, College 185
TORONTO, CANADA
ADDISON & MAINPRICE
1918
FOREWORD
In compiling the miscellaneous array of facts embodied in the pen
sketches arranged within the covers of this book, the principal object
striven for has been to seek out, set down and thereby rescue from
forgetfulness and the danger of extinction, a grist of information
pertaining to local railway life in Canada and to men identified with
international railway affairs.
The data is necessarily incomplete, owing to the embarrassment of
available material clamoring for place and because the railways’
numerous departments harbor scores of brilliant officials and a host of
yet undecorated aides, but the biographies, particularly, have revived
some interesting early history which was the parent and foundation of
present-day conditions.
The concentrated effort and predominant characteristics which
eventually won prominence for the gentlemen herein featured may be an
incentive and safeguard to young men and the journal is deferentially
submitted for perusal to all readers who appreciate how paramount among
vital essentials to progress and comfort are the railroads, but it is
especially dedicated to those cosmopolitans whose duties are so closely
interwoven with the daily transport of people and their natural and
manufactured products.
In no other fields of endeavor does the spirit of genuine _cameraderie_
and the bonds of unconventional fraternity exist more generally than
among railway men in all branches--among allies and competitors
alike--and it is hoped the work will prove to this irregular army of
“thoroughbreds” a book of reference, a reminder later on of former
devotees of the magnetic game and also perpetuate those splendid
standards, enjoyable gatherings and ever changing activities of their
day.
For the courtesy of reprinting privileges, where my earlier articles
are concerned, I am indebted to “Busy Man’s Magazine,” “Canadian
Century,” “McLean’s Magazine,” “Canada Monthly,” etc., etc., and
gratefully acknowledge the voluntary kindness of friends who unlocked
the storehouses of memory or cheerfully furnished desired photographs
and engravings.
The indulgence of the reader is requested should he observe a
discrepancy affecting the title, employer or location of any
individual, resulting from change or promotion between the time of
preparation and publication of these papers.
J. M. C.
TO MY BROTHER,
WHOSE ENCOURAGEMENT AND CONFIDENCE MADE LIGHTER THE TASK
OF WRITING THESE MANUSCRIPTS AND PREPARING
THE ILLUSTRATIONS HEREIN.
CONTENTS
PAGE
Navigators of the Blue 6
A Deceased Canadian Railroad 7
Ontario’s Twin Sister--Grand Trunk Railway 12
William H. Biggar 16
Sir Thomas Dakin’s Locomotive 19
Toronto and Nipissing Railway 20
An Old Campaigner’s Career 21
Knights of the Swinging Lanterns 25
Credit Valley Railway--Milton Celebration 26
Crusade of “U.S.A.” Railway Interests in Canada 28
Thomas A. Edison 47
A Gigantic Human Hive--C.P.R. 52
William B. Lanigan 54
James Charlton 56
Uncle Sam’s Adopted Sons 61
Samuel R. Callaway 74
Thomas N. Jarvis 77
Geo. J. Charlton 79
A Reveler’s Dream 83
Andrew J. Taylor 87
Business Getter’s Competition 90
Lines to Queen Quinte 94
The Canadian Northern Railway System 95
A Tenderfoot in Temiskaming 99
William P. Duperow 106
Those Undignified Box Cars 112
Frederic P. Nelson 123
A Pilfered Pot Pourri 126
The Trail of the Serpent 129
A Haphazard Chronology 136
Ballad to the Brotherhood 145
[Illustration]
NAVIGATORS OF THE BLUE
Carrier pigeons--pioneers in aerial transportation
Decoration by ALBERTA L. TORY
Aloft in the frigid lanes they soar,
High over dormant farm and city’s roar:
Their tireless pinions wrestle with the breeze
That wails athwart the solemn, leafless trees.
Above the brooks asleep ’neath crystal shrouds,
And o’er white winter’s mantle from the clouds,
Swift pigeons wheel and spiral t’wards the sun,
Exultant in new triumphs daily won.
Atoms these--of pulsating life on wing,
Each flouts the sordid earth and ether’s sting:
Unconsciously, they realize a Plan
Which mortals match with faulty ships of Man.
A DECEASED CANADIAN RAILWAY
The Sheriff Runs Away From His Spoils
[Illustration: S. E. MACKECHNIE
Mayor of Cobourg, 1853.]
When Sir John Franklin, arctic navigator, with canoe crews of Indians
and voyageurs, eastbound after exploring the Great Lakes, pitched
wigwams in the summer of 1839 at the confluence of stream and lake
where the nucleus of present Cobourg, Canada, was taking root, little
did these adventurous and actual forerunners of easy steam locomotion
think that from a point where they camped a railroad would thirteen
years later bisect the unbroken forest. Yet, it is so, and the
whirligig of time has, likewise, seen recorded the obituary of that
railway--has witnessed the effacement of the name of those early laid
metal ribbons from the time tables of a young country which still
hungers and lobbies for more and more tracks and trams.
Cobourg and thereabouts, is ancient territory as settlements go
nowadays. In 1796 the district was surveyed. Eluid Nickerson, who
espoused the United Empire Loyalist cause, took out the first patent
in 1802 during the reign of King George III., but in spite of its
monarchial predilections, the locality has long been of interest to
our cousins of high and low degree living south of Lake Ontario, and a
few years after the construction of Cobourg and Peterborough Railway,
of which I speak, several iron masters and capitalists from Pittsburg
acquired the property, altering somewhat its original mission.
The prospectus of this pioneer Canadian line was mooted in 1851 by
local promoters: it took definite form in 1852 and on February 7th,
1853, Lady Mayoress, Mrs. S. E. MacKechnie, officiated in the ceremony
of turning the first sod amidst tremendous public enthusiasm. As early
as 1844 a daily stage ran in winter from Peterborough to Cobourg and
Port Hope, and in summer the steamboat “Forrester” plied to Harwood and
connected with the stage coaches. Close in the wake of this propitious
beginning construction advanced, while feathered and furry prowlers
of the virgin woods had their curiosity piqued by strange sights
and sounds. Under the supervision of chief engineer Ira Spaulding,
contractors Zimmerman and Balch pushed the line through valley and
glade to Rice Lake’s fertile, sloping shores at Harwood where,
later, sawmills sawed the stately pines that arrived in drives from
Otonabee. During the following year Mr. Zimmerman collaborated in the
extension as far as Peterborough, his tragic death in the des Jardins
Canal disaster at Hamilton, March, 1857, terminating a useful life.
Steel rails were an experimental luxury, iron scarce and expensive
and timber often replaced them. Antique locomotives with impossible
superstructures coughed and squeaked along, meanwhile eating a mighty
hole in the wood pile, for coal and oil burners were not contrived,
and what a risk it was to venture between the oscillating cars. Though
crudely equipped, the road was nevertheless, a startling and welcome
innovation for abbreviating space. The Grand Trunk Railway had not yet
been built and the saddle horse and coach were the only substitutes
for pedestrianism. Picture, if you can, a journey inside a two teamed
springless stage, tediously winding westward past bear haunt, swamp
and river; for instance, over the historic, old military road from
Kingston. It must have been a hunter’s paradise.
The bridging of Rice Lake was a large undertaking at the period and
proved a burden from which the management never recovered. This
structure became notorious later for several reasons. From Harwood
to Tick Island, some distance off shore, a filling was made and the
bridge trestles were projected two miles across the westerly loop of
the lake to where Hiawatha Indian settlement still harbors the fishing
and rice gathering sons and daughters of sires long since passed to
the happy hunting grounds. You may see them any summer day vieing with
“Alderville” redskins from near Roseneath, in deftly wielding the
paddle, as of yore when their forebears fought fiercely all around that
favored camping place.
In winter of 1857, when the frost and ice heaved the bridge, four-horse
sleighs transported passengers inland between Harwood, the Indian
village and station at Ashburnham, seven miles north. To take charge
of this old depot, which afterwards became a canoe factory, Donald
Sutherland was the first appointed and Mr. Roe Buck became the Cobourg
representative. William Von Ingen, now collector of His Majesty’s
Customs levy at Woodstock, Ont., collected tickets covering the run of
about twenty-five miles which cost $1.00 per capital and entitled one
to all privileges save the compartment sleeper and electric fans, which
had not yet been adopted.
It is said that John Fowler, charter corporation member and first
manager, whose regime did not fill the company’s coffers, made
towards the close of his term, a financial _coup d’etat_ with the
Midland, Port Perry, Lindsay & Beaverton Railway. He was succeeded
by Lieut.-Colonel D’Arcy E. Boulton, a Cobourg aristocrat who rented
the “C. & P.” property in 1857 and battled valiantly against odds
in an endeavor to place the road on a paying basis. This railway’s
legitimate traffic--forest products and lumber--were hauled for several
years from the interior to the docks at Cobourg, thence by schooner to
various lake ports, but time wrought changes and debt became the most
formidable obstacle to progress.
[Illustration: LADY DUFFERIN.
A distinguished passenger who rode over the C.P. & M. Ry., 1874.]
It is recounted that one forenoon long ago the sheriff unexpectedly
boarded a northbound “C. & P.” train on which the superintendent was
also travelling. Although the latter was not a mind reader he had a
presentment that the sheriff’s presence might not auger well for his
particular department. Everything was as placid as the lake itself
until the train approached the height of land at Summit, nine miles
up from Cobourg, when the brakes controlling rear car in which the
court official sat in tranquil state, were locked and the coupling pin
withdrawn. A retrograde movement quickly followed and the sheriff was
powerless to stem the progress of his unwilling hurry. As though the
evil one was after him, down grade rolled the flustered occupant of
the flying carriage to where it started. Nothing daunting, the sheriff
procured a team and drove thirteen miles back to Harwood, but found on
arrival that everything not nailed down, including attachable railway
equipment, etc., had forsaken Northumberland and was transferred across
the bridge to the next county.
Early in the day of September 7th, 1860, a “special” moved over the
“C. & P.” conveying Edward, Prince of Wales and suite from Cobourg to
Harwood en route Peterborough. As the old bridge was considered unsafe
for this precious young patron and entourage, they were much interested
in being ferried across Rice Lake to the Mississauga Indian settlement
near the mouth of the winding Otonabee River, from which point the late
Robert White, highly respected for leagues around, enjoyed the honor
and privilege of driving Royalty and his retinue to Peterborough.
After the Civil War the road came into possession of a genial
Virgianian, Colonel William Chambliss and his confreres, Messrs.
Schoenburg and Fitzhugh from the South, with interests in Pennsylvania.
Colonel Chambliss was elected managing director, the title was changed
to Cobourg, Peterborough & Marmora Railway & Mining Company, and its
new purpose was hauling iron ore destined Cleveland from Marmora mines
to vessels at Cobourg. This ore was moved on scows from Blairton to
Harwood.
The old Parliament of Upper Canada had incorporated the earlier
organization and in 1869 an Act was passed legalizing the amalgamation
of railway and mining company.
During the summer of 1874 the Vice-Regal couple, Lord and Lady
Dufferin, participated in an eleven hour outing from Cobourg via C.P.
& M.R. & M. Co., Harwood, Rice Lake steamer and Hastings, and extracts
from the Countess’ description of their ore mine inspection and
experiences, as set down in Her Ladyship’s diary at the time, reads as
follows:--
“I did not expect to care the least about it as we had seen
so many untidy, stoney, barren places called mines, but this
one was really an interesting sight. We found ourselves at the
top of an enormous hole or cavern, 140 feet deep, large in
proportion, perfectly open and light as day. The men looked
like imps as they worked below and it was the sort of thing one
sees represented, in miniature, in a fairy play. The sides were
walls of iron: but, alas, coal is found only in the States....
“When we returned to the steamer we found a barge tied to its
side covered in with green--a floating arbor--in which lunch
was laid: and very glad we were of it, as we had breakfasted at
7.30 a.m. and it was now 2.00 p.m. The managers of the mines,
the steamers, etc., are Americans, and we were their guests.
Colonel Chambliss and General Fitzhugh, with their wives (two
sisters), were our hosts. They lived in the hotel at which we
stayed and are charming Southerners.”
It would appear that the bridging of Rice Lake was costly, but on
account of engineering difficulties, not permanent. The alternate
rigors of winter and spring reaction upset calculations as well as the
bridge’s equilibrium. Those piles which had no foundation in fact--in
the lake bottom, to be more exact--dangled from the upper work, an
encumbrance instead of a support and many of the bolts disappeared,
some claim by design of wrongly disposed persons. One autumn night,
after a southbound train from Peterborough had passed over, the
shivering spans succumbed to a gale and disappeared. To-day they remain
the abode of lunge, bass and other amphibious denizens of the waters.
When the G.T.R. failed to popularize the line to Harwood for
excursions, several rearrangements of the railway’s name and financial
status subsequently occurred. Acts were passed by the Ontario
Legislature and in 1887, after the sale of the Company’s bonds under
an order of the Chancery Court the Federal Parliament incorporated
the Cobourg, Blairton & Marmora Railway & Mining Co. to take over the
property. The Municipality of Cobourg became at one time a guarantor in
further reorganization. Presently, operation of the miniature system
ceased altogether and protracted litigation was the precursor of
dissolution. Thus did a budding nation in a constructive age behold a
once famous railway rust into oblivion.
* * * * *
[Illustration: EXECUTIVE OFFICERS AND CHIEF PASSENGER DEPARTMENT
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY’S NUMEROUS AND SCATTERED
FAMILY.
JANUARY, 1916
J. E. DALRYMPLE, GEO. T. BELL,
Vice-President. Passenger Traffic Manager.
Top rows--W. J. MOFFATT, C.P.A., Toronto; L. L. GRABILL, Asst.
Gen. Bge. Agt., Toronto; M. O. DAFOE, C.P. & T.A., Montreal;
J. E. QUICK, Gen’l Baggage Agent; F. P. WALSH, G. M., CROSBY
Tpn. Co., Milwaukee; C. P. ORTTENBURGER, C.P.A., Chicago; J. P.
SHEA, T.P.A., Boston; A. A. GARDINER, G.C., Montreal.
Centre Row--O. C. BRYANT, T.P.A., Chicago; S. R. JOYCE,
T.P.A., Toronto; F. W. HOPPER, G.A.P.D., San Francisco; R. L.
FRADD, Montreal, Sec’y to G.P.A.; E. C. ELLIOTT, C.C., P.T.D.,
Montreal; W. S. MILLER, T.P.A., Montreal; C. W. JOHNSTON,
A.G.P.A., Montreal; D. B. SMITH, C.P. & T.A., Portland, Ore.;
A. B. CHOWN, T.P.A., Pittsburg; J. H. BURGESS, G.A.P.D.,
Seattle; E. H. BOYNTON, N.E.P.A., Boston; C. S. PROCTOR,
T.P.A., Toronto; J. E. REILLY, C.C., Chicago; J. D. MCDONALD,
A.G.P.A., Chicago; F. P. DWYER, G.A.P.D., New York; E. W.
SMITH, Supt., D. & P.C. Service; A. KIRK, Ex-C., Montreal; R.
E. RUSE, C.P. & T.A., London; J. QUINLAN, D.P.A., Montreal, and
W. J. GILKERSON, G.A.P.D., St. Paul.
Lower Row--J. ANDERSON, C.P. & T.A., Hamilton; G. W. NORMAN,
T.P.A., Chicago; D. P. DREWERY, T.P.A., Buffalo; R. MCC. SMITH,
C.P. & T.A., Detroit; J. E. CROSSLEY, T.P.A., Montreal; C. E.
HORNING, D.P.A., Toronto; F. W. WHERRETT, T.P.A., Detroit; W.
S. COOKSON, Gen’ Pass’r Agent, Montreal; G. N. WILSON, T.P.A.,
Kansas City; J. H. CORCORAN, T.P.A., Moncton, N.B.; C. E.
JENNEY, G.A.P.D., Vancouver, B.C., and H. R. CHARLTON, Gen’l
Advertising Agent.
]
[Illustration: Type of Grand Trunk Locomotive in use 1853]
ONTARIO’S TWIN SISTER IS THE GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY
If a vivisectionist, adroit with scalpel and scissors, should dissect
and remove the bone framework from the torso of any man, that man
would collapse, and likewise, did Atlas or Sampson but lift the Grand
Trunk Railway System from out the ballasted roadbed in the Provinces
of Ontario and Quebec and contiguous territory, the extensive and
most densely populated area of Older Canada would immediately become
paralyzed and inert. Mankind in thousands would be without occupations,
communication and the written word from the world outside would cease
in three-quarters of the affected zone: again the over night journey
to grist mills would resume, cattle be herded to market, the fruits
of the earth would wither on the vine and the travelling public--wont
to thoughtlessly grumble at imagined discrepancies in the time
table--would submissively fall back on the tri-weekly stage.
How few of us reflect upon and appreciate the amount of planning and
experiment, figuring and re-adjustment involved in the preparation of a
“Grand Trunk” folder, where a maze of branch line trains that gridiron
the country like a spider’s web, must be dispatched to dovetail with
innumerable main line connections rolling to every point of the compass.
Before the first of her sixty-six birthdays was registered in the
family bible at Headquarters in Old London, the nucleii of the “G.T.R.”
were conceived and the infant projects inaugurated in that expectant
era of active railway promotion which followed George Stephenson’s
practical application of steam for motive power in England in
1815–25–45. Although the earliest railroads constructed in Quebec did
not bear its name, these pioneer highways were merged, ere long, into
the Grand Trunk Railway which spread its lengthening branches in all
directions like the gnarled arms of the famous green bay tree.
[Illustration: CHARLES E. DEWEY
Freight Traffic Manager, Grand Trunk Railway System, Montreal, Que.]
The Grand Trunk Railway early became a definite medium in realizing
the New World ambitions, spurring on hundreds of young English, Irish
and Scotch men. Their methods of substantial construction and numerous
ideas of system are yet extant with this great Canadian institution. It
has also been a school of diverse experience and thorough training for
thousands of graduates who gravitated to newer properties and to-day
play their part in determining the policy or lubricating the clerical
machinery of railroads in all regions enjoying the benefits of modern
transportation.
On the eve of these happenings and during the period when the “Right of
way” lands were being purchased under the discriminating supervision
of the late John Bell--first and life-long General Counsel of the
“G.T.R.”--the voyageur who did not travel by stage coach over corduroy
roadways hewn out of the wilderness, was confined to desultory sailings
on lake and bay or river. The daily stage coach, which ran both
ways between Kingston and Toronto at that time, charged per person,
Belleville to Kingston, Ten shillings; and Belleville to Cobourg,
Twelve Shillings, Six Pence.
[Illustration: JOHN PULLEN
President, Canadian Express Co.]
Clear to the retentive memory of thousands of early settlers is that
nine days’ wonder, and since enduring boon, synchronizing in the
arrival of the first railway train of the “G.T.R.” at their peaceful
hamlet, grain elevator or river mouth. That was an event of superlative
importance not fully understood. Like them, the “Old Reliable” was a
budding enterprise, she was Ontario’s Twin Sister growing confident
and expanding step by step, surmounting difficulties, each depending
on the other, until now the great and comprehensive public utility we
know so well and vitally need, together with her subsidiary properties,
is a far-reaching international system comprising 8,000 miles of well
equipped railway, embodying an immense investment. That investment,
based on a long, discerning and steady look into the future--surely
made by optimistic, adventurous men--began when the Canadas truly
deserved the petite designation of colonies and the manner in which
the expansion of the Grand Trunk Railway kept pace with the unfolding
of our young nation’s wonderful possibilities is lucidly outlined in a
meritorious editorial of January 12th, 1918, which the Montreal “Daily
Star” has readily permitted me to reproduce below:--
[Illustration: W. P. HINTON,
Vice-President and General Manager, Grand Trunk Pacific Ry., Winnipeg,
Manitoba.]
THE GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY.
“Last year the Dominion of Canada observed its fiftieth
birthday. This year one of the great railway systems of the
Dominion will celebrate its sixty-sixth anniversary. Both of
these are historic events, proving that this young country
is growing up, perhaps not getting on in years, but at least
approaching adolesence.
“The Grand Trunk Railway is practically, if not actually,
the pioneer railroad of Canada. Before its advent there were
several small lines, now part of the Grand Trunk system, but it
remained for the Grand Trunk to originate and carry through the
first comprehensive transportation plan for serving the Canada
of the fifties. It was a bold scheme, almost a reckless one,
in that pioneer age, to link up Sarnia, Ont., with Portland,
Me., via Toronto and Montreal, and to do so with a roadbed of
such permanence that its standards have never been appreciably
changed since. The railroad builders of those early days had
faith in Canada, a faith that might shame some of those living
in a more modern era.
“As a pioneer road the Grand Trunk is entitled to--even if it
has not always received--the fullest measure of sympathy and
encouragement from the Canadian people. It is impossible to
estimate the importance of the part played by the Grand Trunk
in the development of this country when it was practically
the only trunk line carrying goods to the Atlantic seaboard
through Canada. During its sixty-six years of history it has
continued adding to its system, and to-day when the railroads
of the entire continent are laboring under immense handicaps,
congestion, lack of fuel and labor, expense and scarcity of
materials, the “old Grand Trunk” is holding up its end, and
winning praise for its success. That recognition, so far
as the people of Canada are concerned, does not seem to be
commensurate with the deserts of the company.
“The Grand Trunk exercises an influence in Eastern Canada
more extensive than is generally realized. The present system
includes no less than 125 companies which were originally
separate in legal identity. It boasts a double tracked line
practically all the way from Montreal to Chicago. It has been
responsible for some of the greatest public structures in the
Dominion, the Victoria Bridge, the Sarnia Tunnel and others.
For more than half a century it has been closely identified
with the growth and business development of Canada, doing
its part without ostentation, but none the less effectively.
Those who invested their money in the enterprise have had
to be content with meagre returns financially, and a large
consciousness of public service, if that was of comfort to them.
“It is well that the Canadian people should not forget the
factors that have helped them along towards nationhood. The
sixty-sixth anniversary of the Grand Trunk should be an
occasion for a little thought as to the deserts of that fine
old railroad system, an honorable patriotic corporation that
has been the victim of one-half the railway legislation not
only of the Federal House but of most of the Provinces.”
[Illustration: Grand Trunk Standard Passenger Train 1918]
WILLIAM H. BIGGAR Vice-President and General Counsel of G.T.R. and
G.T.P. Railways
Some Recollections and An Appreciation
[Illustration: W. H. BIGGAR,
Vice-President and General Counsel, Grand Trunk Railway System,
Montreal, Que.]
During that turbulent period in Britain’s history when Sir Francis
Drake’s buccaneering exploits had Spain by the ears and intrepid
Champlain was spying out the boundaries of Bay of Quinte, there
flourished under the checkered reign of the first James in bonny
Scotland, Herbert Biggar, and it is a coincidence that centuries
after his descendents settled on the rim of the bay where the great
explorer had camped. This Scottish gentleman was Laird of Barbine and
Nethergloly and espoused Janet Maxwell, Balterson, in the Parish of
Holyrood, who survived, dying in 1689, and their children were the
ancestors of the subject of this sketch.
William Hodgins Biggar, called to the Bar in 1880, twice Mayor of
Belleville, and in 1890 elected M.P.P. for West Hastings, Ontario, now
director of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, and vice-president and
General Counsel of the Grand Trunk Railway, was born in September,
1852, at the Carrying Place, an historic portage where no doubt, Samuel
de Champlain and his Indian allies carried from Quinte Bay to Lake
Ontario their supplies and canoes.
Late in the autumn, two thirds of a century ago when older units of the
family were sailing westward with equipment and settlers’ impedimenta
enroute their original location near Brantford, Canada, the voyageurs
were frozen in and stalled by winter’s rigors and thus fate or fortune,
unsolicited, determined a new world habitation, giving point to the
proverb, “There is a destiny which shapes our ends rough hew them as we
may”. From here it was that James Lyons Biggar, general merchant, often
journeyed in the interests of East Northumberland to parliament in far
off Quebec before Confederation and this sturdy trader of pioneering
days was wont to accompany goods shipments from tidewater by wagon,
coach and vessel to their western destination.
“There is luck in odd numbers”, said Rory O’More and as young Biggar
was but one of nine lusty children--all of whom later attained
individual prominence--he was not featured as a favorite. Who can tell
to what influence his Celtic mother from the city of Dublin, whose
surname and temperament he inherited, attributed the success of her
son, perchance the good fairies or to the “Luck in odd numbers”. The
acquisition of knowledge was easy for him because he gave the task
his attention and his inclinations developed system in study. His
preliminary education in the village and at Trenton Grammar School,
culminated with the gilt lettered honor of Head Boy at Upper Canada
College, Toronto, and that distinction has since been bestowed on one
of his four children, Winchester, on the eve of his entry to McGill
University and gravitation to the army. The mother of the interesting
trio and the curley-headed dictator of the family, was Miss Marie
Louise Ballou of New York.
A cardinal qualification, noticeable in the majority of leaders in
Law and Commerce, is the ability to cast aside the superfluous, bare
a proposition and promptly discern the gist of the matter; this
qualification W. H. Biggar possesses, combined with a clear, well
ordered mind and a splendid memory for facts and precedent. It won him
the confidence of the late John Bell of Belleville, former General
Counsel of the Grand Trunk Railway and his legal acumen soon became
exact and expanded by contact with the ripe experiences in railway
jurisprudence of his senior who took the young lawyer into partnership
giving him charge of their civil practice. His penchant for deductions
explains his skill as a billiardist and one time enthusiastic lawn
bowler at home and on the greens at Niagara-on-the-lake, when he
was President of the Ontario Bowling Association. He is decidedly
deliberate towards all appeals for his opinion on any topic, does not
make snap decisions and would never be caught in the fix of the man who
jumped at the conclusion of a departing ferry boat and fell into the
harbor.
In the capacity of General Counsel for G.T.R.-G.T.P.R., he has dealt
with many weighty railway corporation matters and affairs of national
import and--no doubt, participated prominently with Sir Wilfrid Laurier
and his cabinet in governmental and financial endorsation of the Grand
Trunk Pacific Railway past and present.
Not long ago his interpretations of the intentions of certain clauses
respecting the Government’s attitude towards the sale of bonds of the
western section of the N.T.R., were sustained by the Privy Council
at London and that body’s vindication of Mr. Biggar’s insight was
equivalent to an immense saving in favor of the “G.T.R.”
With the strain of business he intersperses a lively participation in
golf, always evinces a keen interest in good sport and when a younger
man in Belleville owned and raced his yacht “Iolanthe” on Lake Ontario
and across the bay beside his birthplace. He was also a bit of an
angler and could pink the bull’s eye at rifle ranges. Many a time,
when a boy, have I seen him galloping past in the saddle accompanied by
(Justice) R. C. Clute, the late U. E. Thompson, then City Ticket Agent
of the G.T.R., Thomas Ritchie, T. S. Carman, publisher of the “Ontario”
and the late Senator Harry Corby. A gentleman of the old school, Will
Biggar was as prompt to perceive the charwoman’s courtesy as he would
be to acknowledge the gracious inclination of the city’s first lady.
Like some men in public life, he is reserved, almost shy of the lime
light, but an interesting companion among his intimates and a favorite
with little children and generally popular, so much so, that he proved
a _rara avis_ in local politics when he carried the Liberal standard
to victory in “Tory” West Hastings in 1890 with the untrumpeted aid of
many Conservative friends, it has been said. He was always a “man’s
man” but now gives the Mount Royal and other Clubs only such a share of
his limited leisure as domesticity will permit.
QUINTE BAY
Ensconced in a setting of green and gold,
She is ever young to young and old;
Could her waters speak as they flow along,
“Forget me not” would be their song.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
_Photograph--Courtesy I. Wilson._
]
Reproduction of an early type of steam locomotive used by the Great
Western Railway of Canada and photographed on the area then known as
“Kent’s Paradise”, below Dundurn Park, Hamilton, Ont., in 1864. This
locomotive was the first mogul built in Hamilton shops.
The occasion was the visit to Canada of Sir Thomas Dakin, English
Chairman of the Great Western Railway, whose name appears on the
engine. A key to the interesting headquarters group beside it is given
below and some of the gentlemen in the picture still survive.
Top row reading from headlight to tender--
W. A. ROBINSON Ass’t. Mch’l. Sup’t.
GEO. FORSYTH Gen. Foreman Shops
WM. MCMILLAN Fuel Purc’g. Agent
SAMUEL SHARP Mechanical Sup’t.
JOHN ROBERTSON Locomotive Eng’eer.
WILLIAM PAINE Loco. Fireman
DICK FURNESS Conductor
AARON PENNY Mess’r. official car
Lower row, reading left to right--
GEO. L. REID Civil Engineer
WM. WALLACE Traffic Agent
G. HARRY HOWARD Booking Agent
WILLIAM ORR Dist. Freight Agent
GEO. B. SPRIGGS Through Fr’t Agt.
JAMES HOWARD Gen. Purch’g. Agent
THOMAS SWINYARD General Manager
BRACKSTONE BAKER English Secretary
THOMAS BELL Treasurer
JOHN HALL Foreman Run’g. Dep.
JOHN WEATHERSTON Track Superin’dent.
JOHN A. WARD Mech. Accountant
PETER NEILSON Station Agent
WILLIAM WILSON Track Foreman
JAMES FAWCETT Call Boy
[Illustration: Turning the first sod, Toronto, Canada, 1869, Toronto
and Nipissing Railway
_Photograph courtesy of Gooderham Estate._
]
The Toronto & Nipissing Railway, traversing the territory between
Toronto, Ont., and Coboconk, now a “G.T.R.” branch serving Markham,
Stouffville and Blackwater, was inaugurated in 1869 and built by Chief
Engineer Edmund Wragge for the promoters.
The line was opened to Uxbridge, September 14th, 1871, amid great
rejoicing and enthusiasm and an oil painting from the brush of B.
Armstrong, commemorating the scene, with the elaborate decorations of
that thriving agricultural centre, was presented by the President, the
late John Shedden, to William Gooderham, Junior, Vice-President and
Managing Director of the Toronto & Nipissing Railway Company.
The personnel of the prominent men of a past generation who were
present at the turning of the first sod in 1869 at Toronto, as they
appear in the accompanying photograph, is as follows:--
Reading from left to right--
EDMUND WRAGGE Chief Engineer.
J. C. FITCH Merchant.
GEORGE LAIDLAW General Merchant.
JOSEPH GOULD Merchant and Farmer.
HON. JOHN BEVERLEY ROBINSON Former Solicitor-General, Legislative
Council, Province of Canada.
ROBERT ELLIOTT Merchant.
HON. JOHN SANDFIELD MACDONALD Premier of Ontario.
JAMES E. SMITH Merchant.
JOHN LEYS Barrister.
HON. GEO. W. ALLAN Senator before Confederation.
S. B. HARMAN Barrister, Mayor of Toronto.
W. MCMASTER Merchant.
R. BRETHOUR Farmer.
JAMES GRAHAM Secretary of T. & N. Railway.
AN OLD CAMPAIGNER’S CAREER
[Illustration: JOHN QUIRK
Wingham’s Veteran Conductor, Retired.]
How many amongst you wide-a-wake and well-informed commercial men and
transportation people, who read these lines, can explain where was and
what became of the Erie & Niagara Railway, Canada. A gentleman born in
1833 at Lungar, Ireland, not a great distance from Ballykilbeg, known
as John Quirk, Esq., Wingham, Ont., would, if interrogated, inform you
that the railroad referred to originated at Lake Erie’s shore at Fort
Erie, Ont., and terminated at historical old Niagara-on-the-Lake, where
Lake Ontario’s blue waters lave the sloping shore.
The nucleus of that highway--now a “Michigan Central” branch line
serving the fruit belt--was surveyed and laid with wooden rails by
Gilbert McMicken between 1835–1841 and cost 19,000 pounds. Its motive
power was an old grey horse and traffic crossing from England in
ships via Montreal, around and over the different rapids and river to
Toronto, was transported by Mr. McMicken and his dapple equine engine
the nine miles from Queenstown, a grain depot on the Lake Ontario
level, to Chippawa, beside Lake Erie, where it was again entrusted to
vessels bound to the rim of civilization then at Sault Ste. Marie. The
passenger fare from Queenstown to Chippawa was 2s–6d. Gilbert McMicken
was a patriarch in the forwarding business, he also built the first
suspension bridge at Queenstown where a horse ferry plied and there,
in 1846, his heir “Ham.” G. McMicken, later European Traffic Agent
of Great Northern Railway, London, England, set foot on terra firma.
Permit me to add here, that the latter’s son, E. G. McMicken, is
General Passenger Agent, Pacific Steamships Company, San Francisco.
Mr. Quirk would explain also, that he first started railroading on
that line as baggageman in 1867, and in three months’ time accepted a
conductorship of a regular train running between these points. In the
absence of the present Buffalo-Bridgeburg international steam highway,
built in 1873–74 by G.T.R. and G.W.R., jointly, United States traffic
crossed from the foot of Main Street, Buffalo, by boats which old
timers will remember as “Florence”, “Grace Dormer” and “Ivanhoe”. From
Niagara-on-the-Lake passengers made the trip to Toronto in the “Rothsay
Castle”, “City of Toronto” &c., &c., forerunners of the splendid craft
which now transport their children and grandchildren on business or
pleasure bent. William A. Thompson secured the first charter for Erie &
Niagara Railway and the Great Western Railway surrendered their lease
of it in 1870. This road underwent changes in fortune, emerging as
a link in the Canada Southern Railway but to-day survives under the
domination of Michigan Central Railway.
[Illustration: RAIL COURTESY
Guard: “Now then, Missis, are you first-class?”
Passenger: “Purty middlin’ thank ye. How’s yourself?”]
From this embryo period imagine the perspective offered the retentive
and vigorous memory of an eighty-four year young veteran like genial
John. He has seen a lot of Ontario in the making and a host of
travelers and transients have seen him in Great Western and Grand Trunk
trains. It has been declared that the travelling man of other days,
with fourteen years’ experience on the rail--devoted seven years to his
business and other seven to waiting for trains at Harrisburg. From this
staid burg Mr. Quirk watched the Wellington, Grey & Bruce Ry. extend
northward while he officiated as conductor over each section when
laid down. Elora and Fergus were reached in July, 1870, Palmerston,
1871, and Southampton in 1873. They considered themselves fortunate
if the trains did not leave the tracks more than three times a week
as the new portion was used without delay and formality as a means of
accomplishing a further leg of the journey. Prior to that time the
tedious and lumbering stage coach was the only long distance substitute
for shank’s mare in reaching a hundred towns and villages which the
Grand Trunk serves to-day, thus aiding a battalion of drummers in the
vital matter of earning a living. John Quirk was long a respected
citizen of Kincardine and covered the run from there to Brantford
and Hamilton for twenty years. He punched the tickets of thousands
of travelers using the London, Huron & Bruce R’y, who remember his
brusque but cheerful manner and woe betide the luckless bride and
bridegroom who happened to entrust themselves to his care when making
the initial trip in double harness. He never did possess a voice as
soft as a sighing zephyr and he was ever an incorrigible tease.
Our subject was the contemporary of such men as W. R. Callaway, widely
known General Passenger Agent, Soo Line, Minneapolis, when he was agent
at Paisley “in them days”, of Adam Brown, Hamilton’s postmaster, after
whom a “Great Western” locomotive was named, W. K. Muir, W. J. Spicer,
John Labatt and scores of others.
He was in his prime when a dozen United States railways competed
vigorously for the traffic moving via Chicago and St. Paul during
Manitoba’s first boom before the C.P.R.’s entry into Winnipeg in 1885.
[Illustration: Michigan Central
“THE NIAGARA FALLS ROUTE”]
Mr. Quirk voluntarily resigned from G.T.R. service in 1905, enjoying
the respect and favor of the Company’s officials as well as the
friendship of the rank and file. He keeps in touch with the railway
world, the trains and former associates by occasional jaunts around
about, and he will wager his bonnet, his best jack-knife and even
his boots, any day, that his watch regulates the sun’s movements. He
is a collector of pictures, walking sticks and clocks, and must be
a “freetrader” for at one time he was notorious as a bargainer and
“unsight and unseen” artist.
If he likes you he will procure anything one desires from a dozen fresh
eggs, a Latin recipe for rheumatic gout to a flagon of nut brown ale,
and “Here’s the old spite to you all”.
The history of the Emerald Isle is in his book-case, her map is on his
desk, and the Irishman’s ready answer still springs quick from the
tongue of this lively, eighty-four year old colt, ex-conductor John
Quirk.
❦ ❦ ❦
THE LUCK OF A LIGHT-HEARTED “LANDLUBBER”
[Illustration: Avast, my hearties, port your helm. The sun is over the
yard-arm.]
C. & N.W.R. Conductor Cornelius O’Konor, from Oconomawoc, a dry land
pilot, visited under pressure, a Chicago departmental store recently
with his wife. In her dauntless quest for the elusive bargain she led
him here and marched him there: into the basement and up the stairs
until fatigue made him hanker for home. Refusing her coaxing to make
one last trip to the roof before the store closed, O’Konor dropped on a
nearby chair while his wife made the ascent for a little “burnt onion”
dream of a hat.
Her spouse relaxed, tilted back his chair, cupped his “Christie” on his
knees and unexpectedly slept the sleep of the just conductors. When
Madam O’K---- returned in the wake of a stream of charitable departing
shoppers and awakened her lord, she found in his hat $3.49. Now he
wants her to spend their vacation there.
SATURDAY NIGHT
KNIGHTS OF THE SWINGING LANTERN
[Illustration: “GRAND TRUNK” CONDUCTORS
DAVID J. DINAN; HUGH O’DONNELL; ALEXANDER MUIR; ALLAN EBY; WILLIAM
FROST; JAMES GUTHRIE; WELLAND STRONG]
O we are merry men from Mars,
An active squad of light hussars,
Schooled in tact and the three big R’s
And how to steer by moon and stars.
Some think we haunt the gay bazaars,
And likewise smoke long black cigars,
But in our brood no Lochinvars
Toast yonder moon and strum guitars.
Our task is a life of jolts and jars
And each one bears his grist of scars--
The brand of couplings, beams and bars.
Knights of the punch--our home the cars,
We know the brig from the keel to spars,
And there we reign like blooming Czars.
Pilots, moguls, airship tars,
We guide you safely to planet Mars
O’er the trail of the swinging lanterns.
THE CREDIT VALLEY RAILWAY
Toronto to St. Thomas via Woodstock
Inauguration of Toronto-Milton sections, September 19th, 1879
The Marquis of Lorne graced the ceremonies with his presence and
traveled from Toronto to Milton and return by special train.
[Illustration]
Lord Lorne can be recognized standing in the centre of the official
group and the party about him include George Laidlaw, Toronto, promoter
and President of the line, John C. Bailey, Toronto, an outstanding
figure at the time, who mapped the route of a dozen Canadian railways
and made the survey--“Bailey Route”--of the T. & N.O.R. He was the
engineer of the Credit Valley Railway and Harry Crewe, Toronto, was his
chief assistant. To the right can be discerned the late James Ross, a
young Scotch surveyor and engineer from Kingston, New York, in charge
of construction, who afterwards became the Montreal millionaire.
Among others in this photograph are--Honorable Geo. W. Allan, Senator,
Honorable John McMurrich, M.L. C., Toronto, James Beatty, K.C., Mayor
of Toronto, Ross McKenzie, accountant with the Credit Valley Railway,
who probably was Canada’s most famous lacrosse player, and Wm. Taylor,
secretary for James Ross.
STREETSVILLE JUNCTION, SEPTEMBER 19th, 1879
Train sheet and entries thereon the day of the Governor General’s
Special.
Down trains going east. Up trains going west.
========+========+========+=======+============+=======+=====++=================+========+=======+=====+=======+=======+=====+========
Ballast | Ballast| Ballast| Pilot | Special |Ballast|No. 1|| Trains |Special |Ballast|Pilot|Ballast|Ballast|No. 4|Engineer
--------+--------+--------+-------+------------+-------+-----++-----------------+--------+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+--------
Lovelock| | Martin | |Flanagan | | ||Conductor |Flanagan| | | | | |
| | | | | | || | | | | | | |
Kean | | Monro |Spragge|Greenshields| | ||Engineer |Spragge | | | | | |
| | | | | | || | | | | | | |
Webster | | Yates |Phipps |Cameron | | ||Fireman |Phipps | | | | | |
| | | | | | || | | | | | | |
| | | |Ryan | | ||Baggageman |Ryan | | | | | |
| | | | | | || | | | | | | |
McGillis| | Ragan | | | | ||Brakesman | | | | | | |
| | | | | | || | | | | | | |
341 | | 338 | No. 8 | No. 2 | | ||Engine |No. 8 | | | | | |
| | | | | | || | | | | | | |
Off | | Off | Red | | | || | | | | | | |
Branch | | Branch |Signal | | | || | | | | | | |
--------+--------+--------+-+-----+--+---------+----+--+-----++-----------------+--------+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+--------
A.D. | A.D. | A.D. | A.D. | A.D. | Miles || Stations | A.D. | A.D. | | | | |
--------+--------+----------+--------+--------------+--------++-----------------+--------+-------+-----+-------+-------+-----+--------
| | | | 1.35 | 0 ||Toronto | | 10.30 | | | | |
| | | | | || | | | | | | |
| | | | psd. 1.12 | 4¼ ||Lambton | | | | | | |
| | | | | || | | | | | | |
| | | | | 12 ||Cooksville | 10.55 | 10.58 | | | | |
| | | | | || | | | | | | |
| | | | | 17⅞ ||Streetsville | | | | | | |
| | | | | || | | | | | | |
| | | | psd. 12.51 | 19⅛ ||Streetsville Jct.| 11.25 | 11.25 | | | | |
| | | | | || | | | | | | |
| | | | 12.26 | 29¾ ||Milton | 11.46 | | | | | |
| | | | | || | | | | | | |
| | | | | 35½ ||Campbellsville | | | | | | |
========+========+==========+========+==============+========++=================+========+=======+=====+=======+=======+=====+========
[Illustration:
_Courtesy Hamilton Spectator._
]
THE CRUSADE OF UNITED STATES RAILWAY INTERESTS IN CANADA
John Bull’s eldest daughter, Canada--recently eulogized as his fairest
by the Honorable William H. Taft--is no laggard in recognizing
opportunity as it ebbs and flows in the great, scientific game of
trade. Like our wide-awake neighbor to the south, she inherits from
commercial and speculative England the bartering instinct, and is
willing enough to emulate, in a modified way, cousin Columbia’s
obeisances to the goddess of commerce. The goddess, aforesaid, has been
an active dame and most aggressive throughout North America during the
past half century. To further her aims, enthusiastic disciples have
achieved such marvellous feats, especially in railroad construction and
transportation methods, during the period mentioned that comparisons,
invidious or otherwise, are well-nigh compulsory.
The prairie schooner has made a squeaky exit from the drama of
locomotion into museums and the tortuous, blazed trails of the gold
seekers of ’49, minus kinks and humps, are now the routes of many lines
with trackage contributing to an aggregate of 256,547 miles of railway
which 2105 roads have under operation to-day in United States alone. In
1860 the Union possessed only 30,626 miles of steel.
Fifty years ago the fruits of opportunity in the middle and golden
west appeared to the denizens east of the “Missouri” to ripen and
require plucking all at once, and the termination of the Civil War
signalled the inauguration of extravagant railroad ventures. Ambition
fired the mind of the restless native and that big, swelling, polyglot
immigration pouring into the “Land of Liberty,” needed space and
breezy fumigation. Afterwards, they had to be fed and equipped, which,
pursuant to the laws of demand and supply, materially increased
consumption. Responding to the goads of progress, the railroads
extended, paralleled and criss-crossed the “other fellow” in the
dignified scramble for a slice of the melon of prosperity. The slogan
was and has ever been, “More Passengers,” “Increased Tonnage”: import,
export, interline and local business all comprised grist for the
mills. About the time mercantile houses were becoming inoculated with
the “commercial traveller” idea, a small squad of travelling railroad
representatives, in open formation, were training observing optics
on prospective traffic. In this, the eastern group of railroads were
slightly in advance of their newer, western connections.
As far back as 1868 New York and New England State railways--the nuclei
of gigantic present day systems--grew interested in international trade
and thrust their tentacles across that imaginary line of demarkation
bisecting the great lakes, into Ontario and Quebec. Mr. E. L. Slaughter
entered Canada forty-eight years ago as representative of the “Erie”
and is said to have been the first foreign line travelling agent to
invade British domains on such a mission. Some Canadian merchants no
doubt, remember this Southern gentleman who occupied an office at the
corner of Scott and Wellington Streets, Toronto. John Strachan, genial
and popular, followed him and for many years graced the position,
with Mr. M. McGregor, inscrutable and keen, as right bower. S. J.
Sharp was also an active agent of that system in Ontario. Those were
the days of the “Merchant’s Dispatch,” 1870, the days when John Barr
in the early eighties trod the boards boosting the “Blue Line,” and
his understudies, A. F. Webster, Bob Moodie, Charles Holmes and F. F.
Backus, sallied forth from the corner of Church and Colborne Streets,
originally laboring in the same cause. Afterwards, T. J. Craft, and
subsequently S. Hyndman, made predatory incursions from Detroit for the
“Blue Line.” Mr. Craft was once agent at Galt, Ont., and an organ, the
product of his skill, is, I believe, in good order to-day in a church
in that Scottish burg. The distinctive term “dispatch” I mention,
was applied to the earliest systematized methods, operative within
a railway organization, for tracing perishable or timed freight and
transporting it via most direct routes in cars of a uniform dimension,
color, etc. Ere long, “Great Eastern” and “National Dispatch” sprang
into existence. Hot on their heels came the “Hoosac Tunnel Route” and
“West Shore” bidding for favorable consideration through the medium of
indefatigable Joseph Hickson.
Not until 1901 did W. A. Wilson, a graduate of that school, and
formerly with the “Fitchburg,” assume control of the “N.Y.C.” merged
freight interests. Louis Drago and Frank C. Foy supervised passenger
affairs for the consolidated lines.
At that period there was more talk in Canada of reciprocity with United
States than there may be again. Uncle Sam’s politicians were wont to
shun the subject, but the interchange of traffic grew apace. Emboldened
by their competitors’ success, the “Lackawanna Road” sent an emissary
into Ontario and they “have stuck,” George Bazzard campaigning for
years for that interest until age caused him to make place for A.
Leadley, now at the helm. 1884 saw the advent of the “Lehigh Valley”
and Duncan Cooper. Robert Lewis, then in his prime, was busy making
hay, years before their permanent office was decided on. He was a
practical student of the “Morse” code at Suspension Bridge in 1855
when the first near-modern structure spanned Niagara River. Thirty
years ago he presented his card in “York” state as representative of
the “Great Western.” Only recently came the “Pennsylvania” with Don
McKenzie as sponsor and succeeded by L. J. Fox and Messrs. Stackpole
Plummer, and Little.
[Illustration:
Ten Hale and Hearty Gentlemen Linking the Past and Present. Each
Stalwart in the upper row has completed 50 years’ active service. Their
companions are vigorous and capable, with splendid records.
A
J. A. RICHARDSON,
Midland Railway, Millbrook, Ont.,
Canadian Agent,
Wabash Railroad Co.
B
N. WEATHERSTON,
Grand Trunk Railway,
General Agent,
Intercolonial Railway.
C
F. J. GLACKMEYER,
Ticket Clerk,
Great Western Railway, Toronto.
Sergeant-at-Arms, Ontario
D
GEORGE HAM,
Newspaper Man, Raconteur,
Diplomat,
Canadian Pacific Railway.
E
RICHARD TINNING,
Wing Shot, Oarsman, Vocalist,
Grand Trunk Railway,
All The Way.
F
R. L. NELLES, Lieut.-Col.,
Buffalo & Lake Huron Railway,
Grand Trunk Railway,
Toronto.
G
W. R. CALLAWAY,
G.T.R. and C.P.R.,
G.P.A., Soo Line, Minneapolis,
Noted Advertiser
H
ALFRED PRICE,
Credit Valley Railway,
Ass’t. Gen’l. Manager, E.L.,
Can. Pac. Railway, Montreal.
I
WM. A. WILSON,
Grand Trunk Railway,
Gen’l. Can’n Freight Agent,
New York Central Lines.
J
W. J. GRANT,
Midland Railway,
Port Hope “Mobile & Ohio,”
Dis’t. Freight Agent, C.P.R.,
Hamilton, Ont.
]
A large percentage of the public have enjoyed or know of the splendid
passenger equipment and service some of these railways, in conjunction
with Canadian trunk lines, offer to-day between Montreal, Ottawa,
Toronto, Hamilton and Atlantic Seaboard. No doubt the reader who
has attained the age of 45 years could develop a comparative mental
picture of his first train ride, its discomforts, shortcomings and
quaint paraphernalia. The demands of the age and growth of travel
account for “the milk in the cocoanut.” Before the war, the average
number of trains crossing the line via Rouse’s Point, N.Y., was 134 per
month, and in that time they transported 9,627 passengers southward.
At Newport, Vt., 160 trains entering United States yield a monthly
patronage of 6,897 people. Probably you are curious to learn how it is
at Niagara Falls, N.Y. This accessible and world-famous spot, redolent
with much that is historic and tragic, is the magnet which attracts or
ushers into the State of New York 20,000 souls a month and 700 trains
of all railroads are pressed into service to cater to the modern craze
to be “on the go.” These authentic figures do not include pedestrian
traffic.
Compare the tonnage of forty years ago, and the leisurely dispatch it
was given, with the daily carloads containing a multifarious assortment
of perishable commodities and staples which now make regular, scheduled
runs of 24, 36, and 48 hours between United States points of origin,
the docks at Portland, Boston and New York and distributing centres
in Canada. Twelve to fifteen hundred tons of import merchandise for
Ontario destinations per month, apportioned to each of the half dozen
competitive eastern “U.S.” lines, is a conservative estimate of what
is handled. They bring in hardware, silver novelties, locks and clocks
from Connecticut; tools, machinery and electrical supplies from
Massachusetts and New York; cement and coal from Pennsylvania; early
table delicacies from Maryland, and off ocean vessels, English fabrics,
weaves from Scotch and Irish looms, German toys, Parisian frocks
and bonnets, as well as tons of express matter and the theatrical
accessories which accompany the thespians, prestidigitators and
slap-stick artists. One of these eastern lines, with a strong weakness
for fruit shipments, transports to the international bridges during
the season, 125 carloads a month of incoming Cuban pineapples, Costa
Rica bananas and Mediterranean lemons. The local and through eastbound
tonnage secured by interested railways receives equal dispatch, exceeds
that average and includes large quantities of apples, cheese, eggs,
flour, implements, lumber, meats and poultry which probably approximate
a combined monthly output of 1,200 carloads. It may be news to some of
the uninitiated to hear that 1,500 carloads of Ontario grown turnips
are shipped annually in the autumn for consumption in the United
States. It is not surprising, therefore, that the big “American”
carriers hasten to augment their revenues by coaxing and nursing this
growing trade.
[Illustration: R. M. MELVILLE, R.N.,
General S.S. Ticket Agent, Toronto and Captain, retired H.M. M.M.,
“S.S. Pekin.”]
In 1875 the complacent east languidly condescended to heed insistent
whispers concerning Canada’s vast Northwest. The tide of travel was
diverging and began to carry with it in that direction prospectors,
homesteaders and adventurous merchants bent on spying out locations
in the prairie El Dorado. Dependent, of course, they levied on the
mills of the east for food, clothing and implements. About this
time Sir Hugh Childers, London, England, occupied the President’s
chair directing the destinies of the Grand Trunk Railway, and the
contemporary Canadian Pacific Railway official was (Sir) William Van
Horne. Lucius Tuttle, President of Boston & Maine System, D. McNicoll,
Vice-President, and C. E. E. Ussher, Passenger Traffic Manager,
Canadian Pacific Railway, later on in the first flight and noteworthy
examples of what determination and capacity accomplish, were going
through a “course of sprouts” with Ontario lines which afterwards lost
identity. Robert Kerr, former Passenger Traffic Manager “C.P.R.,” was
“G.F. & P.A.” of the Northern Railway, and in his office situated at
the foot of Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Tom Marshall and Henry Jago shoved
the quill. Mr. Jago recently relinquished the duties of “G.E.P.A.”
West Shore Road at New York. Henry Bourlier, so long associated with
J. D. Hunter as western representatives of the Allan Line, was in 1874
ticket agent of G.T.R., in the old depot, and Tommy Jones was City
Ticket Agent, Great Western Railway. Shippers hereabout will remember
John Porteous, G.F.A., G.T.R., Montreal, Arthur White, G.F.A., Midland
Railway, Port Hope, Ont., Jim “the penman” Thompson of the C.P.R. and
Malcolm Murdock. Then it was that the star of Geo. B. Reeve and W. E.
Davis began to twinkle; likewise, John W. Loud. All in modest positions
at that time, they were fitting themselves for the exalted places they
afterwards honorably filled in shaping the policy of the “Grand Trunk”
and “Trunk Pacific” systems.
The majority of these and other officials had frequent business
intercourse with the various United States railway agents who visited
Canada.
In the year 1877 Mr. A. H. Burnham made his initial bow in Ontario
representing Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway. This move was
significant, indicating the expectations of western roads based on the
interest Manitoba’s commercial future had awakened. In July, 1878, the
late James M. Taylor, prior to that time General Freight Agent and
Superintendent, St. Lawrence & Ottawa Railway, had the distinction
of establishing at Toronto the first permanent western line office
in Canada. He was appointed General Canadian Agent of the “St. Paul
Road.” Unlike any competitor, that railway maintained an agency in
Ontario without interruption for three decades. Andrew J. Taylor
joined his father in February, 1879, succeeding him several years ago
when the former transferred to Pittsburg. These gentlemen have ever
been regarded as pioneers and charter members of the foreign railway
colony, highly respected by a legion of friends. James M. Taylor, a
man of sterling personal characteristics and business acumen, who
appreciated and sustained a clever hand in a quiet rubber at euchre,
chose for headquarters a suite of rooms within a door of the northeast
corner of Front and Scott Streets, then the hub of mercantile activity
in Toronto. A neighbor was Mr. Richard Arnold, for a long time City
Passenger Agent in charge of the “G.T.R.” office located on the
aforesaid corner. Mr. Arnold’s daughters became respectively, the
wives of William Wainwright and James Stephenson, two notable figures
of the old regime. The former died when Fourth Vice-President of the
“G.T.R.” and his erstwhile confrere, I believe, lived in retirement
in England until death. Mr. Arnold numbered in his staff the late
well-known “Phil.” Slatter; a junior assistant was Mr. C. E. McPherson,
now A.P.T.M., C.P.R., at Winnipeg, who 35 years ago left “G.T.R.” ranks
to travel in New England for the “Rock Island Road” and J. B. Tinning.
C. W. Graves imbibed from the same seasoned chief preliminary hints on
how to handle the dear public and look out for the elusive traveller
who was not above licking into illegibility the date on expired tickets.
[Illustration: JOHN B. TINNING,
T.P.A., C.P.R., formerly with G.T.R. and R. & O.N. Co.]
Messrs. V. M. Came, W. Barnes and Sam. Beatty soon followed Mr.
Burnham of the St. Paul Road to further the interests of the Chicago
& Northwestern Railway, but were transferred before many moons had
silvered the landscape. The two Jacks, “Morley” and “Winnett” swung
into line in 1879 and did good work in both departments for the “C. &
N.W.R.,” opening an office in Toronto in the old Baldwin Building, I
understand, in 1880.
John Morley long ago forsook the excitement of the road. He died at
Winnipeg during the summer of 1908, and interment occurred at Toronto,
where his family is well known. The mantle of these gentlemen fell
naturally on the shoulders of a sturdy Spartan, Burton H. Bennett,
cryptic, yet merry, who jumped into the game with a will and has won an
enviable reputation in the dual position.
The “Burlington Road” was right up on the firing line, looked after by
a gentleman bearing the uncurtailed and historic cognomen, John Quincy
Adams Bean, from “way down east.” After him, in order, appeared Messrs.
Badgeley, Simpson and John A. Yorick. The late Joe Simpson was always
happy if his road secured patronage in regular twos and threes. Not
every one knows that he was for a few hours an unwilling guest of the
“Fenian” leader O’Neil in 1866, and had been with M.K. & T. and T.St.L.
& K.C.
Brilliant, well-informed, J. Francis Lee represented the “Rock
Island-Albert Lea” combination, D. J. Peace sought freight for them
and Eben MacLeod was located at Montreal somewhat later for “C.R.I. &
P.” Such watchful competitors as “Great Western Railway,” featured by
Messrs. Ridgedale, Noyes, Storr and Baker, and “Union Pacific Ry.” with
Ira P. Griswold in the van, M. C. Dickson and J. O. Goodsell holding
power later, before Geo. Vaux and J. J. Rose took up their work.
Charles A. Florence, an “Illinois Central” Agent, made Berlin--now
Kitchener--his headquarters.
[Illustration: GEO. B. WYLIE
Traveling Passenger Agent Illinois Central Railroad]
The “All Rail” mediums then available for transporting man and beast
destined California, the Dakotas and Manitoba from Old Ontario,
were “Grand Trunk,” “Great Western,” “Credit Valley,” and “Canada
Southern,” covering the distance as far as St. Thomas and Detroit,
thence via “Michigan Central” and Wabash Railroads to Chicago. Tom
Cochrane, R. W. Youngs, Bob Middleton, J. W. Kearns and G. C. Wilson
follow the footsteps of predecessors and patrol that neighborhood now.
As travel increased from a dozen or two people to an occasional weekly
carload, and more, the number of migratory railroaders multiplied.
Oldtimers will recollect some of those big hearted, brainy hustlers
including Sam Seymour of the “Pennsylvania,” Dave Cavan, formerly of
Stratford, John Laven, off the “Iron Mountain,” representing “M.C.R.,”
Charles Ousterhouse, T.P.A. N.Y.C. Lines, Geo. B. Wyllie for “L.S. &
M.S.” and later in full charge of “Ill. Cent. Ry.” affairs in Canada,
and the late much lamented J. Nelles Bastedo, who shipped from Barlow
Cumberland’s service several years ago to travel for “Santa Fe System.”
Joe Rattenbury, who twenty-five to thirty years back used to stow away
at his place in Clinton in one night as many as 18 of these railroading
nomads and cosmopolitans, often repeats a story the wiseacres will
recollect about his brother “Ike” and laconic “Bass.”
The many sided men above enumerated made it their duty to assist with
Customs formalities at the frontier and also assuage the fears of
intending passengers trembling at the prospect of meeting in Chicago
that much heralded and maligned bugaboo the bunco steerer.
It is worthy of remark that while to-day the railroad companies caution
and forbid passengers riding on the platforms, thirty-five years ago
the travelling public swarmed on that perilous projection, on the steps
and quite often took possession of the car roofs with a nonchalance
that would make the cold chills play peek-a-boo up and down your spine.
How many of the lads and lassies in this year of grace would have the
temerity to sally forth, for instance to the London Fair, decorating
the top of a flat car rigged up with benches for the occasion? Your
fathers and mothers did it.
The patronage of the farmer and his brawny sons, who had visions of
gang plows and waving wheat, was an important desideratum in that era.
Party leaders were “some pumpkins” and they puffed and spat over many a
fragrant cheroot while sipping their “ponies” and “bootlegs” in company
of expectant agents.
Charlie McP---- tells a tale of an exodus of the boys over the trail
of the lonesome pine to some silent place near Coboconk where the
villagers were to meet them to consult. To introduce the serious talk
of tickets, rates and routes, some foreign line spokesman suggested a
mild libation all hands round. Agreed! Not to be outdone, his neighbor
ordered again something out of the lamp for the lords and laity:
partaken ad libitum, in extenso. Now me! It’s your turn, and so the
hours wore on, your Uncle Dudley Hayrick taking on his grist at minimum
cost, business postponed and county council adjourning to reconsider
the tax rate.
[Illustration: Honorary Judges, Clinton Fat Stock Show, April, 1912
Two generations pictured beside the Rattenbury House.
R. G. MCGRAW, Soo Line; H. E. WATKINS, G.N.R.; W. HOOD, C.N.R.; F. A.
NANCEKIVELL, Soo Line; DAVID FORRESTER, Gentleman-Farmer; G. BARNES,
W.C.R.; A. J. TAYLOR, C.M. & St. P. R.; HOST JOE, Rattenbury; J. J.
ROSE; ROBERT REFORD Co., R. J. S. WEATHERSTON, G.T.R.; F. H. TERRY,
G.N.R.; W. JACKSON, C.P.R.; H. MACDOUGALL, G.T.R.; R. MIDDLETON, M.C.R.]
CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME
As the train slowed down at a busy country station a man excitedly put
his head through the open coach window. “A woman in here has fainted,”
he cried, “has anyone got any whiskey? Quick!” A philanthropist reached
within the recesses of his unmentionables and handed a bottle to the
enquirer with an 18 karat thirst. The latter frantically uncorked the
flask, put it to his lips and took a noble pull, “Ah”, he sighed,
“that’s better, it always did upset me to see a woman faint.”
Presently the good blood of Ontario, and some bad stuff, was rolling
westward at the rate of two and three regularly arranged for trains
of nine to thirteen loaded cars each week. The personal effects and
stock of the settler went along too, the owner ensconced occasionally
in a tourist sleeper jolting along at the end of the string, and eager
railway companies took turns in hauling the prize. Excitement ran
high. The wires were kept hot about special or inadequate equipment,
conflicting rates and alleged unconstitutional moves of opposing forces.
It was no uncommon occurrence to convene a meeting in hotel parlor or
little red schoolhouse and there agents present would, in turn, give
the agriculturist samples of terseness or spell-binding eloquence.
Imagine the persuasiveness that was pitted against the farmer’s
cautiousness or distrust. Recall, ye of good memory, if you can, the
epigrams, arguments and bon mots which rolled off the ready tongues of
a dozen or more jovial pilgrims from o’er the border; for instance,
M. McNally, representing “St. P.M. & M.R.” a fowl fiend who could eat
poultry five times a day, Charlie O’Connor with the “Northwestern,”
Con. Sheehy, that urbane, silk tiled gentleman sent over by the
“Wabash,” A. C. Stonegrave with eagle eye for “Central Vermont” end of
it, rough and ready Harry Badgeley of “Great Western,” Bill Askin or
handsome Billy McLean of the Beatty Line. They talked corn until their
tones grew husky and they were as fine a coterie of unconventional
free lances as ever probed the intricacies of a railroad timetable.
To this day the boys tell of the adaptability of Harry Badgeley of
the “C.G.W.R.,” how he studied pigology, hob-nobbing for three days
with a colony of ruralists whom he landed high and dry by this artful
manoeuvre in spite of keen competition. That was the halcyon era, the
palmy days of Ed. Sullivan, Ed. Riley, Ed. Clancy and Ned Hanlan.
Frank E. Harrison, who is now agent of C.P.R., at Whitby, Ont., will
remember all this as he was about this time Canadian Agent first for
the C.B. & Q.R., and afterwards the C.St.P. & K.C.R.
On “special” party dates passengers were concentrated at junctional
points and afterwards personally conducted to Detroit, Chicago or St.
Paul. Mr. B. Travers, city ticket agent at Paris, still, has informed
me that parties of 75 and 100 people were occasionally gathered
there, and such a pretentious exodus was known to earn a serenade by
the local brass band at the time of departure. The sturdy knights of
ploughshares and other instruments of peace had to be and were better
mixers than the stall-fed variety of traveller of this day, and the
consciousness that theirs was a common object made easy the upsetting
of social barriers to the music of violin, mouth-organ and jew’s harp.
The journey always ensured incident and good-fellowship, and perhaps,
some disappointing experiences. The records, considerately offered
me for perusal, do not include the name of the escorting agent who,
while wrapped in the arms of Morpheus in a Chicago hotel, suffered the
loss of his train’s entire proceeds by the deft removal of a panel
in the door on which his coat was hanging. It was when escorting a
party westward that Will Wyley, with “M.C.R.,” suffocated, and M.
Boesmburgh had a very close call in the burning of the hotel “Newhall”
at Milwaukee.
[Illustration:
D. O. PEASE, Manager, Ogilvie Mills, Hamilton, Ex-District
Passenger Agent, G.T.R., also C.M. & St. P. R., Montreal.
A. F. WEBSTER, General S.S. Ticket Agent, Toronto, and former
Canadian Agent of Blue Line.
M. C. DICKSON, Ex-District Passenger Agent, G.T.R., Toronto,
formerly C.P.A. Union Pacific Ry. in Ontario.
THOMAS HENRY, Chief of Commissariat, Canada Steamship Lines,
formerly General Agent, Northern Pacific Railway, Montreal.
E. ALLEN, widely known Superintendent, Canadian Express Co.,
Toronto.
The late WM. G. MCLEAN, of Beatty Line and C.P.R., former General
Agent, G.N. Railway, Toronto and Montreal.
JOHN PAUL, District Freight Agent, Canadian Northern Railway,
Winnipeg and former agent M.C.R., London, Ont.
]
Three different gauges, or widths between rails, were accepted as
standard in different parts of Canada and United States at that time,
and to permit interchange of equipment, three rails were sometimes
laid. Just before the adoption of the standard, broad gauge, 4 feet,
8½ inches, became general in America, a good-sized party bound for the
west were delayed at Toronto half a day awaiting the readjustment of
that portion of the “Great Western” to Hamilton, Ont. In the forenoon
one rail over the entire distance, 39 odd miles, was moved in and
spiked down in its new position. This must have been quite a feat 35
years ago in the absence of those simplifying methods practiced to-day.
John Weatherston, father of Nicholas and Robert of the same name,
supervised the work.
Moving westward over designated routes from Chicago, the canary-colored
coaches were pulled by locomotives with yellow bellied boilers, wheels
painted scarlet and ponderous smokestacks--hummers in the old days--but
antiques in 1918. They bore such names as Antelope, Reindeer, Thistle,
&c., as well as of prominent people.
BOIL THEM WHEN THEY’RE TOUGH
Picking her way daintily through the grime of the locomotive works,
a young woman visitor viewed the huge operations with visible awe.
Turning to a young man from the office who was shewing her through and
pointing, she asked, “What is that big thing over there?”
“That’s a locomotive boiler”, said the guide.
She puckered her brows.
“And what do they boil locomotives for?” she enquired.
“To make the locomotive tender”, said the young man from the office,
with amazing effrontery.
YOUNG’S MAGAZINE
What a shock it would be to My Lady’s complacency if, on her journey
now, she should find it necessary to raise a sunshade in the coach to
protect her raiment from the rain and snow sifting through the chinks
and rifts in the car. This age is not without some blessings, as Ben
Fletcher might have exclaimed. We are reminded here of a characteristic
of Mr. Fletcher, who was advance agent for “D.G.H. & M.” He had been
working up business for an excursion to Nebraska, which did not “pan
out,” one solitary passenger offering his patronage. The selling agent
wired him for instructions and received reply couched thusly: “By the
great horned toad Reginald, chain him to the seat!”
The “St. P.M. & M.,” at birth “St. Paul & Pacific,” later converted
by astute minds into the “Great Northern Railway,” was the railroad
which gave that big quartette, Messrs. Angus, Smith, Hill and Stephens,
a gilt-edged monopoly of Manitoba emigration and, incidentally, the
patronage of dame fortune. Men and chattels had only shank’s mare as
an alternative to this line northward from St. Paul as far as Fisher’s
Landing, a Red River port. Here, transfer was made to the Kittson Line
of steamboats plying to Fort Garry now Winnipeg, and owned by Norman
Kittson, a colleague of J. J. Hill in some early business ventures.
In winter the trip was made by stage travelling part way over thick
ice. Mr. Kittson was one of several successors to Anson Northrup, the
pioneer navigator of the Upper Mississippi River who launched his first
craft there in 1835.
The Great Northern Railway, during the time of the Manitoba boom, and
since, was championed in Canada by “live wires” such as Jack Huckins,
resourceful Ham McMicken, who is acting for the road in Europe at
present, Messrs. Kinsley, Graves, Wurtele, Watkins, Hetherington, Tudor
and Brooks.
James M. Taylor, in charge of affairs for “C.M. & St. P.R.,” during
those strenuous days, pulled off the biggest coup of the period I
attempt to sketch, in securing for his line a party which originated
at Millbrook, Ont., and is said to have consisted of or influenced 500
people together with 55 carloads of effects. Mr. A. Leach, who was
ticket agent there then, capably fills that position to-day.
The idea which the “President’s Agreement” made concrete in February,
1900, was ridiculed twenty years before and the system of commissions
to agents for ticket sales being in vogue, competition waxed lively.
For obvious reasons the standards of remuneration did not always remain
stationary; fancy prices and fat drafts swelled many a bank balance.
Although few dismissals and re-engagements by telegraph were
bulletined, the foreign railway man’s berth never was considered
as sure as taxes. For brief periods in those stirring times, the
commission paid to agents for each ticket reading from a point in
Eastern Canada to the Pacific Seaboard netted $11.00 to $15.00. Inside
information about methods and means, dormant in the book shelves of
many an agent’s memory, would have made interesting anecdotes had one
gained the favor of men like Tom Ford, T.P.A., G.T.R., W. J. Grant,
for a time with “Mobile & Ohio” in Canada, Geo. W. Hibbard, former
A.G.P.A., C.P.R., Montreal, unfortunate Alex Drysdale, who lost his
sight and was pensioned by the Chicago & Alton Railroad, and the
erudite M. B. “Garfield” Tooker, the Beau Brummel of many a husting.
Heard you ever of Mr. Tooker’s perceptive olefactory membrane? How
he accurately distinguished, though blindfolded, the odor of a dozen
different perfumes in J. Livingstone’s store in Listowel. Then behold,
the unkindest cut of all: some mischievous scamp thrust an uncorked
bottle of skunk oil beneath his nose.
Another scout, robust and in commercial life at Hamilton to-day, who
links the past and present, is D. O. Pease years ago with the Great
Western Railway. Dan Pease is the proud possessor of the long delayed
Fenian Raid medal, and when William Edgar appointed him D.P.A.,
G.T.R., Montreal, he evinced during twelve years in that capacity,
an enthusiastic interest in military matters and movement of troops.
Conversant with shipping and the French language, shrewd and sauve,
he successively represented the C.M. & St. P.R. for several years in
Quebec in the early days, and relates an incident about a ticket agent
in Prince Edward Island who booked a party of twenty round trips to
California and out of the bountiful commissions purchased for his wife
a fine horse, harness and basket buggy.
Canadian Ticket Agents’ Association
Representative group of officers and members present at Annual Meeting,
Buffalo, October, 1909.
Pictured beside C. & N.W.R. Terminal, Chicago
[Illustration:
H. G. THORLEY, Ontario Passenger Agent, White Star Line,
Toronto; C. R. MORGAN, Ticket Clerk, C.T.A., G.T.R., Hamilton,
Overseas; F. W. CHURCHILL, City Passenger Agent, C.P.R.,
Collingwood; A. PHILIPS, City Passenger Agent, G.T.R.,
Huntington, P.Q., now M.L.A.; T. L. THOMSON, C.T.A., C. &
P.E.I.R., Charlottetown, P.E.I.; DR. J. W. SHAW, Honorary
Physician, Clinton, now overseas; WILL LAHEY, C.P.A., C.P.R.,
Brantford; W. WARD, C.T.A., G.T.R., Dresden, Ont.; H. J.
MOOREHOUSE, C.P.A., C.P.R., Sault Ste. Marie; H. M. BOHREER,
D.P.A., “M. & O.,” Chicago; ARTHUR HARE, C.P.A. “Wabash,”
Tillsonburg; M. MCNAMARA, C.T.A., G.T.R., Walkerton, Collector
Customs; W. MCILROY, C.P.A., C.P.R., Peterborough; E. DE LA
HOOKE, C.P.A., G.T.R., London, Ont., Secretary-Treasurer; J. P.
HANLEY, C.P.A., G.T.R., Kingston, Vice-President; R. J. CRAIG,
C.P.A., C.P.R., Cobourg, President; W. JACKSON, C.P.A., C.P.R.,
Clinton; W. BUNTON, C.P.A., G.T.R., Peterborough; C. E. MORGAN,
C.P.A., G.T.R., Hamilton; R. L. MORTIMER, C.P.A., G.T.R.,
Shelburne; GEO. B. WYLLIE, T.P.A., Illinois Central Railway,
Buffalo, N.Y.
]
There are quite a number of agents, active in transportation matters
at the present time, who took part in and recall the friendly but
whirlwind competition “American” lines indulged in to obtain the
lion’s share of business moving beyond the border. Forty years rest
lightly indeed, on them all and a baker’s dozen chosen at random
might well include Edward de la Hooke, London, dean of the faculty,
erect, vigorous and immaculate, who began railroading in Hamilton in
1864, W. G. Webster, a colt yet and an inveterate wag, who resides
in Chicago, J. A. McKenzie, Woodstock, Will Jackson, Clinton W.
Somerville, Seaforth, James Dore, Mitchell, R. Lauder, Goderich, C. L.
King, Kincardine, John Towner, Stratford, P. Robertson and R. E. Waugh,
Hamilton, Dick Shea, Palmerston, W. E. Rispin, Chatham, Dan. Hayes,
London, Geo. McCallum, Galt, a storehouse of ancient history; C. E.
Horning, Toronto, Tom Evans, London, John Paul, Dave Dover and Alex.
Calder, Winnipeg, W. H. King, St. Thomas, J. Quinlan, Montreal, W. H.
Clancy, now living in Toronto, (a wit with an “Emerald” flavor), A. E.
Lalande, Montreal, J. B. Lambkin, Halifax, D. Carruthers, Quebec, John
Lyons, Moncton, and J. M. Riddell, Portland. The names U. E. Thompson,
Belleville, John Foy, Toronto, A. H. Taylor, Ottawa, C. E. Morgan,
Hamilton, J. Tierney, Arnprior, W. Bunton, Peterborough, W. H. Harper,
Chatham, Alex. Notman, Toronto, Joseph Heffernan, Guelph, Louis Drago,
Niagara Falls and John Gray live in the memory although they have
ceased their labors.
Among such as these was and is business and co-operation sought by that
original and persistent advertiser, W. R. Callaway, once station master
at Walkerton, now G.P.A., Soo Line; S. H. Palmer, C.P.A., M.C.R.;
Harry W. Steinhoff, Geo. H. Anthony, Varnie Russell, R. G. McCraw of
W.C.R. (the Soo’s new arm), D. W. Hatch, connected with A.T. & S.F.R.;
C. Hartigan, Rutland Railway, and that big four who so well attended
to Northern Pacific Railway affairs, Messrs. Walter E. Belcher, W.
G. Mason, George Dew, Thomas Henry, and their collaborators, Geo. W.
Hardisty, Geo. McCaskey and Geo. Barnes. Guided by Armand Lalonde, the
“B. & M.” scored often. They could tell you of long drives in good and
indifferent weather into the surrounding country seeking prospective
passengers and good locations for the half and quarter sheet style of
advertising so much used then; of hard and fast arrangements upset in
a thrice accompanied by restitution of deposits given to clinch the
deal and of mysterious cheques which seemed to spring from nowhere in
particular when the management forbade their acceptance. They smile
when recounting methods used to test if agents were sticking to tariff.
I remember the case of one stool pigeon who, after obtaining the favor
of a ticket at a rate partially unconfirmed, selling it with intent to
a rival organization to be utilized in trapping the enemy. He made a
required affidavit as to purchase price and the subterfuge, with its
charge of irregularity hingeing thereon, had not been operative an
hour before the resourceful agent who sold him the ticket, effectively
turned the tables causing the spotter’s arrest on the grounds “false
pretences,” and that worthy received his liberty under suspended
sentence together with a reprimand.
While these diversified events were finding a niche in history, M.
V. McGinnis and Major E. M. Peel, a lover of horseflesh, were on the
war path for the Canadian Pacific Railway, and their contemporary,
W. T. Dockrill, present T.P.A., C.P.R., was a “big issue” in another
direction. A busy man with a portable railroad in his “carpet-bag”
ticket case, he created quite a furore years ago in the vicinity
of Brockville. From November, 1883 to June 1885 he traveled on the
“C.P.R.” trains between that city, Ottawa and Smiths Falls exchanging
prepaid orders and ticketing westbound business. In July, 1885, the
C.P.R. was completed to a point beyond Jackfish and from track-end
there, the heroes of the Battle of Batoche marched across the arm of
Lake Superior before the bridge linking up the western extension was
erected. During the time the different contracts were completing,
the builders released at intervals, 10,000 laborers and navvies in
lots of fifty, one hundred and two hundred, who traveled via Carleton
Junction to Brockville on orders issued by the agents appointed after
each station had been established behind the scene of operations.
These exchange orders were seldom fully routed and Mr. Dockrill thus
controlled heavy business which he, in competition with G.T.R.,
directed round the horn via ferry and Morristown, N.Y., thence Utica &
Black River Railway, an abbreviated but prolific “feeder” to “Canada
Southern” through St. Thomas and “L.S. & M.S.” by the way of Buffalo.
[Illustration: WILLIAM T. DOCKRILL,
Traveling Passenger Agent, Canadian Pacific Railway.]
In 1881 rumors of consolidation of existing railway systems in Ontario
were bruited about by those “in the know” and the steady, westward
extension of the “C.P.R.” sowed uneasiness where the interests via
“Chicago-St. Paul Route” were cherished. August 11th and 12th, 1882,
witnessed the amalgamation of “Great Western” and “Grand Trunk.”
William Edgar then was “G.P.A.” at Hamilton and Mr. Geo. T. Bell,
present Passenger Traffic Manager, Grand Trunk Railway System, made
stenographic hooks and crooks for him.
November 2nd, 1885, marked an epoch in the annals of the prairie
provinces. Although previously used for transportation of troops, it
was the date when Canadian Pacific Railway equipment first rolled
into Winnipeg under a schedule. The event was fraught with much
import to Manitoba and forged an item of significance in the history
of the Dominion. The national character of Van Horne’s project and
the prestige of the sponsors of this great pioneer, western Canadian
line attracted to it the major portion of freight traffic which had
been moving via other channels, and by demanding the privilege of
preferential passenger rates, based on newness, geographical position
and inaccessibility, the patronage of the “Homeseeker” was diverted,
practically en masse, from United States lines which had enjoyed the
pickings unmolested for eight years. This reversal of conditions left
not even all the “Dakota” business to the latter, and with a single
exception, the Chicago-St. Paul and allied systems, one by one,
abolished Canadian agencies and withdrew their representatives from
active participation in the chase.
Then it was that General Passenger Agents Carpenter, Charlton, St.
John, Stennett and Barnes, in the seats of the mighty at Chicago
and St. Paul, felt a temporary modification of interest in Canadian
passenger affairs. Geo. Barnes afterwards resigned from the Northern
Pacific Ry, entering commercial life as a piano manufacturer, and, I
believe, made a fortune.
[Illustration: S. H. PALMER,
District Passenger Agent, Mich. Cent. Railway, St. Thomas, Civil War
Veteran. Formerly connected with “Atlantic & Great Western,” “Erie &
Pittsburg,” “Canada Southern.”]
These changes, however, did not impair the business relations then
budding between “U.S.” merchants and Canadian importers, and the
railroads of the neighboring republic realized that it behooved them
to look jealously after their individual share of lumber, broom corn
and cotton goods from the Southwest, seeds, citrus and deciduous
fruits from California, tinned salmon and shingles from the North
Pacific Coast and consignments of matting, silks, bamboo, rice, etc.,
disembarked along Puget Sound.
The man in the street might puzzle over the price of his breakfast
orange if he reflected that some days 20 carloads of this marmalade
fruit now and then gluts the local markets at Montreal and Toronto.
A certain percentage of such incoming cars, after unloading, are
returned laden with hides to Milwaukee’s greatest tannery, clay,
cordage, fish, lumber and sand; pedigreed sheep for Idaho and Oregon
ranchmen, hair for San Francisco plasterers, gums, glass, nuts, salt,
and tinplate from Atlantic Coast wharves; also with ton upon ton of
coveted Canadian woodpulp which reappears as the basis for newspaper
headlines.
Historians of railroad progress chronicled continued extension until
the ramifications of the “G.T.R.” and subsidiary properties, gradually
gridironed the Province of Ontario with a network of branches, despite
obstacles, not always anticipated. A most deplorable happening, and
severe financial setback, was the accident which occurred on February
27th, 1889. In the evening of that date “G.T.R.” eastbound express,
No. 55, en route Hamilton in charge of conductor Dan Revells, crashed
through a bridge at St. George, snuffing out the lives and injuring
more than two score passengers. Mr. J. A. Richardson, widely known
as Canadian Passenger Agent, Wabash Railroad, and a veteran business
getter, had, under pressure on the part of friends, left his train
at London. The seat he vacated there was taken by William Wemp,
Immigration Agent of “C.M. & St. P.R.” Poor Wemp was numbered among the
killed. This proved to be the worst Canadian railroad disaster since
March 12th, 1857, when sixty people died in the Des Jardins Canal wreck.
From 1891 to 1898 seven lean years spread stagnation and hard times
abroad in the land, discouraging operations of “U.S.” corporations in
Canada, but 1900 beheld a restored confidence pulsating the arteries
of trade. British Columbia felt the stimulus, the optimistic Northwest
clamored for improved transportation facilities, while J. J. Hill
surveyed from afar the possibilities in duplicating portions, at least,
of “C.P.R.” Later, his policy got the wedge’s thin end into “Kootenai”
and Vancouver, which quickly resulted in heavier tonnage prospects from
Ontario and Quebec for his trains. Canadian Northern Railway activity
in Manitoba followed by the deal that province’s government entered
into with President Mellen of Northern Pacific Railway, threw open
a previously restricted area giving United States lines to the south
larger opportunities and scope, which compelled their attention once
more.
The complexion of things had undergone a change in twenty-five years
and the traffic the returning “American” railroads now seek and
appreciate comprises not only settler’s outfit and pressing needs, but
everything from a car of seaweed to a circus train and the variety
runs the gamut of raw and manufactured products. Your westerner
unconsciously imbibes large ideas with the unpolluted ozone of the
boundless prairies. He courts sleep in a metal bed from Ontario,
bathes in a porcelain-lined tub and eats well. If he has them, he
freely parts with his ducats for carloads of biscuits, butter, bacon
and eggs; cheese, flour, canned vegetables, condensed milk, syrups,
marmalades and sweets which come from the east. Recently a train of
cars containing John Barleycorn’s headache provoker flaunted boldly
across the horizon heading due west to the opulent personage who
imports his pianos and autos in big lots regularly. Mark you, more than
200 carloads of “Niagara” grown grapes, peaches and mixed fruit roll
out to the blooming prairie every season over bridge and ferry and into
the tunnel’s insatiable maw at Sarnia.
The substantial growth of Winnipeg, Portage la Prairie, Brandon,
Regina, Calgary, Edmonton and Pacific Coast cities, and the mushroom
proclivities of many a lesser burg, has given a marked impetus to the
spirit of competition in manufacturing and railway circles. In the face
of an exaggerated propaganda about bounding difficulties, and the like,
and a strong but diminishing pro-Canadian sentiment, the men behind the
gun annually dispatch and receive by way of Rouse’s Point, Suspension
Bridge, Port Huron, The Sault, etc., merchandise worth thousands of
dollars which our cousins eagerly solicit, working for the haul in
conjunction with Canadian railway lines. Eight hundred carloads a year
would be, according to some men’s estimate, a modest shewing, but,
after all, conditions considered, it is a tidy, “found” business in and
out of Canada for an individual “U.S.” line to secure or relinquish. I
have known a single railroad’s catch in Ontario to exceed, on several
occasions, three hundred carloads a month, 95 per cent. of this tonnage
going to Manitoba and British Columbia destinations, the fresh fruit
receiving exceptional attention and other commodities making scheduled
runs to Winnipeg well within five days, and to Vancouver in twelve
days’ time. It is estimated that via the various avenues between the
two nations, from Coast to Coast, two carloads of freight a minute
pass into the republic to the south as a result of the crusade of its
railroad corporations.
In more than one tight pinch “U.S.” railways have come to the fore,
furnishing an expeditious alternative when shipper and consignee have
been stewing over congested yards, crippled motive power, notorious
scarcity of cars, strike and snow disadvantages which trouble every
line sooner or later and which are not unknown to the men piloting the
Canadian railway interests to success.
Twenty-two foreign railroads, nine operating in the east and central
States, and thirteen western companies, each maintain one to six
passenger and commercial offices in this country. Affairs pertaining
thereto are supervised by Canadian Agents, Division, General and
Travelling Agents, Contracting Representatives, Solicitors, City
Canvassers and Counter Clerks. The combined staff numbers 100 men.
With few exceptions, they are natives of the soil; familiar with local
conditions, and are liberal dispensers of a good deal of salary,
rentals, incidental expense monies and sunshine. [A]In rounding up
traffic the tactics which obtain include direct solicitation with
shipper, consignee and traveller; the assiduous cultivation of the man
who pays the freight or buys the tickets, and canvass of stationary
railway agents, whose judgment often dictates via what junctions
and lines unrouted shipments, and passengers without pre-arranged
itinerary, should be routed. Prompt dispatch and trains “on time”
are cardinal requisites in luring trade and holding a continuance of
favor. The personality and perseverance of the foreign road agent
has an important bearing on results. Changeable climatic conditions
divert certain commodities and influence the warm zone hunter from one
channel to another. Warehouse and track facilities play a part in the
scheme of convenience, and that indefinite quantity, sentiment, colors
calculations, though shifty as smoke. Unsettled claims occasionally
rile the temper and switch a lot of business to the lynx-eyed
competitor who watches while he works. Friendly, but contending
factions, lock horns for the haul of a single carload. San Francisco
and Vancouver agents, acting in concert with their confreres at
Winnipeg, Halifax or Hamilton, keep the wires sizzling. Perhaps, some
of the “big wigs” put a finger in the pie, and to score a point, resort
to every permissable ruse save, let us hope, that dishonorable weapon,
the bogus telegram.
[A] Owing to exigencies of the war, and responding to a law
enforced by W. G. McAdoo, Director General of Railroads,
all United States railway agencies have again been
withdrawn from Canada.
Necessity has slowly convinced numerous hesitating shippers and
travellers that the canvass of those United States railroads, looking
to Canada for business, has more behind it than a cloven hoof;
that sometimes an extra string to one’s bow is a really effective
precautionary measure.
The pack animal, oxen and primitive implements of the pioneer who
pierced the wilderness and first scratched the surface of the last
west, have steadily given place to the steel ribboned highway and
thus, on “easy street” when compared with his progenitor, the modern
colonizer is linking the old with the new and accomplishing, by
successive stages, the development of our pregnant western heritage.
Nowadays, discriminating tourists, individually or in parties, the
banker speculator, merchant prince in his own car, and commercial man
having business in Europe, at the Pacific Coast or in Manitoba, more
and more frequently requests that the New York or Chicago gateway
should figure in their itinerary to permit enjoyment of the unsurpassed
service and scenic environment of those routes which justly deserve the
public’s endorsement.
Trade relations between United States and Canadian railroads systems
constantly grow more intimate and wield an unmistakable influence in
the strengthening of those bonds, commercial and sentimental, which
make for the good of all concerned. This interchange broadens our
knowledge of each other and tends to more completely harmonize the aims
and aspirations of the two nations.
[Illustration:
1. B. H. BENNETT, General Agent, C. & N.W.R., Toronto, Ont.
2. E. T. BOLAND, Manager, Robert Reford Co., Toronto.
3. R. CREELMAN, General Passenger Agent, Canadian Northern
Railway, Winnipeg, Man.
4. GEO. COLLINS, Superintendent, C.N.R., Trenton, Ont.
Ex-General Manager, Central Ont. R’y.
5. A. D. HUFF, Traffic Manager, Canadian Export Paper Co.,
Montreal, former D.F.A., G.T.R., Ottawa.
6. L. MACDONALD, Division Freight Agent, Grand Trunk Railway,
Toronto, Ont.
7. M. MCGREGOR, General Canadian Freight Agent, Erie Railroad,
Toronto, Canada.
8. C. E. MCPHERSON, Ass’t Pass’r Traffic Manager, Canadian
Pacific Railway, Winnipeg, Man.
9. P. G. MOONEY, Assistant General Freight Agent, Canadian
Northern Railway, Toronto.
10. H. P. SHARPE, General Agent, Dominion Express Company,
Toronto.
11. H. G. THORLEY, Passenger Agent for Ontario, White
Star--Dominion Line, Toronto.
]
A WIZARD WHEN IN BUD
THOMAS A. EDISON
[Illustration: JOSEPH S. DRAPER,
The G.T.R.--G.W.R. Conductor, on whose trains “Tommy” Edison was
newsboy and juvenile publisher. Conductor Draper ran through London for
44 years.]
Napoleon Bonaparte on isolated St. Helena, when rebelliously pacing
beside his titled and devoted aide one gloomy day exclaimed “Montholon!
Montholon! the world has produced but three great generals--Alexander
the Great, Julius Cæsar and myself.” What monumental self esteem.
Strategist and tacticial genius though he proved himself, such
plannings and ambition at that period meant the circumvention and
bloody ruin of his fellow men and their household gods. Introducing
here the Little Corporal’s egoism, the chaotic condition of the times
and his campaigns of destruction serve to emphasize the wonderfully
constructive and scientific achievements so quietly evolved for man’s
benefit by the brain of another but unwarlike genius, Thomas Alva
Edison. Until Armageddon, his has been a peaceful era with ploughshares
replacing swords and commerce expanding unmolested.
To the Land of Evangeline, his Netherlands forebears are said to have
treked with the United Empire Loyalists in Revolutionary times. A
generation later they left Nova Scotia and settled in that part of the
Province of Ontario now registered as the County of Norfolk. Near the
little town of Vienna, close to Lake Erie’s shore, where I believe
relatives still reside, Thomas Edison’s elder brothers were born, but
not until after 1837, when Robert Edison transferred his family to
Milan, Ohio, twelve miles from Lake Erie, did the lad Thomas and his
sister first behold the sunshine, the birth of the former occurring
February, 1847.
Evidently his elementary education began in that state, but the fact
that his brother Pitt Edison, managed a street railway at Port Huron,
Michigan, probably accounts for the lad’s presence thereabouts and
furnished an incentive to his precocious, nomadic predilections. Joseph
Draper from the County of Tipperary, ninety-year-old veteran, living
in Toronto, recently deceased, who was in 1855 a giant conductor with
the Ontario, Simcoe & Huron Railroad, (Northern Railway), told me
he remembered well how young Thomas Edison later on sold newspapers
between Detroit and Port Huron, on his trains running through to Sarnia
and London. He declared that the embryo merchant was an active, well
behaved and likeable stripling who, even during the chrysalis stage,
nourished a specific bent by carrying with him a portable telegraph
key. During the weary months of the Civil War, 1862–3, he obtained
in Detroit a printing press, old type, with accessories and learning
the contents of war bulletins, etc., from station to station, set up
and printed the news and jokes which he sold along the line under the
caption “Grand Trunk Herald.”
Conductor Draper said he was often compelled to reprimand the boy for
tinkering with chemicals and for his untidiness with bottles in that
corner of the baggage car where he kept his stock of magazines and
candy. He intimated also that about this time the young experimentor
risked his life in saving the child of the Grand Trunk Railway Agent
at Mount Clemens, Michigan, from an onrushing train and the grateful
father taught him telegraphing.
Living in an atmosphere of daily contact with keys and sounders, he
took to “jerking lightning” like a sailor to the sea, soon becoming
proficient.
“This is the song of the wire--
The electric wire:
The slender thread with a soul of fire,
With the wings of light that shall never tire,
With a power and grandeur awful and dire;
The electric wire.”
In 1867 he worked on the wire, covering the “night trick” at Stratford,
Ont., and was also at Park Hill, where the late George B. Reeve, of
Grand Trunk--Southern Pacific prominence, picked up operating. In the
autumn of 1913 when the Stratford, Ont., yard limits were extended and
reorganized to conform to the requirements of the new “Grand Trunk”
station, opened in December of that year, the old eastend ducat,
(dovecote-do’ecot), in which young Edison is said to have served a part
of his apprenticeship as an operator, was torn down to make way for a
modern signal tower.
Every railroad telegrapher is said to experience once, sooner or later
during his career, being temporarily petrified with alarm on finding he
has ordered two trains to pass “head on” or from the rear on a single
track. Railroad rumor only is my authority for repeating a report that
young Edison figured in such a collision on paper. The publication
“Railways and Other Ways” quotes an interview given by Mr. Edison at
London, Canada, many years ago in which the great inventor referred to
his oversight when a youth at Stratford in overlooking the delivery to
conductor of a train order the result of which permitted two trains to
approach on a single track. Fortunately the line between Stratford and
St. Marys Junction was straight and an accident may have been averted
by quick thinking and rapid action.
In many guises I have heard repeated the story of his original device
for answering his dispatcher’s call though wrapped in the arms of
Morpheus for forty pilfered winks. He was working in Western Ontario
and the rule declared that each operator should keep in touch with
the dispatcher every hour while on duty, write “6” and sign their
telegraphic signature of a letter or two. This meant the next thing
to eternal vigilance during the quiet, lonesome hours of the night.
It would appear Edison attached an extra wheel to the mechanism of
the office clock, governing it by an independent spring. Around the
rim of this wheel he cut dots and dashes spelling the stereotyped
message and his code “Sig.”, arranging the wheel’s position so that it
made one revolution each hour at the time agents usually flashed “All
well.” From the clock pinions a series of wire coils connected with
a weak solution jar battery, were rigged and thence passing over the
telegraph key joined the charged main wires leading therefrom. When
the clock struck each hour the supplementary wheel sent the necessary
intermittent ticks along the temporary mediums and were in turn
transmitted via the trunk wires to headquarters. The version given me
by another “oldest inhabitant” would indicate that he had the night
watchman trained to turn the wheel hourly by hand. With such ingenuity
did the budding inventor abbreviate his nocturnal vigils and conductors
Mammoth Johnston and silk hat Dick Thorpe never knew the difference as
they whizzed past into the encircling gloom. This anecdote bears the
hall mark of a measure of probability and has been vouched for by some
of Edison’s contemporaries, but the yarn that he once affixed to the
telegraphic office door a contrivance that made it collide with the
nasal organ of a spying superintendent is likely spurious. When working
at Fort Gratiot he introduced without fuss or feathers, an improvement
in relaying messages across the River at Sarnia which reduced the
labor involved by half, evincing in this test an early aversion to
ponderous method and high costs, which has characterized his subsequent
experiments and helpful discoveries.
In his commercial wire practice at Detroit his colleagues of other
days remember him as a good press reporter whose handwriting resembled
printing more than a string of Spencerian script. They tell how he
tied the Gotham wiseacres and would be jokers into knots with his
deliberateness and speed, the key and its characters being a part of
him, like a Centaur and his horse. His demeanor was at times friendly
and discursive, followed by spells of dreamy reflection and profound
reticence and he would frequently immerse himself in tinkerings with
the sounder and key, adding to and endeavoring to make them different
and more amenable to his advanced ideas. The reel with a paper ribbon
on which a message from the other end was registered by means of dots
and dashes indented thereon, had not then been entirely replaced by the
sound system.
On February 24th, 1868, Mr. Edison arrived in Toronto en route
Boston, and after a brief visit with his former friend John Murray, a
well known dispatcher, afterwards some years at Belleville, started
eastward. On this date a traffic paralyzing three day storm set in and
the “G.T.R.” train was snow stalled, compelling Mr. Edison and several
others to return. Expecting improved weather and resumption of train
service, he spent considerable time about the old depot and men who met
him then state that he was a desultory talker, an inveterate thinker
and a chain smoker quite oblivious to the fleeting hours of the night.
The late James Stephenson was superintendent at Toronto that winter,
Henry Bourlier so long and honorably connected with the Allans, was
station agent, W. A. Wilson, erect and active to-day, just recently
retired from the “New York Central,” was the Morse Code operator,
W. C. Nunn--inventor of a railway signal device in 1856--was agent
at Belville and “the admiral,” Mr. Frederick J. Glackmeyer, Ontario
Parliamentary Sergeant-at-Arms, December 27th, 1867 (50 years) 1917,
had only two months before bid adieu to ticket work in the old station
where Thomas Edison purchased his ticket.
On February 27th, he again essayed the sixteen hour journey to
Montreal, and at Boston in 1870 the Duplex System appeared, enabling
two operators to send independent messages over a single wire. Then
came his perfection of the Quadruplex, permitting two people at each
end to forward and receive telegrams simultaneously.
His astounding creative mentality seemed to give birth to successive
world wonders as regularly as the birds nest in springtime and more
or less familiar brain children include the telegraphic button
repeater, stock-tickers, an electric pencil with motor for duplicating,
the phonograph and waxen records, dictaphone and revolutionizing
incandescent light, then the mechanism for taking moving pictures.
To-day the speaking cinematographic pictures or kinetophone, steps
confidently out of the laboratories at Orange, N.J., to mystify yet
convince the incredulous and expectant populace.
Some years ago his friend John Murray paid his respects at New York and
was well received by his former acquaintance. Requesting permission
to inspect the interior economy of the “Western Union” telegraph
office, Mr. Edison introduced him by letter to the proper person asking
that every attention be shown him and adding “When Mr. Murray was an
operator on the ‘G.T.R.,’ I was a news vendor.”
Thus does this unusual man round out a useful career, his balance an
object lesson to conceited prigs and his wizard-like achievements an
incentive to rising generations.
[Illustration: STARS IN THE CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY FIRMAMENT
SIR GEORGE BURY, Vice-President; E. W. BEATTY, K.C., Vice-President
and General Counsel; R. MARPOLE, General Exec. Assistant, British
Columbia; C. E. E. USSHER, Passenger Traffic Manager; W. R. MACINNES,
Vice-President; W. MAUGHAN, Assistant General Passenger Agent,
Montreal; M. H. BROWN, Division Freight Agent, O. D., Toronto; C.
B. FOSTER, Assistant Passenger Traffic Manager, Montreal; GEO. MCL.
BROWN, European Manager; J. T. ARUNDEL, General Superintendent, O. D.,
Toronto.]
A GIGANTIC HUMAN HIVE
Is the Canadian Pacific Railway Headquarters
To have one’s activities in office or household likened to the
alertness and foresight of the bee is equivalent to a pronounced
compliment. From time immemorial the beehive has ever been regarded by
the peoples of Occident and Orient as the storehouse and base of the
busiest little folks in the animal kingdom--as the distinctive emblem
of concentrated industry, where laggards do not abound.
In Windsor Street, opposite the fine cathedral of St. Peter, Montreal,
Quebec, stands a spacious stone castle, the handsome, towering Canadian
Pacific Railway hive, and verily, it is alive with endeavor and swarms
with the spirit of enterprise. Inhabited chiefly by king bees--and a
few queens--this host of 2000 flaunt no iron crosses for inefficiency
and here drones have no place.
From the pinnacle position in the steeple, ably filled by a shrewd,
democratic nobleman, down the scale through a labyrinth of departments
to the youngster affixing postage and dreaming of the Vice-Presidency,
every official and employee in that busy headquarters of the greatest
transportation corporation within the world’s ken, plays his part in
the drama “making hay while the sun shines.” Feeling that they are an
integral part of a gigantic organization, they play tick, tack, toe
with $153,000,000 in rolling stock and participate with sincerity in
the annual round-up of 30,000,000 tons of freight that require 95,000
cars of divers shapes to transport, in addition to moving 16,000,000
passengers for $30,000,000 necessitating a string of equipment that
would reach forty miles from Toronto to Hamilton. 2255 locomotives
pull this traffic. When all hands and the cooks on the dining cars
are intensely occupied in harvesting the golden honey, then is the
management in clover.
Concealed in the brains of this directorate of specialists, or tableted
in the company’s archives and records, repose secrets pertaining
to matters, methods and men, of crowned heads, governments and
undercurrents of commerce, finance and future intention which, if given
publicity, would make the listener gasp in wonderment and likewise aid
him to roll in riches.
Apart from an extensive, intermediate network, (totaling 15,000
miles) her unbroken chains of trains span an additional 3,600 miles
of continent from the cod banks of the Atlantic to the salmon
spawning beds along the Pacific Ocean, dovetailing there with some
of the splendid units of a fleet of a hundred vessels valued to-day
at $65,000,000, which circumvent the seven seas carrying “Canadian
Pacific” prestige, influence, secret service and international
communications between all races and temperatures. There are no fields
of production in any clime on the planet known to civilized man that
this dynamo of energy, trade and travel has not investigated and if,
through development or encouragement, a modicum of reciprocal traffic
is extracted or the sweets of industrial success can be promised, rest
assured that exploring bees will return to the hive with documentary
proof or Marconigrams, cable and mails will herald most recent results.
It is a marvelous modern reality, smacking of the magic of Bagdad
caliph eras, that the Windsor Street cabinet of individually expert
cosmopolitans, with their teeming clusters of resourceful understudies,
command a metaphorical view of the surface of all hemispheres, like a
submersible’s captain seated beside the disk of camera obscura scanning
the ocean’s bosom. It is, however, only with the searchlights of peace,
of barter and trade and commercial expansion, which spell security
and comfort for mankind, that the “C.P.R.” sweeps the horizons, feels
the universe’s pulse and keeps in touch through the medium of the
electric spark, with the aspirations of the world’s brown, yellow and
Caucasian children. She underestimates no detail and quietly assumes
any legitimate task of magnitude, transferring one unaccompanied child
or 100,000 Orientals by sea and land from non-essential avocations in
this place or that to other environment and back again without mishap,
fuss or feathers.
Composed of forty-five acquired, leased or controlled railways, this
immense, corporate body, holding the keys of access to almost any
domain and caucus of the sons of Babel, this syndicate that has the
_entree_ to exclusive circles and “inside information,” that is rich in
agricultural lands and demonstration farms, in timber and tie reserves,
rich in gas rights and petroleum areas, that controls coal collieries,
smelters and hotels and banks much specie of the realm, has a soul.
In her scattered, flourishing family many are called but few are chosen
to attain the exalted places, which are easily memorized. If her sway
is uncongenial or her pay seems not enough, you may withdraw and the
ranks close up, but for those who remain--and they are 80,000--she
offers standards of remuneration far from the foot of the column. Her
pensions department, with a fund of $900,000 and a yearly contribution
of $500,000 to the reserve, even now protecting 850 former employees,
is generous, and I could cite you instances where employees resuming
duty partly convalescent, have been relieved indefinitely for recovery,
under salary. Several others, permanently incapacitated, have reason to
be grateful to the Canadian Pacific Railway for gratuitous aid and acts
of thoughtfulness seldom attributed to big interests.
Official Ottawa, Washington and the Court of St. James do not think it
judicious to lay bare for public perusal at present, what the Canadian
Pacific Railway Company may or may not have accomplished in the realm
of finance and loans, apropos the great international struggle of
humanity and democracy.
The fruitfulness of the mission of a transportation company
with $1,038,074,983.26 of assets, with a property investment of
$538,510,563.24 and annual gross earnings of $152,389,334.95 must be
well-nigh incalculable, especially to a democratic country--to the last
great west, with so vast an area and promising though veiled future.
The Canadian Pacific Railway is heavy with import and deeply interlaced
with the potentialities of our own Canada.
W. B. LANIGAN
Freight Traffic Manager, Canadian Pacific Railway
A Biographical Reminisence
[Illustration: W. B. LANIGAN,
Freight Traffic Manager, Canadian Pacific Railway, Montreal, Que.]
An Irishman taking home a large goose after a raffle, stopped at a
hillside inn in Wicklow to procure refreshment. Laying down the prize
he proceeded to satisfy his thirst when a suspicious looking individual
seized the fowl and made off with it. Pat at once gave chase and
grasping the runaway by the neck exclaimed, “What did you take the bird
fore” “Sure!” said the thief, “an’ I took it for a lark”. “Did ye”,
said Pat, “begorra then, you’d make a poor judge at a bird show”.
And by the same token, the man or maid who would take W. B. Lanigan for
an uncivil, disgruntled misanthrope, who could not enjoy a lark, would
be a decidedly poor judge of human nature. He has rubbed shoulders with
good and ill fortune, has contended for thirty-three years with almost
every variety of railroading obstacle, hewing his way to comparatively
smooth sailing under the “C.P.R.” flag and the ordeal has not impaired
his optimistic outlook, but finds him to-day a sociable, approachable
and happy dispositioned man of affairs.
Do not infer from this tribute, however, that the gentleman cannot look
after himself, does not jealously protect his Company’s best interests
and is incapable of administering a merited rebuke, or even a scorching
blast, because he can. An old admirer and personal friend described
him to me as a hot-headed Irishman of fine parts with whom he had had
many a good natured wrangle in his attempts to circumvent the railway’s
rates and regulations.
In Three Rivers, Quebec, October 12th, 1861, William B. Lanigan was
born and in due time was educated at St. Josephs College of that city
and at Stanstead University in Old Quebec. Sharbot Lake Junction is a
quiet place and no doubt, was a lonesome spot that night in September,
1884, when he first put his hand to a man’s task as night operator in
the Canadian Pacific Railway station. Undaunted, he obeyed orders and
began the foundation for a future that led him through practically
every phase of freight traffic work from helping in construction and
running a ballast train to shed porter, billing clerk, telegraph
operator and undertaking the “trick” of train dispatcher.
Dundalk knew him as agent for a year and liked him, but the canny
Galtonians got better acquainted during a longer stay. In Galt they
were not averse to sandwiching a little Irish with their Scotch and
the ingredients were mixed with success. Mr. Lanigan was accepted
at par as a sterling neighbor, a good churchman and a valuable
municipal asset. He did much to band the business men together by
encouraging and arranging the most pleasant rail outings for merchants
and manufacturers which the city ever participated in. He took part
with several leading citizens in weekly talkfests on various topics,
extending his general knowledge and debating powers and was founder
of the Toadstool Club in the days when Bob Scott, Robert Ferrah,
Martin Todd, the malster, and others gathered with him to receive John
Strachan and Malcolm MacGregor of the “Erie,” John Hunter of Allan
Line, Joe Hickson of N.Y.C. & H.R.R., with Jimmie Duthie and Miles
Overend of Dominion Line.
When he was agent at Galt the Canadian Pacific Railway opened
their depot at London, Ont., with a banquet in the new building
to commemorate the event. Officials who had arranged the function
requested W. B. Lanigan to respond to one of the principal toasts. He
acquitted himself so well in his presentation of the subject then and
on another occasion at the Imperial Hotel in Galt, when his name was
coupled with the district agricultural interests, that General Manager
David McNicol felt convinced that the young man could be better used in
more important work and he was soon assigned to the duties of Traveling
Freight Agent ensuring gradual advancement and prominence.
On one occasion during the period that Mr. Lanigan was City Freight
Agent at Toronto, when cautious agents had to figure four different
combinations to obtain the best quotation to British Columbia, the
writer, in competition with “C.P.R.”, submitted a shipper an accurate
rate but not the current minimum weight, which also fluctuated. Mr.
Lanigan soon accidentally stumbled on this error in the course of his
day’s rounds and came without delay, only to myself, about the matter,
discussing the inadvertent oversight in a quiet, most friendly and
gentlemanly way and the incident, which could have been magnified, was
heard of no more. This is a sample of one of his traits of character
and training that prompts men to say “He pours oil on the troubled
waters” and smooths the ripples that inevitably arise between his
employers and their host of patrons.
It was George T. Lanigan, a New York Journalist, who some years ago
wrote “The Akoond of Swat is dead--that’s what’s the matter”, which
made him over night one of America’s high salaried, most talked of
newspaper men, and his brother “Billy” has oratorical gifts and is
lucid with tongue and pen. He is an effective and witty after dinner
speaker who can be depended on to drive home facts in a pleasing
manner, and in 1900 when the late Phil. Slatter, City Passenger Agent,
Grand Trunk Railway, Toronto, was president of the Canadian Ticket
Agents’ Association, Mr. Lanigan delivered to that organization at
their annual banquet in the Walker House, Toronto, a humorous and
finished address proving that Moses was the first genuine passenger
emigration agent and that the very widely known and popular “C.P.R.”
official, W. T. Dockrill, was the second because of his marked success
in directing large parties of settlers beyond the Red River.
W. B. Lanigan has not been unmindful of former assistants and several
from Old Ontario, having merited his imprimatur, followed him westward
and are justifying his confidence.
The United States railway world has produced from time to time, and
held up to democratic public approval, scores of men of indomitable
will and working capacity who have wrested recognition and advancement
“from the ground up” to the highest executive honors capital could
bestow; for instance, C. W. Brown, president of the New York Central
Lines, who once piled ties along the C.M. & St. P.R., for a living, or
rodmen who now control the great United States Government affinity,
the Pennsylvania System, as well as a few naturalized “Americans”
with Canadian lines, but I do not recall a “native son”, laboring
always with one company, whose record surpasses the many sided
experiences--hard at the time--of the official who has been for ten
years Assistant Freight Traffic Manager at Winnipeg. This golden west
gateway is a strategical point to the wide-a-wake corporation employing
W. B. Lanigan, he measures up to requirements.
As this article goes to press his appointment as Freight Traffic
Manager, Canadian Pacific Railway, Montreal, is announced.
❦ ❦ ❦
JAMES CHARLTON
The Nestor and Grand Old Man among passenger agents
[Illustration: The Late JAMES CHARLTON.]
At no period in the world’s history have those fundamentals of a
stable, social structure--morals, fidelity and sympathy--been burdened
with more significance to humanity than at present and in alluding to
the strengthening bonds which link three Anglo-Saxon nations, it would
seem not inopportune to dwell on the characteristics of a gentleman,
a Briton who was highly endowed with those basic virtues and who, in
passing, left their indelible impress on his personal relations and
throughout a long life of active railway experience in England, Canada
and United States.
Born 1832 in Newcastle-on-Tyne, James Charlton was reared where steam
railway traditions were coined, as George Stephenson the great inventor
originated there, shops for the manufacture of the first locomotives
were located in Newcastle and the old town became an important railway
centre. Then was created a new motive for boyhood dreams and the power
and fascination of engines and trains focussed the attention of many
men noted later.
In 1845, when thirteen, young Charlton engaged with the Newcastle &
Carlisle Railway and from that time ideas of serious business and the
elements of a splendid character began to mature and array themselves
as convictions.
In twelve years he rose by sheer ability from the threshold to
the position of chief clerk and cashier in a period when meteoric
promotions in staid old England were most uncommon and following the
example of Joseph Hickson, afterwards (Sir Joseph), and W. K. Muir,
from the same neighborhood, he answered in 1852 the call of the west,
entering the audit office of the Great Western Railway of Canada at
Hamilton, Ont., during the regime of Messrs. Brydges, Reynolds and
Swinyard. Mathematically alert, his penchant for details won for him
the title of General Auditor and to these duties were soon added those
of the General Passenger and Ticket Agent of the line.
He was extremely particular as to uniform business methods and required
from his staff strict conformity with this rule in the handling of
correspondence, files and care of papers. He would not tolerate litter
nor unanswered communications, but insisted on a prompt or tentative
reply to letters and telegrams the day they were received. If it were
not possible to make a definite reply to a communication the writer
was unfailingly informed of the receipt of his letter which would be
given immediate and further attention. While in Canada, Mr. Charlton
made many acquaintances and some intimate friendships that were not
interrupted during the balance of his life. He unconsciously attracted
younger men, compelling their respect and in commercial circles was
classed as one of the young country’s early railway pioneers.
Responding in 1870 to the insistence of Opportunity, he transferred his
allegiance to the North Missouri Railway as General Passenger Agent,
but only until January 1st, 1871, when he assumed in his fortieth
year, the important position of General Passenger and Ticket Agent of
Chicago & Alton Railway under President Blackstone, at the time that
financier and his associates secured control of the North Missouri
Railway. This Railway shortly after became the St. Louis, Kansas City
& Northern Railway, and in the late 80’s was merged into the Wabash
System. Mr. Charlton attained a unique and deserved prominence in his
chosen sphere of progressive “American” railroading, and to these new
responsibilities he brought to bear his now well developed, zealous and
forceful business axioms, and an absolute loyalty and fidelity to the
corporation, and in particular, the officers to whom he reported.
He was naturally inclined towards high ideals in life and loved Right,
because it was right. His word was as good as his bond: his YES meant
YES and his NO meant NO, and no person was ever able to twist his
answer into any other meaning and get away with it. His associates in
business never doubted for a single moment any statement he made and
relied on his carrying out his promises and agreement to the letter.
Figuratively speaking, he was a human prototype to the sturdy oak or a
solid English bridge, speeding the multitudes safely on their journey,
indulgent to the hurricanes of youthful hastiness and impervious to
trivialities.
The first half of a popular expression, “The nineteenth century
belonged to the United States, but the twentieth will be Canada’s,”
was acknowledged after the close of the Civil War and concurrent with
the rapid expansion of American railway facilities, Canada suffered a
heavy exodus across the border of youthful brain and brawn in which Mr.
Charlton later played a part. He was the friend of young men who would
take hold and make an effort in the railroad business and he probably
brought from Canada to the United States, and started on their careers
there, a larger number than any other official engaged in traffic
affairs, who found him painstaking in his efforts to educate them in
the right way to handle their work. He was a martinet regarding that
important essential Punctuality and it is said of him that he was never
known to be late one minute beyond the hour appointed for any meeting
or business engagement. Always an early riser, he breakfasted never
later than 6.30 in the morning, sat down precisely to the minute at
12.00 o’clock for luncheon and took his dinner at 6.00 o’clock every
evening.
When at headquarters he never missed being the first man in his office,
8.00 to 8.15 a.m., thus anticipating the regular office opening hour,
8.30 a.m. He invariably left his office at 5.00 p.m. daily, walking
the three and a half mile journey to and from his residence when
conditions were favorable. These unusually methodical habits were the
occasion of considerable comment among other officers and business
confreres. Mr. Charlton hated a lie, scorned misrepresentation of any
kind and positively would not permit anyone to remain in his employ who
let liquor secure the upper hand, and whose behaviour and home life
threatened to bring the railway company into disrepute.
Unlike the majority of employers and railroad officials, it is known
that he recognized a good man by paying him well and also assisting him
to grasp opportunities for his betterment with other railways and those
who worked under him at one time are now holding official positions on
several railroads throughout the west and in some of the eastern states.
Loyal and fair himself, he deeply appreciated such qualities in others
and rewarded with sympathetic interest and substantial assistance those
long service colleagues who became embarrassed through injury, ill
health or declining years. They were protected by assignment to easier
positions: with the generous sanction of his executive chiefs--obtained
by going “to the front” in person--Mr. Charlton secured additional
funds of the Company to tide over periods of unusual expense incurred
by several who, through service rendered and fidelity to the Company’s
interests, he knew merited thoughtful consideration. I remember being
informed of an instance respecting the case of an old friend, for
twenty-five years with Mr. Charlton in the service of the Chicago &
Alton and other railroads, who contracted an admittedly fatal disorder
and who was carried on the pay roll until death, the Company defraying
as well, the cost of medical attention and nurse constantly in
attendance for a period of two years.
The Chicago Observer declared in 1896 that the Chicago & Alton
Railway was recognized as one of the most convenient and luxurious
of American railroads, that it was the first to run sleeping cars,
to have dining cars, inaugurating also the first free reclining
chair cars and reminded the public to bear in mind that these paying
innovations--quickly imitated--were largely due to the Company’s
indefatigable chief of passenger traffic.
The New York Tribune stated that Mr. Charlton was the ablest and
most widely known General Passenger Agent in America at the time he
relinquished passenger traffic duties to become the first Chairman of
the newly organized Trans-Continental Passenger Association comprised
then of probably fifty transportation lines. For thirteen years, or
until death, he discharged the comprehensive obligations of that
position to the satisfaction of a not always unanimous body of ticket
and traffic experts and his excellent judgment and ability as an
arbitrator on vexed questions was often most essential.
As the lines of this paragraph are being transferred from mind to page
in the rolling train the transparent frozen surface of Hamilton Bay,
dotted with an ice boat and a few skaters, lies a few yards below and
stretches away to beach and bar, with a colony of fishing shanties
squatting in the cove not far from the location of the awful “Des
jardins Canal” wreck, March, 1857. Sixty years ago, over the same
surface James Charlton skated and scudded on an old pair of “double
mooleys” with screws in their heels and he enjoyed this sport ever
after. During his life in Chicago he frequently indulged his fondness
for the pastime. Railroading Hamiltonians who praise their bay, may not
recall hearing that the late Samuel R. Callaway, ex-President of the
New York Central Railway when a stenographer--was devoted to rowing on
the same sheet of water, that his brother W. R. Callaway, G.P.A., Soo
Line, also Alex. Hilton, P.T.M., Frisco System and Messrs. J. Horsburgh
and John J. Byrne, prominent officials of the Southern Pacific Railway
Coast Lines, were wont to fish therein.
Although a splendid speaker, very widely known, and possessing also
an extended acquaintance with prominent people, James Charlton never
wore his heart on his sleeve and sincerely wished to avoid publicity.
Most of his leisure was spent with his family, and being a man of
letters--in his unusually large and well selected English library. He
was an authority on national, international and historical matters,
wrote for the London Times of early United States railway building,
did some reviewing of books for friendly editors and appreciated good
poetry. Myles Pennington in “Railways and Other Ways” says that for a
time he published portions of Browning’s works in the Chicago & Alton
official railway guide, distributing as many as 10,000 copies of the
issue per month until their preparation became too arduous.
In his business relations with others he was the standard of courtesy.
Morally and in every way absolutely clean, this white bearded Nestor of
passenger men was a grand old man. Is it not a gratification, a mental
bath and an inspiration to read of and know about men of this type,
particularly in high places.
[Illustration:
_Photographs courtesy of Canadian Railway & Marine World_
RECIPROCITY IN BRAINS
Railways, Steamships and Commerce know no boundaries
Executive and operating officials of Canadian railroads born under the
Stars and Stripes
Their characteristics and what they plan and accomplish for investors,
traveling comfort and international traffic form part of our daily
reading
1. RIGHT HON. LORD SHAUGHNESSY, K.C., V.O., President and
Chairman, C.P.R.
2. The late SIR WILLIAM VAN HORNE, former President C.P.R.
3. The Late C. M. HAYS, former Pres’t G.T.R.
4. F. F. BACKUS, Gen’l Manager, T.H. & B.R.
5. C. A. HAYES, General Manager, Canadian Government Railways,
E.L.
6. E. J. CHAMBERLIN, Ex-President, G.T.R.
7. W. S. COOKSON, Gen. Pass. Agent, G.T.R.
8. U. E. GILLEN, Vice-President, G.T.R.
9. C. G. BOWKER, Gen’l Sup’t, G.T.R.
10. R. L. FAIRBAIRN, Gen. Pass. Agt, C.N.R.
11. G. C. JONES, Assistant to President, G.T.R.
12. G. M. BOSWORTH, Vice-President, C.P.R.
13. HOWARD G. KELLEY, President, G.T.R.
]
UNCLE SAM’S ADOPTED SONS
Their name is legion, but this is only remotely realized beyond the
broad boundaries of their chosen field of action
Mercury the messenger, fleet and comely herald, renowned in temple
and forum, was a pet of the ancients. Without demur they pedestaled
him as courier of the gods, rival of swift sea birds and desseminator
of tidings from all parts of the world. The ready inclination to laud
dispatch, prevalent in those misty, cob-webbed eras of mythology,
survives after cycles of ages and to-day dwellers on this mundane
sphere observe history repeat itself.
That vital requisite--speedy transportation by land and water for the
beings and news of the universe--dovetails so exactly with the modern
spirit of expansion that the men responsible for mechanism underlying
onward movement, unwittingly compel admiration. They wear the laurel,
remaining the nation’s favorites until the “powers that be” turn thumbs
the other way.
In no branch of human endeavor does contention with competitor, for
the plaudits and purse of the public, wax keener than in the realm of
railroading and America is the arena where the fascinating game is
embellished with rare _finesse_. Achievement is sweet to the ambitious
and in this scientific pursuit--the result of which is constantly
subjected to acid test by a discriminating people--men of brain and
brawn strive mightily for humanity’s greater safety, waging a ceaseless
campaign far more productive of good than were the colonization feats
of conquering Roman legions.
After the triumph of Lincoln’s noble purpose and binding of the
nation’s wounds, folks slept in their beds. The great emancipator’s
legacy--justice, forbearance, charity--stirred men profoundly and his
appeals for amity revitalized the myriad dormant avocations of peace,
foreshadowing an epoch of unparalleled activity. During five decades
since, there has been work to do in United States of America and worthy
men to do it. Uncle Sam has no commendable physical qualification if
you concede him not two most perceptive normal optics together with
an eye in the back of his head. In nepotism an unbeliever, with scant
indulgence for clannishness and caste, this allegorical personage
suffered all applicants to joust with his stalwart native sons and
demonstrate their fitness to maintain the dignity of labor--the basic
agency in creating his country’s present commercial pre-eminence.
Was Solomon wiser? Behold the 256,547 miles of steel highway under
operation in United States in this year of grace, which encompass the
land like the network of veins in your torso, bringing each remote part
into communion with the centres of life.
To the gradual accomplishment of this stupendous undertaking came a
swelling stream of silver, ripening judgment, indomitable patience and
a battalion of optimistic Canadians to “make good measure”.
Down the avenue of years, back as far as 1840, when the movement,
unlike that northward to-day, was almost a stampede south, Canada had
been loaning United States the best of her bone and sinew. Thousands
of determined, capable young men craving new worlds to conquer, burned
their bridges and sought a future midst beckoning possibilities which
the Union held out to the youth of the day. Honestly received and
judged, their colleagues verdict doth attest a high percentage have
shared the burden in providing transportation, that paramount essential
in advancing civilization.
Prophetic was Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s forecast “The nineteenth century
belonged to United States but the twentieth will be Canada’s”, when
one reflects that the year 1909 yielded 138,000,000 bushels of grain
and beheld 90,966 shrewd Yankees, (Messieurs, your pardon), cross with
cash and chattels to John Bull’s domain to participate in garnering
400,000,000 bushels in 1915 and 200,000,000 bushels in 1917. This
exodus is a straw indicating one quarter from which blows the breeze.
Will the outgoing tide float with it the scores of former Canadians who
have, through industry and recognizance of trust, mortised into every
department of railroading in United States? Will these naturalized,
integral units in business and social organizations governed
from Washington, sever the moorings of environment, association,
intermarriage, to return to the land of their birth? Probably not. But
who knows: the answer slumbers in the womb of the future.
What a deal of strenuous argument would have sufficed to coax James J.
Hill, wizard of finance and foresight, from his art, enriched castle,
St. Paul, to the farm near the village of Rockford, Ontario, where
in boyhood, he followed the lowing herd and foraged for squirrels.
Occasionally he sought denizens of the deep along the St. Lawrence
or Labrador Coast, and he reached into fields and factories of the
Dominion for tonnage, but the wealth and power he possessed and
wielded so astutely behind the scenes for Great Northern Railway, et
al, were not stumbled on with energies relaxed. His mature opinion
regarding economic conditions and conservation of the country’s natural
resources, was the outgrowth of years of watchfulness and a peculiar
bent for accuracy in conclusion builded primarily on a heritage of
worthy foundations. Like those homespun idols of the people, Presidents
Grant, Garfield and McKinley, he lived close to the soil absorbing
bodily vigor and clarity of judgment amid homely surroundings.
Biographies of such outstanding characters as Jim Hill make inspiring
reading. If this generation’s youthful male population cultivate
childhood’s imitative proclivities they could, with profit, emulate the
perseverance of another young man from the same neighborhood. Foremost
amongst those whose life work in the drama of ever changing railway
activities has introduced them to a theatre for energetic effort in
the sunny south, must be listed the name of W. B. Scott, President at
New Orleans of the Texas Lines of the great Southern Pacific System.
Guelph, Canada, with streets named to commemorate many Scottish cities,
proudly boasts that he is her son. His success is the concrete result
of hard work along given lines, and his journey from the duties of
messenger boy in the freight shed of G.W.R.--G.T.R., via the route
of C.P.R., Winnipeg, “Union Pacific” Omaha, Santa Fe at Chillecothe,
&c., &c., to power and wealth is a fascinating study for younger
railway men. He had been Director of Maintenance of Way & Operation for
S.P.R. at Chicago, and his present most important position, helping
to determine the policy of the vast network which annually transports
hundreds of thousands of the world’s pleasure and health seekers, will
give you an idea of the calibre of the man. He is modest to a degree,
never reads what is printed about himself, is thoroughly inured by long
experience, to the “hardships” of a private car and was well known by
the late E. H. Harriman.
Close to Niagara Escarpment, at Hamilton, Ontario, where S. R. Callaway
won his bride, railroading cast its spell broadcast, inoculating many
promising youngsters. Graduates of the “Great Western”, “Hamilton &
Northwestern” and “Northern” schools are scattered from Halifax to
San Diego, from Vancouver to Honduras. James Charlton, first “G.P.A.”
of the Great Western Railway, Canada, was a beacon light in guiding
numerous proteges “up and along”. You may wager none of them imitated
the behaviour of young Keenedge who, when saluted with “Does the train
leave at Eleven sharp?” blandly replied, “Yes, or Eleven slow, if you
like!” They all memorized and hummed the motto “Learn to labor and to
wait”. John J. Byrne, from the same city, present Asst. Passr. Traffic
Manager, Santa Fe Coast Lines, took up the refrain when setting out to
contend with life’s odds and handicaps, and by doing the thing to be
done with earnestness and fidelity, he also has compelled recognition,
a distinguished place among his fellows and Mammon’s silver recompense.
Through a similar “course of sprouts” and monotonous introduction
to details passed James Horsburgh Jr., Genl. Passr. Agent, Southern
Pacific Railway. With canny disinclination to “Bid the devil good-day
before meeting him”, he philosophically set the pace in shouldering
onerous duties and accomplished important results with the aid of a
large corps of efficient assistants.
A contemporary of this trio and candidate for the order of merit is
Alexander Hilton, or “Handsome Hilton”, as ladies know him, who also
was born at Hamilton because his mother happened to be staying there at
the time. He was “captured young” and as a junior developed that moral
fibre and eager spirit which buoyed him while climbing the grade to the
position of Passenger Traffic Manager, Frisco Lines.
Robert Somerville, a “C. & A.” Chicago veteran, now President Judson
Company, was a Hamiltonian; likewise Dave Bowes, their General
Manager. So was Harry Jameson, an auburn D.P.A., P.M.R. Harry Parry,
indefatigable Asst. Genl. Passr. Agent, “N.Y.C. Lines”, Buffalo, the
Jago Brothers, for years with the “West Shore” and A. W. Ecclestone,
Dist. Passr. Agent, Nickel Plate, New York, claim the Ambitious City as
birthplace. All keep in more than telepethic communication with friends
there.
It is chronicled in the log that the bluff, jovial W. F. Herman, former
“G.P.A.” of “C. & B.” Line, Cleveland, who takes to water like reynard
to a partridge, got a bowing acquaintance with a vessel’s interior
economy under W. K. Domville’s tutelage in the old “G.W.R.” shops at
Hamilton. To this city, every now and then, comes W. L. Stannard,
General Agent, C. & N.W.R., Detroit, on a brief visit to his respected
sire, which stimulates the memory of other days.
Over the hill via Caledonia and on to the railroading centre St.
Thomas, you hear the homeguard recall with satisfaction the various
milestones passed by James A. Stewart, the son of a “Grand Trunk”
railway man here, in his march from a minor clerkship to the lucrative
appointment of General Passenger Agent, Rock Island Lines, Kansas City.
In Kansas City is also J. D. Dewan of London, freight agent of the
fine new union terminal. Efficiency is vital at this busy southwestern
gateway.
[Illustration:
ALEX. HILTON, Passenger Traffic Manager, Frisco Line, St. Louis.
J. WEBSTER, Freight Traffic Manager, N.Y.C. & H.R.R., Chicago.
Late DR. STENNETT, Auditor, Expenditures, C. & N.W.R., Chicago.
HARRY PARRY, General Passenger Agent, New York Central Lines,
Buffalo.
JOHN J. BYRNE, Passenger Traffic Manager, Santa Fe, Los Angeles.
GEORGE W. VAUX, General Agent, Passenger Department, Union
Pacific Railway, Chicago.
]
Of such material does the great league of passenger traffic experts
consist and their mission has meant an evolution in train growth
unprecedented on two hemispheres. To attain high-water mark in
comfort, speed and elegance, their eternal vigilance and rivalry has
balked at naught that invention could suggest in devices of steel,
electricity, rare, imported woods, marquetry and costly draperies to
adorn and strengthen the wheeled and floating palaces in which they
evince unbounded pride. Youth must have its sway, and because of the
wanderlust in their veins, hundreds of these Northern blades, fortified
with little but a sound mind in a sound body, elementary knowledge
well instilled and an instinctive distrust of luxury’s blandishments,
sallied forth to make the mirage, “Green are hills far away” a
pulsating actuality. With none of Caesar’s braggadocio and red fire
illuminating their advance, a goodly number could well appropriate that
old pagan’s slogan, “Veni, Vidi, Vici”.
[Illustration: WILLIAM J. JACKSON,
President, Chicago & Eastern Illinois Railway.]
The operating department of the railroads seems to have had a special
attraction for the capabilities of many Canadians, which is born out
by the outstanding examples mentioned in this partial resume. Samuel
G. Strickland, General Manager, C. & N.W.R., was reared at Lakefield,
Ont., in Kawartha Lakes locality and it takes a good man to please the
veteran Marvin Hughitt who always expected a high quality of service.
Yet another United States railroader who was cradled in Canada is W.
J. Jackson, former Vice-President of the Chicago & Eastern Illinois
Railway, and now President and Receiver of this property at Chicago,
who has recollections of earlier days when he was “Johnnie” Jackson,
working on the “inwards” desk with the “G.T.R.” at Toronto before he
went west with the late George B. Reeve when the latter was traffic
manager with the Chicago & Grand Trunk Railway.
There comes to mind the names of half a dozen operating officers
located at different points of the compass beginning at the “Atlantic”
with John McCraw, Superintendent, Central Vermont Railway, New London,
Conn., born at Craigvale and well trained in all departments by
the Grand Trunk Railway. He knows the game from billing express,
handling the throttle or shifting a bridge at night, and by his
urbanity and quiet effectiveness made a reputation along the Sound.
George Reith, Superintendent Virginian Railway at Norfolk, Va., who
gravitated from unobtrusive Hensall to scenes of greater scope;
John T. Lewis, Superintendent Tennessee Central Railway, Nashville,
Tenn., from Hamilton, who did not “pass the buck” but shouldered
his responsibilities; A. L. Boughner, a son of St. Thomas, now
Superintendent of Terminals for “M.K. & T.” at St. Louis, the road
that operates the “Katy Flyer”; W. H. Jones, formerly with “O.S.L.”,
Pocatello, at present Superintendent of Southern Pacific Ry.,
Riverside, Cal., and J. D. Brennen from Brockville, beside the St.
Lawrence, Superintendent at Sacramento, for the same extensive system.
Indexed with Uncle Sam’s adopted sons let us register the names of
Arthur G. Wells, Los Angeles, California, General Manager, Santa Fe
Coast Lines, the son of a Guelph, Ontario, postmaster, whose work in
Detroit, Toledo, Cincinnati, &c., helped him to climb the ladder like
a fireman at a fire. Likewise, his brother, R. E. Wells, a general
manager with the San Pedro System, genial Geo. W. Hibbard, formerly
A.G.P.A., C.M. & P.S.R., Seattle, and A. D. Charlton, A.G.P.A.,
Northern Pacific Railway, Portland, Oregon. There are several others
who have found a field for congenial labor along the Pacific Slope
where perennial verdancy carpets each beautiful valley and after a
business trip in that region Mr. Geo. T. Bell, P.T.M., G.T.R., told me
after returning, some time ago, that “the woods were full of them”.
No doubt, he had in mind the case of Mr. D. W. Campbell. Born in
Hanover, Ont., about 1858, this village boy moved along step by step
from quiet surroundings to a place in the sun that demands accurate
judgment in conserving public safety and promoting the expectations
of capital. Durham was where he learned the difference between an
engine cab and a coupe, how to abstract way bills and also prime the
telegraph battery jars with blue stone. He dispatched trains with the
G.T.R., at Stratford, with the C.P.R. at Moose Jaw, the C.B. & Q.R. at
Dubuque and the N.P.R. at Missoula, Montana, gaining confidence and
reputation. For some time his headquarters was at Tekoa on the “O.R. &
N.Co.” As Superintendent of this line he was transferred to Portland
and to Seattle. Later the Southern Pacific Railway engaged his services
for executive duties at terminals beside Puget Sound, which were the
forerunners of assignments in California, culminating in the berth of
Asst. Genl. Manager, Southern Pacific Ry, Los Angeles, as gazetted in
the current issue of Official Guide.
[Illustration: GEO. W. HIBBARD,
Of Geo. W. Hibbard Co., Brokers, Seattle,
Formerly A.G.P.A., C.P.R., Montreal, and G.P.A., Puget Sound Route.]
The lustre of that becoming virtue modesty, dims not if blossoming in
a railroader’s physique, but when a prominent man like John Francis,
General Passenger Agent, Burlington Route, side steps a niche in
“the hall of fame”, deprecating the reproduction of his photographed
features, and explaining,, “Twenty years have elapsed since I faced
a machine that would stand for such an operation”, his bashfulness
checks “Over” and generates regret. The baptismal archives at
Longueuil, Quebec, record the initial appearance of Mr. Francis, but
he has been “Present” many times since and proven an entertaining
raconteur. Frank F. Barbour, retiring G.P.A., Rutland Railway, was
cradled at Montreal, and east of this former possession of King Louis,
at Newport, in the maritime “finnan haddie” province of Nova Scotia,
Eben E. MacLeod was born. The path he traversed to Chairmanship of
Western Passenger Association led through Eastern Canada and eight
different ticket office positions in various states. Mr. MacLeod
courted responsibilities, always received a square deal under the Stars
& Stripes and the end is not yet, as he is in his prime and looks the
part.
The hands of destiny which mold futures, often weave a woof of
inscrutable, unfamiliar design. Had James Webster, the persistent Owen
Sound student, been informed by D. McNicol in olden days when they were
together on “Toronto, Grey & Bruce”, that his horoscope prognosticated
“Freight Traffic Manager” in 1918, “Jimmie” would have scorned the soft
impeachment and played sluggard in swallowing the Scotchman’s capsule.
Yet, James Webster, master of detail, the Nickel Plate graduate whom
“N.Y.C.” has exalted, deserves a bronze in the gallery of immortals
to radiate encouragement for the struggling faithful and confusion
to grumblers. Mr. W. A. Terry, Asst. Freight Traffic Manager, N.Y.C.
Lines, Chicago, spent some time in his youth in Canada. Minus the
sustained efforts of these officials, of their passenger confreres and
the gentlemen comprising the solicitation staff identified with the
traffic departments, the railways could boast of gilded coaches and a
nickel rail and then be doomed to failure, notwithstanding the swan
songs sung by some of our operating friends, declared a very prominent
traffic officer in the Northwest.
It is estimated by financiers that $500,000,000 were to be spent in
Canada during 1910 to meet proposed expansion by the Government, great
corporations and railways. Expectations did not bulk so large when W.
D. Carrick, who is Genl. Baggage Agent, St. Paul Road, resigned from
the Great Western Railroad in 1879 to obey Horace Greely’s command.
Excepting five years in “G.W.R.” service, where was laid the foundation
of practical knowledge, his career has been one of continuous devotion
to a single company. You will observe, if you have seen him, that the
cares of state make scant impress on the features of this wholesome
looking gentleman who considers riches but the baggage of fortune.
Mr. Carrick came from Galt, Ont., and the brothers Albert and Thomas
H. MacRae who manage and edit the popular employees magazine of the
Santa Fe Railway also originated there. From prosaic Guelph, where
bare-footed boys duck in the deep holes of the Riverlet Speed,
came C. E. Dutton, former Genl. Agent at Helena, Mont., for Great
Northern Railway. Eugene Duval, Omaha, A.G.W.A., of C.M. & St.P.R.,
years ago thrived lustily on the ozone of Quebec and Colonel W. J.
Boyle, G.A.P.D., Milwaukee, now and then harks back to former days
in Chatham, where also Charley McPherson and Geo. J. Ryan--recently
Genl. Industrial Commissioner of “Great Northern”, now with the Soo
Line--learned their P’s and Q’s. To this incomplete catalogue of
aspirants to stellar honors who investigate balances, tariffs and
interlocking switches, as bees do the flowers, may be included J.
H. Ellis, from Belleville beside the placid “Quinte”, Secretary
of “L. & N.”, Louisville, F. W. Main, Toronto, Auditor “C.R.I. &
P.”, Kincardine’s standard bearer, W. Hogarth, Auditor El Paso &
Southwestern, and Charles A. Gormally so capably representing the
“G.T.R.” in the heart of things at Chicago. Affable Alex. Macdougall,
D.P.A., I.C.R., St. Paul, John W. Kearns, D.P.A., P.M.R., Detroit,
and C. R. Graves, C.P.A., Salt Lake Route, Los Angeles, when punching
the time limit at the ticket window in days gone by, may remember the
colloquy--“Can you direct me to the best hotel in this town?” asked an
unacquainted railway man of another as he stepped off a train. “I can
brother,” said he going away, “but I hate to do it.” “Why?” “Because
you will think after you have seen it that I’m a liar”.
[Illustration:
1. CHARLES A. GORMALY, Commercial Agent, G.T.R., Chicago, Ill.
2. JOHN W. KEARNS, District Passenger Agent, Pere Marquette
Railway, Detroit, Mich.
3. GEO. O. SOMERS, Secretary, “U.S.A.” Government Northern
Railway Committee, St. Paul, Ex-General Freight Agent, G.N.
Railway, Ex-Traffic Manager, United Fruit Co.
4. The Late ALEX. MCINTOSH, of McIntosh Brothers, Milwaukee,
Railway Contractors.
5. JOHN MCCRAW, Traffic Manager, Groton Iron Works, Groton,
Conn., builders for United States Shipping Board,
Ex-Superintendent Central Vermont Railway, New London.
]
The proverb “Economy--easy chair of old age”, expounds a cardinal
requisite in railway construction. Deference to this admonition spelled
marked success financially for Donald and James A. MacIntosh, “Men
from Glengarry”, a team of contractors and graders favorably known to
western railroad builders. Jealous of reputation, by hewing to the
line they made good where others often failed and their forty years of
unremitting effort were crowned by enjoyment of the premium. Speaking
over the casket of Donald Alexander McIntosh in Forest Home Cemetery
Chapel, Milwaukee, 1915, the Reverend James Oastler, D.D., said in
part, “These Glengarry men are sons of the men who had come from the
highlands and islands of Scotland in the earlier days--and mighty men
they were--pioneers--builders of empires. Their manner of life bred in
them hardiness of frame, alertness of sense, readiness of resource, and
a courage that grew with peril. Fighting was like wine to them, when
the fight was worth while.”
We of the United States, can congratulate ourselves that some of the
Glengarry men found their way across the border, and brought with them
their courage, their resourcefulness, and their love of the open.
They did not ask for an opening. They asked this question: “What does
the world need to have done?” Then they set about doing it. Donald A.
McIntosh was a man from Glengarry.
I very distinctly recall my last visit with him and he convinced me
that there was within him a superb nature, a fine generosity--that
physically and mentally he was afraid of no man.
Dr. W. H. Stennett was born on a farm beside Lake Simcoe, Ontario, in
1832. When seventeen he settled in Rock Island, Illinois, as a junior
with a druggist, meanwhile gratifying his inclination to browse among
books. Later he was given charge of the production in a department of
a chemical manufacturing company and being an omnivarous reader of
publications pertaining to chemical, medical and surgical knowledge,
he undertook the study of medicine, graduating at the Medical College
of Missouri at St. Louis in 1859. With a partner he commenced practice
at Bloomington, Ill., and Miss Clara Hughitt became his wife there. In
1867 Doctor Stennett retired from practice to become General Agent,
Illinois Central Railway, St. Louis, and six years later was appointed
“G.P.A.” of C. & N.W.R. From 1884–7 he held the position of Assistant
to General Manager, afterwards assuming the duties of Auditor of
Expenditures with the same company and he retained his supervision of
that department for 19 years. While he was General Passenger Agent
of C. & N.W.R., his duties required that he travel a great deal. In
his later years he preferred to remain at home, and during the last
twenty-five years of his life, while working for the C. & N.W.R., he
did not take a vacation, nor during that time did he spend a single
night away from his home.
He loved flowers, spent much time in the cultivation of many varieties,
and carried on regular correspondence with friendly horticulturists.
Dr. Stennett was interested in a wide range of subjects and derived
much pleasure from discussions with intimates among railway officials
and literary people.
He was a man of determination and died practically in harness, having
left his duties only a few days before his end, and on July 22nd,
1915, the date of his death, he dressed, bade adieu to his library and
conversed with his family two minutes before his spirit took flight.
The Great Northern Railway has at St. Paul an Asst. Genl. Passr.
Agent from Sarnia, Ontario, in the person of W. R. Mills; Mr. J. A.
Emslie, Genl. Agent Santa Fe at Milwaukee, originated in Canada. John
F. Barron, Genl. Agent, Union Pacific Ry, Chicago, came from London,
where his after business hours accomplishment as a clever monologue
artist and dancer, were perfected with his townsman and associate,
the metropolitan star George Primrose. M. O. Barnard, Genl. Agent,
N.P.R., Buffalo, N.Y., is a lad from the land of lacrosse and Sid.
Dewey representing the “G.T.R.” at New York, is a brother of the Grand
Trunk’s freight traffic manager.
[Illustration: GEORGE BARNES,
General Agent, Northern Pacific Railway; Vice-President, Detroit
Transportation Club, pictured promoting Third Liberty Loan.]
So enamored is William R. Callaway, Genl. Passr. Agent, Soo Line,
of the scenery and hunter’s paradise adjacent to his line that he
dines with implements mounted with buckhorn purloined through a coach
window by some friendly sharpshooter. He has ever been a pronounced
independent in his methods, basking in no borrowed brilliancy, and
as an original and persistent advertiser since the time of his
regime as “D.P.A.”, “C.P.R.”, Toronto, this gentleman merits his
unique reputation. It is whispered that when “relieving” some years
ago at an Ontario hamlet, one seductive spring morning “W. R.” quit
angling in the family aquarium, shut up shop and prepared to separate
a few shiners from a creek close to the depot. Crawling well out
on an overhanging branch he dropped anchor. Being then not versed
in the gentle art tight rope balancing, drowsiness or anxiety soon
precipitated a crisis. The would be Walton turned a couple of neat flip
flaps and straightway “Father William” fathomed the moisture beneath.
The fat hotelkeeper’s “Inexpressibles”, as Thackeray terms the garment,
was the only alternative afterwards and the “G.P.A.” admits the
ensemble would have made a hungry horse turn from his oats.
“If feasting, rise”, saith Opportunity: “Cities and fields I walk, I
knock unbidden once at every gate.” Forsooth, the elusive sprite does
and sometimes peers into secluded corners. Besides being awake at the
psychological moment, a clever quartette who found “Hustle while you
wait” their staunchest prop in reaching the plums were Herbert A.
Jackson, W. R. Callaway, J. A. Holden and Geo. O. Somers. Mr. Somers
started in life with none of the helps designated as luck. No doubt,
he thought of ease but worked on through each consecutive group of
wearying exactions. As the architect of his own fortune the progress of
this village boy may be gauged by his former title, traffic manager of
United Fruit Company’s fleet of eighty craft, to which William Mullins,
of London and Toronto, promptly succeeded and to-day directs his
corporation’s developments in Cuba.
[Illustration: E. F. L. STURDEE,
General Agent, Passenger Department,
Canadian Pacific Railway, Boston, Mass.
A Maritime Province Product from St. John, N.B.]
Energy unsparingly applied was James A. Holden’s key to the door
of advancement, which once open disclosed the road to preferment
growing smoother and wider. Always in the atmosphere of moguls and
shunts when a stripling, nurtured in routine as biller, telegrapher,
superintendent’s clerk, agent, &c., he found it easy after getting in
motion, to push on to St. Louis and the Frisco Railway, to an executive
place with “C.O. & G.R.”, thence Chicago and the freight traffic
managership of Rock Island Lines. Mr. Holden, who is Vice-President of
Kansas City Southern Railroad, but just now busy with the Director
General of Railroads at Washington, intimates that he reached this goal
without cause to complain of the way he has been dealt with. He was a
railroader’s son from Whitby, Canada, and office boy in ’77 on the now
almost forgotten Whitby, Port Perry & Lindsay Railway.
It was the primitive equipment of the pioneer Whitby, Port Perry &
Lindsay Railway, meandering through forest and farm, which hypnotized
youthful John W. Platten, Port Perry, who became afterwards a
Vice-President and influential executive officer of the Lehigh Valley
Railroad. Prior to this he spent some time with the “G.P.A.” and
President of the “Erie” at Cleveland, and had been Treasurer of the
deceased Central Bank of Canada, which prepared and qualified him for
the position of President and General Manager of United States Trust &
Mortgage Company. He is also Chairman for the share-holders of “White
Star” common stock and with E. E. Loomis, President “L.V.R.”, made a
special train survey and report regarding the value of the “Canadian
Northern Ry.” a couple of years ago. Mr. Platten has lately been
elected President of the Gulf, Mobile & Northern Railroad. The sponsors
of the “L.V.” traffic artery from Niagara to tidewater, “fancied” three
other Canucks in the persons of John S. Wood, Asst. Genl. Freight
Agent, Geo. W. Hay, General Baggage Agent and N. W. Pringle, A.G.P.A.,
New York.
Take courage, all ye who falter: retemper the spring in your spine,
as hard work, thrift and a mastery of the duties of the desk next
above is Mr. Jarvis’s recipe for raising one’s status and stipend.
The majority--whether Briton, Frank or Celt--accept this dictum and
make obeisance to the inexorable law: wherefore, the sons of “Our Lady
of the Snows” cheerfully caught hold and lifted with their cousins.
Shoulder to shoulder these joint decendents of kindred mother stock
have added to the national wealth by perfecting means for distributing
inland and export trade to the widest possible compass. The annual
interchange of business between United States and the fatherland
of Canadians abroad exceeded $700,000,000, being third to what was
transacted before the war with England and Germany, while their
collaboration in multiplying communications has wrought incalculable
gain to international good will. The natural affinities of the two
Anglo Saxon families dominating North America cement the industrial and
social fabric.
This deepening of a common sense of attachment is significant and may
yet wield a portentous influence on world politics and boundaries.
The growth in harmonious intercourse--fostered by the advent into
United States prior to 1900 of one in every six persons born in
Canada--has derived stimulus from the dependable characteristics of
those who have, in the sifting, come within the arc of the limelight.
These resolute knights of throttle, lever and key--ex-Canadians of
stamina and discernment in railroad building, operation, traffic and
finance--rank high as participators in the safeguarding of large and
complicated interests. They are in sympathy with the enterprising and
restless spirit of their “American” confreres and both seek to wrest
the Caduceus, or golden wand of commerce, from Jupiter’s son and hasten
forward with development’s message to silent, virgin places and to
peoples beyond the seas.
SAMUEL R. CALLAWAY
His Character and Notable Career
_David Hume, historian and observer, declared “It is better to be born
with a cheerful disposition than inherit an income of ‘Ten Thousand’ a
year.”_
[Illustration]
The gentleman whose features are reproduced on this page possessed
that jewel beyond price. Despite vicissitudes in boyhood and stubborn
perplexities later, it was his wont to always maintain a kindly,
unruffled exterior which seemed to spring from the centre of his being,
reflecting an equable temperament and much self-mastery. With this
invaluable asset, and other sterling qualifications of mind and method,
Samuel Rodger Callaway quietly and steadily spiraled through adverse
currents to an altitude in the science of railroading, surmounted
by the golden legend, “Eighty thousand a year.” In his brief span he
attained an eminence in the commercial firmament which most men cease
not to dream of, but seldom realize.
Born of English-Scotch stock at Toronto, Canada, December 24th, 1850,
the loss of his father summoned him to toil’s daily round early in
life. As the champion and counsellor of his mother he was thrust into
the arena at the age of thirteen, when he entered the Grand Trunk
service under the eye of the late Sir Joseph Hickson, who soon observed
his precocious self-control, prudence and business aptitude even at
that chrysalis stage.
A four year novitiate beside Superintendent Gilman Cheney, of the
Canadian Express Company, was followed by twelve months clerking for
William Wallace, Superintendent of the Great Western, Hamilton. His
chief recreation then was reading, and mild indulgence in the aquatic
pleasures which Burlington Bay permitted.
A secretaryship to W. K. Muir fell to him in 1870, when both joined
the fettered D. & M., Detroit, marking young Callaway’s assumption of
important responsibilities.
He gave full value for his remuneration, working without friction,
like a noiseless machine, and shamed slovens by close application and
attention to the smallest commissions, manifesting such executive
ability and economy as operating man with the Detroit & Bay City
Railway, 1878, that the increasing traffic greatly enhanced the
railroad’s value.
At his thirty-fourth milestone, this popular, but strict
disciplinarian, began in 1884, for Charles F. Adams, three years of
arduous duties as Vice-President and General Manager, Union Pacific
Railway, Omaha, directing reconstruction work of magnitude with
force and decision. That tells its own story. Can the reader recall
a parallel? It was said of him that he knew almost every man in his
employ, but he was not aware of how his unfailing courtesy, freedom
from ostentation and justice to all inspired personal loyalty.
Always seeking knowledge, he travelled upward, serving three Canadian
and nine U.S.A. corporations with an intellectual, sympathetic and
expansive grasp of things which pleased magnates and earned his
subordinates’ attachment.
He broad-gauged the Toledo, St. Louis & Kansas City Railway, 1887
to 1894, and by going to W. K. Vanderbilt and the Presidency of the
Nickel Plate in 1895, a prophecy made years ago was fulfilled. When he
married Miss Jane Ecclestone, at Hamilton, June 7th, 1875, Mr. C. C.
Trowbridge, his staunch friend, gave him the following letter addressed
to W. H. Vanderbilt:
“I take the liberty of giving this sealed letter to Mr. S.
R. Callaway, who has been superintendent of the Detroit &
Milwaukee during my receivership of two years. He does not
know its contents. My object is to give him the honor of your
acquaintance, but, more particularly, to have you know him. I
regard him as one of the most promising railroad men of the
West. He has been in the business from early boyhood on the
Grand Trunk, Great Western and D. & M., understands telegraphy,
and is familiar with the duties of the different departments.
With great purity and gentleness of character, he combines a
quiet force and decision which has commanded the esteem and
respect of railway men, and his knowledge of detail and love
of system, give him great influence with his subordinates, who
are ardently attached to him. Perhaps, in the future, when some
of your faithful ones drop out, you may want Callaway. I have
no motive in taking this liberty but the desire to certify to
the worth of a man whose modesty would prevent him from pushing
himself into notice, and I feel sure that you will pardon me.”
From his patrons and confreres in United States who are said to
recognize and place merit before favoritism, honors came fast to this
somewhat reticent, easy mannered gentleman with one passion--music and
grand opera--which he delighted to indulge at the “Metropolitan” and by
playing arias on a magnificent aeolian erected in his home.
Invited to New York to exercise his wisdom in directing the destinies
of the L.S. & M.S., and the retirement of Senator Chauncey Depew a few
months later signalled the elevation of Mr. Callaway to the Presidency
of the N.Y.C. & H.R.R., and affiliated properties, March 30th, 1898,
the acknowledged master of one of the greatest business enterprises of
the century.
A New York newspaper, commenting on that appointment, said, “It has
long been ‘President Callaway’, as he was born Christmas Eve, 1850, and
since youth has been a Santa Claus offering to the railways.”
It is related that when William K. Vanderbilt urged Mr. Callaway to
accept the Presidency of the American Locomotive Company, because his
corporation could not meet the princely salary mentioned in the new
contract, the interesting rumor spread so rapidly that it appeared in
the press before the new executive had opportunity to acquaint his
family how he had become a business man with prospects that would keep
the wolf so far from the door that he dare not venture this side of the
next concession. The newspaper references came to the notice of his
son, a boyish wag at college, who immediately wrote home saying, “Dear
Father--I see by yesterday’s paper that you were forced to get another
job owing to the extravagance of your family. I want to congratulate
you on your great success, for, judging from what the notices say, you
have struck an ‘oily’ position.”
Samuel Callaway had spent thirty years of active life time in
the railway’s service and was considered a perfect type of the
administrative American railroading man through inclination and
training from boyhood, conquering difficulties and contending with
stern realities without seeking publicity. He did not like to talk,
but he knew well how to meet the world and writing of him after his
decease, biographers said his business manners were flawless.
When he first went to New York as President of the New York Central
Lines there were some who thought a chill had come over the
President’s office, so long kept beaming--as one writer put it--by
the geniality of Senator Depew. The cool reserve of the new President
was at first misunderstood, but those who had business with him soon
realized that on business matters he was one of the most approachable
of men. During office hours he was never diverted from close attention
to the company’s affairs.
As a thinker who saw clearly for the financial colleagues of a dozen
corporations; as a man of the world discussing big projects in
exclusive clubs of the metropolis, his extraordinary judgment was
emphasized, but the simplicity of his quieter side, his love of little
ones and thought for kith and kin in his native land, were likewise
noticeable.
He counted much on the success of his children and was devoted to
his family, but was not vouchsafed the anticipated pleasure of their
society in later years when his duties would have been less arduous.
At the age of fifty-four, the zenith of capability and ripened opinion,
after completing three years as first President of the American
Locomotive Company, his mighty brain ceased to originate and execute.
To his memory earnest and widespread tribute was paid.
His career was a homily to men pessimistic regarding life’s outlook,
who capitulate to cynicism. The example he set cannot soon be
forgotten, nor should study of the character and purpose of S. R.
Callaway be disregarded by the youth of this generation.
“His life was gentle; and the elements
So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, ‘This is a man.’”
❦ ❦ ❦
THOMAS N. JARVIS
An Organizing Genius
From the banks of the winding Avon the boy Shakespeare went forth and
his genius revitalized and gave a tremendous impetus to literature
and the drama. Were you aware that Stratford in the new world long
after produced a son, in youth Tom Jarvis, who is undoubtedly leaving
his impress on the peaceful pursuit of international trade. Contend
if you will, that it is a far cry to the hedge rows of merrie England
for a parallel, for a coincidence; yet there is a modicum of truth in
most generalizations. The elect all sing small in the beginnings. The
journey of the Bard from obscurity to the throne room was tedious and
none the less devious is the pilgrimage from a dingy office in the heel
of a freight shed to the Vice-Presidency of one of America’s great
railway highways.
[Illustration: THOMAS N. JARVIS,
Vice-President, Lehigh Valley Railroad, New York.]
A sprig off the geneological tree which inspired the name of a
Toronto residential thoroughfare, T. N. Jarvis was born and reared
in Stratford, Ont., and at sixteen essayed the study of legal tomes.
This was dry, unremunerative occupation and about 1870 he exchanged
Blackstone for the freight classification, billing desk and, to him,
the less monotonous, more congenial railway atmosphere. He proved to
be anything but “A square peg in a round hole” and earnest endeavor
earned rapid promotions to Paris, Black Rock, Buffalo and Cleveland. At
the expiry of seven years he entered the service of the International
Fast Freight Line; a twelve month later the Blue Line and in 1880 to
the Commercial Express Line. It is related that about this time he
visited Cleveland to acquaint a certain high executive official of his
contemplated resignation to assume other duties. Suspecting the nature
of his errand, every resource of his patron’s diplomacy and palatial
home were enlisted to successfully smother the avowal. Disappointed at
the outcome, the ambitious Jarvis returned to headquarters to find that
a cheque of fair proportions had preceded him as a retainer.
On completion of the “Nickel Plate” in 1883 he organized the Traders’
Dispatch and as manager was the youngest in his class, with a
pronounced penchant for ensnaring traffic netting good revenues. The
Lehigh Valley Railroad Company had been scrutinizing the trek of the
tall, rangy and genial bachelor, Tom Jarvis--with a host of ‘pay
streak’ friends from Frisco to Fundy Bay--and they soon made it “worth
his while.” In ’98, as their General Eastern Agent at New York, his
traveling men garnered cheese, coal, milk, live stock and passenger
traffic _ad libitum_. Circularized again and again, he subsequently
made his bow as Assistant General Traffic Manager, Freight Traffic
Manager, and in March, 1906, Vice-President.
He modestly attributes it all to hard work and the aim to become
familiar with the duties of “the men higher up.” Boys, note that.
Cosmopolitan habitues of the Lotus Club, for instance, and friends in
Ontario watch his progress with pride and await news of further honors.
Now and then they have opportunity to inspect him at close range as
guests in his private car.
While the methods of Mr. Jarvis in business are incisive, crisp and
convincing, and devoid of much flowery phraseology, he possesses the
most approachable and kindly personality, which unconsciously wins the
homage of porter and President’s esteem.
“Honor and shame from no condition rise:
Act well your part--there all the honor lies.”
GEO. J. CHARLTON
Passenger Traffic Expert
[Illustration: GEO. J. CHARLTON,
Passenger Traffic Manager, Chicago & Alton Railroad and allied systems.]
“A pale faced fanatic” Geo. J. Charlton never was and never will be--so
his friends declare. The metamorphosis would too grievously trouble him
in spirit and torture his avoirdupois. Glance again at the features and
physical contour of the Passenger Traffic Manager of “Chicago & Alton,”
the cap sheaf to a cluster of four sister transportation corporations,
and contradict me, ye phrenological bump feelers, if the X rays do
not locate there a large, sympathetic heart, optimism profound, great
capacity for work and the ability to enjoy and “Spend money like a
sailor.”
Ever since the time his education began in the private and public
schools of his birthplace, Hamilton, Canada, where in boyhood he
“Snapped the whip” and operated in the moonlit melon patch, George
Charlton has been in the centre of the doings. His must have been the
hypnotic eye, or he carried one of those heavily charged horse shoe
magnets, for the boys and girls all liked him and gravitated in his
direction without know-why. How many of his classmates have since made
the same good use of their time, think you.
His father was a railroader of international repute, and nurtured in
an atmosphere of “ticket affairs,” it was not unnatural the boy’s name
should first appear on a railway pay roll in 1875 as messenger in the
general passenger department of Chicago & Alton Road.
Thus began the zig zag but successful ascent of Mount Obstacle,
covering a span of forty-three years. He was cast out of the right kind
of metal and did not falter at the prospect or prove a time server when
acting the role of junior, conductor’s clerk, ticket stock recorder,
passenger sales accountant and rate expert.
Invariably devoting the best that was in him to his work, he soon
realized that the position of understudy conscientiously performed,
was a wise and diplomatic plan of action leading to unexpected
possibilities. On March 14th, 1885, Mr. Charlton came within the arc
of the limelight as Assistant General Passenger Agent of the “Alton.”
January 1st, 1900, witnessed him accomplish the next logical move in
advancing to the position of General Passenger Agent, and during a
seven years tenure his jurisdiction was extended to the Toledo, St.
Louis & Western Railway, styled the Clover Leaf Route. During December,
1909, the Corporation’s President gave him the right to have emblazoned
on his business cards the title he bears to-day.
While this panorama of promotions glides without hindrance across the
page to the reader’s brain, he can only imagine but should not overlook
the monotonous toil, concentration of purpose and rebuffs smiled down
behind the scenes by our subject long before a recital in this form was
possible.
The best opportunity to truly sound the depth of a man’s character is
to work with and beside him. As you may surmise, George Charlton’s
manner of speech and demeanor towards his staff of employees is not
rapid, cold and repellant, but a reflection of the desire pulsating
within him to interchange enthusiasm, co-operation and loyalty with
others, measure for measure. Woe betide the luckless mortal, however,
who rouses his ire by flagrantly violating these commandments. This
gentleman of tremendous energy and democratic inclinations, always
finds time to fraternize with his men, meeting them as equals and
apparently enjoying their society as much as they appreciate his.
Kindliness and generosity are his cardinal virtues. They have won
for him the affection and compel the highest possible respect of his
confreres and those characteristics, coupled with recognized ability,
loom large when one attempts an inventory of the causes underlying his
success.
The far reaching effect of the recent order issued by Mr. W. G. McAdoo,
Director General of Railroads in United States, necessitating the
release of many employees of the “Alton” who had been loyal members
of Mr. Charlton’s railway family, distressed him keenly and quickened
his broad sympathies. He immediately became “a welcome pest” to
his influential friends, through unremitting efforts to assist his
reluctantly departing staff to other suitable employment.
George Charlton is a votary of Comus, the ancient and rotund god of
Merriment and that mythological personage ranks next to his patron
saints. He is a well known society and club member, identified with at
least a dozen organizations including the Hoos Hoos, Elks, Yacht Club,
South Shore Country Club, Union League, Chicago, Green Room Club and
Lambs Club, New York; also Hamilton Old Boys’ Association.
He is immensely popular with the traveling public and “man in the
street” and they, having in mind the Passenger Traffic Manager of that
triangular route linking Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City, agree that
the wise man was right when he said “A merry heart doeth good like
medicine.”
[Illustration: JAMES JEROME HILL
The Late JAMES JEROME HILL, Ex-Canadian and financier of vision
and resource who built the Great Northern Railway through the
“Zone of plenty.”
K. J. BURNS, Assistant General Freight Agent, Vancouver, B.C.
H. A. JACKSON, Export and Import Agent, Seattle, Former Assistant
Traffic Manager, St. Paul, (A Toronto Boy).
H. E. WATKINS, General Eastern Canadian Agent, Toronto, Canada.
Under other names, the Great Northern Railway owns, leases and operates
subsidiary lines in Western Canada, of which the Vancouver, Victoria
& Eastern Railway & Navigation Company is the principal--comprising a
total mileage of 760 miles and entry is made into Canada by crossing
the international border at thirteen different points.
The modern terminal of the V.V. & E.R. & N. Co., Vancouver, B.C., which
is owned jointly with Northern Pacific Railway Co., cost over $600,000.
At Winnipeg “G.N.R.” investment in Road and Equipment totals $2,366,258
In Kootenay District investment in road and equipment totals 7,426,095
In British Columbia investment in road and equipment totals 30,947,140
Additional total Canadian investments 37,535,739
]
[Illustration: TRANSPORTATION CLUB OF TORONTO
Scene of Annual Banquet, C. A. Dunning’s Hotel, November 27th, 1914.
F. H. TERRY, President, Traveling Agent, G.N.R.
A. J. TAYLOR, Vice-President, Canadian Agent, C.M. & St. P.R.
D. O. WOOD, Vice-President, General Western Agent, Allan Line.
W. J. LANGTON, Member Executive, Later President; Superintendent,
Dominion Transport Co., (C.P.R.)
T. MARSHALL, Member Executive, later President, Traffic Manager,
Board of Trade.
W. A. GRAY, Secretary. Contracting Agent, D.L. & W.R.
M. MACDONALD, Treasurer, Assistant Inspector of Weighing, G.T.R.
]
TRANSPORTATION CLUB OF TORONTO
BANQUET
NOVEMBER, 1914
“_The chairman is conductor on this train_”
“_You won’t be asked to make a speech_”
A REVELER’S DREAM
Aye Reuben lad, ye missed a treat
Last Friday when you failed to meet
One hundred transportation men
Convened from city, burg and glen,
For the second yearly dinnerfest
Of fish and fowl and sparkling jest.
They sought the board from moor and fen:
Hoot mon! they were blythe, merry men.
From out the dome peered twinkling stars
Which shone on knights of boats and cars:
Within host Dunning’s spacious halls
The KING and ENSIGN graced the walls;
Beneath them ranged with D. O. WOOD
The BLACK PRINCE, LORNE and stalwart HOOD.
HOTRUM, STACKPOLE, SOMERVILLE,
And scouts who answered to “just plain BILL.”
Duke TERRY then inspects the guards
And straightway signals all his pards:
He trained his optics down the line,
Then to the chaplain gave a sign.
With smirk and quip the fray began,
Ye gods! they’re at it to a man.
The chef was new, his viands fine,
My word! how they did sup and dine.
Each clansman cracked his jest and pun,
Warm hearts, good cheer made all the fun.
With merry clink the MAC’S and O’S
Attacked until their WILD IRISH ROSE.
When MARSHALL diagnosed their case
And cried “Enough,” they slackened pace.
Just here the warblers oiled their throats,
Producing full BRAZILLIAN notes,
The smokers puffed and songs were sung,
A gem was that from RILEY YOUNG.
Will McIlroy and NANCY’S choir,
With JULES did stud sweet music’s lyre.
At half past ten the screen began
To picture LARRY, HANK and DAN;
Why Scots had thews instead of fat
And differed from St. George and Pat.
[Illustration: HALT! PRODUCE YOUR PASSPORT]
Reuben acushla! I wish you saw
Dear BERTHA’S curves and WOLFE’S smooth jaw.
EDDIE was flashed de-HORNING a cow,
Alas, poor Yoric! view him now.
Admiral HARRY sailed to sea
With skippers primed in drams of Tea,
Hector BENNETTO--Benn. C.B.--
THORPE, FITZ--MORICE, Murdo Mac D--
SARGENT, THOMAS, Frank C. FOY
Roared with unction and rocked with joy
At JACK the Moor in the bear’s cage
And CALLAGHAN was all the rage.
The cartoons ceased in quite a breeze
With Cupid DICK in his B.V.D’s.
WILL. JACKSON, wise from Spotless Town,
Sate cheek by jowl with soldier BROWN,
While GRAY and GREEN and singing PINK
Rehearsed “The toothbrush in the sink.”
And “Young DICK TINNING haint no style,
Deed he am boss, all de while.”
RICHARD sang “Maxwellton’s Braes”
Performing as in other days.
Oh you beautiful doll was there
With bells on her toes, and lard in her hair.
The C.N.R. and G.T.P.
The CORNBELT Route and N. Y. C.
Hob-nobbed with he of the C. B. Q.
Beside the banks of the winding SOO.
MULKERN, entranced beheld the throng,
Impressed was he with the ’cello song.
Saintly McCRAW shed one large tear
O’er wee Baptiste on his truckle bier.
The joke on MURPHY was a scream
Beyond the Company’s fondest dream.
FALSTAFF sampled some nut-brown ale,
Requested a schooner and then a pail:
ANGUS TORY and WELLAND STRONG
Thought they too would ride along,
But ALEC. BOYD said “Have a heart,
Does ‘G. & W.’ take no part?”
[Illustration: One of the Songsters
CHARLES L. SINGER,
The affable and accommodating ticket agent, M.C.R., St. Thomas, Ont.]
With pretense only, Jimmie S--
Pitched the tent of the Royal Mess,
At this the owls flew off their perch
To safety in a nearby church,
But the lion cubs drank LION brew,
Avoiding HENNESSY’S Mountain Dew,
Yet so discreet, no man did mar
By deep libations from the jar.
TIMOTHY--HEALEY and CARSON too,
Prayed that night in the self-same pew,
And harked to MULLIN’S vocal gem,
Which touched the crew from stern to stem.
Most of the men were born quite young,
And some before had never sung,
So you may guess the bars and chords
Issuing from that House of Lords.
Colonel NELLES and Major TIM,
True, bold Britons, were in the swim.
A “GLOOM” complained to JOLLY JACK
DONALDSON, FAIRHEAD--ANDREW MACK.
That Woolworth’s chiel was not a SCOT
And the good old days had gone to pot,
But HOWARD, HICKSON and Harvey Lloyd,
Wreathed in smiles the fun enjoyed.
By “Cobalt Special” SHERIDAN came.
Likewise a list too long to name:
COLLINS, FERNLEY, CALDWELL, GOULD,
With PERNFUSS sleek, massaged, bejeweled,
Like “two-year-olds” cut up old Nick
And introduced a brand new trick.
They hopped about from lid to lid,
And each did everything Katy-did.
The N. P. R. and PHOEBE SNOW
Both regretted they could’nt go.
Nobody threw the harpoon sharp,
Nobody prayed or played the harp,
But men of baggage, boats and cars,
In har-mon-ee smoked long cigars.
They lent their brilliance to the scene
And polished platters slick and clean.
After the sun had gone to rest,
When birds and beasts were all undressed,
The hours sped fast on wheels of time
And the flock took flight ere midnight chime,
Resolved to meet ’bout next July
To trap that badger fierce and sly,
Or cage the kangarooster.
[Illustration: The late A. J. TAYLOR and some of his intimate personal
and business friends
Top row--The Late JOHN STRACHAN, Erie Railroad, Toronto; H. G.
MCMICKEN, European Agent, G.N.R., London, Eng.; WM. ASKIN,
Auditor, Northern Navigation Co., Sarnia; The Late J. D.
HUNTER, Allan Line, Toronto.
Bottom row--J. J. ROSE, G.A., U.P.R., Toronto; B. H. BENNETT,
G.A., C. & N.W.R., Toronto; P. G. VAN VLEET, Publisher,
Toronto; J. R. STEELE, Freight Claims Auditor, C.P.R.; F. J.
GLACKMEYER, Sergeant-at-arms, Ontario Government; W. SMITH,
Inspector of Post Offices, Toronto; W. JACKSON, President,
Jackson Mfg. Co., G.T.A., C.P.R., Clinton, Ont.; W. H. CLANCY,
Ex-C.P. & T.A., G.T.R., Montreal, Que.
]
ANDREW J. TAYLOR
Lines to the memory of a good friend and business associate
If inscrutable destiny or the influence of circumstance had not planned
for Andrew J. Taylor the career of a widely known railway man, it may
be stated without relying on too elastic imagination that he could have
qualified to an advance degree as a beloved Presbyteriann “dominie”
or Catholic priest. His admirable character attracted unusual and
unsolicited confidences, to human anxieties his sound sympathetic
counsel applied the encouragement and comfort of a confessor and he
was never without a loose shilling for the needy. Coupled with these
attributes he possessed a moral and superior mental fabric and when you
learn that his forebears came from a canny nook in Scotland it will
explain and account for his quiet appreciation of honor and duty.
Lesmahagow or Abbey Green, on the River Nethan, Lanarkshire, was the
birthplace of his father, James Mitchell Taylor, who brought his ruddy
cheeked bride from the English-speaking settlement of L’Original to
Ottawa. Her father succumbed to wounds received in the battle of the
Wind Mill and both her military grandfathers were killed in the battle
of Waterloo. In Bytown the subject of this sketch was born June 24th,
1858, and spent his childhood with four brothers and four sisters,
securing his education in the private schools which predominated in
those days and in the world of experience and travel.
As a boy he caused his mother more trouble than any of her other sons
owing to the fact that he was always “Fighting the other fellows’
battles”, could not condone bullying and was the staunch friend
and champion of a deaf and dumb playmate whom children chased and
tantalized. He was fond of animals and during his life in Ottawa,
mill slabs and water were delivered in the neighborhood of the river
and often the horses drawing these necessities were neglected and ill
treated. Invariable his gorge would rise at such treatment and he waded
in causing no end of trouble.
As a boy Andy Taylor playing a hymn on the organ, selling ribbon over
the counter in Elliott & Hamilton’s Ottawa store, or juggling with
rolls of carpet in McIlwraith & Egan’s at Hamilton, would seem to
those who knew him later, as an uncongenial occupation for the putter
of the heavy shot and athletic participator in Caledonian games, but
such was the case with him, and many another youth did likewise in
their experimental quest for the right thing amid a variety of business
pursuits.
When his father resigned the position of General Freight Agent of
the St. Lawrence & Ottawa Railway he assumed charge of the passenger
interests of the Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul Railway, and came to
Toronto to represent that company--until his transfer to Pittsburg,
creating in 1878 the permanent agency which was withdrawn only last
December. A. J. Taylor entered his father’s employ as a clerk at
Toronto in the spring of 1879, covered the territory as traveling
passenger agent under his direction, succeeded him, became “C.F. &
P.A.”, in 1900, and as a respected and trustworthy officer his name
remained on that company’s pay roll continuously for thirty-six years.
Although his agreeable disposition and the nature of his duties in
early manhood, secured him throughout Ontario and Quebec an extensive
acquaintance with which he was _persona grata_, Mr. Taylor did not
eagerly seek new companionship and he clearly recognized the line of
demarkation existing between personal and business friends. However,
many men whom he met through the medium of commercial connections, soon
became more intimate and it was only a “casual” or extra-sensitive
person that misinterpreted a certain aloofness or transient
preoccupation which some thought he appeared to sometimes display.
Prior to 1885, the year when the Canadian Pacific Railway threw open
a new gateway to Winnipeg, Andy Taylor was one of a lively United
States railroading coterie who sought a share of that growing and
intensely competitive passenger business then moving only via St. Paul
to the Dakotas and Canadian Northwest. He proved his worth, building
a reputation which sustained him long after, thus gaining for his
employers a percentage of traffic based on good-will towards “Andy”
which the road would have otherwise been denied.
More or less dogmatic, and always deliberate, in argument he was
convincing and his personal prestige and lucid exposition of routes,
rates and accommodation ensured regular renewal of patronage from
individual travelers and professional ticketing agents from Halifax
to the Detroit River. When he was in his prime--genial, popular and
as strong as a gladiator--he participated in many exciting episodes
of personal character and incidents arising out of the unsettled
conditions governing travel, ticket scalping, rate cutting and
commissions on sales. He described to me how, on one occasion the
“Wabash”, “C.B. & Q.R.”, “C. & N.W.R.” and “C.R.I. & P.” made an
agreement lasting for a limited period, whereby they pooled their
entire passenger business ticketed through Chicago, Omaha and
westward, each receiving an equal monthly division irrespective of the
percentage handled individually. While this understanding was extant
his employers, the “C.M. & St. P.R.”, opened their line from Chicago
to Council Bluffs, Nebraska, and requested admission to the charmed
circle. The quartette black-balled the new candidate and he, through
the medium of increased commissions broke the cabal and the status quo
shot as high as a captive balloon with feverish excitement. In 1885 one
Quebec agent received for commissions on passenger business from the
incoming ships destined the west, a cheque for one month’s bookings
amounting to $750.00.
Like the late Robert Lewis, long connected with the Lehigh Valley
Railroad, who years ago fished in the wilds of Northern Muskoka and
beyond, Andrew Taylor was a devoted follower of the sport of Isaac
Walton. His regular journeys and explorations in the regions of
fish and game were to him anticipated fixtures and the source of
much pleasure and benefit. He visited many haunts in his time, was
considered an authority on ways and means to fill a creel and color a
“meerchaum”. Like Theodore Roosevelt, he “dee-lighted” to handle a gun
and was better than the average as a wing shot.
Passionately fond of outdoor life, with him originated the plan for
a permanent headquarters in the woods, and aided by his associates
Messrs. B. H. Bennett, J. J. Rose, P. G. Van Vleet and Jack Goodsell,
the well equipped lodge of the incorporated Red Chalk Fishing and
Game Club, six miles south of Bigwin Island in Lake of Bays, was
established in Northern Muskoka, with Andrew Taylor charter president,
honorary life member and pater familias of a sociable brood of thirty
sportsmen.
Having been an ex-president of the Victoria Lawn Bowling & Skating
Club and the Western Bowling Association, London, his office was the
rendezvous of curlers and bowling committees as well as fellow members
of the Toronto Lacrosse & Athletic Club.
Few of his friends had more intimate opportunities to realize his
characteristics than myself and one must labor beside a person to
obtain the true perspective. The antithesis of what men describe as
a “fourflusher”, he could not stoop to conquer by unfair means, but
was punctilious in observing the code, in the propriety of personal
behaviour, in the composition of a sentence. Although endowed with
Scottish caution, in many ways he was not secretive but almost boyishly
candid and uniformly courteous, patient and generous to a fault. The
confidante of his father, the adviser to a score of relatives, idolized
by his family, A. J. Taylor’s confreres valued his friendship and
regarded their intimacy with him as a golden opportunity.
* * * * *
[Illustration: Half the membership of the Red Chalk Fishing and Game
Club, Muskoka.
Central Quartette--
P. G. VAN VLEET Publisher, Toronto.
The late A. J. TAYLOR C.F. & P.A., C.M. & St. P.R.
B. H. BENNETT G.A., C. & N.W.R.
J. J. ROSE G.A., Union Pacific Railway.
Reading from left to right from top centre of circle--
CAPTAIN E. FREMLIN Paymaster, 34th Batt., C.E.F.
DOUGALS A. MACARTHUR Toronto-Port Hope Sanitary Co.
WILLIAM JACKSON Pres., Jackson Mfg. Co., Clinton, Ont.
F. H. TERRY T.A., G.N.R., Toronto.
F. A. NANCEKIVELL Traffic Manager, Ford Motor Co.
GEO. BARNES G.A., N.P.R., Detroit, Mich.
L. MACDONALD D.F.A., G.T.R., Toronto.
H. E. WATKINS G.E.C.A., G.N.R., Toronto.
C. E. HORNING D.P.A., G.T.R., Toronto.
J. O. GOODSELL A.G.P.A., U.P.R., Kansas City, Mo.
R. J. KEARNS New York Life Company, Toronto.
W. D. WILSON Wilson, Lytle, Badgerow Co., Tor.
]
BY-WATER MAGAZINE
Business Getter’s Competition Prize Winning Essay
Eighty per cent. of new business secured--after eliminating the
advantageous influence of good advertising well placed--results not
from unusual happenings or quasi-romantic incidents. It originates in
pressing industrial expansion and broad education, it flows through
modern channels, and along those thorny, old-fashioned highways of
endeavor such as persistent, methodical solicitation of passenger
and freight traffic, a conscientious interest in its handling and
disposition after acceptance, and above all depends upon the good will
and very essential aid of each one of that many sided army employed by
the transportation corporations whose arteries provide the means for
commercial life’s activities.
Assuming that you desire to introduce or further exploit a worthy
service and route, publicity should be the first vital consideration.
In this propaganda who can better assist you to reach the world and his
wife than the rank and file, than those men and youths of high and low
degree whom you meet when you occasionally call and who, during your
absence, are always in immediate contact with buyers and the stream of
enquiring public, alert and receptive, like a big league star playing
close to the third sack.
It has been, let us suppose, a regrettable necessity that prevented
officials from organizing the present desultory practice into a system
of at least three meetings a year when separated railway employees
and their superiors could meet and discuss subjects pertaining to
the relations existing between the company and its patrons. At such
anticipated and informal conventions every one present is urged to
express opinions. Traffic matters are viewed from different angles,
the solitary agent who thinks himself and agency discriminated
against, learns the larger reason for local inconvenience, outside
representatives obtain a “close up” inspection of the chiefs in action
and the plan, as a fixture, would become a sound, progressive measure
as well as a distinctive advantage to the _esprit de corps_ of any
transportation company’s staff.
Man is a gregarious, sociable “critter”, fond of exchanging “idears”,
an impressionable, flesh and blood individual quite like yourself, who
easily responds to straightforward, properly timed overtures of the
railway and steamship traveling fraternity, ever willing to concede
you an “even break”, or better, if merited. Collectively they are
the Central News Bureau in your line, diplomatically safeguarding
your reasonable expectations. More prospects come to light, more
new business is secured and resolved into renewals through the
agency of ticket sellers and traffic men by the gradual ingratiating
of personality than via any of the other mediums. An indiscreet,
pugnacious official who, for instance, soberly declares that only his
company’s wall map embodies all the virtues invites ridicule and gets
it.
Collaborate and hobnob with the nabob in the inner railway or warehouse
sanctum sanctorum, and the next man down, if you will: they deserve
that deference and “were poor once themselves”, but do not always
flock with the headquarters staff and entirely overlook the other boys,
nor the understudy to the traffic manager of those firms controlling
ten cars per week or ten cases a month. They see and hear unthought
of items of interest and possess long memories. Cultivate your
recollection of faces and names, for to-morrow or next season a clerk
may gravitate to “Depot or City Ticket Agent” and opportunity, with
passengers leaving to his guidance and judgment “What route should we
take” and it is to his address that advertising points the finger.
A few companies endeavor to arrange the time and transportation which
enables certain city ticket agents to journey over the main line of
their property for educative reasons, but the experienced assistants
are too infrequently included, are seldom sent on an excursion into
outside territory, and never attend a ticket agents’ association
meeting, and yet, the nature of their duties implies ability to
promptly and accurately answer innumerable questions regarding junction
connections, baggage transfer, location of foreign line depots, dining
and sleeping facilities as well as geographical peculiarities. Books
there are that print some of this information, but often the enquirer
departs disappointed without exact details, but to the men who have
been over the ground with eyes open, it is decidedly satisfying to be
able to intelligently submit the facts and note how your statements
carry conviction and impress the recipient. Of all people needing the
experience of travel, the ticketing agent who directs others on their
journeys should be first to possess that advantage.
Dispensing to these gentlemen few promises and religiously observing
those is a strong undercurrent in shaping your course. Unfailing
attention to reservation requests, prompt news of the whereabouts of
specific shipments, and early notification of upward tariff revisals,
&c., &c., are assets that help forge a friendship out of which springs
new business, which a “fourflusher” or thoughtless one is prone to
overlook after his final handshake. “O consistency, thou art a jewel.”
In circles where the weed is so popular, the “eternal cigar” is
good-naturedly accepted only as a lubricant to the wheels of
conversation, but in the name of all that is gloomy and peculiar do
not insult the intelligence of some captain of industry, or “regular
fellow”, by flashing on him the moment you enter The Presence, what
seems like a transparent bribe in the form of a cheroot a few degrees
better than the “Bartender’s Revenge”. Many of them indulge a weakness
for more delicate fragrance at Half a Dollar for three or two. Because
such a contretemps was studiously avoided by the writer several years
ago, a prominent Hamilton, Canada, merchant--then patronizing a
competitor--gave “our route” a dozen cars of eastbound California fruit
and explained why.
Few transportation people are so sinuous and adept as to be “all things
to all men” without “trimming” and loss of self-respect, where one
representative is quite _au fait_ with the powers that be, another will
make indifferent headway, but you may note in your log book that these
observations outline some practices which will retain old acquaintances
and secure a fair measure of new business.
[Illustration: BELLEVILLE’S CONTRIBUTION TO TRANSPORTATION
An exceptional record in this field of endeavor
1. W. B. BAMFORD, District Freight Agent, Canadian Pacific
Railway, Toronto, Ont.
2. H. E. BEASLEY, General Superintendent, Esquimalt & Nainamo
Railway, Victoria, B.C.
3. JOHN BELL, (the late), General Counsel, Grand Trunk Railway,
Montreal.
4. W. H. BIGGAR, Vice-President and General Counsel, G.T.R.,
Montreal.
5. W. E. BURKE, Assistant Manager, Canada Steamship Lines,
Toronto, Ont.
6. A. B. CHOWN, Traveling Passenger Agent, Grand Trunk Railway,
Pittsburg.
7. J. M. COPELAND, T.F. & P.A., Chicago & Northwestern Railway,
Toronto. R. J. COTTRELL, Locomotive Foreman, Grand Trunk
Railway, St. Thomas, Ont.
8. W. P. DEMPSEY, T.F. & P.A., Chicago & Northwestern Railway,
Detroit. E. DONALD, Land and Tax Commissioner, Grand Trunk
Railway, Montreal.
9. W. J. DUCKWORTH, Superintendent of Construction, G.N.W.
Telegraph Co., Toronto. J. H. ELLIS, Secretary, Louisville &
Nashville Railway, Louisville, Ky.
10. W. E. FOSTER, K.C., Solicitor for Ontario, Grand Trunk
Railway, Montreal.
11. JOHN A. GRIER, (the late), G.F.A., M.C.R., also General
Manager, Hoosac Tunnel Line, Chicago.
12. R. HAY, C.P. & T.A., Canadian Northern Railway, Vancouver,
B.C.
12. J. HAY, Locomotive Foreman, Grand Trunk Railway, Sarnia, Ont.
12. D. J. HAY, Former Air Brake Inspector, Grand Trunk Railway,
Stratford, Ont.
13. E. W. HOLTON, General Passenger Agent, Northern Navigation
Co., Sarnia, Ont. R. IVERS, (the late), Locomotive Foreman,
Grand Trunk Railway, London, Ont. H. R. KELLY, Superintendent,
Canadian Northern Railway, Capreol, Ont.
14. W. H. KENNEDY, Master Mechanic, Grand Trunk Railway,
Toronto--Fighting for us in France. T. W. R. MCRAE, Claims
Agent, Grand Trunk Railway, Montreal, Que.
15. R. B. MOODIE, (the late), General Agent, Intercolonial
Railway, Toronto.
16. F. H. PHIPPEN, K.C., General Counsel, Canadian Northern
Railway, Toronto.
17. GEO. H. POPE, (the late), Right of Way Commissioner, Grand
Trunk Pacific Railway.
18. W. W. POPE, Secretary Hydro Commission--former Assistant
to General Counsel, G.T.R. J. P. PRATT, Assistant to General
Counsel, Grand Trunk Railway, Montreal.
19. W. D. ROBB, Vice-President, Grand Trunk Railway System,
Montreal, Que.
20. W. ROBERTSON, Former M.S., G.T.R., Maker of Robertson Cinder
Conveyor, Chicago. T. WATERSON, Chief Clerk to General Counsel,
Grand Trunk Railway.
The tribute on the following page is inspired by the charm and beauty
of the bay where Belleville’s absent sons sailed, skated, fished and
swam.]
LINES TO QUEEN QUINTE
Green are the hills when far away,
And Youth in leash craves Manhood’s sway:
Placid the waters that wash the sands,
The sky is blue o’er distant lands.
Yet phantom castles--springtime dreams,
Dissolve like foam on woodland streams,
As Fancy--chastened by breath of Time,
Reasons in prose and not in rhyme:
Yearning ceases--behold at home
The glories pictured by they who roam.
Rimmed with vesture of verdant green,
Basks Quinte Bay--perennial queen:
Matron--a seer--she spans full years
Of promise, hardship, wreckage, tears.
From pre-historic days of yore
Her scroll is writ with mystic lore.
O’er her breast stole birchen craft
Burdened with Redskin, bows and shaft;
Swiftly stalking widgeon and deer
Or Paleface tiller settled near.
Champlain and Franklin sensed her spell,
As did good priest with book and bell.
Soldier, trapper and creaking stage
Have seen Dame Quinte lashed in rage,
But seldom doth she portend ill,
Her mood is tranquil, coaxing, still.
Who hath not felt her soft caress,
Limpid, seductive as maiden’s tress,
Who hath skimmed her foaming crest
With spreading sheet at her behest,
And doth not sing throughout his days
Of this real gem amongst the bays.
Ensconced in a setting of green and gold,
She is ever young to young and old:
Could her waters speak as they flow along,
“Forget me not” would be their song.
THE CANADIAN NORTHERN RAILWAY SYSTEM
[Illustration: SIR WILLIAM MACKENZIE,
President, Canadian Northern Railway System.]
With her feeders and tributaries tapping the distant, beautiful
valleys of historic Arcadia and a trunk line that ensures a through
fast freight service from ancient Quebec--an ideal gateway for men
who go down to the sea in ships--the second steel highway in Canada’s
transcontinental trio stretches hundreds of miles far and away through
rolling uplands, untouched forests and waving wheat fields to Burrard
Inlet and flourishing Vancouver, a busy maritime mart and door to the
placid Pacific.
Built or purchased and gradually assembled by Sir William Mackenzie and
Sir Donald Mann, the capitalization of the Canadian Northern Railway
System, which will be taken over by the Government of the Dominion of
Canada, has been reckoned at approximately $43,000 per mile for 10,000
miles of railway actually under operation, and during the arbitration
proceedings at Osgoode Hall, Toronto, Mr. Pierce Butler, St. Paul,
Minn., counsel speaking in behalf of his clients, stated that the
railway was now on a basis of $50,000,000 gross earnings a year.
Previous to the declaration of war the “C.N.R.” was financed mainly
by British capitalists whose intentions, apart from expected profit,
were to directly increase the yield and transportation facilities for
wheat against the possibilities of war, having in mind how far below
consumption was their own production of the fundamental food.
In 1896 the Manitoba Legislature passed a charter, with land grants,
providing for the construction of the Lake Manitoba Railway & Canal
Company, which was not taken advantage of until 1899, when Messrs.
Mackenzie and Mann purchased and commenced construction from Gladstone,
Manitoba, to Winnipegosis, Manitoba, 123 miles, and operation was
inaugurated January 3rd, 1897.
Construction was started the same year on the Manitoba & Southeastern
Railway from Winnipeg to the Great Lakes, and in November, 1898, 45
miles of it were operated, St. Boniface to Marchand.
The Northern Pacific Railway lines in Manitoba were acquired in 1901,
and in the same year the thin edge of the wedge was inserted in Ontario
when Parry Sound rejoiced over its first railway connection with the
outside--a 3.3 mile spur to a Canada Atlantic Railway junction.
[Illustration: SIR DONALD MANN,
Vice-President, Canadian Northern Railway System.]
In 1911 the track-end had reached the foot-hills of the Rockies and
engineers declare the C.N.R.’s low elevation at the Yellow Head Pass,
and where its line later decends to the sea by the valleys of the
Thompson and Fraser Rivers through the Cascade Range, locates the track
only a few feet above tidewater of the Pacific Ocean.
At one point on the “C.N.R.” mountain division the track is only 4½
miles from the base of Mount Robson--altitude 13,068 feet--the highest
peak in the Rocky Mountains.
With the completion of the “C.N.R.” central Montreal terminal, near
Dominion Square, which is approached by a 3.3 mile double tracked
tunnel beneath Mount Royal, the Directorate will have an exceptional
advantage in being able to move solid trains from west to east without
backing down from dead-end tracks or breaking up their train formation.
The “C.N.R.” serves urban centres having more than 1,000 population
containing 90% of the population of the towns and cities of Alberta and
97% of Saskatchewan, the centre of the wheat belt.
If the system should be extended to connect Toronto with Hamilton it
would then have access to cities and towns aggregating 60% of the town
dwellers of the entire provinces, which also produce 70% of their total
manufactured products.
In 1916 the “C.N.R.” carried 132,000,000 bushels of grain: if reduced
to flour and the manufactured flour which it transported be added
thereto, the foodstuffs from territory along the “C.N.R.” would be
sufficient to supply the British Isles’ 45,000,000 population with
four pounds of bread each per week for six months. The “C.N.R.” should
therefore, be regarded, especially since the advent of war, as an
essential to the life of the Empire.
Statistics go to show that in the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec and Nova
Scotia, where the principal Canadian pulp and paper mills are situated,
those of the greatest capacity--or 53% of the total capacity--are
situated exclusively on “C.N.R.” lines.
[Illustration: D. B. HANNA,
Third Vice-President, Canadian Northern Railway System.]
For the year that ended with July, 1916, the exports of paper amounted
to $21,680,000 of which 88% went to the United States, and the total
exports of pulpwood, pulp and paper for that year were valued at
$40,865,266. United States consumers gladly took 87% of this immense
output, but the United Kingdom received only 6%.
During 1917, 85,000,000 feet of British Columbia lumber, in 3,850 cars,
were handled by “C.N.R.” to the Prairie Provinces and Eastern Canada.
Balsam and Douglas fir, red cedar, spruce, hemlock, &c., predominated.
Silver spruce for aeroplanes came also, and as a result of the efforts
of the Imperial Munitions Board the output of the latter has been
recently doubled, the monthly production at present being approximately
1,200,000 feet.
Mr. W. H. Moore, Secretary of “C.N.R.”, in “Railway Nationalization and
the Average Citizen”, makes some clear and terse comparisons of deep
interest to the public spirited tax-payer anent the government’s aid
given in cash, land and guaranteed bonds to “C.N.R.”, and subsidiary
properties, and also to other Canadian railways, especially the
Canadian Pacific Railway. He sets down that the “C.N.R.” received from
federal, provincial and municipal coffers.--
Land Acres $ 6,555,708
Cash subsidies 38,874,148
Guarantees by governments 211,641,140
Federal loans 25,858,166
In rebuttal, the Government Bureau of Railway Statistics tabulates--
To “C.P.R.”, land Acres $ 28,023,185
Cash aid to “C.P.R.” 108,920,375
Loans from Dominion Government (paid back) 40,000,000
The Dominion Government’s Board of Arbitrators--Sir William Meredith,
Chief Justice Harris and Wallace Nesbitt, K.C.,--which submitted a
report as to the value of 600,000 shares of Canadian Northern Railway
common stock, consumed 50 days from March to the middle of May in
hearing the testimony of legal counsel and valuation experts, the
proceedings totalling over 1,500,000 words of evidence and costing
about $100,000.
[Illustration: F. H. PHIPPEN,
General Counsel, Canadian Northern Railway System.]
The Board’s award of $10,800,000 for the railway stock valuated,
exceeded by $800,000 the limit for same made by Act of Parliament,
which was $10,000,000.
Each group of participating principals paid its own costs, but the
Government bore the cost of taking the evidence.
The Dominion Government is perfecting a plan whereby the “C.N.R.” will
be operated as a corporation under a board of directors to be appointed
by the Government. Time will tell if this method reaches fruition.
The total liabilities being taken over by the Government in connection
with the “C.N.R.” are $438,264,377.67 and the assets sum up to
$528,437,885.74.
Speaking for himself and also voicing the views of Sir Donald Mann
and Third Vice-President D. B. Hanna, Sir William Mackenzie contended
that the “C.N.R.” was destined to be an essential factor in the
expansion of this country and that in the opinion of the transportation
experts who had examined the situation, their properties would be
particularly useful in the reconstruction days on which this land
must soon enter. He said his associates had devoted the best of their
years in developing the system to the present state of efficiency and
confidently relied on the future to justify their work and estimates of
values.
❦ ❦ ❦
As anticipated, since this resume was set in type, the
Government of the Dominion of Canada has assumed control of the
Canadian Northern Railway and operation of the system will at
once be undertaken by a board of eight representative gentlemen
with a practical and experienced railroader, Mr. D. B. Hanna,
as President, who will have associated with him
Graham A. Bell, Major, Deputy Minister of Railways
A. J. Mitchell, Ottawa
E. R. Wood, Toronto, Capitalist
Robert Hobson, Hamilton, Ironmaster
Frank P. Jones, Montreal, Manager Canada Cement Company
A. T. Riley, Winnipeg, Financier
C. M. Hamilton, Weyburn, Sask., Agriculturist
A TENDERFOOT IN TEMISKAMING
And the silent places beyond awaiting the iron horse
[Illustration: River Drivers on the Montreal River, Temiskaming,
Northern Ontario.]
Marketing the jubilant flag pole and Christmas tree is a comparatively
unhackneyed commercial twist not overdone and if discontented dwellers
in old Ontario, seigneurial Quebec or the world at large, like that
prospect or court a change from brick and asphalt to the silent places,
opportunity beckons to them from amidst the serried ranks of raw
material swarming over the hilly, rock-ribbed areas of Temagami, the
dales of Temiskaming and Porcupine’s budding principality of golden
promise.
As the newcomer’s eyes view the sea of tapering masts--shorn of drapery
in winter--and the springtimes’ green undergrowth crowning summits and
slopes, which in that corner of the Canadian hinterland undoubtedly
conceal unconjectured lodes of mineral wealth, his brain tabulates new
and fascinating impressions respecting this vast heritage and pregnant
land of the future.
With the theodolite adjusted for action beside the site of a gateway
to the proposed Georgian Bay Ship Canal, and shaping a course
North-starward from historic environs once traversed by intrepid
Frenchmen, the Ontario Government’s Railway Commission began in 1902
the construction of a colonization line from the City of North Bay,
(lying 226 miles above Toronto), to the region known as the “Clay
Belt” of Northern Ontario. With the discovery of silver on the “LaRose”
property in 1903, the output of which during the subsequent thirteen
years amounted to $135,809,222 in silver value from the camp, together
with $4,000,000 from arsenic, cobalt and nickel, the building of the
Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway was promptly extended until
it reached 253 miles into the interior, making easily accessible a
restful, inspiring panorama of diversified lake and landscape. Here it
is that Uncle Sam’s sweltering Southerners and their Northern cousins
migrate with the birds in ever increasing numbers to fish the virgin
streams, to sense exhaling aromatic fragrance and be soothed by the
solitude and majesty of the wilderness which appeals more and more to
each contemplative one who would elude the madding crowd as he jogs
adown the irregular pathway of life.
If the waters of silent Lake Nipissing could speak as they flow along,
what whisperings from wigwam, of tribal feuds and exploring missionary
priests would they not bequeath to posterity. But now, into this region
of log cabin, birch bark and bittern those great civilizers, the twin
ribbons of steel, have intruded; sleeping cars mosaic tiled and ornate,
traveling via the Grand Trunk Railway from Toronto, Canadian Pacific
Railway from Montreal and “U.S.A.” at Buffalo, are delivered daily to
the Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway and circumventing space, lay
bare to their prying, adventurous occupants, many of the secrets of
nature in the north.
[Illustration: ANDREW C. KELLOGG,
A “Great Western” Graduate. Dean of G.T.R. Dining Car Conductors.
Favorably known to patrons of the “Cobalt Special.”]
As you bowl along past thicket, lake and narrow ledge to the regular
accompaniment of that peculiar circus wagon “cluck, cluck”, emitted
in winter by the twelve wheelers, you unconsciously wonder if it were
mink, otter, lynx or fox whose softly falling pads made the trail
which bisects the otherwise unruffled white mantle covering the frozen
surface yonder. Meanwhile, the telltale tracks of the early morning
prowlers vanish abruptly where the waters frozen boundary gives way to
battalions of balsam, spruce and jack pine silently guarding the ascent
to rising ground. The view begets reflection: when casually discussing
the autumn hunt with a deer slayer who annually roams that region,
nimrod complacently informed me that he had left the train at mileage
“22” from North Bay, and before the locomotive whistled on a nearby
hill his first buck was bagged. At this juncture an Indian guide from
out the forest setting surrounding Lady Evelyn Lake came aboard at
Temagami’s commodious, artistically conceived depot of split hardheads,
and grinning broadly, substantiated the boaster’s declaration with such
terseness and force that a group of globe trotting mine prospectors
and sportsmen grew interested. Rifles, fish, fur and game laws
started every mother’s son of them talking, and the jolly wiseacres
continued their conversazione crossing Net Lake, past Rib Lake and
its woodie approaches, and on to where Jack Frost had transferred Bay
Lake, Wind Lake, Moose Lake and Red Pine Lakes, into cubes of crystal
transparence. They did not desist until permitted a glimpse through
car window of the Montreal River’s splashing, rapids tossed waters at
Latchford and the developing timber possibilities at this ford, which
are often duplicated along the 360 miles of this stream’s course.
These gentlemen were a cosmopolitan assemblage recruited from several
and diverse regions, but all were heading towards Lake Temagami,
Cobalt, Lorrain and Porcupine City’s newer, veiled enticements. Gnarled
and seasoned, a veteran campaigner on “many a foreign strand” sat
silently observant beside a sturdy novice, self-possessed and hopeful,
encased in flannel shirt, regulation shooting boots laced high and a
cow boy hat, who had yet to know hunger and the thrill of a “strike”.
That composite character from the cities, merchant-miner-speculator
evolved from the silver excitement, was there with his pigeon blood
cravat pin and nonchalant demeanor, exchanging deductions with a
facing stranger. Some one drew cork and with a mild libation all round
the smoker, tongue cords loosed and a Kentuckian garbed in Mackinaw
cloth knee breeches, heavy black stockings and Jaeger cap, narrated
pleasantly tales of the diggings in Australia, California, Cripple
Creek. A man who had been in Johannesburg talked knowingly of John
Hays Hammond and the conductor tarried a moment on his rounds. Now and
then, from out the babel you pieced together, “It sold this morning
for--”, “Commercial arsenic”, “Rock drills”, “For stealing whiskey I
smashed him on the--”, “Three and one half a share, five dollars par”,
and much more in the vernacular. They were encumbered with the latest,
likewise the most ancient caper in portmanteaux: they carried fire
arms, hatchets, and snow shoes, coats of fewer colors than Joseph’s,
but of patterns innumerable, and pack sacks stuffed like the bundles
Tony shoulders when hurrying to the base of grim Vesuvius. Withal, they
were a merry and optimistic company off to re-discover Champlain’s own
territory, to learn that cobalt is a pinkish chemical by-product found
beside silver, that single carload shipments of silver concentrates
mined here have netted $142,231.00, that the camp’s dividends from
silver and gold for 14 years realized $81,320,625, that rolling stock
of railways all over America help to brighten “T. & N.O.” rails,
that the town of Cobalt is outlandishly picturesque and unique with
cartwheel, Bostonlike thoroughfares where Madame promenades in the
velvet so recently au fait on Pall Mall and Broadway, while an Indian
girl in moccasins stares across the divide through the window of
the Golden Moon in the hope of discerning her lethargic beau. Vein
sampling engineers, grubstakers, rock-worms, mine captains, prospectors
and agents in coats of “astrachan goose”, fur lined or skin covered
shooting jackets and everything else but tarpaulins, strut about and
add to their kit, each man jack of them probably thinking he has “a
nose for ore” and inside information. The oriental ear pendant also
abounds, gracing the lobes of sundry vivacious French lassies at the
cinematograph: dog trains await, Jacques the habitant, in capot, sash
and pipe in mouth “Bon jeurs” along the even tenor of his way, while
Poles, Finns and Cockney ’arry do not deliberately jostle you off the
lumpy little board walk to the nearby excavation. Stalwart, brass
buttoned Ontario and Dominion police are everywhere. Cobalt’s roots
spread far below the surface. Underground detonations indicate that
compressed air drills day and night slowly blast a mammoth sewerway for
this hustling town. Not every one knows that beneath the “T. & N.O.R.”
highway and handsome modern station building the Right of Way Mining
Company tunnels for ore. A few hundred yards beyond and under the
bottom of frozen Cobalt Lake, over which the dutiful citizen crosses on
Sabbath and holyday to Father Forget’s cleanly, white painted church,
the Cobalt Lake Mining Company is extending drives, crosscuts and leads
seeking material that produces mineral which pleases magnates and sets
the stock market operators by the ears. $1,085,000 was paid to the
Government for this right. Thus does the south lag behind the north.
[Illustration: A Slump in Cobalt Lake. Former well known waterway now
no more.]
From Lorrain’s remote locality comes to Cobalt mines the compressed air
and electric current generated with unique machinery from the waters
impetuousity at Ragged Chutes on the Montreal River, at Hound Chute
also, and at the Matabitchouan River, and not afar off the cottage
in which it is said Doctor Drummond’s sympathetic spirit forsook its
mortal tabernacle, keeps solitary vigil on a slope overlooking Kerr
Lake. His inimitable habitant patois verse survives however, and is
kept green in memory when interpreted by the nimble tongues of M. Giles
or an Olive Pouze. Occasionally grazing the brink of a declivity when
touring the camp, one meets wheeling or gliding past on sled behind
good horses, miner’s wife from Montana or a courier in shoe packs and
cold weather rig astride a sturdy, sure-footed pony. Jogging along
after him the next is a native on a mustang. Similarly mounted a
rangy, vigorous individual clad in seamy corduroys, jacket, ear flaps
and the inevitable “larrigans” lopes by. This personage proves to
be unintentionally traveling incog, as he is a big mine manager, an
English expert doting on tetrahedrite crystals, heading to town for a
constitutional and the morning mail.
As recently as midnight of August 19th, 1912, an undignified and
profane pilgrimage to the shrine of the goddess of fortune occurred
in Temiskaming. At the stroke of twelve a ziz-zagging procession of
flickering lights born by all manner of men, stretching from Cobalt
three miles to the famous, now naked Gillies Timber Limit, broke
into motion at the double quick. Ahead of them were twelve square
miles--4,000 acres--or twenty acres of undiagnosed area of rock each
for the lucky two hundred eager, excited prospectors and adventurers
who might stake, find ore and register for $10 at Haileybury first, and
thus perchance, stumble on a king’s ransom. Ordinarily, the journey
on steam coach costs Ten Cents. This night one bold spirit chartered
a special train for $50.00 hoping to outstrip the throng afoot and
horseback, in autos and on bicycles, armed as they were with a Five
Dollar mining license and panting for place. For an hour or two the
nervous strain was intense and the schemes and ruses resorted to for
advantage were numerous and crafty. Sweating relay horses clattered at
top speed all night between the new diggings and the district seat,
positions held in person or proxy in the line-up waiting for dawn
reminded one of the nocturnal vigil and struggle for tickets to behold
the late Sir Henry Irving, while rumor and conjecture were rife. One
energetic but luckless individual, with boundary stakes in earth, had
them uprooted and tossed aside by a speculator’s hireling the moment he
headed to the registry office; another collapsed from exhaustion and
laid prone in the bush as the strong trod over his body and aspirations
and still a third poor devil lost a pronounced advantage by falling,
horse and rider, into a quagmire at the roadside, and all because there
lies side by side beneath the earth’s surface silver sidewalks and
blighted hopes.
[Illustration: JACOB LEWIS ENGLEHART,
Chairman, Temiskaming & Northern Ontario Railway Commission]
Do not conclude that the term “rough diamonds” would fitly describe
the mining body of to-day nor opine that they always talk gold at
$20 the ounce, assay furnaces, vanners and recording tachometers.
Their personnel includes a mighty spry collection of thoroughbreds of
advanced education from everywhere. They are men fond of horse-flesh
and saddle; men who aim straight at billiard ball or bob cat and a
percentage can coax sweet strains from piano or at odd moments resort
to the not violent and refining pleasure of gardening. I have seldom
seen a gaudier conglomeration of old-fashioned bloom than the flowers
before the bungalow of the Temiskaming Mine. In their offices and
apartments several enjoy club comforts and trophies and articles of
_virtu_ adorn the walls of highly polished logs. They can “diagnose the
field” for a close corporation and by theory and experience prophecy
what may be found under the crust away east to Des Joachins (des swish
aw) Falls, Lake St. John and Chibougamou. The gentleman who cheerfully
volunteered, flashlight in hand, to pilot the writer to where drillers
pierced rock at mine bottom, wore riding breeches, jacket and English
spring leggings of the most approved design and a stunning waistcoat
encircled his athletic proportions. He proved to be a raconteur with
reminisences of “Ole Lunnon” and the Riviera, but swore fealty to
Ireland’s joyous effervescence.
The legacy of this untrodden expanse is unlimited productiveness of
soil, waterways and forest. The solitary explorer with pack horse and
canoe spyed out a winding trail which the railways’ impedimenta of
progress has speedily straightened and made easy for the quasi pioneer.
The rolling ground and gentle slopes in the vicinity of Haileybury are
pleasant to see. Here the clay belt and husbandman replaces rock and
miner and the view from this town and farmer’s mecca--which boasts
the unique feature of a floating market place--out and over Lake
Temiskaming and across to where the mists conceal a quaint French
settlement, Villa Marie, is indeed charming. On learning that the
mission bells pealed and a convent dwelt within the borders of Quebec
just over that moonlit expanse of inland sea, I confess my conception
of interprovincial geography seemed out of alignment. Englehart, a
divisional point, bears the name of the Railway Commission’s astute,
public spirited Chairman, Jacob L. Englehart, formerly of Cleveland,
Ohio, who made his Canadian debut in the Petrolia oil belt, and some
forty years ago supported Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt when he was
married in the Tecumseh Hotel, London, Canada, to the beautiful Mrs.
Crawford of Baton Rouge, La. Jacob Englehart inaugurated the system
of greenhouses which flourish in those leagues of loam and clay but
the plants which predominate in that “neck of the woods”, however, are
those that grow into thousands of cords of coveted pulpwood, cut in
certain districts by private owners and on reserves with Government
sanction. As this commodity underlies in a vital way the immense paper
and publishing interests of America and Europe the supply, method of
treatment, market and duty tax has become a burning topic in factory
and forum both sides of the international boundary.
[Illustration: Over the Trail where the Railways are not]
Those wind tossed forest monarchs and old pines on the hill tops
that once beheld naught save the Redskin stalking an hundred animate
creatures of the wild, will if spared, witness a mighty trek northward.
The caravan of the white man of every clime and craft shall push
past haunts of black bear, moose and trapper, portaging enroute near
Cochrane beside Frederick House River. At this spot an incident at
Barbers Bay in the semi-savage days of the old trading posts of the
north country, has become a fearsome tradition among the indians of
the Abitibi. Many years ago when the Hudson Bay Company were extending
trading posts southward from Moose Factory, Frederick Barber with
Indians and voyageurs established a store beside a bay perpetuating
his name, at Frederick House Lake. One Christmas eve Macdougall, a
halfbreed, and two companions reached the post to trade their autumn
catch. Together with gifts Barber unfortunately dispensed rum. When
refused more liquor the trappers murdered all hands and seized the
fort. Fearing discovery and punishment of their crime, the drunken
half-breeds killed every Indian who came to the post with furs. Growing
anxious, several squaws who had not accompanied their braves on the
midwinter journey, snow-shoed to Barbers Bay and were imprisoned by
Macdougall. One woman escaped and organized an avenging party which did
not arrive in time to prevent the massacre of the remaining squaws
nor the flight of the halfbreed scoundrels. Then began a long chase
down the Black and Abitibi Rivers. Macdougall who was tobagganing
loot from the fort, was nearly overtaken in camp. He saw the trackers
coming and started across Lake Abitibi, disappearing during a brief
snow storm and was never seen after. The Indians gave evil spirits the
credit when he vanished and they suppose the half-breed’s ghost still
lingers over the lakes. It is across these trackless fastnesses, under
whispering Northern Lights, that the newest national highway, the
National Trans-continental & Grand Trunk Pacific Systems, dreamt of by
the patriot the Right Honorable Sir Wilfrid Laurier, gradually assumed
reality and now hasten communication westward with tidings from the
east.
Yea, the crusade will not cease until little old Ontario is linked
with the Aurora Borealis and the venturesome commoner at Frisco, New
Orleans and Toronto may side step the soaring bovine market, and after
an all-rail journey, harpoon his own walrus meat in James and Hudson’s
Bays.
❦ ❦ ❦
MONSIEUR WILLIAM P. DUPEROW
General Passenger Agent, Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Government
Railways
Text of an address presented to him at Toronto on the occasion of his
transfer May, 1910, to “Grand Trunk Pacific” service at Vancouver, B.C.
[Illustration: WILLIAM P. DUPEROW,
General Passenger Agent, Grand Trunk Pacific and Canadian Government
Railways, Winnipeg, Man.]
Mr. Gladstone declared “A book that will move many people of different
temperaments, and different degrees of intelligence, must have
power.” So it is with the individual: and because your friends in the
complacent East think you undoubtedly possess the magnetic current and
a warm heart, we are loth to separate from so much animated sunshine.
Colleagues, small and great, recount your generosity and regret
departure, while those distressed mortals who knew your kindly
assistance pour full the measure of credit.
If the public, and this galaxy of happy-go-lucky railroaders who
foregather have imperfectly recited how they will miss you at quilting
bees, it is not because they are hostile, but they lack Chantecler’s
brazen crow.
As a scout of broad gauge calibre, tracking business to its lair,
reconnoitering Indian bands or negotiating with sinner, saint and
suffragette, you have been all things to all men, and along the
tortuous trail they do say your sang froid, ingratiating manner and
elegance of diction ranked not as common garden varieties.
The King’s currency, bestowed in embarrassing quantities, is apt to
jolt one’s system into repudiating labor’s noble avocations; hence
the modest proportions of this accompanying bag of francs, which your
confreres--elderly, youthful, handsome--unhesitatingly tender you with
earnest protests of regard.
You are now at the Hemisphere’s portal, where you can, without
obstruction, behold the Fates unfolding your future; where old Sol,
with blushing countenance, sinks in the “Pacific” without his bathing
suit, and all supplicate you not to trip o’er the guy ropes when gazing
at comets with the astronomers.
We trust the doors to preferment, now open, will disclose to you and
yours the uneven highway of life growing smoother and wider, and may
the blessing of good health crown all.
The Committee:--R. S. Lewis, L.V.R.; A. J. Taylor, C. M. & St.P.R.; J.
J. Rose, C.P.R.; J. A. Richardson, Wabash Railroad; B. H. Bennett, C. &
N.W.R.; C. E. Horning, G.T.R.
[Illustration:
W. J. MOFFATT JOHN J. ROSE
_Passport Photograph Collection loaned by_
W. J. MOFFATT City Passenger Agent, G.T.R. Toronto
JOHN J. ROSE General Agent, Union Pacific Railway Toronto
Read from left to right--
W. ADAMSON T.F.A., N.P.R. Toronto, Ont.
S. A. BAKER G.A., C.G.W.R. Toronto, Ont.
B. H. BENNETT G.A., C. & N.W.R. Toronto, Ont.
F. BOWMAN C.F.A., C.P.R. Hamilton, Ont.
J. J. BRIGNALL T.P.A., Robert Reford Co. Toronto, Ont.
J. H. CALLAHAN Passenger Conductor, G.T.R. Goderich, Ont.
F. R. CALDWELL Manager, Cluett, Peabody Co. Toronto, Ont.
S. CROSSLEY Dining Car Conductor, G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
W. CORBETT T.P.A., C.P.R. Toronto, Ont.
E. J. DOWNEY Inspector, C. C. S. Bureau Toronto, Ont.
G. EASSON T.F.A., C.N.R. Toronto, Ont.
T. EVANS G.A., M.C.R. London, Ont.
F. C. FOY C.P.A., N.Y.C. & H.R.R. Toronto, Ont.
J. GRAY (late) Agent, G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
W. A. GRAY C.F.A., D.L. & W.R. Toronto, Ont.
W. GRUNDY Depot, T.A., G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
M. M. HAGARTY Advertising Department, C.P.R. Toronto, Ont.
J. C. HEATON Manager, Time Table Distribution Co. Toronto, Ont.
L. HOWE Traffic Department, Board of Trade Toronto, Ont.
D. M. JOHNSON Agent, G.T.R. Preston, Ont.
R. J. KEARNS New York Life Toronto, Ont.
J. W. MCGUIRE T.F.A., C.P.R. Hamilton, Ont.
S. J. MURPHY T.P.A., Canada S.S. Lines Toronto, Ont.
F. A. NANCEKIVELL Traffic Manager, Ford Motor Co. Ford, Ont.
A. E. PERNFUSS C.P. & T.A., G.T.R. Kitchener, Ont.
T. SYMINGTON Superintendent, Shedden Co. Toronto, Ont.
H. E. WATKINS G.E.C.A., G.N.R. Toronto, Ont.
G. C. WILSON T.F.A., Soo Line Buffalo, N.Y.
D. H. WAY Agent, T. & N.O.R. Cobalt, Ont.
H. E. UTTLEY Assistant Traffic Manager, Imperial
Oil Co. Toronto, Ont.
]
[Illustration:
_Passport Photograph Collection loaned by Messrs W. J. Moffatt and J.
J. Rose._
Read from left to right--
A. M. ADAMS Agent, G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
W. J. BURR S.P.A., G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
F. R. CLARKE S.F.A., G.T.R., Import Department Toronto, Ont.
J. M. COPELAND T.F. & P.A., C. & N.W.R. Toronto, Ont.
E. S. DAVIES Advertising Manager, C.N.R. Toronto, Ont.
H. T. DUFFY D.P.A., Soo Line Duluth, Minn.
W. FULTON Assistant Dist. Passenger Agent,
C.P.R. Toronto, Ont.
R. A. GILL T.P.A., G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
L. L. GRABILL General Baggage Agent, G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
T. J. HENNESSY T.F.A., L.V.R. Chicago, Ill.
F. V. HIGGINBOTTOM C.P. & T.A., C.N.R. Toronto, Ont.
C. E. HILLIKER D.F. & P.A., C.M. & St. P.R. Des Moines, Ia.
H. B. HOLLAWAY C.A., Adams Express Co. Toronto, Ont.
J. JOLLY S.F.A., C.P.R. Toronto, Ont.
S. R. JOYCE T.P.A., G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
C. M. KNOWLES C.T.A., N.Y.C. & H.R.R. Toronto, Ont.
R. A. LENNOX S.F.A., G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
A. J. LETCH Inspector, C.C.S. Bureau Toronto, Ont.
C. H. LOWN Traffic Mgr., Imperial Oil Co. Toronto, Ont.
D. A. MCCALL T.F.A., C.P.R. Toronto, Ont.
R. MCRAE Accountant, G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
R. G. MCCRAW Inspector, C.F. Association Toronto, Ont.
M. MACDONALD Assistant Inspector of Weighing,
G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
W. MCILROY C.C., D.P.A., C.P.R. Toronto, Ont.
T. MULLINS C.P.A., C.P.R. Toronto, Ont.
L. R. MULHOLLAND Kent, McLean Co. Winnipeg, Man.
G. G. O’FLAHERTY C. C., Sup’t Transportation, G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
W. H. POLLEY C.T.A., C.P.R. Toronto, Ont.
J. H. ROBERTS C.C., C.T.A., G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
W. J. RYAN Inspector of Trade-marks Toronto, Ont.
C. P. SARGENT T.P.A., White Star Line Toronto, Ont.
H. SCOTT T.C., C.O., G.T.R. Toronto, Ont.
F. H. TERRY T.A., G.N.R. Toronto, Ont.
G. M. THOMAS T.A., Canadian Government Railways Toronto, Ont.
E. F. WALKER Manager, Old Country Tours Toronto, Ont.
J. A. YORICK C.F. & P.A., C.B. & Q.R. Toronto, Ont.
]
THOSE UNDIGNIFIED BOX CARS
Some methods of the men who control their movements
When Mademoiselle Susanna Vere de Vere, haughty and capricious,
talcumed and beflounced, rides east at 10:00 a.m., ensconsced in green
plushed parlor car comfort, think you she recognizes as she rolls
along, the significance of the irregular hedge that flanks for miles
her chosen pathway? Can she see in that jagged sky line of uneven box
car roofs, so unlike the matched uniformity of the coral beads in her
necklace--the source of the revenue which purchased the ornament?
Probably not. Does Oliver Opulence across the isle, with fattening
jowls and the latest periodical, attribute his golfing privileges and
bank balance to the agency of the lowly freight car? No, not in the
fullest measure.
The routine duties of John Jones Limited in to-day’s strenuous
commercial struggle are based entirely on what freight service has
done or will accomplish for them, and during conferences with their
purchasing and traffic assistants, concrete equipment needs are dealt
with daily but the vital usefulness of each empty car as a retainer
and carrier are thought of only in an abstract way, yet they are as
essential as the “G.T.R.” or three daily meals. Not until such time
as the advent of an industrial calamity that will destroy them all,
leaving coal man, merchant and bacon baron stranded high and dry,
will shippers unanimously appreciate their individual worth, and not
until then will cease the desire of corporate interests to haul their
valuable loads along this or that favored highway of steel. Not a
pulley in manufacture could turn without their direct aid, meagre would
be the housewives’ meals and pelts again be their children’s portion if
the wheels refused to whirr: then indeed, would Mademoiselle Susanna
Vere de Vere understand the sudden death of Pullman palaces from
commercial paralysis.
A tortuous string of seventy freight cars in motion is not what you
would designate as a “harmonious whole” in appearance. They remind you
of a herd of elephants with baggy pants traveling trunk to tail, nor
do these incongruous, ill-at-ease assortments of traffic _proletariat_
pick their company. The tall and the short, the lame, the halt and
the blind they have always with them, and if a trig, shiny aristocrat
once, costing approximately $1,200 to $1,500, (but to-day twice as
much) that should be on his owner’s tracks, strays into line with this
perambulating Coxey’s Army he soon gets the spots knocked off him,
like a “rookie” enlisted with the regulars. They all receive awful
treatment, they are side tracked, snubbed and roughly handled and
though doctored, patched, likewise overburdened, they return more good
for evil by feeding mice and men and machinery than any other medium.
The funniest feature about these democratic go-betweens is that a loose
jointed, squatty old party, rocking from side to side with the load in
his protruding stomach and hardly able to keep step with the tribe, may
have his “innards” stuffed with silks and satins to bedeck some slavish
goddess of fashion who never appreciates what ship brought the feathers
and finery to port--and such is human nature.
However, the officials of every railroad company from the president,
traffic manager and “G.F.A.”, down the ladder to the journal oilers,
make recompense, court the freight cars and strive mightily for the
privilege of transporting their variegated contents and these are
the men who make them make millions. It is a game with far reaching
ramifications, a contest of competitors where brains and dispatch,
service, sentiment and cold figures diversify the play. Some times it
is as uncertain and exciting as draw poker with a brazen bluff cropping
up, but the line that can deliver the goods usually scores and gathers
in the ducats. The nets are out every hour of the twenty-four and they
are out at every important geographical centre on the continent, making
the sport in variety and complexion, more devoid of monotony than most
mundane pursuits.
Traffic men seek every commodity from a carload of lemonade straws to
a shipment of zinc dust from Japan for the Porcupine Mines, they talk
on every topic from tunnel clearances to the effect of the Budget,
and have interviewed specimens of the _genus homo_ as yet uncharted
by the phrenologists. They study tact and diplomacy, but few have
equalled the art of a Manitoba farmer whom it has been said, kept
himself in coal for the winter by making faces at the passing “C.P.R.”
firemen and engineers. Customers’ wishes, siding accommodation,
enclosures, cartage, part lots, classification, temperature, icing and
a thousand other conditions influence the movement. Among freight men
resourcefulness is an ever present adjunct in devising ways and means
to enlist adherence, placate the public, overcome delay and get around
an obstacle, recalling the expedient of a new shedman who was puzzled
as to how he could load in the “way” car a piece of crated machinery
too large for the door. He resorted to the alternative of removing the
casing, then easily transferring the unwieldly consignment inside and
after recrating, left the later problem to the man who would deliver
the goods.
“Work well begun is half done” saith the old saw, and the sage was
right. Starting on a few calls some pleasant morning with the outside
atmosphere exhilarating, if your initial visit happens on one of those
considerate, business gentlemen who can devote three to thirty minutes
of his time to your mission, and concluding the X.Y.Z. road might be
worse, promises a share of the traffic he has offering, you usually
approach the balance of the day’s duties with optimism. Experiences
multiply, but this feeling will probably carry you past the resentful
individual who holds a little stock of your Company and refuses
business because his security is temporarily dropping and it will
likewise help to cement acquaintance with the cautious man who would
like to but fears his couple of cars would be held up or lost should
Canada and the United States drift into war. Emboldened to continue the
good work, you harken to the complaints of one of your local agents,
both officious and secretive--who sends all his correspondence in under
separate cover and wonders why it don’t receive prompt attention when
the chief is away. If diminuitive this representative might become
a detriment and antagonize trade and his running mate is the agent
appointed by the operating department who proves a thorn in the flesh
of the Division Freight Agent by snarling, rat-terrier, dictatorial
demeanor until the shipping body in unanimous resolution declare “that
agent cannot leave quick enough to suit me”. Hot on the heels of the
visiting “D.F.A.”, who is supposed by many to always have an easy time,
bobs up an obsequious Hebrew at the period of great car shortage, with
a tale of woe about a man coming upon him just as he was loading a few
bales and shouting “Here, what are you doing with my car?” It developed
that the blusterer could not procure a car himself and bethought him to
pounce on the inoffensive rag man and purloin the coveted empty box car.
Fortified by an agreement with an anxious fresh fruit buyer, whereby he
is guaranteed forty refrigerator cars in return for their haul homeward
a few hundred miles, a call is made on a canned salmon distributor.
This is his acknowledgment to your opening salute. “Who told you I had
a car of salmon? I have no salmon and am not thinking of fish just
now--this isn’t Friday”. However, he proved amenable to reason and
issued a routing order.
A Grand Trunk Railway commercial agent related to me recently the
following outline of a verbal castigation administered to himself by
a mourner who must have been wearing indigo spectacles: “The idea of
giving business to ‘U.M.C.’ lines, we’ll have no truck or trade with
them. It is very indiscreet of you to dare to try; when you can compete
on an equal basis with the ‘C.P.R.’ then come in”. A well intentioned,
but premature overture earned one young general agent, new to his
territory, an undeserved rebuke in response to his civil enquiries:
“Well, I guess I hav’nt anything to say to you to-day”.
“I came in primarily to ask you to take luncheon with me, would you
join me at one o’clock?”
“No, I had my lunch at the proper hour” came the quick rejoinder.
Fortunately, the balance of the day was spent among “white men” of whom
there are 95 per cent. naturally inclined to transact business with
reason and decency, and their broad guage tendency seems to expand in
proportion to the magnitude and responsibility of their undertakings.
Another gentleman occasioned a good deal of laughter telling on himself
the story of taking his new chief on an introductory tour and being
embarrassed to learn that the first manufacturer they called on had
been dead for a year, and the second one, whom our friend knew to some
extent, asking him what his name was. It takes time to talk away or
live down these little incidents. Now and then a modest shipper with
about one car a year traveling in your direction, will unblushingly
suggest that he be loaned one of your annual passes for a little trip
down to New York, and I recall hearing of a wallet of transportation,
in the wrong hands, being lost in the railway yards near Rochester.
A number of the boys remember certain shippers who have had an
insatiable longing for some substantial token in reciprocity for
the traffic they could control, with a leaning towards a variety of
household furnishings and what-nots.
Patronage lists and their influence, if operative the wrong way,
are often the invention of the evil one and nullify the efforts
of a conscientious worker, otherwise in good standing with all
parties. One day Billy A----, General Freight Agent of the Canadian
Pacific Railway, called with a traveling representative on a certain
undesignated Canadian biscuit factory: out came the list with the
statement of the egregious young manager that “Your road is not using
our product on its diners.”
“Well,” promptly responded the truthful William, “It may be they are
not good enough”.
To elaborate further, a contractor erecting a building in a distant
city for a firm doing a large outfitting and general selling business,
routed twelve carloads of structural steel that he required, via the
“P.D.Q.R.” A wide awake, aggressive competitor coveted the haul of the
material and meant to have it. They promptly placed an $80,000 order
for hotel requisites with the outfitting firm and the latter, feeling
the pressure where it was intended to be felt, capitulated, assuaged
the contractor’s rising ire in a monetary but lesser degree, which, of
course, jilted the expectations of the “P.D.Q.R.”
A competing line with heavy purchasing appropriations has been known
to often frustrate genuine tonnage hopes by wiring that the name of a
shipper interested in a transaction, be removed from their patronage
lists unless he immediately saw the error of his ways and banished
consideration for a rival route or an M.P., in Victoria, B.C.,
we’ll say, may exert some influence he may have and busy himself by
telegraphing to forward specific public works supplies from the east
this way or that.
The staff of a district freight department may do considerable
preparatory work regarding, for instance, the movement of Australian
and New Zealand wool for Europe to find their plans upset by a
necessary war-time embargo affecting the transport of sheep skins and
crossbred wool through this port or that country.
The _bete noir_ of all railroad men is the shifty, unprincipled person
who deceives you with a misleading yarn and means to do something
else. A sample of this method of operating is outlined in the case
following, and concerns a carload of pianos going from an Ontario town
to Vancouver, B.C. Knowing his man, the consignee had telegraphed and
also written the shippers “Route our car now loading ‘N.C.O. & B.R.R.’:
under no circumstances deviate, pay no attention to other instructions,
this is final.” To dull the watchfulness of the interested railways,
Ananias declared the shipment would be held pending the arrival
from elsewhere of an enclosure of four pianos, meanwhile laboring
secretly to dispatch the complete shipment in the _interim_ contrary
to instructions. Temporarily balked in his fell purpose, to disarm
suspicion when interrogated, he actually ordered placed on his siding a
suitable car as a screen or camouflage, but pursued his original plan.
Not until repeatedly disciplined by the head office did this factory
manager desist and finally unload the forbidden car and obey orders.
Such an employee is a stumbling block to progressive business.
[Illustration: GEORGE TOOTLE]
Disappointments and neck and neck finishes are frequent, but variety is
the spice and fascinating magnet in railroading life and when shrewd
manufacturers repudiate narrowness by distributing the plums among a
number, “We fell on their necks with loud cries”, as handsome Jack
McGuire of the “C.P.R.” would say. These incidents are reminiscent
of a whiskey traveler who alleges he interviewed at Chicago the
superintendent of dining cars for a well known railroad. To quote
his own words “I paid proper attention to my personal appearance,
wore my Persian lamb-skin coat and anticipated an order”. Contrary
to expectations, however, the interview fell flat, no contract was
made and for years after, this crestfallen liquor man went out
of his way to divert his company’s shipments away from that line
via other channels, to the discomfiture of railway men in no way
responsible and notwithstanding the fact that the offending Dining Car
Superintendent stoutly contended it was not his road but another that
was unappreciative or stocked with rye. Speaking of the commissariat
department, George Tootle, the widely known dining car waiter on the
G.T.R.’s famous International Limited train, who thinks lunch counters
breed nervousness and indigestion, relates observing at Chicago the
following:--
A “hayseedy” looking man with field mice jumping out of his whiskers,
walked up to the lunch counter, seated himself on a stool, placed his
bright-colored carpet bag on the next stool and partook of a hearty
lunch. He passed the young man a $1 bill to take out the price of
his lunch, 50 cents, and was surprised when the youth said: “Not any
change, sir; your carpet bag occupied a seat, and we must collect for
that.”
The old man looked dazed for a second only, and then replied:
“All right, my boy”, and opening the bag, exclaimed, “Old carpet bag, I
have paid for your lunch and you shall have it.”
Quicker than a flash he threw in a mince pie, a plate of doughnuts and
several sandwiches, and departed amid the shouts of everyone in the
station.
One does not mind unintentionally stumbling on a hasty eruption in
temper of a decent chap who has just found five of his letters opened
by intent or on the part of a careless firm with a similar name, but
we would rather not be granted an audience with an apple exporter who
fathers four hundred barrels of fruit lying on the dock at Halifax
ready for a ship’s hold at the psychological moment when an inspector
condemns the lot because the centres are filled with undersized apples.
Tenacity of purpose and “Never say die”--which compel results--are
well exemplified by a happening that came to my notice some years ago,
involving two cars of shoes which were routed and definitely promised
to one trans-continental line. A rival corporation sent a city
solicitor after them without securing the footwear. The city freight
agent then essayed the task with like success. Undaunted the “D.F.A.”
was the next to try, but the shipper remaining firm stuck to his guns
when the fourth application was made in the person of the freight
traffic manager. The news spread and on Wednesday evening of that week,
when the gentleman who shewed such valor in defending his citadel of
shoe leather, to the accompaniment of the silent prayers of the party
of the first part, called at the president’s residence to visit his
daughter, the _denouement_ hung fire no longer. A word, under such
circumstances from the high official proved sufficient and the loser
then understood the quotation, “An idol but with feet of clay.”
An active traveling agent and irresistible business getter told me once
of a prominent London firm promising him a carload if he would remain
absent for six months, of another who suggested “Sell some goods for us
and we will favor your route,” while the third--an old ‘Q’ employee who
claimed the ‘Q’ was a large family--looking at his watch, said “Wait
twenty minutes.” Waiting twenty minutes is a nerve-racking ordeal that
also affects a gentleman’s prestige and a better method of procedure
would be to pre-arrange a meeting out of deference to the demands
on busy people’s time. It is awkward, after traveling some distance
for the purpose, to find on meeting the member of Messrs. Frett &
Growl Limited, that he will not meet your eye, will not shew signs of
animation, but with head down apparently saving his breath for a long
distance race, terminates the interview in melancholy with “No!”
There was a traffic official in an eastern metropolis some years ago,
representing a fine railroad but kept in the chair by other people’s
financial power, who was notorious for that stealthy, furtive habit of
fumbling with his papers without looking up, as though fearful his eyes
would convict him of his sins against men.
In the category of queer ones could be listed the eccentric who
accosted a friend of mine, now doing trustworthy executive work for the
government railways, with “What, you here again?”
“Just for three minutes, Sir, to place a routing order!” “You won’t
be here a minute, I’m too busy. I can’t be bothered by you and your
routing order; it isn’t worth the paper it is written on.” With people
like this unmuzzled and at large, can you wonder at the increase in
crime.
Another good acquaintance who was invited to an inner office to
unburden his mind and concisely recited the nature of his business
without molestation, was dumbfounded when finished to observe the
creature before him, without parley, touch a buzzer, summon a servitor
and request him to “Shew this gentleman out.” What would you rather do
than live with him? Some men’s physical boundaries and narrow-minded
outlook are so small and contemptible that if a mosquito laid out a
nine hole golf course on their torso he would be crowded for room.
A decade or so ago there dwelt in a town an hour’s ride east of
Toronto, an individual like a ruffled grouse who thought to slay his
interviewer summarily with “What you tell me goes in one ear and out
the other,” as he made a personally conducted tour to the door. Quickly
came the retort courteous: “I am not surprised Mr. ---- there is
nothing there to stop it.”
Now comes that robust type that would probably not wince when getting
it back in kind if his antagonist could fittingly measure up to his
standard in words and deeds. Picture the horned and forbidding monster,
swollen with pride of place, who greets the caller as though he were
going to swallow him whole and allow his gastric juice to do the rest:
“Well, your company has one H-- of a nerve to send you out here asking
me for business: you built a station, some big contracts were let,
but you were all looking out of the window when I wanted a slice,”
finishing with a _coup de grace_, “What have you got to say about
that?” His caller replied, “I guess our management took a leaf out of
your book; how much of your business have we handled in the past ten
years, tell me that? We learn to know who our friends are and when we
have some favors to place we don’t hurry with them on a platter to the
people who forget our route, but try to remember those who realize that
if we are lucky we run a train or two about once a week out west.” The
lengths to which some folks will go to make personal a neutral issue
is astonishing. A man who had been employed in Chicago by a firm that
could not prevail on the “C. & A.” to give them an order, came to
Canada to work for an Ontario industry and expressed his intention to
gratify that grudge by witholding shipments of the new employer from
the railway he had placed under the ban.
The book of boors will admit of one more entry, being a letter I
have permission to reproduce, which was addressed to one snob by a
conscientious and sensitive young agent who has since transferred his
energies to another channel.
Dear Sir--
The three sentences below--
“Who are you and what do you want?” “I would be ashamed
to be so unpatriotic as to work for Yankee employers.”
“I’ll give you fellows business only when I’m in a hole
and cannot do otherwise!”
form the subject of this communication and are exactly the text
and sense of part of two conversations which occurred between
you and myself--involuntarily on my part--and only because I
was acting on orders while in the capacity of an employee of a
“U.S.A.” railway seeking a share of the routing of the freight
traffic you purchased in the United States or shipped westward,
and which, unfortunately, you controlled.
No longer situated where behavior and language like yours has
opportunity to grievously test the patience of myself, (and
several others), permit me to allude to the impression you
create.
When people of your calibre, quite devoid of consideration and
_finesse_, receive a business proposition with a verbal attack
couched in the tone and vernacular of your moulding shop, they
are, no doubt, running true to form, but they take refuge
behind the assumption that there is no one to question their
attitude.
In doing so they indulge in a cowardly advantage over gentlemen
who, by the nature of their employment, from president down,
always have to remember the officials higher up; remember also,
that in giving free rein to their human resentment, they may
be rewarded with a letter of complaint, half true and half
garbled, sent in by some cad to an officer disloyal enough to
first believe the outsider.
Reflect on how disconcerted your son might feel were he to
experience the misfortune of meeting a sour tempered individual
like yourself when first coming in contact with the commercial
public. He could not do himself justice nor serve you well.
The proverb says “One cannot make a silken purse out of a sow’s
ear,” and although it is difficult to rebuild what the man in
the street characterizes as a “rough neck,” it is never too
late to mend.
The isolated class referred to are known by representatives
of all businesses and are tacitly ostracized when the army of
decent fellows is being discussed.
“_Please heed the handwriting on the wall_”
That man was “misfit” who should have been polishing apples for
a Greek--to quote Jack Rose, an original wit.
After bidding adieu to the friendly personage who has accepted a
mild cigar, but uncontented, megaphones to a couple of others at the
rear in this wise, “Here Jake and Eddie, get in on the cigars,” our
conversation in the “smoker” again reverted to pianos and things
harmonious and cheerful. Genial M. T. Case recounted how fire, while
in transit, ruined a carload of pianos when en route the west and the
firm’s western manager, a believer in long odds, filed a claim for
reimbursement, itemizing the instruments at $500 each. When the railway
company received the _billet doux_ they blinked and may have said
“For the love of Mike” or something less classical and affectionate.
However, as soon as the firms attention was drawn to the amount of the
claim the manager, with good judgment, clipped $200 off each piano and
a prompt settlement was arranged.
Only a few months ago an organized band of box car and freight shed
thieves stole nine pianos and four phonographs from one railway company
in a large city, and to date six had been recovered. Claims arising
from damage, delay, theft, loss and wrecks are traffic men’s enemies
that play the mischief and filter through all departments to the chief
legal authorities. Of late years the railway companies have been
stimulated to eternal vigilance in order to combat daring robbers with
confederate organization quite far reaching and involving from twenty
to forty people within the ranks of employees and outside. Such a gang
is said to have stolen from one company in four months goods valued at
$35,000, comprising candy, cameras, sugar, liquors, musical instruments
and clothing. The investigation departments have recovered from beneath
hay stacks not far from Toronto, Canada, for instance, forty suits of
underwear and a dozen pairs of ladies high suede boots. Imagine the
temerity of the men making off with twenty head of sheep from under the
eyes of yardmen and special officers. The public press not long ago
chronicled details of the loss of fifteen sacks of flour from one car
en route Buffalo to Belleville. Whiskey is an outstanding temptation
and many a headache that starts rolling fails to join the soda waiting
at the other end. Out of a thirty case consignment from further west,
making the one night journey from St. Thomas to Black Rock, there
checked fifteen cases missing, lock, stock and barrel--the wood only of
four cases remained and eleven cases were intact. Unmerited onus for
losses is now and then thought to rest with the railroads which enquiry
does not substantiate. A well known firm in the congested wholesale
zone of a neighboring city engaged a detective who pussy-footed about
the premises for a year without locating a leak. This human bloodhound
may have had a cold in his head and was a poor scenter as it was
developed later that the shortages were manipulated as a side line by
a vinegar mill shipper who got away with also $6,000 of the hardened
cider--mostly recovered--and had been supplying a small pickle factory
through the medium of a carter who drove up daily for kegs.
Railway companies very seldom pilfer, but the action of more than one
railroad on this continent in appropriating urgently needed steam
coal billed to others during the winters of 1917–18, will prepare the
reader’s viewpoint for a claim for reimbursement placed in the hands of
the Silverplate Road, covering fifty cars of slack coal, lost and being
vigorously traced, which that line had seized and hastily dumped into a
big washout cavity.
Whitewashing coal would seem to be a labor as unheard of as washing
the spots off the leopard, yet, says the Saturday Evening Post, that
apparently crazy scheme is carried out by some western railroads. The
coal is whitewashed, not for aesthetic reasons, but simply to prevent
theft in transit. Before a car of coal starts on its journey the top
layers are sprayed with limewater, which leaves a white coating on each
lump of black coal after the water evaporates. The removal of even a
small quantity from that whitewashed layer is immediately detected, so
that the exact junction or station at which the theft occurred can be
noticed.
Once upon a time when many boys were investigating the fallacy of the
supposed transformation of a black horse hair into a snake after nine
days sojourn in the rain barrel, a loaded oil tank car was glued to
the rails in Detroit yards, but urgently needed on the other side of
the international boundary. Giving a clear receipt, a connecting line
hooked on to it, but almost immediately finding the tank in a leaking
condition because the discharge pipe had been snapped in a rough shunt,
they shot it back to the original carriers. The latter were on guard
and refused it, the tank in the meantime losing 200 gallons of oil.
To aggravate matters, a third railway whose office was to deliver the
shipment, looked askance at the “cripple” and thus both exits were
closed. Despite the pleadings of the consignees for the oil, the middle
line holding the “white elephant” turned to them a deaf ear until a
settlement would be made. After much fencing and correspondence an
adjustment on a mileage basis was arrived at. The road accepting the
“bad order” tank was held liable for a proportion gauged by a thirty
mile haul, and the comparatively innocent delivering company, being ten
miles longer, drew a debit of $4,000.
The interpretation of a maze of tariff rates and a thousand lights
and shadows affecting their application, as well as classification,
deadlocks regarding analogous goods perplex and keep bright the wits
of railway people, that the responsibility may be placed where it
should rest. To elucidate this remark let me refer in passing, to a
partly demented and very undependable dealer in a commodity that was
barrelled--long since gone to his reward--who requested and obtained
a quotation on a specific shipment of twenty cars, each to contain a
stated number of barrels, which were to be of agreed size and weight.
He then had made a larger barrel, forwarded the product in them and, of
course, when weighed a heavy undercharge claim developed, the carriers
holding the short end.
Different from this was the experience of a car of eastbound California
oranges traveling via the gorges and canyons of a Rocky Mountain
railway. A broken axle precipitated trouble in the middle of the train
which threw the “cripple” out of alignment and in shorter time than is
consumed in relating it, the down-grade impetus and pressure wrenched
it free throwing the disabled car clear. It fell to the bottom of the
gorge, the automatic couplers linked the drawheads of the separated
halves of the train and no one was wiser until the following springtime
freshets uncovered the debris at the base of a cliff, clearing up a
mystery for the checkers and claim department.
Sparks from passing locomotives do widespread damage to crops and
fencing and a battalion of agents are continually engrossed with
personal injury matters and destruction of stock. A car of expensive
western steers was recently heading eastward to the seaboard when early
in the morning prairie grass in the racks of troughs igniting from
sparks started a blaze. Being under way, the crew did not detect the
trouble at once but, on learning the danger, they raced to the water
tank at Ingersoll. Before the water was reached a draw bar pulled out
and broke setting the emergency brakes hard, jolting the train to a
sudden stop. Fifteen head of the cattle were found roasted to death and
three jumped from the car and ran amuck crazed with blisters and the
intense heat. Railroading is not all profit. Some days you cannot lay
up a cent. The following true story is apropos:--
“How many cows have you now?” inquired the visitor.
“Eight,” replied Farmer Corntossel, discontentedly; “all comin’ home
reg’lar every night to make work for somebody.”
“I understand two of your neighbor’s cows got hit by railway trains
last week.”
“Yep. An’ he got cash fur ’em, too. I don’t see how that feller trains
his cattle not to shy at a locomotive.”--_Washington Star._
When the public magnifies the cash returns from ticket sales and
freight traffic it has not an accurate conception of the immense sums
paid out annually by the railway companies for the adjustment of
even small claims. Traffic Manager Adam Scott of the F. W. Woolworth
Company, with eighty-five stores in Canada, was instrumental in having
authorized during the past fiscal year $16,000 in vouchers issued to
write off small claims on less than carload shipments of glassware and
crockery. This firm controls nine hundred and ninety-eight stores in
America and the sums involved in this phase of profit and loss must be
immense.
On one occasion the Great Northern Railway wrote the Heinz Pickle
Company, Leamington, Ont., regarding the collection of an undercharge
amounting to $40.09, which arose from an error in prepaying the freight
charges on a carload shipped to Vancouver, B.C. The Pickle Company’s
Traffic Manager, at Pittsburg, Pa., working in accordance with the
Inter-state Commerce Act Rules, promptly acknowledged the liability in
an elaborate statement, with cheque, assuring the railway company that
the correct amount of the discrepancy was, on further investigation,
found to be $80.45. In other days we all knew some people who would
have gasped at such an evidence of gratuitous fair dealing, but to
quote from William Shakespeare, the listener would be fit for “treason,
stratagem and spoils” whose risibilities are not tickled with a recital
of the claim of a cautious old sexton, made on the Canadian Northern
Railway at Winnipeg for two funeral tollings at $2 each which he would
have received had the railway delivered the expected church bell in
time. And so the old world and the amusing people on it, with their
pleasantries and foibles, roll across the stage of every-day existence.
[Illustration]
LINES ADDRESSED TO FREDERICK P. NELSON
Traveling Agent, Grand Trunk Railway, on the occasion of his marriage,
Hamilton, Canada, May 27th, 1912
“We must encourage the young,” said a former acquaintance of your
father--a benevolent old benedict--who cheerfully swung into line with
the friends wishing to mark your approaching marriage and who would
honor you with more than the sentiments expressed herein.
The matrimonial contract of that railroading knight is nearing
completion; yours is about to be undertaken with ideals, hope and
resolve. Undoubtedly the trail will develop many joys and some kinks
in the path, but we are convinced that you can measure up to the best
traditions of the lords of creation. Those who have basked in the rays
of your genial personality prophecy you will prove docile “In bond” and
all of us will “Watch your smoke.”
You spring from sturdy stock, long identified with railway construction
in Canada, and since those other days in the loft of Hamilton’s smoke
smeared freight shed, down the avenue of occupations in your native
city, abroad in Western Ontario and throughout the business zone of
Toronto, few dare question your reputation for urbanity, commercial
sense and thoroughness. Where master and man wrest for silver fortunes
in Cobalt Camp, they say your methods and diplomatic behavior were “as
smooth as a kitten’s wrist” and a decided asset to the Grand Trunk
Railway.
As a reminder of your bachelor days and associations: as a token of
regard when nearing the threshold of a momentous event in your life,
accept from subscribing friends whose names are attached hereto, the
accompanying gift of dining room furniture--a contribution towards your
household gods.
To the estimable lady who is to become Mrs. Nelson, please convey our
profound respect; we presume her journey from Brockville to Hamilton
will be a personally conducted tour. You both have our earnest and best
wishes for a happy future.
For the Committees--J. A. YORICK, C.B. & Q.R.
J. M. COPELAND, C.M. & St. P.R.
A. S. MUNRO, G.T.R.
LYNN C. DOYLE, The Irish
[Illustration]
HAMILTON, A HOTHOUSE FOR TRANSPORTATION MEN
Her numerous railway and navigation sons abroad
[Illustration: E. ALEXANDER
Secretary, Can. Pac. Railway Montreal, Que.]
L. J. BURNS, D.F.A., Canada Steamship Lines, Toronto, Ont.
1. J. J. BYRNE, Ass’t. Pass. Traffic Mgr., Santa Fe Lines, Los
Angeles.
2. G. J. CHARLTON, Pass. Traffic Mgr., Chicago & Alton Road,
Chicago.
3. H. W. COWAN, Operating Mgr., Canada Steamship Lines, Montreal.
4. K. J. FITZPATRICK, T.P.A., L.V.R., Toronto, Ont.
D. E. GALLOWAY, Ass’t. to President, G.T.R., Montreal.
5. J. GORMAN, Supt. Dining and Sleeping Cars, G.T.P.R., Winnipeg.
W. HERMAN, Ex-General Passenger Agent, “D. & C.” Line, Cleveland.
6. A. HILTON, Pass. Traffic Mgr., Frisco Lines, St. Louis.
J. HORSBURGH, Ex-Gen. Passenger Agent, Southern Pacific Railway.
J. T. LEWIS, Superintendent, Tenn. Central Railway, Nashville, Tenn.
7. T. MARSHALL, Traffic Manager, Board of Trade, Toronto, Canada.
8. C. R. MORGAN, Ex-C.P. & T.A., G.T.R.--Fighting for us in France.
9. A. S. MUNRO, Commercial Agent, G.T.R., London, Ont.
10. G. W. NORMAN, Traveling Passenger Agent, G.T.R., Chicago.
11. H. PARRY, General Passenger Agent, N.Y.C. & H.R.R., Buffalo.
12. N. J. POWER, Ex-General Passenger Agent, G.T.R., now in
California.
ROBERT SOMERVILLE, President, Judson F. F. Co., Chicago.
13. A. A. TISDALE, Assistant to Vice-President, G.T.P.R.,
Winnipeg.
H. E. WATKINS, General Eastern Canadian Agent, Great Northern
Railway.
14. R. J. S. WEATHERSTON, Division Freight Agent, G.T.R.,
Stratford, Ont.
N. VAN WYCK, Purchasing Agent, Canada Steamship Lines, Montreal.
15. J. A. YORICK, Canadian Agent, C.B. & Q.R., Toronto, Canada.
A PILFERED POT-POURRI
Timid Traveler vs. Tantalizing Ticket Clerk at the Bureau of Information
[Illustration: The Timid Traveler.]
Ticket Clerk--Where do you wish to go, Sir?
Timid Traveler--Well, what stations have you?
T.C.--We have Portland, Oregon and Portland, Maine.
T.T.--Which is the cheapest?
T.C.--To Maine for $15 and tax, if you sit up nights.
T.T.--It hadn’t orter come so high, I paid my taxes!
Can you carry me to New York State, please?
T.C.--Delighted, if I could, but you’re too heavy.
T.T.--(Puzzled). I mean could you sell me through to the Bronx?
T.C.--The strange animals are all there--you might be caged.
T.T.--Well then, Iona Station?
T.C.--What station do you own?
T.T.--You seem stupid, I mean I might go to Iona Station.
T.C.--You have my permission, Ruben.
T.T.--I do want to go there in the worst way.
T.C.--Then don’t use this line, we’re the best way--P.D.Q. way.
T.T.--Oh indeed, what does “P.D.Q.” mean?
T.C.--I hate to tell you.
T.T.--But listen, my dear young man:
T.C.--Nay, Cæsar, I’m not your dear young man!
T.T.--May I leave this basket of potatoes in the Office?
T.C.--Read that warning:
ALL PARCELS, PACKAGES AND GRIPS LEFT AND NOT CHECKED, MUST BE
CHECKED OR THEY CANNOT BE LEFT IN THE DEPOT.
T.C.--What kind of nuggets are the spuds?
T.T.--Early Rose, my fine fellow.
T.C.--Some mistake, never knew Rose to rise early since Daylight
Saving came.
T.T.--When will the 2.00 o’clock train come?
T.C.--One sixty.
T.T.--Will she be long?
T.C.--Oh, about seven cars.
T.T.--Does she arrive soon?
T.C.--She’s about due, there comes the conductor’s dog.
T.T.--Where will she come in, you Smart Aleck?
T.C.--Right behind the engine to-day, I think.
T.T.--How long will she wait here?
T.C.--From two to two, to two two!
T.T.--(Musingly), he thinks he’s the whistle on the locomotive.
What part of the train do you consider most dangerous?
T.C.--Dining car, answered the dyspeptic.
T.T.--What became of the other clerk who was here?
T.C.--In the asylum--one day a woman got a ticket without asking
questions.
T.T.--Mercy Mister, this is terryble, give me a ticket to
Moffat’s Corners.
T.C.--Can’t give you one, but I will sell it.
T.T.--Why is my train arriving so late?
T.C.--It’s just like this: the train ahead is behind, and this
train was behind before besides.
T.T.--Ma’ conscience!
When they found the old gentleman towards sundown, he had wandered to
the yard limits and was seated in a free reclining chair car waiting
for a hair cut. On hearing the doctor’s diagnosis: “Reason undermined,”
he was assisted to an ambulance, as a hoot owl settled on the bridge at
midnight, and a yellow fog enveloped the sleeping city.
❦ ❦ ❦
A DESERVED REBUKE
Speaking of “Back talk” at a railwaymen’s dinner, President Howard
Elliott of the New Haven Lines, expressed sympathy for an employee
temporarily under unbearable conditions and explained that when
the conductor was punching tickets a man said to him, with a nasty
sneer--“You have a lot of wrecks on this road, don’t you?” “Oh no,”
said the conductor, “You’re the first I’ve seen for some time”.
PHILADELPHIA BULLETIN
❦ ❦ ❦
ONCE WAS ENOUGH
A sweet young thing who had not traveled much, was riding on a high
speed interurban trolley noted for its accidents.
“How deliciously dangerous”, she was thinking as the conductor
approached. “How often do you kill a person on this road?” she
enquired. The ticket collector smiled and as he pocketed her coupon he
said, “Just once, Miss”.
ELECTRIC SERVICE MAGAZINE
THE TRANSPORTATION CLUB OF TORONTO
Although the members of this Club carefully safeguard their Death
Benefit Fund and derive profit from periodical addresses delivered to
them by qualified speakers on topics of specific or general interest,
they have realized that all work with trains or traffic affairs and
no play, is an unwise plan of campaign. Until war time exigencies
discouraged the practice, the Transportation Club indulged in an Annual
June outing.
[Illustration: Some incidents--not posed for--photographed at Jackson’s
Point Picnic.]
THE TRAIL OF THE SERPENT
“Let go the balloon and come to earth you crimson-thatched,
wind-jamming bush ranger,” called Tommy Nelson, president of the
Brantford Green Socks, from the convention hall vestibule to discursive
Claudius O’Toole, manager of the Ottawas, and the centre of a group
following on the flight of steps above.
“Heraus mit him!” vamoose with that lingo you ivory-crested Fenian,
we’ll shoot your team in the air like puffed rice from a Quaker Oats
gun,” was the manager’s quick rejoinder, as he lighted a fragrant
panatela.
“You’ll think you are playing in a vat of molasses when our merry men
begin to stampede your bronchos,” continued Mr. Nelson, winking at Duff
Adams and Will Lahey to the accompaniment of covert snickers from the
near by delegates dispersing after the session.
AT THE BALL GAME
The members and guests in the circular group ardently participated.
They are:--E. CALLAGHAN, General Agent, B. & L.E.R., Toronto; W.
J. CONNELL, Traffic Manager, Linington, Connell Co., Toronto;
L. L. GRABILL, General Baggage Agent, G.T.R., Toronto; Late
JOHN GRAY, Agent, G.T.R., Toronto; F. G. GOULD, Traveling
Freight Agent, G.T.R., Toronto; W. J. HAMILTON, Canadian
Passenger Agent, L.V.R., Toronto; T. JACKSON, Traffic
Manager, Jackson Manufacturing Co., Clinton; F. JACKSON,
Merchant, Clinton; JOHN JOLLY, Contracting Freight Agent,
C.P.R., Toronto; R. MCRAE, Accountant, G.T.R., Toronto; P. G.
MOONEY, Assistant General Freight Agent, C.N.R., Toronto; T.
MULLINS, City Passenger Agent, C.P.R., Toronto; F. P. NELSON,
C.C., D.F.A., G.T.R., Hamilton, and JOHN RANSFORD, Passenger
Agent, G.T.R., Clinton.
SOME OF THE PLAYERS WERE:--H. C. BOURLIER, G.A.P.D., C.N.R.,
Toronto; H. A. CARSON, C.F.A., G.T.R., Montreal; A. CRAIG,
C.P.A., C.P.R., Hamilton; GEO. DONALDSON, C.F.A., G.T.R.,
Toronto (Overseas); T. HAGARTY, L.F.O., G.T.R., Toronto; R.
M. HAMILTON, Superintendent, Hendrie Co., Hamilton; W. M.
HOOD, D.F. & P.A., C.N.R., Sudbury; W. J. HOTRUM, C.C.L.A.,
G.T.R., Toronto; H. J. LECLAIR, T.P.A., C.N.R., Quebec; TOM
LOCKWOOD, T.A., Allan Line; C. MCHARG, M.C.P.A., T.H. &
B.R., Hamilton; A. J. MITCHELL, L.O., G.T.R., Toronto; J. A.
MORICE, Import Department, C.P.R., Toronto; H. PETERS, Fruit
Merchant, Toronto; I. G. REECE, C.P.A., C.N.R., Ottawa; H.
J. ROBERTS, C.C., D.T.A., C.P.R., Toronto; R. M. SEDGEWICK,
Traffic Manager, Standard Chemical Co.; S. S. STACKPOLE,
G.C.F.A., P.R.R.; J. THOMSON, Superintendent, Canadian
Transfer Co., Toronto; E. R. THORPE, City Freight Agent,
G.T.R., Toronto; C.L. WORTH, C.C., M. D., G.T.R., Toronto.
“Ho! Ho! merry men and molasses is it? We’ll feed them the syrup to
sweeten their tempers after the Redskins scalp their cow-licks and
curly-me-Q’s,” the Ottawas’ chief exclaimed.
“Your bunch of pretenders would grade about Tenth in the Western
Classification and that’s the tariff rating the railways give sand,
bricks and other heavy, commodities” answered the director of the Green
Sox.
“Believe me, President you have a raft of flotsom and jetsom as
variegated as a hedge of Sweet William; a flock of tortoises I call
them,” responded the ladylike O’Toole, appropriating the last word.
However, “Opinion is private property which the law cannot seize,” the
old saw says.
As with all other mortals of divers pursuits, these ball tossers can
stand just so much baiting and then they bristle like an old cock when
young chantecler invades his yard reaching for high C. With plenty
of such good natured badinage and the dissemination of unlimited
sunshine, the owners and managers of the clubs composing the Inter-lake
League finished the early spring meeting convened to arrange the games
schedule for the current season, making due allowance for national
holidays and discussing railway fares with ticket agents Jack Campbell,
Albert Craig and J. B. Doran. This league comprised the Brantford Green
Socks, Knotty Lee’s Hamilton Bengal Tigers, Saints of St. Thomas, home
town of Bob. Emslie, National League umpire, and Gladstone Graney with
Lajoie’s Cleveland “Naps”; also the Cockneys of London, where Pittsburg
Pirate George Gibson dwells neighborly beside the railway triumvirate
Messrs. Ernie Ruse, Harry MacCallum and Hubert Hays, with Ottawas of
Ottawa and Peterborough Blue Jays completing the roster. The rivalry
and fortunes of the bustling sextette, as will later be seen, ebbed
and flowed between Brantford, the hub of two thirds of the circuit,
presided over by president Silent Thomas Nelson, C.P.A., G.T.R.,
nick-named the “Sphinx” for his wisdom and ability to guard a secret
deal, as far east as Ottawa on the big river where Claudius O’Toole had
cajoled and berated his henchmen into winning the bunting the season
before.
When the present Mr. O’Toole was yet a squalling infant the suffering,
patient sponsors saw to it that his name was set down in the vestry
register as “Claudius” with the saint’s name Dominick added, but the
creepy nickname “Spider” automatically clung to “Claude” like the
monkey man to the neck of the famous Sinbad the sailor who figured in
Arabian Nights. The youth grew rangy, with long shifty legs, and his
arms, ornamented with grapplers, seemingly as numerous and resourceful
as the tentacles of a cuttle fish, were the wonder and pride of the
freshmen at St. Augustine’s Seminary who doted on his prowess and
perennial good nature.
At all times an awed respecter of Irish tradition, Spider O’Toole
reverenced St. Patrick’s memory in full measure, and like that
venerable sainted man, could not tolerate anything that wriggled: and
who could blame him. The word “cringe” was not in his encyclopaedia
and as he never “crawled” himself, he abhorred spiders and snakes as
the devil scowls on piety. With him they were as popular as a horse
thief in Utah. His dislike for cobras, constrictors, rattlers and all
that ilk that do the hesitation glide without legs, was no spasmodic,
abnormal antipathy, mark you, born of flirtations with the grape
when purple, for he had never been known to arrive at a condition
superinduced by an over-indulgence in the bottled and popular elements
of conviviality. Always a man of nerve and aggressiveness, he shunned
those toy cameras and fake electric pocket flashes, concealing jumping
adders as he would the wails of the family Banshee, while buggy whips
and garden hose lying about in the gloaming were sure to send shivers
gamboling up and down his spinal network. Naturalists tell us the
sagacious elephant, big as he is, will promptly side-step a lizard--and
why not?
One rainy evening after the teams of the Inter-lake League had rid
themselves of Charley-horse, glass arms and proud flesh, and were
schooled and whipped into tolerable fettle for the ordeal of endurance
and dexterity, with the opening day a short week off, Thomas Nelson,
President of the Green Sox, met Spider O’Toole with others of the clan
in the Algonquin Hotel rotunda. With them were Francis Nelson, Sporting
Editor of the Globe, Dick Kearns, Fitzgerald and Charlie Good, and near
by in the billiard room Harry Thorley and Billy Hamilton were making
some fancy shots with a party they were booking to Europe, via the
L.V.R. and White Star Line. Said Thomas quite carelessly, to Claudius,
as he shifted the position of an undiscernable portion of Piper
Heidseick from one cheek to the other, “We think we have better than
an even break with the Ottawas on dates for the season’s schedule Mr.
O’Toole: in other words, my Christian friend, I have the edge on you.”
Oh, have you Mr. Sphinx--well don’t strain your diaphragm gloating over
that paper advantage: I’ll dull your edge so badly that you will have
your spavined free lances at the horse shoers in a month, I will, so I
will and I’ll leave it to your friend Ira Thomas, Mitch. Thomas or St.
Thomas.
“I trow not, Spider. We have gathered in the net as fine a cluster of
brilliants as ever crossed the Giant’s Causeway since the days the
Gauls hung to the branches with their tails. I hope Connie Mack is
unaware of their speed.”
“Mr. McGillicudy is still a young man: too bad to have him choke to
death with laughter and he in his prime,” commented Claudius O’Toole.
“The Green Stockings are a lot of limber base ball professors, bright
as patent stove polish, and when your kindergarten is introduced to
their science.”
At this juncture, Will. Connell and Harry Watkins with the “Great
Northern”, who had just come in from the theatre after enjoying Dick
Sheridan’s “School for Scandal”, naively enquired if Mr. O’Toole’s
redskins would win their opening game with the Peterborough Bluejays a
week hence, adding “The birds are touted tough as hickory and hard nuts
to crack”.
“We’ll crack their kernels as sure as Hades is a man trap,” said the
Spider, “or make them work so hard they’ll ferment and blow their heads
off.”
“As a precaution, have your willie pink collegians remove their hobble
skirts,” chimed in Tom the Sphinx, with a significant smile.
“If the Bluejays loom such a menace to our aspirations, gentlemen,”
retorted O’Toole, with a twinkle in his eye, “my humorous contemporary
of the Brantford Green Legs had better buy nine shrouds now and fix a
date for the wake.”
“Too much levity Spider, too much levity: ‘a sooty chimney spoileth
many a beefsteak’. Do be advised” continued Nelson, childlike
and bland. “The Green Sox team has one batter who is a potential
phenomenon. On a clear day he can propel the sphere across the lagoon
to the Cape Verde Islands and make it sizzle so that the natives think
it is a Jack Johnson or a sputtering meteor from Mars.”
This was intended to spike the mortar of the rangy collegian but it
didn’t.
“See here, Mr. President, be careful that no one hangs crepe on your
nose or the public will get on to the fact that your brain is dead”,
was the response.
“I’ll bet Senator, the Irishmen will stitch up your savages so neatly
they will be about as effective as a camera fiend in a London fog.”
“If that strain is put on us,” cried O’Toole, “I’ll ride a slippery log
over the Chaudiere Dam at Ottawa and you can be there to see from the
bridge north of the Chateau Laurier.” And he wished later there was
bark on that log.
Some one said “Would you indulge in a mild libation if properly
approached?” and a wag you all know said “We do not know you well
enough to refuse you, is the gentleman with the ‘still’ exclusive?”
“So exclusive, my boy,” was the reply, “that you have to be both a True
Blue and a Knight of Columbus to gain an _entree_”, and with that their
voices died away in the distance.
Tim Mullins, Mel. Thomson and Jim Edwards of the G.T.R., who came up
from Ottawa said at dinner the day Peterborough and Ottawa clashed that
Spider O’Toole refused spaghetti because it squirmed and slid off his
fork like the tempter in the Garden of Eden and he finished the meal
without ridding himself of a half-defined presentment of evil. It beats
the Dutch what odd little whims and superstitious notions some of those
base ball players cherish and permit to influence their daily actions
and fortunes.
Try to develop on the film of your memory the picture of a moderately
expansive diamond and outfield, the grass exceptionally abundant on
account of the adjacent moisture and the entire enclosure surrounded
by the shapely maple and a variety of other trees adorned with vivid
spring foliage. Include in the perspective the hurrying, foamy waters
of the serpentine Otonabee River flanking the parkside before spreading
wide to the harbor beyond and you glimpse the arena where Claudius
O’Toole lost his first game to the merciless Bluejays and likewise his
wager.
These were the home grounds of the Peterborough Bluejays, and the
players located on the chessboard as strategetically as might be, were
there “with the lard in their hair,” eager to circumvent the Ottawa
nine and provide an interesting _premiere_ that afternoon for their
supporters who buzzed with expectancy and speculation, tier over tier,
as the early innings progressed.
Jim Skinner and E. T. Carr encouraged the Jays, and in the telegraph
cupola where Tony Webster was at the key, sat Jimmie Anderson, Jack
Tinning and John Melville, hoping to ticket the players to Western
Ontario.
Considerable betting and some odds had been laid here and there on
the result among the fans and normal local adherents, and in several
outside quarters anticipation was keen, but down in the reeds and stone
piles beside the rushing eddies, where a large water snake and his
partner were basking with several smaller amphibious creatures in the
sunshine, nothing was known of all this. The pair in sable and bronze
habiliments, displaying the activity and boldness peculiar to the
breed in mating season and their need of food after long hibernation,
were fearlessly foraging beside the sedge at the river’s edge, and
woe betide the luckless chub in the shallows or lazy frog on shore
caught napping. The ball ground outfield ran down close to the river,
terminating at a high fence, and was uniform and level save for a
few depressions in the black loam where was once a swamp. Owing to
the dampness and shade the grass refused to grow hereabouts. The game
progressed with tantalizing uncertainty until the pivotal seventh
innings, the advantage resting first with the Bluejays and then with
the Redskins. At this point the Ottawas gained the ascendancy with a
batting rally and Spider O’Toole, who played deep centre field, worked
closer in stimulating his men with “Ginger up Germany, to the youth
at second--you can’t coax a living from the public on that form.” And
again, to the young spitball pitcher, “Steady Slim, nice work lad, take
your time, you have them coming and going as easy as pulling on an old
glove.”
At the conclusion of the eighth inning the score stood 4-4 and the
Spider’s braves in their half of the ninth chalked up but one more
circuit as the Bluejays, though nervous did not crack and were making
no costly errors. The stands began to rumble as the home players
went to bat for the last time, a boy clinging to an over-hanging
branch called “Oh Mr. O’Toole, we’ll make you take your gruel” and
the palpable excitement of some of the ladies who were on their feet,
caused otherwise sober spectators to turn the meeting into temporary
pandemonium with waving arms, hats and vocal extravagances. M. J. Baker
and his friend Jamieson, came with the saints, and the stentorian tones
of Stanton A. Baker, representing the “Great Western”, calling the
plays to Tommie Gormally and Harvey Hagerman over at Oshawa, could be
plainly heard above the din.
In the midst of the uproar Eddie D---- and his acquaintance O. G. C.
Willard, faultlessly attired, when passing the grand stand, and thus
perchance unconsciously giving the ladies a treat, overheard an Old
Country friend with John Ransford exclaim,
“Aw, my word, this is a strange game!”
“How so strange?” queried John.
“The players seem to have an unlimited license to indulge in
personalities, don’t you know--hear how they ‘rat’ each other!”
“They don’t mean it, those boys are milk-fed, college-bred, and the
salt of the earth”, explained the sage from Clinton.
“My Eye, observe the pitcher and catcher are even now conspiring to
beat the batter”, continued the newcomer.
“Oh, that is only camouflage to deceive the enemy,” replied his host.
The visitor’s marked impartiality towards the stubborn progress of the
contending teams recalls the attitude of the lady whose husband was in
mortal combat with a grizzly bear, exclaiming, “I never saw a fight I
cared so little about who won”.
As was prognosticated, the heavy hitter to Cape Verde Islands arose
to the occasion and smacked a fair one on the nose to left which the
fielder fumbled. He lead off a dozen feet and made second with a
hook slide when a foul tip clipped the catchers’ finger and the ball
rolled to the screen. The tension increased. From where he stood, legs
apart and watchful, O’Toole stormed and upbraided at the top of his
voice, swearing by the web-footed, bald-headed Siamese twins, while
the pitcher and backstop conferred. The umpire’s indicator shewed two
men on bases and no one out when the third birdman stepped over to
the plate and stood motionless as Sejanus on his horse. His plan or
the captain’s orders counseled a waiting policy, and such patience
was repaid with four balls, earning first base, forcing his mates and
filling the bags. Whoops and yells tore jagged holes in the atmosphere,
and even momentarily disconcerted the fourth and last friendly batter.
“Slim” threw him a swift ball at which he swung to no purpose, and
it lodged with a resounding plop in the cavity of the catcher’s
mitt. Again the man on the mound moistened the now soiled horsehide
and repeated the performance, but the strain was terrific and his
features registered it plainly. The next one was low and wide. Once
more he threw, transmitting decided curve to the sphere, but it lacked
sustained velocity and slowed down in progress. The waiting batter
saw his opportunity, breathed a fervent “Welcome Mr. Spalding” and
received it squarely. The ball sailed over the pitcher’s head and past
the shortstop’s clutching digits just at the instant Spider O’Toole was
vociferating “Oh, you son of a snail”. This compliment to the exhausted
“Slim” smothered in his mouth as he realized the sphere was heading
to his territory. True to instinct, his tentacular mechanism sprang
alert and making a sanguine, mighty vault his fingers just touched the
ball, the contact and a puff of wind diverting its course and down it
came behind him not far off. The dirty ball ceased rolling two yards
away, resting in one of those shady, somewhat deep hollows in the black
loam close to the river bank and fence. Alive to the crucial situation
quivering at half cock on the diamond and savagely intent on thwarting
the runners as well as to maintain his lead, the Spider spun round in a
flash of time and half blindly leaping on the dirty horsehide stumbled,
falling at full length face down as his hand closed over the coveted
ball.
O ye hooting witches of the midnight orgy and screeching jagaurs
squirming in the fatal coils of Columbian pythons, never was there
such a scream and succession of fearful cries emitted as arose from
the prostrate player rolling over and over before the multitude in an
agonized struggle to right himself. The approaching bay of a hungry
winter wolf pack in full tongue is unequalled as a shudder producer
and fearful indeed, our ancestors say, were the howls of redskins bent
on massacre. The field and stand had never listened to these, but they
heard Spider O’Toole and were transfixed with thrills in speechless
anticipation. Wild eyed and sweating they found him, the grimey ball
still in his grasp and two water snakes wound about his wrist and
forearm with ugly heads and forked tongues shooting this way and that
as their bodies writhed and rubbed his bare skin in efforts to free
themselves from his powerful clutch, poor O’Toole dancing in near
convulsions, meanwhile beseeching the rescuers to free him from the
loathsome girdle. It would appear that the reptiles had come out of the
water, as they sometimes do, and after the manner of their kind, curled
up together and gone to sleep in one of the swampy depressions close
to the fence bounding extreme centre field, and this was the handful
the fingers of Claudius O’Toole closed on. The shortstop and fielder
who first reached their horrified leader state _sub rosa_ that he was
muttering pieces of prayers, swearing on the bones of King Kelly, and
vowing by Ptolemy’s ancient mummies that he would nail those flying
runners at the plate. In his wanderings he was heard to mention “Log
over the Chaudiere”, “See their flat, evil heads” and “St. Patrick to
the rescue”.
[Illustration: THOMAS J. NELSON,
City Passenger and Ticket Agent, G.T.R., Brantford, Ont.; former
President, Brantford Baseball Club.]
When the commotion subsided and the contented Peterboroughese were
discussing the absorbing topic on their way home, Mister O’Toole
disrobed in the dressing room and while introducing his friends Gerald
O’Flaherty and Jimmie Goodall to Mr. Nelson, declared by all the hairy
chested “oorang ootangs” in the Zambesi Country that he would in future
manage his team from the bench when they clashed with the Bluejays at
home. Therefore you may not view Spider O’Toole in action again beside
the winding Otonabee River, but sooner or later, he will emulate a
spike-heeled river driver with peavie in hand, riding a pine log over
the Chaudiere in order that a pound of flesh may be delivered to Silent
Tom Nelson, President of the Brantford Green Sox.
[Illustration: VIEW OF THE FIRST AMERICAN RAILWAY TRAIN]
A HAPHAZARD CHRONOLOGY
1804--Richard Trevithick experimented in England with the
earliest type of steam locomotive and it is said that
his son F. H. Trevithick, was the first locomotive
superintendent of the Grand Trunk Railway.
1807--Fulton introduced the use of a steam propelled vessel on
the Hudson River, which proved a practical success in
handling passengers and goods between Albany and New York.
1809--Period of the first steamboat operated between Quebec and
Montreal on the St. Lawrence River.
1814, July 25--George Stephenson, Father of Railways,
successfully operated his steam locomotive “Blucher” in the
coal country of the Tyne, at four miles per hour, which was
the first real inception of steam engines as a commercial
possibility.
1816--S.S. “Frontenac” was the earliest Lake Ontario steamer.
1825--Stockton & Darlington Railway opened to traffic in England.
1828--Saw the first steam driven train in America, operated by
the South Carolina Railway, South Carolina.
1830--The Baltimore & Ohio Railway engine “Tom Thumb” was used.
1831--Witnessed the launching, according to Doctor Sandford
Fleming, of S.S. “Royal William” which completed a passage
from Quebec to London, England, in 1833, consuming 25 days
from Pictou, N.S. One of the owners was Samuel Cunard,
born in Halifax, N.S., who, with his brothers, created the
nucleus of the now famous Cunard Line. In June, 1894, a
brass tablet commemorating the event was unveiled in the
Parliamentary Library at Ottawa, by Lord Aberdeen.
1832, July 31--First American Railway train on the Mohawk &
Hudson Ry. which ran between Albany and Schenectady, N.Y.
The train was pulled by engine “John Bull” which came from
England in S.S. “Mary Howland”. It heads this chronology.
Among other passengers in the last coach was Thurlow Weed,
Esq., Editor Albany Evening Journal and ex-Governor Yates.
The footnote states that in the second coach traveled Jacob
Hays, a celebrated New York thief catcher.
1832--First railway charter issued in Canada to Champlain & St.
Lawrence Railroad, an 18 mile line from La Prairie, Quebec,
on the St. Lawrence above Montreal, to St. Johns, Quebec,
on the Richelieu River. The motive power was horses until
steam engine replaced them in 1837.
1837--Cumberland Valley Railway, in Pennsylvania, is said to have
used the first sleeping car.
[Illustration]
1838, April 3--Lieutenant Roberts, R.N., set sail from Cork,
Ireland, in the two funnelled, one master “Sirius” of the
St. George Steam Packet Company, with forty passengers at
35 guineas per capita, and arrived at New York in 19 days,
being the earliest steam vessel crossing from Europe to
America.
1850--First public proposal, as a practical enterprise, to lay a
Trans-atlantic cable, made by Right Reverend J. T. Mullock,
Catholic Bishop of St. Johns, Newfoundland, which American
Trans-atlantic Telegraph Company realised in 1867 under the
chairmanship of Peter Cooper, the philanthropist.
1851, Sept.--At Boston, Mass., occurred a three day jubilee to
celebrate the connection by railway of Montreal and Boston,
at which President Filmore of United States and Lord Elgin,
Queen Victoria’s representative in British North America,
were prominent amongst a large gathering of distinguished
international visitors.
1851–2--First international suspension bridge erected over
Niagara River by Great Western-New York Central Rys. The
engineer was John A. Roebling, it cost $400,000, kites were
used to carry across the first ropes. The late Bob. Lewis
was telegraph operator at Suspension Bridge at that time
and Ferdinand Richardt painted from a daguerreotype the
picture of this bridge from which D. L. Glover engraved any
prints extant.
1852–3--Inauguration of Ontario, Simcoe & Huron Railway.
Incorporated 1849, it was the first of Ontario’s lines and
ran from the foot of Brock Street, Toronto, to Collingwood,
on Georgian Bay. It became the Northern Railway 1859,
amalgamated with the Hamilton & Northwestern Railway 1884,
and was merged into the Grand Trunk Railway 1888.
The Lady Elgin, Ontario’s first locomotive, made for the
O.S. & H.R., came in parts from Portland, Maine, 1852,
traveled via Oswego, N.Y., and vessel to Toronto, and John
Harvie, lately deceased in that city, was the first O.S. &
H.R. conductor in charge of the train this engine pulled,
Carlos McColl was the first driver and Joseph Lopez was the
first fireman of that ancient locomotive. It was broken up
and melted in 1881.
TOO MUCH NERVE TONIC
Timid Party--“This train seems to be traveling at a fearful pace Ma’am!
I feel nervous.”
Stolid elderly female--“Yus--aint it? My Bill’s a-drivin’ of the ingin’
an’ ’e can make her go when ’e’s got a drop o’ drink in ’im.--_Tit
Bits_”
1853--Telegraphy was used by the Grand Trunk Railway. H. P.
Dwight is said to have been the father of the utility in
Canada.
1853–4–5--Great Western Railway of Canada built from Niagara
Falls via London to Windsor beside Detroit River.
1853–63--C. J. Brydges was managing director, respectively of the
Great Western Railway and Grand Trunk Railway in Canada.
1854, July 22--Victoria Bridge over St. Lawrence River, which
cost $7,000,000, was started and in November, 1859, it was
opened for traffic.
1855--H. C. Bourlier, formerly Western Passenger Agent Allan
Line, Toronto, was manager, agent and conductor of trains
on 48 miles of line from Point Levis to St. Thomas, Quebec,
on the I.C.R., which he designated the “Tommy Cod” Line.
1856, Oct. 27--The Grand Trunk Railway, incorporated 1852,
operated its first train from Montreal to Toronto in
fourteen hours, the Quebec Metropolis celebrating the event
by a banquet in the Point St. Charles Shops when 4,400
people sat down beside a mile of tablecloth.
1858--Chicago & Alton Railroad experimented with George Pullman’s
car and Colonel J. L. Barnes, afterwards for years
superintendent on the Santa Fe System, was the first parlor
car conductor.
1860–63--A brother of John Bell, late General Counsel of Grand
Trunk Ry., genial, humorous Robert Bell, built and
managed the Prescott & Bytown (Ottawa) Railway, an early
undertaking born of many vicissitudes, which resorted in
extremity to wooden rails to enter Bytown.
1864--The first successful trial of a railway postal car,
assorting mail matter in transit, occurred on the “C. &
N.W.R.” and other lines.
1869--A. O. Pattison, now G.T.R. Agent at Clinton, Ont., was
ticket seller with the “G.T.R.” at Brantford, Canada, in
the days of C. J. Brydges and W. J. Spicer. Conductors
Ausbrooke and David McHaffy were his contemporaries.
1869--Toronto, Grey & Bruce Railway, Toronto to Owen Sound, Ont.,
and Teeswater, was built by Edmund Wragge.
1869–1875--Walter Shanley, a Montreal railway engineer,
constructed the Hoosac Mountain Tunnel. He was a Canadian
M.P. and lived for forty years in the St. Lawrence Hotel at
Montreal.
1871--John Francis, youthful, alert and clever, was day operator
and ticket clerk in the old station at Prescott Junction,
Ont., laying the foundation with a little wrestling and
scuffling thrown in, for his gradual progress to the
General Passenger Agency of C.B. & Q.R., Chicago.
1873–4--International Bridge from Black Rock, N.Y., to Fort Erie,
Ont., endorsed jointly by C.G.W.R. and G.T.R., built at a
cost of $2,000,000, was opened to traffic at this time. C.
Czowski and D. L. Macpherson were the contractors. Thomas
Matchett, now C.T.A., C.P.R., Lindsay, Ont., was installed
as the first telegraph operator at Fort Erie by H. P.
Dwight, Superintendent of Montreal Telegraph Co., Toronto.
1876--Intercolonial Railway, opened for traffic Levis, Quebec,
to the Maritime Provinces, was constructed under
commissionership of C. J. Brydges.
1881--Nicholas Weatherston managed the Grand Junction Railway at
Belleville in this year. A graduate of the “Great Western”,
he was long with the Intercolonial Ry. at Toronto, and his
father commenced work in 1835 on the Normanton & Leeds
Railway built by the famous George Stephenson.
1883--Regime of the late (Sir) William White and John W. Loud,
at the period of the G.T.R.--G.W.R. merger, Toronto, when
George Pepall, Asst. Foreign Freight Agent, G.T.R. to-day,
was Inwards Freight Clerk and D. de Cooper, now C.F.A.,
L.V.R., was employed on the “Outwards” desk.
1891, Dec. 7--St. Clair Tunnel, Sarnia, Ont., to Port Huron,
Mich., opened to travel. It was begun in 1888, cost
$2,500,000 and was electrified in 1906.
Entries in diary of E. de la Hooke, London, Canada--City Ticket
Agent, Grand Trunk Railway. Callers who registered at his
office:--
1892, Jan. 6--Snowing heavily--
J. J. McCarthy, West Shore
Edson Weeks, P. & R.
J. A. Richardson, Wabash
J. H. Morley, C. & N.W.R.
H. D. Armstrong, M.P.R.
1892, Jan. 20--Bright, 30 degrees below zero; lunched at Tecumseh
Hotel with:--
J. N. Bastedo, Santa Fe
J. M. Huckins, G.N.R.
Jim Steele, C.P.R.
A. J. Taylor, St. Paul Road
1892, July 18--“Grand day, but Oh my, another hot ’un”. Meeting
of Grand Lodge. Callers who registered:--
Wm. Askin, Beatty Line
C. W. Graves, G.T.R.
W. G. McLean, C.P.R.
A. Patriarche, F. & P.M.
T. Ridgedale, N.P.R.
P. J. Slatter, G.T.R.
L. Wheeler, Clover Leaf Route.
1892--Toronto, Hamilton & Buffalo Railway Company secured
charter, its nucleus being the 18 mile Brantford, Waterloo
& Lake Erie Railway, their Waterford extension opened 1895
and the Buffalo-Toronto through service was inaugurated
June, 1897.
1893, Jan. 18--Entries in diary of E. de la Hooke, London,
Canada--“Blizzard, one listener frozen”. Visitors
registered were:--
W. R. Callaway, C.P.R.
M. C. Dickson, G.T.R.
J. D. Hunter, Allan Line
McCormick Smith, C.B. & Q.R.
W. B. Murray, Erie Rd.
1893, March 23--Bright, mild, springlike:--
Howard J. Ball, D.L. & W.
B. H. Bennett, C. & N.W.R.
Phil. Hitchcock, D.L. & W.
W. E. Rispin, G.T.R., Chatham
S. J. Sharpe, Erie
1893, Sept. 28--Bright, glorious morning--Entries--
G. T. Bell, G.T.R.
J. Guerin, C. & N.W.R.
Will. Jackson, Clinton
B. W. Johnson, U.P.R.
J. G. Laven, M.C.R.
H. G. Thorley, White Star Line
1895, Jan. 1--Sunshine, cold and dusty--
New Year gift, Eastern Line commissions all withdrawn.
1895--Henri Menier, famous French Chocolate King, secured
possession of Anticosti Island in the mouth of the St.
Lawrence River, first fiefed by Louis XIV in 1680 to the
explorer Sieur Louis Joliet, and Senator Gaston Menier now
uses the 30 mile Anticosti Railway to market the island’s
pulpwood.
[Illustration: SCENE ON THE ANTICOSTI RAILWAY]
1895, Feb. 7--Coldest yet, lines blocked--Callers to register:--
W. E. Belcher, N.P.R.
R. S. Lewis, L.V.R.
A. J. Macdougall, Ill. Cent.
R. F. MacFarlane, Dominion Line
W. J. Mason, N.P.R.
A. J. Spurr, C.B. & Q.R.
1895, July 12--Very hot and close, circus in town, L.O.L. William
III--
J. H. Duthie, Dominion Line
W. Hatch, R. & O.N. Co.
W. B. Lanigan, C.P.R.
C. E. Macpherson, C.P.R.
1897, July 20--Extract from E. de la Hooke’s diary:--Arrival in
London of Geo. B. Reeve and official car party, including
Geo. T. Bell, W. E. Davis and J. E. Quick.
Other agents in town who dropped in at the Clock Corner were:--
P. F. Dolan, Gorge Route
Geo. McCaskey, N.P.R.
C. E. Morgan, G.T.R.
H. J. Rhein, Big 4 (L.S. & M.S.)
1902, Oct.--Canadian Ticket Agents’ Association held its annual
meeting in Washington, D.C., this being their first
convention taking place outside of Canada.
1902--Conductor James Guthrie, who so ably handled the special
train on tour with their Royal Highnesses, the Duke and
Duchess of Cornwall and York--now the King and Queen--was
complimented in special letters for his appearance and
deportment on this occasion by Geo. T. Bell, G.P.A., and
Superintendents Brownlee and Gillen.
1903--National-Transcontinental Railway--1,804 miles Moncton,
N.B., to Winnipeg, planned by the Laurier Administration,
was begun this year.
1903–04--Canadian Government issued a charter to Colonel Floyd,
Cobourg, and others, authorizing the Campbellford, Lake
Ontario & Western Railway from Cobourg to Campbellford,
which became the nucleus of the “C.P.R.” Lake Shore Line to
Ottawa.
1904, March--C. B. Foster, then D.P.A., C.P.R., and J. O.
Goodsell, C.P.A., U.P.R., gave a supper of clams and drawn
butter, periwinkles and toast, with good fellowship, to
fourteen railway guests at the Leader Lane Cafe, Toronto,
Ed. Sullivan, Proprietor.
1907--Tehauntepec Railway, 190 miles from Atlantic to Pacific
Oceans, constructed by British capital and partly
controlled by the Mexican Government, was this year opened
to traffic.
1908, Sept. 22–23--American Association of General Passenger and
Ticket Agents held their 53rd annual convention at Toronto.
1909, Nov. 30--At Queen’s Hotel, Toronto, W. R. Callaway, G.P.A.,
Soo Line, was tendered a luncheon by railway men and
personal friends equally represented. A. J. Taylor in the
chair.
1909--St. Valentine’s Day--The Rainy Day Club convened at the
King Edward Hotel and received William Shakespeare’s report
on the Merry Wives of Windsor.
1911, March 17--J. D. McDonald tendered a farewell banquet to
mark his promotion to position of A.G.P.A., G.T.R., Chicago.
1911, Sept.--Aerial post first attempted in Great Britain between
London and Windsor and proceeds devoted to public charity.
1911–12, April--Fat stock shows at Clinton, where some laundries
were purchased and addresses made on intensive cultivation
of the juniper bush by railroading honorary judges.
1911–12--$180,000,000 was total cost of Grand Central Station and
environs, built by the New York Central & Hudson River Ry.
1912, May 1--Richard Tinning completed fifty years with “G.T.R.”
in Canada and was given complimentary dinner, diamond pin
and purse.
1914, April 7--Cy. Warman, engineer, Denver reporter, publicist
and successful writer of railroading prose and verse--once
with “G.T.R.” advertising department--died in Chicago this
date.
1914, July 24--A century of locomotive use was appropriately
celebrated when a 410 ton “Centipede” engine of the Erie
Railroad pulled 250 loaded cars, weighing 21,000 tons, a
distance of 40 miles at 15 miles per hour.
HANDY ANDY
“Can you run an engine,” said the yardmaster to Martin Maguire?
“Can I run an engine,” sniffed the bold Hibernian; “there’s nothing
I’d rather do than run a lokeymootive all day long. Huh! Can Oi run an
engine?”
“Suppose you run that engine into the round house,” suggested his boss.
Bluffing Martin climbed into the cabin with his orders in his mind,
looked the ground over, spat on his hands, grabbed the largest
handle and gave it a mighty yank. Zip! away went the engine into the
roundhouse. Guessing the trouble ahead he reversed the lever clear
back. Out she went--in she went--and out again.
Then the chief yelled, “I thought you said you could run an engine?”
And Martin Maguire quickly replied, “Oi had her in three times, why
didn’t you shut the door?”
1915--$113,000,000 in taxes was paid by United States Railways.
1917, Oct. 17--The first train rolled over the new Quebec Bridge
and trans-continental link.
1917, March 17--The Alfalfa Club gathered and performed with
eclat. Owing to the date and name, somebody suggested that
the green tablecloth be used and many witticisms and bon
mots were exchanged.
1918--Grand Trunk Railway System, composed of about 125 lines,
that had early independent, statutory beginnings,
celebrates her 66th birthday.
1918, March--President T. Woodrow Wilson, U.S.A., signed the bill
which empowered Director General of Railroads, W. G. McAdoo
to assume complete control of the railways of the United
States.
1918, April--United States railroads “off the line” agencies in
Canada and in many “American” centres, withdrawn for the
period of the war.
1918, May 15--America’s first aeroplane mail service inaugurated
between Washington, Philadelphia and New York, President
Woodrow Wilson receiving the first letter from Governor
Charles S. Whitman, New York.
1918, August 18--Aero Club of Canada promoted through Royal Air
Force, first temporary weekly aerial mail between Leaside
Aerodrome (Toronto), to Ottawa.
The frontispiece photograph of passenger train is an early edition of
the Empire State Express, by courtesy of the N.Y.C. & H.R.R.
The Frontispiece lettering was executed by Harry Moyer, cartoonist of
Toronto Daily Star.
The Frontispiece conductor is Mr. D. J. Carson, former Chairman of the
Brotherhood of Railway Conductors, Toronto, a popular vocalist who is
widely known by patronizers of C.P.R. trains running between Toronto
and Hamilton, Ontario.
The pen and ink decoration for “Navigators of the Blue” is the work of
Miss Alberta L. Tory, daughter of Mr. Alfred Tory, Storekeeper, Grand
Trunk Railway, London, Ont.
The half-tone engravings used in this book, with a few exceptions, were
made by the British & Colonial Press, Limited, Toronto, Ont.
BALLAD TO THE BROTHERHOOD
Despite the rush of commerce and distractions linked to life,
Forgetting one brief moment all the noise and ceaseless strife:
Reflection’s voice reminds me that with ebbing tide of time,
Floats away a merry epoch--hear ye not the watch bells chime?
Dear friends and faithful colleagues on this strand and o’er the sea,
I recall your proffered kindness and your courtesy to me.
Memory serves to paint a picture shewing changes in the past:
’Tis well the Reaper’s scythe is stayed until the die is cast.
Though our day is dark and troubled by the ruthless hand of Might,
All trust the scourge will vanish like the mystic flight of night.
Let encouragement and counsel nourish hope and banish fear,
May the bonds of friendship strengthen and expand from year to year.
We’ve had, methinks, more happy times than sorrows in our lives,
To you, Messieurs a bumper--to your sweethearts, daughters, wives;
Here is hoping that prosperity and robust health be yours,
For you a peaceful future is the wish my heart conjures:
And when that silent Skipper with his phantom craft steals ’round,
May he steer us safely over to the Happy Hunting Ground.
[Illustration:
YOU EAT A
CHRISTIE
BISCUIT
YOU EAT
THE BEST
CHRISTIE, BROWN & CO.,
LIMITED
]
[Illustration:
THE QUEEN’S HOTEL
TORONTO, ONT.
400 ROOMS
120 of them _en suite_ with bath; long distance telephone in every
room; elegantly furnished throughout; cuisine and service of the
highest order of excellence. Pleasantly situated near the lake and
beautifully shaded; it is cool, quiet and homelike.
American and European Plans
McGAW & WINNETT, PROPRIETORS
]
[Illustration:
The High Class Hotel with
Moderate Rates
HOTEL BRESLIN
Broadway at 29th Street
NEW YORK
The New York Home
for Canadians
THE ONLY OPEN AIR CAFE
IN THE CITY
Restaurant Prices Most Moderate
]
[Illustration:
THE
DOMINION
BANK
ESTABLISHED 1871
Head Office - Toronto
Traveller’s Cheques and Letters
of Credit Issued at Favorable
Rates
C. A. BOGERT, General Manager
]
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Some simple typographical errors were corrected, but many
remain. Unbalanced quotation marks were remedied when the change was
obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
Page 95: Some of the dates regarding the Lake Manitoba Railway &
Canal Company were corrected in the original book, but still contain
inconsistencies.
*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Trail of the Swinging Lanterns - a racy, railroading review of transportation matters, methods and men" ***
Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.