Oneonta

By Gene Milener

Oneonta is the only city in the large Central New York counties of Otsego, Delaware, and Schoharie. The earliest settlers in 1780 knew the place as a “dammed hemlock swamp.” By 1930, it had become an established regional metropolis towering over all area localities. Oneonta is an exciting story, and this comprehensive book is a unique treasure. The big stories are all there, such as the turnpikes, Albany and Susquehanna Railroad, D&H, cigar rolling, normal school, Hartwick College, and more. Yet so are accounts of sidewalks, cemeteries, boardinghouses, Barn Hill, charity, piano manufacturer, and many others. Maybe more important still was the predominant thought about business affairs. There is much on that too. With rich detail and over 350 heavily annotated pictures, those 150 years to the Great Depression are described as never before and, most likely, never again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781645449935

Book preview

Chapter I

The Reasons for Building a Railroad from Albany to Binghamton

On April 19, 1851, the state of New York granted a charter to the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad Co. under the General Railroad Corporation Act of 1850. This act eliminated the need for a special vote of the legislature. The southwesterly route was to join Albany with Binghamton, running down the valleys of Schenevus Creek and the Susquehanna River, a distance of 143 miles (142.51). Tangible progress was long delayed. It was not until 1862, eleven years later, that, upon completion of two miles of track, the first locomotive was set on the line. Three years later, in August 1865, the road was finished to Oneonta, 81.72 miles, and in January 1869, the completed line at last reached its terminus at Binghamton, another 60.79 miles.

Why the Long Delay: An Overview

A variety of factors contributed to the extended delay between incorporation and completion, but it is suitable here to indicate only their nature, for most will be woven into our story. Foremost, many people who wanted the road—citizens of the city of Albany and farmers and villagers along the line—doubted that the stock would prove to be a wise personal investment, thus making it hard to obtain equity funds. Associated with this difficulty was a lack of financial institutions and a dearth of money among many of the road’s rural supporters. The tightness of New York City’s capital market in 1854 and 1857 also added to the woes of the A&S promoters, as did determined opposition to state aid for the road from many quarters. The promoters complained about the scarcity of labor during the Civil War and again in 1868, although it is not certain that high wages significantly held back the progress of construction. During 1868, the road’s completion was delayed by the difficult construction of a tunnel near Binghamton requiring a 2,200-foot bore.

In a way, the long delay before completion enables us to learn more fully about the reasons that the A&S was built. During the nineteen-year span from 1851 to 1869, no topic transcended the railroad for widespread interest in Central New York, and hence much was recorded that might, with rapid construction, have been left unsaid.

The A&S was a huge undertaking. It involved heavy construction costs in labor and capital, and it promised to affect profoundly the economic welfare of citizens living miles on either side, regardless of whether these people were themselves direct contributors to the railroad’s construction funds. Thus, by studying who wanted the railroad, or the reasons that the railroad was built, we may learn much about the economic forces affecting Oneonta’s economy.

The Importance of Albany Businessmen in Promoting the Railroad

Three groups were in the forefront of the many people who wanted the A&S. First were the people of Albany, who saw the road as a connection with the Midwest. Then there were those who were interested in a connection with Pennsylvania’s anthracite district. The third group was those living along the line, merchants and mechanics as well as the farmers of Central New York.

Like many important railroads, the A&S was extended from a sizable city, and much of the motivation for constructing the road lay in the desire to boost the city’s economy. Albany was the ninth largest city in the nation in 1850, a towering prosperous giant when compared to anyplace else along the line.

Undoubtedly, Albany businessmen had a strong desire based on self-interest as well as a strong civic consciousness to keep their city among the commercial centers of the nation. Albany had been engaged in an economic rivalry with Troy from before 1800, and aggressive merchants were constantly alert for opportunities to boost the city’s economy. One such opportunity was the A&S Railroad. The new line penetrating Central New York had been described as another move to benefit Albany in its contest with Troy. In 1852, the directors wrote of how Albany is vitally interested in the construction of this road. The state capital, they contended, had enterprising rivals ready to take advantage of every opportunity to divert trade and travel from Albany.

The prominence of Albany interests during the developing years of the A&S was evident. Of the first thirteen directors of the A&S, six lived in Albany, and by September 1853, seven were from Albany. Writing in 1908, Mr. Phelps of Albany, secretary of the A&S in the 1850s and 1860s, reported that the other six directors were from Binghamton, Cobleskill, Guilderland, Maryland, Oneonta, and Unadilla. From the beginning, the head office was established in Albany, and three of the four A&S presidents came from the city.

In 1854, when the Herald’s editor wished to persuade his readers that the A&S would be operated profitably and the stock would pay dividends, he observed that a sizable number of substantial citizens of Albany held stock. Upon this he based his conclusion that Oneontans need not fear that the stock would not pay. Similarly, in 1853 and 1854, the editor found that reference to men from Albany was the best way of assuring his readers of the road’s early completion. Take the following for example:

We have been assured that a prominent capitalist in the city of Albany lately observed that the road would be built.

On another occasion he was relying on statements of the directors and prominent businessmen and capitalists of the city of Albany in projecting the road’s early completion.

The Connection of Albany with the Erie Railroad and the West

Businessmen of Albany saw the A&S primarily as a bridge line between the city and the Erie Railroad. Transportation routes in New York were undergoing considerable change when the A&S was chartered in 1851. Railroad mileage in the state had more than trebled in the 1840s. New track construction reached 1,360 miles in the year 1850 alone, and when the Erie Railroad was at last completed to Dunkirk on Lake Erie in 1851, it was looked upon as an event of national significance. Trade was rapidly rising with the Midwest. The combined railroad mileage of Ohio and Indiana almost doubled during the first two years of the 1850s, thereby opening the Eastern and European markets to a vast amount of Western lands. At this time, the little lines along the Mohawk Valley combined to form a through line from Buffalo to Albany and were on the verge of being consolidated into Vanderbilt’s New York Central.

There developed two large trunk lines, the Erie and the Central, which accounted for most of the east-west cross-state traffic between New York and the Midwest. These trunk lines were beginning to reveal their superiority over the Erie Canal in hauling almost all merchandise and livestock. By 1860, the canal’s dominance was limited to high-bulk forest product, and grains, freight in which transport costs were a large portion of the selling price, and quick delivery to the eastern buyer of minimal consequence.

When the Erie RR first connected Lake Erie with New York in 1851, the capitalists of Albany saw a chance to draw an extensive and growing flow of produce to their own commercial emporium. Without the A&S, the Erie was described by the Herald’s editor as entirely tributary to New York City. The Erie was the only important route of travel in the state which did not touch the capitol, and a line from Binghamton to Albany was sought to draw business to the latter city.

The directors believed that heavy freighting from west to east would be the primary job of the road, but they also predicted other uses. Manufactures of New England and with them a vast quantity of other merchandise would, they said, be funneled over the Western Railroad through Albany and delivered to the rich West using the A&S. Passenger traffic also was expected to add substantially to the road’s revenue. It was said that travelers would use the A&S to go east and west. Even those people whose destination was New York City were expected to transfer at Binghamton from the Erie to the A&S and then, from Albany, take either the Hudson River Railroad to New York City or a steamer down the Hudson River. This river route, it was said, would not take longer than staying on the Erie Railroad and would be more pleasant. From Binghamton to Piermont, New York, the Erie traveled 201 miles over steep grades and a winding route. Then from Piermont the traveler was faced with a thirty-five-mile trip by steamer to New York City, which was described as dangerous in the winter. The A&S terminated at a union depot used by the Erie Railroad and the Syracuse, Binghamton, and New York Railroad.

Without doubt, connecting Albany with the Erie Railroad held great interest for the promoters. In 1852, the twelve directors, half from Albany, wrote in the broadest and most optimistic terms. They foresaw the A&S as the link between the Atlantic and the valley of the Mississippi for the whole northern portion of our Union. They predicted the A&S would become the great thoroughfare between the East and the West. It is, they added, with the hope and expectation of speedily supplying this link that the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad Co. has been formed.

This undated map shows obvious distortion designed to emphasize the A&S as a link between the Midwest and Lake Erie with Albany and Boston. The A&S ran in a far more southwest-northeast direction than the almost-horizontal route depicted. In the early 1850s, coal was not nearly the important source of energy it had become by the time the road was completed two decades later. The long, exhausting, tedious struggle for funds to build the A&S would have been substantially alleviated had the growing importance of coal been foreseen. When the road was incorporated in 1851, the capitalists of Albany controlled the company. Motivated by boosterism and the promise of higher incomes, and unaware of the enormous future for coal, the men of Albany emphasized the connection of the East with the rapidly growing West. Business from Oneonta and other little villages in Central New York valleys was of little significance to the giant metropolis of Albany.

The Role of Pennsylvania’s Coal Fields

About fifty miles south of Binghamton lay Pennsylvania’s anthracite region. Transportation facilities for developing the area were built beginning in 1815 and had become an extensive network of railroads and canals by 1850. Coal was carried southward to the mass markets of New York and Philadelphia via the Lackawanna, the Reading, and the Pennsylvania Railroads, but in 1851, when the A&S was chartered, there was no rail connection to the north. However, such routes were being constructed. The Lackawanna was building north to Binghamton in 1851. From this point, anthracite could be shipped over the Erie Railroad and the Chenango Canal, which flowed north to Utica on the Erie Canal. Three years later, in 1854, the eighty-one-mile Syracuse, Binghamton, and New York Railroad was completed to Syracuse, from where it could deliver coal over the New York Central. This route to Albany from Binghamton was eighty-eight miles longer than the more direct line of the A&S.

Most authors believe that exploiting the A&S potential for carrying coal was a major attraction to the promoters. Indeed, they have made it a matter of first importance. Here it will be argued that the prospect of delivering coal has been greatly overemphasized. But let us first see what has been said by others.

Century of Progress, a volume prepared by the D&H Co. and published in 1925, indicates that the prospect of cheap coal from Pennsylvania was more important as a motivation to build the line than was the contact with the West via the Erie Railroad. The volume declares that the projectors, above all, were interested in furnishing anthracite cheaply to Albanians as well as generally providing northern and eastern New York with a direct railroad connection with the coalfields. Other authors have agreed. Shaugnessy in the D&H asserts that establishing a direct rail contact with the coal region was, from the early 1850s, the primary motive for promoting and building the road. Carmer’s The Susquehanna says the two principal reasons for building the road were to create cheap transportation to better enable the Central New York farmer to deliver his produce to market, and the rich profits to be derived from delivering coal from Pennsylvania’s anthracite district. Goodrich, in Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, claims the A&S was projected largely to bring coal from the Pennsylvania mines. None of these four volumes elaborated as to why they thought the principal motive for building the A&S lay with coal. Still, it is unmistakable that these writers felt this was the case.

One lone dissenter has been found. Jules Bogen, in The Anthracite Railroads, claims the chief purpose in building the A&S was to deflect trade from the Erie at Binghamton.

There is convincing evidence that the promoters paid little attention during the 1850s to the prospect of hauling coal. Twice, in 1851 and 1852, two-by-three-foot posters designed to promote the road were hung in taverns the length of the line. Of course, these posters emphasized the economic benefits to people along the route, concluding that the A&S would augment population and wealth. They also emphasized that the road, by joining the Erie Railroad with a direct route to Albany, would provide an important connection with the West. Yet neither poster mentioned coal. In January 1852, a nineteen-page pamphlet was prepared by Samuel Beach of Oneonta, entitled Some Considerations Respecting the Proposed Construction of the Albany and Susquehanna Rail-road. Signed by the twelve directors, twenty-five thousand copies were printed and given wide distribution. The pamphlet elaborately explained how the road would be profitable and how the east-west flow of traffic would make the road an important through line. And how it was beyond question that people living in the Central New York valleys would be much better off. However, coal was not mentioned until the next-to-last page, where it received abrupt treatment. There it was observed that the people of Pennsylvania would be able to ship several products, including coal, over the road. In 1854, President Prentice of the A&S printed a thirty-three-page pamphlet that sought to explain why the A&S would be a dividend-paying road. In this pamphlet, coal was ignored entirely. Nor was it mentioned in an 1858 pamphlet that discussed the road’s probable cost and revenue.

In the 1860s, a noticeable change occurred as attention began to be paid to the bridge line’s potential as a coal carrier. President Ramsey of the A&S in January 1861 addressed a paper to the legislature petitioning for state aid. Ramsey made coal a major topic. Shipment of anthracite over the A&S was expected to greatly benefit at all seasons of the year people along the line, the cities of Albany and Troy, and the northern and northeastern part of the state. Ramsey repeated a similar theme when, in 1863, he again petitioned for state aid. Yet the promoters still underrated coal’s potential. In September 1865, C. W. Wentz, the chief engineer of the A&S, predicted in the company’s annual report great profitability for the road when completed. But in a supporting table showing sources of revenue, he referred only to freight without specifically mentioning coal. To be sure, others had come to see coal as important. Local newspapers were almost invariably friendly to new railroads, and the Herald’s editor was no exception. He joined with Ramsey in predicting in 1864 that citizens of Albany would greatly benefit from coal delivered by the road.

How can this growing recognition of the A&S as a promising coal route be explained? During the project’s formative years, there were forces that were increasing both the demand and supply of coal, but they were only belatedly seen by the promoters. The effect of these trends is summarized in the sharply growing use of coal.

Pennsylvania’s Coal Production

(thousand net tons)

This doubling of coal consumption each decade was encouraged by the rising price of fuel wood at large eastern urban centers as nearby supplies were fast disappearing. Further, when the great convenience of coal, as compared with wood, came to be more widely understood, demand was probably augmented. A cord of wood is bulkier and usually nearly twice as heavy as a ton of coal, yet the coal provides more heat.

Oneonta, and presumably other villages of Central New York, looked forward to greater use of coal. Coal had been used in Oneonta ever since a close-by foundry delivered several loads by sled from Carbondale, Pennsylvania, in 1830. But the quantity was small prior to completion of the railroad to Binghamton. The prospect of coal from Pennsylvania by rail made every heart throb in Oneonta before the line was completed. D. J. Yager, father of future Herald editor Willard Yager, established a coal yard immediately after the line was completed. Cheaper transportation surely accounted for most of the increased use of coal. With the first train from Pennsylvania, the price of coal plummeted from $15.00 to $7.50 per ton.

Even in Oneonta’s rural environs, where there was no lack of timber, there was a growing demand for coal. It was noted that many farmers [were] introducing coal stoves. The rising use of coal by the Otsego farmer might have, in part, reflected higher levels of income, especially money income, as a result of being able to ship his produce on the A&S.

The growing efficiency of railroads, over canals, also encouraged the use of coal by making it cheaper to ship. Coal, for example, was an important component of the Chemung Canal’s tonnage, but by 1867, it was becoming very evident that the Chemung Canal was not able to compete [for coal] with the Fall Brook Railway. This railroad ran parallel to the canal and extended to the Pennsylvania coalfields. About the same time, it began to be realized that the Chenango Canal—mentioned before as joining Binghamton and Utica—would soon have to be abandoned because railroads were threatening its only remaining business, the coal trade.

The Delaware and Hudson Canal was the most important water route from Pennsylvania’s anthracite district. It, too, was successfully challenged by the changing technology and huge investment in railroads. The D&H Co. operated a sixteen-mile-long gravity railroad over the rough terrain eastward from the coalfields. There, at Honesdale, Pennsylvania, it joined the company’s canal. Built in 1825, this highly profitable water route flowed to Kingston on the Hudson River. From Kingston, coal was delivered on the river north to Albany and by vessel to the New England tidewater. With the booming demand for anthracite in the early 1860s, earnings of the D&H Co. soared. The canal earned 37 percent on $100 par in 1864, the figure having been only 7 percent two years before. That March, D&H Co. stock leaped to $230, yet even in this heyday of the D&H, canal omens of change appeared. D&H Co. stock sold at thirty-five in August 1877.

The largest independent shipper on the canal in the early 1860s was the Pennsylvania Coal Co. The D&H Co. had been engaged in litigation with this shipper over a rate dispute since 1856 and, though disappointed in the outcome, did secure a favorable judgment in 1863 of $350,000. In 1865, the Pennsylvania Coal Co. retaliated by transferring all its business from the D&H Canal to the Erie Railroad. It was a shocking experience for the D&H Co. managers, for it clearly showed that the railroad was now an effective competitor of the canal for even the lowest grades of freight. It was downhill for the canal from then on. By 1881, the D&H Co. management publicly announced that due to railroads being able to haul coal more cheaply, abandonment was only a question of time. The last trip to tidewater was made in 1898.

Mayfield is named for W. May, president of the Pennsylvania Coal Co., subsidiary of Erie Railroad. T. Olyphant, then fourth president of the D&H, is namesake of Olyphant, Pennsylvania. These were big players.

In 1865, a committee of top D&H Co. executives was formed to consider securing a northern outlet for coal. This signaled a major change of policy prompted by the specter of railroads replacing the canal to Kingston. Construction of the A&S Railroad at that time was progressing rapidly, with about 90 of the 143 miles having been completed. This new road, soon to join Albany with Binghamton on an almost-straight line, fitted the needs of the D&H Co. From Albany, New England could readily be reached by rail, and there was the prospect of a connection to the northward with Montreal, another market for coal. On February 24, 1870, the D&H Co., by ninety-nine-year lease, gained control of the road to Albany in order to strengthen our position, and open new and growing markets for our coal."

The management’s judgment was sound. The D&H system became known as the anthracite line, and the road to Albany became the major segment, the coveted link in the coal route. Though figures are lacking as to just how important coal was, we do know that in 1876, over 30 percent of total receipts of the Binghamton to Albany road came from coal, and it is the conviction of retired railroaders of Oneonta that coal long continued to be the road’s major source of revenue.

But the question remains: Was the prospect of carrying coal foremost in the minds of the A&S promoters? Before answering, let us consider the route they chose at the western end of the line. The aforementioned poster of February 1851, which called for a railroad convention at Oneonta, described the line as ending on the Erie Railroad, at some point between the village of Binghamton and Lanesborough (now Lanesboro). From there, the A&S was to take the most direct…route to Albany. Then the projectors decided that the line should finish at a somewhat more northerly point, farther from the coalfields. The articles of association, filed with the state in April 1851, called for the western terminus to be at or near the village of Binghamton.

Had coal played anything like suggested by most writers, the A&S would have followed a different route. At the village of Nineveh, thirty-two miles west of Oneonta on the Susquehanna River, the river turns southward to commence what is known as the Great Bend. Here the A&S route departed from the Susquehanna and went west toward Binghamton. The route adopted required boring the aforementioned 2,200-foot tunnel and involved a heavy grade at Belden Hill, east of Binghamton. In contrast, the A&S could have followed what became known as the easy line to the coalfields—that is, the A&S could have been built southward along the Susquehanna River Valley to Lanesboro, a station on the Erie Railroad. The line then could have been extended about twenty-five miles due south to Carbondale in the anthracite district. After having contemplated this possibility from at least as early as 1867, the D&H Co. completed a line from Carbondale to Nineveh in 1872. This road was expressly built to facilitate the shipment of coal. The coal route up the Susquehanna River’s Great Bend to Nineveh cut twenty-seven miles off the right-angled route over the A&S via Binghamton. It was the shortest and in every respect the best connection between the anthracite coalfields and the numerous and growing towns on the A&S. Of greater significance, it was the shortest line to Albany and to the north and east. Even though the promoters had decided against the twenty-five-mile extension from Lanesboro to Carbondale, they still had an option that would have served the purpose of shipping coal better than the adopted route to Binghamton. The A&S could have continued along the Great Bend only seven miles beyond Lanesboro to connect with the northbound Lackawanna and Western Railroad.

The directors were well aware of the alternative route to Lanesboro along the Susquehanna and its advantages for shipping coal. Among the early promoters was Gideon Hotchkiss of Windsor, who also was elected to the first A&S board. Windsor is on the Susquehanna River’s Great Bend, nine miles south of Nineveh, and therefore had much to gain if the route to Lanesboro had been chosen. Hotchkiss’s presence is sufficient to eliminate any idea that failure to expedite the shipment of coal to Albany via Lanesboro and Windsor was an oversight.

It seems inescapable that the hypothesis about the importance of coal is wrong. There is no dispute that shipping coal did become the most important source of revenue for the A&S, but it certainly doesn’t follow that coal was important to the promoters. They either failed to foresee the line’s potential as an important coal carrier or else viewed trade with the West as more important. And this is understandable, for it was a changing environment that enlarged the coal market and gave railroads a technical superiority over canals.

In the 1890s, a trainman at Oneonta’s D&H yards had a three-pound chunk of soft coal bounce off a gondola and hit him on the head. That outsize piece of coal sat on the trainman’s porch for years to come.

The last wide track rail on the A&S Railroad was laid December 31, 1868, the year this picture was taken. Engine no. 4, the J. H. Ramsey, was built in 1864 in Patterson, New Jersey. It was a wood burner and six-foot gauge for the A&S tracks. She weighed sixty thousand pounds and, for the knowledgeable, had sixteen-by-twenty-four-inch cylinders and six-inch drivers.

The People of the Valleys: Villagers and Farmers

The economic isolation of the Central New York region, and the lack of any canal or railroad, was the underlying reason that the people of the valleys—village businessmen and farmers—wanted improved transportation. Without either of these, the benefits of specialization were severely constrained. For the people of the rural countryside, the most practical means of transport, the wagon, was expensive. Other, more fortunate suppliers of farm produce to the eastern markets could use cheaper modes of transport, like rail or water. The disadvantaged Central New York farmers were, of course, regular customers at the villages. Hence, most citizens in Otsego and neighboring counties favored a railroad.

Communities all along the line believed that with a depot, their wealth and population would soar. In the 1830s, citizens of Unadilla talked of a railroad to Catskill as the only thing that will shake off the curse that was put upon us by the construction of the Erie Canal. The editor at Cherry Valley wrote in 1870 following completion of their spur to the A&S RR, After 45 years of comparative isolation we can again look out upon the world around us.

When the A&S was completed to Oneonta in 1865, the villagers celebrated the end of their economic isolation. They erected arches spanning the prominent streets from which mottos were displayed, reflecting the general delight, the Hudson and Susquehanna United, and Isolation Obsolete.

Relief from economic isolation through cheaper transportation provided by the A&S was expected by Oneontans to result in enhanced wealth and population. The Herald’s editor seemed to speak for the citizens: Give us the railroad and in a short time we will show you a large business town. Oneontans were not alone in this prediction. In 1854, the editor of Cooperstown’s Freeman’s Journal predicted that business resulting from the A&S RR would make Oneonta one of the largest if not the largest village in the county. This was a notable forecast. The route passed through nine villages within Otsego County, including Unadilla, which, at that time, 1854, had a population close to eight hundred. Oneonta’s population barely exceeded five hundred, while that of Cooperstown was about 1,500. But let us consider more specifically how this projected growth in business and population was to come about.

The same regional geographic isolation, so painful to Oneontans, was shared by neighboring villages. But every village in the section could not be on the Albany-to-Binghamton line. It was, however, widely believed that Oneonta not only would be on the line but also would have a depot that would augment its trade with villages that would not be so fortunate. Also, travelers to and from the nearby villages were expected to spend money in Oneonta while passing through. Furthermore, Oneontans felt they would get a larger share or this business as compared with other places in their section because of their favorable location in the five valleys that extended outward from the village. These valleys, it was said, placed Oneonta in the grand center of a large business circumference.

The expectations were realized. A month after the railroad arrived, October 1865, seven stages headed for nearby localities were made up in the village.

Of course, it also was anticipated that due to Oneonta’s geographical situation, a depot would attract abundant trade from farmers in the contiguous area. But there was another more specific reason for wanting the road. Farmers in the area transacted most of their cash business during their infrequent trips to Albany, Catskill, or some other market town. These trips were planned to maximize cash receipts, for the farmer would frequently sleep under his wagon, eat provisions prepared by his wife, and feed his horse hay that had been tied to the wagon at the family farm. At the market, town farmers would receive cash for produce and also procure their larger supplies, reserving their cash to lay out on those occasions. This aggravated local merchants, as they were forced to rely on the petty credit system, which, rightly or wrongly, they felt to be a cause of poor earnings. With a depot in Oneonta, it was anticipated that the farmer would do his cash transactions in the village rather than mostly settle in the fall fashion.

Another way the farmer would make the most of his adventuresome six- to eight-day wagon trip was to return with goods for local merchants to sell. The farmer typically would be paid in trade credit for his teamster services.

Stages were, of course, faster than the heavily laden wagons. And stages improved. By the mid-1830s, four-horse postal stagecoaches were common. These regularly left Albany at 8:00 a.m. and arrived at Oneonta the next day at 10:00 a.m.

The railroad did not promptly convert a barter economy to predominantly cash trade. Retailers incessantly discouraged barter, but Frank Bresee was accepting produce from farmers several years after he opened his Oneonta store in 1899, and the Cash and Barter Grocery Store was thriving in 1910. We earlier mentioned how cords of wood frequently were used for barter in the 1900s.

The Railroad Was Good for Land Values

The potential effect upon land values from the anticipated railroad was widely understood. Not only did outstanding businessmen like E. R. Ford and Jared Goodyear own land, so did many other citizens of Oneonta. When the first state aid bill ($500,000) for the A&S was passed in 1863, the Herald’s editor addressed the village citizenry in a way that strongly suggests widespread consciousness and anxious anticipation of the railroad’s effect upon land prices.

Keep cool and dispose of your real estate at reasonable prices. Be careful and not drive those away who would locate in our midst by asking exorbitant prices. The future growth of our village rests entirely with those having building lots to sell.

A rumor that the Scranton locomotive works was to be moved to Oneonta spread through the village in the spring of 1882. It quickly caused a boost in land values due to much speculative buying. There seemed to be no basis to the rumor whatever, but it demonstrated again the sensitiveness of land values.

Longing to See Young Men Stay at Home

Oneontans harbored a strong desire to have their young men stay and earn their living in the village. And therein lay another reason that the railroad was wanted. During the late 1850s, it was believed that the village’s young men will stay at home only with profitable employment. The same theme repeated itself in the early 1860s, when the departure of young Oneontans made the merchants and mechanics gloomy. They tended to depart from the region’s villages more readily than from farms, which represented considerable illiquid investment by the rural families. Moreover, the farms readily provided work and promised security, although not often an opulent life. It was concluded that the way to surround yourself with young America was to build the railroad. There was still talk in the 1980s about doing something to keep young men in Oneonta.

The Susquehanna Canal: Early Excitement over Cheaper Transportation

The idea of developing a canal / slack water project down the Susquehanna River to Pennsylvania was almost ninety years old by the time the Erie Canal was completed. Surveyor-General Colden discussed the possibility in 1737 when he visited Otsego Lake. The plan remained alive. When George Washington visited the lake in 1783, he talked of an Otsego Canal. And Otsegans, too, continued to discuss the possibility because the idea promised to provide low-cost transportation to markets for farm produce grown in the region of Central New York.

When the Erie Canal began operation in 1825, finding a means of avoiding costly wagon trips to remote markets became a matter of urgency. Previously, the Otsego Canal had merely promised higher returns to an already-thriving agricultural area. But the situation suddenly changed. Now the Otsego or Susquehanna Canal had seemed to become the sole bulwark between taking full part in the national economy and near regional self-sufficiency, something never wanted by these farmers in the mainstream of American economic life. Hence the long-standing desire of Otsegans for a canal down the Susquehanna became intense. The first response was the people of Cooperstown celebrating the Erie because they thought the canal soon would run a branch canal to the Susquehanna. That was not possible. Immediate steps were taken.

A meeting was held in Cooperstown in 1825 at which a committee of twenty-five influential citizens of the county was appointed to further the Otsego Canal project. It seems likely that someone from Oneonta was included. A nine-mile survey taken from Cooperstown to Milford in 1826 reported that the Susquehanna fell thirty feet. Then the committee submitted a petition in 1827 urging the state legislature to construct a canal down the Susquehanna from Cooperstown, at the river’s head, to Pennsylvania.

A year later, the next abortive effort was made at building the Otsego Canal. In November 1828, an announcement was published in Albany and many other places regarding an upcoming application to the state legislature calling for approval of a corporation capitalized at $1.5 million. The corporation was to improve by means of locks, dams, and canals where necessary that part of the Susquehanna River…from Otsego Lake to the Pennsylvania line at Tioga Point The corporation also was meant to construct a railroad from Otsego Lake to the Erie Canal, at or near Fort Plain. Funds for this ambitious project were supposed to come from the establishment of a new bank in Albany or New York City. Eight men signed that announcement of November 1828. It was, of course, a cherished dream born of the isolation known to Central New Yorkers. Sherman Page of Unadilla was the first signer; Jacob Dietz of Oneonta was the second.

Although another survey was taken in 1830, there never emerged any serious plans to undertake construction. It would have been expensive, since the water route required seventy-five locks and sixty-five dams. Just as important was the fact that men in the legislature and others, including villagers along the Susquehanna, increasingly believed that a railroad would be superior for the transportation needs of the interior. Further, the Otsego Canal had a nearby rival, the Chenango Canal, for which a petition also was submitted in 1827. This rival made success for the Otsego project more difficult.

The then-state senator Levi Beardsley tells us the Chenango Canal project had far greater political support beyond the borders of Chenango County than the slight outside support enjoyed by Otsego. It was for this reason that Albany appropriated $4.3 million for the Chenango Canal in 1833 to run north from Binghamton to Utica through Chenango County adjacent to Otsego on the west. Despite projections to the contrary by the Chenango’s proponents, the legislature did not expect that canal to support itself. They did not feel differently about the Otsego Canal, and naturally, funds for such internal improvements were limited.

Legislators were correct about the Chenango’s prospects. Some called it the best built canal in New York state, but with an accumulated deficit of at least $5 million, it never carried itself. Peak revenue came in 1848, when coal grew from six tons in 1850 to fifty-six thousand tons in 1859. With the loss of coal to Railroads, abandonment occurred in 1878.

Since the impetus to the Otsego, the threat to prosperity from the Erie Canal, why did the citizens fail to take any action until its completion in 1825? An earlier petition might have stood a better chance. Surely the effects of the Erie had been thought about for some time. The 360-mile water route had been talked about since the early 1700s and, we might say, seriously considered since 1812. Actual construction commenced at Rome, New York, on July 4, 1817.

The predominant reason for failing to act until 1825 was that the rural populace failed to foresee the remarkable and unexcelled successes of the king of man-made waterways. Of course, few did. Indeed, it was widely doubted even construction of the inordinately difficult project would be successful. Otsego’s population rose impressively in the period from 1810 to 1830, and then declined during the 1830s.

Otsego County

Population

1810–38,800

1814–40,600

1820–44,850

1825–47,900

1830–51,400

1835–50,450

1840–49,628

Here is a pattern that demonstrates that many Otsegans of the period were willing and able to move economic welfare, yet they continued to settle in Otsego long after the Erie’s construction began.

The profound consequence of the Erie was simply not recognized, and this should come as no surprise. The trans-Allegany migration after the War of 1812 quickly established conditions for production of a vast new supply of staples, which became an avalanche upon eastern markets when released by low-cost water travel. Perhaps a few perceptive observers did predict the dire repercussions from the Erie Canal, but it is unlikely that even such a respected man as Oneonta’s E. R. Ford was among their number, for he settled in the village in 1822. Then, too, the political animal has never excelled in foresight and is rarely prone to take decisive action before a problem has reached crisis proportions. And the early nineteenth-century prosperity of pioneer farmers in the locality of Cooperstown and Oneonta undoubtedly helped blur their vision of the future.

Built by Jacob Dietz soon after 1812. Jacob Dietz Jr. sold to the Bundys, possibly in 1854. Located at the site of Bresee’s Department Store on Main Street, where trees were cut down in 1888 and the house was moved back in 1895. To the right there stood another large white house built by William Bissell, which was moved back after 1900. Trees in front of Bissell’s place were removed in 1893. Before that, Oneontans called the area along Main Street Shady Side. Oneonta had miles of white picket fencing.

The fading hope for a canal lingered on. The 1840 state census reported that the Susquehanna was to be prepared for navigation by a series of locks, but the total lack of progress for the plan was evident. The census explained vaguely that the slack water project might instead be replaced by a separate canal to Pennsylvania. And that a railroad from the Erie Canal to Otsego Lake was contemplated as part of the grand scheme. Inevitably, improved transportation along the river focused solely on a railroad.

Early Advocates of a Railroad Down the Susquehanna Valley

In seeking a railroad, businessmen, not farmers, were the activists of Central New York’s sequestered counties. Undoubtedly, those who tilled the soil wanted the road, but men who worked in villages and had established nonagricultural firms were the ones who were the most articulate in proclaiming the desire for a railroad. It was village businessmen who advocated and agitated for the road and generally served as leaders among the people of their section.

Probably from the day the Erie Canal began operation in 1825, businessmen of Oneonta commenced talking about the construction of a railroad down the Susquehanna Valley. Two substantial landholders were the village’s most prominent businessmen at that time. These were William Angel (sometimes Angell), the tavern keeper, who also operated a sawmill, and a Dutchman, Jacob Dietz, the storekeeper, who also ran an ashery. Willard Huntington recorded in his Notes that in 1826, Angel predicted a railroad would pass down the Susquehanna Valley and through Oneonta.

He had by then been a tavern keeper for five or six years. No indication is given as to what Angel conceived to be the terminus of the line, but he closely identified the route through the village that eventually was chosen. This meant that Angel was one of the earliest pioneers of railroading. It was not until August 1829 that Allen of the D&H Canal Co. ran the first locomotive in the United States, and a year later, the nation had only twenty-seven miles of track. Still, Angel’s prediction is believable, since as early as 1810, a number of men were opposing the construction of canals, including the Erie, on the grounds that railways soon would provide superior transportation. Colonel John Stevens, in 1812, was vigorously advocating that a railroad be constructed along the route adopted for the Erie Canal.

Stevens’s correspondence with Governor Clinton and others was extensive and detailed. The dream Stevens had was embodied in the New York Central forty years later.

It is reported that Jacob Dietz was advocating a railroad through Oneonta in 1827 by supplying articles on the subject to Cooperstown’s newspaper, the Freeman’s Journal. Unfortunately, a diligent search for these has been in vain. The aforementioned Sherman Page, a prominent merchant of Unadilla who is said to have had political ambitions, knew both Angel and Dietz, with whom he frequently discussed the possibility of constructing a railroad down the valley. Dietz died in September 1831. Sometime before then, Page and Dietz, at their personal expense, had surveyed a twenty-one-mile stretch that was eventually adopted as part of the route, that is, the Susquehanna Valley from Colliersville, five miles east of Oneonta, to Unadilla, sixteen miles west.

William Angel’s advocacy of a railroad was persistent and reached far beyond the borders of Oneonta. He attempted to sell the idea in a long continued effort extending through many sessions of the legislature. Uncle Bill, as he was known to Oneontans, died in November 1841 at age sixty-two.

Angel was hardly alone in his advocacy of a railroad. Leonard Caryl was a storekeeper and owner of business property in Worcester, nineteen miles east of Oneonta in the Schenevus Valley. At least as early as 1835, Caryl spent considerable time encouraging the construction of a railroad through the Schenevus Valley, joining the Susquehanna Valley at Colliersville and on to Pennsylvania, presumably by way of the Great Bend in the Susquehanna. He did this by speaking at Oneonta and at different points on the route year after year, besides spending much time in Albany during the sessions of the legislature, advocating…his favorite project.

Angel and Dietz of Oneonta, Page of Unadilla, and Caryl of Worcester all sought a railroad that would pass through the Susquehanna Valley. We know that Angel urged what, in whole or in part at least, was destined to be the Albany and Susquehanna railroad [sic]. But the evidence fails to indicate whether any of these men were wedded to a particular route, or whether they thought that certain termini were preferable to others. They were probably less concerned about these matters than that rails would pass through their village, which extended to the flow of commerce beyond the isolated Central New York region.

Angel initially had been a leading contractor in those early days. He built in 1815 the First Presbyterian Church at Elm and Main Street. Like all or most avid railroad advocates, Angel was a landowner. He bought a ninety-acre farm in 1828, and just before his death in 1841, he purchased a fifty-acre plot in the village between Chestnut and River Street. And he had other lands, including a seventy-acre farm sold off in 1837.

William Angel, in 1832, promoted the first daily stage through Oneonta. It caused a great deal of excitement. Each morning at eleven fifteen, the stage would arrive from Cooperstown on its way to Bainbridge, stopping, of course, at Chestnut and Main Street in front of Angel’s Inn. The citizens loved to watch the stage come toward Maple Street, disappear in a gully before Ford Avenue, hear the rattle on the plank over Silver Creek, and then reappear. One can yet stand at Elm Street and see the beginning of that dip. Drivers blew the piercing stage horn from Maple Street until they reached the Presbyterian Church. It was great fun, except for the foul language used by the drivers.

Giles Munson stopped his regular stage run in 1911, said to be the area’s last. He used two teams to run from Hunter’s U&D Station to resort hotels and points in between. Winters were difficult. Occasionally, he would hitch up and draw a hearse to Oneonta.

The Incubation of the A &S RR: Paper Railroads

For a score of years prior to incorporation of the A&S in 1851, businessmen of Oneonta and other villages sought to promote specific railroad projects calling for construction past Oneonta and down the Susquehanna Valley. Four such proposals were embodied in formal charters. Understandably, the intended route of each connected with major transportation arteries. Nothing tangible ever came of these, for the enterprising men of the country villages did not have the needed capital funds and they were unable to attract support from beyond the Central New York region. Still, from these forerunners the A&S project developed.

The first tangible effort toward building a railroad connection out of Central New York appears to have occurred in 1832. On April 25, two railroads were chartered. One, the Utica and Susquehanna Valley Railroad, was to run south from Utica to Unadilla. The second, the Otsego and Schoharie Railroad, was to run up the Susquehanna Valley from Unadilla to at least Colliersville, and most likely continue up the Schenevus Valley to Worcester or beyond.

A third road was chartered on April 26, 1832. This was to cover the nineteen-mile route from Cooperstown to Colliersville. It was to join the Otsego and Schoharie Railroad at Colliersville. A version of this spur was completed to Cooperstown Junction in 1869 as the Cooperstown and Susquehanna Valley Railroad.

Peter Collier was a member of the state legislature in 1832. He and four others were directors of the Otsego and Schoharie Railroad, including Leonard Caryl of Worcester and E. R. Ford of Oneonta. We also know that Jared Goodyear of Colliersville was one of three on the Cooperstown and Collier Railroad subscription committee. Ford and Goodyear were destined to be prominent as promoters of the A&S Railroad.

Who promoted the road south from Utica cannot be determined. Almost surely, men from the northern terminus were important in that proposal. For the rest of the nineteenth century, men of Utica continued from time to time to talk up construction of a railroad to the Susquehanna down the Unadilla Valley.

The overall plan of 1832 calling for U-shaped railroad connections from Cooperstown or Worcester to Utica is interesting, although no further progress whatever was reported. Clearly, men of the interior—most prominently Peter Collier—were vigorous in promoting the scheme. They envisioned cheap transportation to Utica and the Erie Canal.

Another major railroad, the Cherry Valley and Susquehanna Valley Railroad, was incorporated on May 18, 1836. For the period, this project was grandiose. It commenced from Canajoharie on the newly completed Utica and Schenectady Railroad along the Erie Canal. Huntington described the proposed route. It ran to Cherry Valley; thence along the Cherry Valley creek [sic] and the Susquehanna river [sic] to a junction with the Erie (Railroad). The CV&SV Railroad route approximates in length the 133-mile Hamburg to Charleston, South Carolina, line, which in 1833 was the longest railroad in the world. Cherry Valley, being settled in 1738, was the first white community in Otsego County. It had been a prosperous center on the Great Western Turnpike but in the 1830s was suffering from severe competition provided by the Erie Canal and east-west railroads parallel to the canal. The proposed railroad project was abandoned, it is said, due to some difficult grades, presumably north of Cherry Valley. We can, however, assume that the promoters would not have been able to acquire the necessary capital funds even in the absence of steep grades.

Actually, the project was not abandoned, but altered. The route through the Cherry Valley Creek joined the Susquehanna at Milford, ten miles south of Cooperstown, another leading Otsego village that was being hurt by improved transportation facilities along the Mohawk River. In an apparent effort to attract capital from Cooperstown, the Cherry Valley and Cooperstown Railroad was chartered in 1837. Presumably, this proposed route was the same as the road chartered in 1836, except that it would deviate from the Cherry Valley Creek so as to include Cooperstown. Possibly, the 1837 charter called for the road to begin at Cherry Valley and go southward, thereby eliminating the demanding grades north of Cherry Valley. But this is solely the author’s speculation. The directors cannot be found for either the 1836 or 1837 charter.

Probably, this venture of 1837 was stillborn due to the depression of the late 1830s and early 1840s. There were few, if any, Cherry Valley merchants who did not fail during those years. Not until nine years later was another proposal for a railroad down the Susquehanna Valley to be recorded in a charter.

Harvey Baker, writing in the Otsego Farmer in 1890, revealed what might have begun the revival of efforts to build a railroad down the Susquehanna Valley. In 1844, he, Major Peter Collier, and Jared Goodyear met in Oneonta, and according to Baker, they concocted the scheme that finally culminated in the construction of the A&S Railroad. We learn no further details.

In 1846, the Schenectady and Susquehanna Railroad was incorporated. This was the immediate predecessor to the A&S. And like the earlier paper railroads, this, too, was projected by the businessmen located along the interior valleys of New York. In…November 1845, a call was issued for a railroad meeting at the Van Tuyl tavern [sic], in…Richmondville, a Schoharie County village in the Schenevus Valley, thirty-two miles east of Oneonta. The announced purpose was to consider the construction of a railroad from Schenectady to Binghamton. The meeting was well attended by a large concourse of people. Men represented localities from all along the route. Jared Goodyear and Harvey Baker went from Oneonta.

Speeches were made at the Van Tuyl Tavern, and petitions were circulated throughout this valley calling for incorporation of the Schenectady and Susquehanna RR. When the legislature convened, these petitions were presented by Colonel W. W. Snow. This talented orator was destined to be an Oneonta village president, state assemblyman, and congressman. He also became, of course, a vigorous promoter of the A&S RR. The petition was thought necessary because, as mentioned, New York’s general incorporation law for railroads was not enacted until 1850. Six months after the Richmondville railroad meeting, in May 1846, the Schenectady and Susquehanna RR charter was granted. It is not known how many directors there were; however, they included E. R. Ford, of Oneonta; Jared Goodyear, who lived in Colliersville and did business in Oneonta; Seth Chase, of Maryland (in the Schenevus Valley); and Leonard Caryl, the vigorous railroad promoter from Worcester.

One of the principal problems from the beginning was that Schenectady failed to awaken to the importance of the enterprise. Little wonder that men of Schenectady did not promise to provide significant support, for in 1845 the city had a population of about 7,500. Besides, Schenectady already was serviced by railroads running westerly to Utica and east to Albany, as well as the thriving Erie Canal.

One of the puzzles of the era was why the Schenectady and Susquehanna Railroad was directed to Schenectady instead of to Albany. Certainly, Albany was the logical destination, and such a project had been considered for years. In any case, Mr. Keyes, of Bainbridge—a village on the line twenty-eight miles west of Oneonta—published in 1844 a well-publicized letter in the Binghamton Courier urging the construction of a railroad from Albany to Binghamton. Albany was a major city in 1844, a transportation center with forty-two thousand inhabitants, tenth in the nation.

To be sure, a line to Albany would mean another ten miles of construction, but that was hardly enough to make a difference. Much more important, a route to Albany was at that time thought to be impracticable due to the difficult terrain. Schenectady was a second choice. It was relatively easy to reach, but it was not a place where substantial funds could be acquired to finance the road.

Still, the village entrepreneurs were determined to see the Schenectady and Susquehanna built. At the original meeting in November 1845, a subscription committee was appointed to visit Boston. Who did the appointing is quite unclear. Harvey Baker of Oneonta served with this group. At that time, Boston was the primary source of railroad capital in the United States. Overseas trade based upon America’s wooden ships was dwindling. England’s subsidized iron shipping industry was increasingly competitive, and the new, colorful clipper ships were fast but carried little freight. The famous families of Beacon Hill therefore commenced looking inward for satisfactory investments. It was quite natural to seek support there for the Schenectady and Susquehanna RR, especially since that line held promise of diverting trade with the west in the direction of Boston. Apparently, Boston’s capitalists showed no interest. In the mid-1840s, Bostonians were showing a preference for convertible bonds in return for their exported money capital, and a lack of supporting equity from local sources might well have discouraged their assistance.

Still, the Schenectady and Susquehanna RR never really expired. Rather, the terminus was shifted to Albany. After three years without progress, Jedediah Miller, in 1849, made a survey to learn more about the difficulties confronting a route from the Schoharie Valley to Albany. Miller resided in Lawyersville, located off the line two miles north of Cobleskill, on the A&S route thirty-five miles east of Oneonta. By probing the valleys of the Normanskill and Borakill Creeks, Miller’s survey discovered a feasible route to the city of Albany.

New interest was immediately awakened. We know that in 1849 meetings were held along the line, but learn no further details. Then in 1850, Miller asked Harvey Baker of Oneonta to announce a larger meeting to be held in Oneonta and to be attended by representatives from all places on the route. Men came from at least as far away as Windsor, thirty-nine miles west of Oneonta, and south of the line on the Great Bend of the Susquehanna River. Mr. Miller made one of his best railroad speeches, but what else took place and whether it was attended by anyone from Albany is not known.

By 1850, Oneonta’s entrepreneurs had been promoting a railroad for twenty-five years. They would have been stunned had they been told that they would have to wait another fifteen years for a village depot.

The Plank Road: An Inferior Alternative to Railroads

Businessmen evinced interest in other ways of improving transportation facilities besides railroads. During the late 1840s and 1850s, plank roads were built to facilitate wagon travel. The idea of a railroad had undergone a lengthy incubation period, and extensive construction of the A&S did not commence until a decade after incorporation in 1851. To many merchants of Central New York the railroad project seemed hopeless.

In this environment of frustration and delay, many plank road projects were carried through to completion. They were far cheaper to construct than a railroad and could be built over terrain that would forbid the passage of a locomotive. In addition to Otsego, these lanes of split timber were laid in adjacent Schoharie and Delaware counties, and they were largely financed by local businessmen. So intense was this effort that during these years, when a great many such roads were built in the United States, construction of plank roads was carried out farthest in central New York state.

In 1851, a plank road stage left Albany three times a week at 6:00 a.m. and headed down Route 7 to Oneonta, the trip taking only five hours if all went well. Where the plank road stopped on the way down cannot be found. The stage promptly returned to Albany, leaving Timothy Watkins’ Inn at Main and Chestnut Street.

Plank roads collected tolls. They might have made wagon travel faster, but not cheaper. It did not pay the farmer to use them extensively, and most were abandoned for lack of revenue once the first planks deteriorated. One reason for the initial popularity of plank roads in Central New York was the ready availability of wood, but those roads for which it was worthwhile to replace plank incurred maintenance costs that constantly rose, as wood had to be obtained farther from the route.

The Cooperstown and Fort Plain Plank Road Co. lasted longer than most of these rural arteries of commerce. It was a direct twenty-eight-mile route from the interior of Otsego to the New York Central Railroad and the Erie Canal. Originally, it was the Otsego Lake Turnpike built in 1825. Planked in 1850, it was operated for about 20 years, first as a plank and 36 then as a partially McAdamized road. This apparently profitable venture was doomed by the cheaper transportation provided by the A&S, together with the feeder railroad, completed in 1869, from Cooperstown to join the A&S at Cooperstown Junction, a mile east of Colliersville.

Amazingly, a plank road from Lodi to Cherry Valley still was in operation in 1890. This was not only the last such operation in Otsego but was also very probably the last in the nation.

Nothing is recorded that would indicate that Oneonta’s businessmen considered promoting a plank road out of the village. Most likely, they gave the matter no serious thought. The dirt Charlotte Turnpike, built in the 1830s, was serving the village fine. It also may have been that from the time railroads were first considered, Oneonta occupied a strategic position. If a railroad were built down the Susquehanna Valley, Oneonta seemed a logical place for a depot. This was especially true in the 1850s, when the A&S was struggling. The fact that a railroad was considered a serious possibility meant that the fixed investment involved in a plank road seemed a somewhat riskier undertaking than it did to village merchants who did not share Oneonta’s realistic hopes for railroad facilities.

In 1851, a stage run by the Plank Road Line, an Albany promotion, ran through Schoharie and ended at Oneonta (Susquehanna House). It was a ten-hour round trip Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. However, the plank