In the last Transition column it was noted that the original route
of Dr. Seward Webb’s Mohawk-Malone railroad (later the New York Central)
was thwarted when the state refused to allow the line to cross state
land. Dr. Webb may have been thwarted but he was not to be stymied. He
immediately bought 115,000 acres of private land for an alternative route.
That maneuver brought Webb’s line to Tupper Lake! There was more state
land to cross north of here, but that problem would be solved if Dr.
Webb could use Hurd’s existing Northern Adirondack Railroad line as a
northern connector. It is not likely that Dr. Webb anticipated a problem
here. He was aware that Hurd needed money and Dr. Webb had plenty of
that commodity. He had “married well.” His bride, Lila Osgood Vanderbilt
(for whom he renamed Smiths Lake to Lake Lila at his Nehasane estate),
got a $1,250,000 (1880 dollars) Fifth Avenue mansion as a wedding gift
from Dad. In addition, it wasn’t long after that he left the medical
profession (not highly regarded in the social pecking order in those
days) and surfaced as president of the Wagner Sleeping Car Co., the firm
that spawned today’s Pullman Car Company.
In other words, as we would say today, “He had deep pockets.”
He offered Hurd $600,000 for his Northern Adirondack line. That offer
was attractive enough, given Hurd’s money problems, that Hurd went to
New York and met with Dr. Webb. Apparently a deal was made and the papers
were to be signed the next day. That didn’t happen. Hurd, instead of
signing the papers, simply called the next day to say that the deal was
off. Charles H. Burnett, in his privately printed book, “Conquering the
Wilderness,” explains how that transaction reportedly went sour:
That night, Mr. Paine, of the Pope-Paine Lumber Company, saw Hurd at his hotel and offered to raise his price fifty thousand dollars if he would grant an option on the road for a short time. Hurd agreed. The next morning, instead of signing the paper, he merely called to say that the deal was off. There was no angrier man that day than Dr. Webb. Later Paine came in and tried to sell his option at an advance in price. that did not improve the Doctor’s temper. He told them both that he would parallel the Hurd Road within a year, and he kept his word.
At this point Webb decided to take his line north to Malone instead
of Moira. As mentioned, this meant crossing state land protected by the
Constitutional amendment that reads: “Land of the forest preserve shall
be forever kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be sold, nor shall
they be leased or taken by any person or corporation public or private.”
Once again thwarted but not stymied an undaunted Dr. Webb found a solution.
He discovered that a Dr. Samuel B. Ward had just recently acquired title
to a 30,000-acre tract north of this community. He had gained possession
by successfully challenging the state’s acquisition of the land by tax
sale. Dr. Ward sold a strip through this tract to Webb for the railroad.
What was this challenge that defeated the state? Ward’s argument, while
perfectly legal but which would have been severely questioned by today’s
environmental watch dog groups, was that the tax sale should be overturned
because the original assessment was placed on the entire township, not
individual lots, which he said involved both resident and non-resident
owners. The comptroller agreed (an acceptance that would also spark debate
today) and the tax sale was overturned.
It is ironic that the scrutiny lacking in that decision is today being
focused on Dr. Webb’s former private station in Nehasane. The DEC is
presently trying to decide whether or not the old station has sufficient
historic importance to be preserved or if it is non-conforming under
the reclassification of Lake Lila. Observers will be watching closely
to see if it will be moved a short distance inside the rail corridor
— or will the rail corridor be bulged to accommodate the building where
it now stands? Or will it be removed? How will this decision affect the
buildings at the Santanoni Preserve, which some believe are non-conforming
and should be removed?
Anyway, let’s continue. As you can imagine, the construction of the line
was a major headache with swarms of blood-thirsty black flies, rain,
mud; rock ledges that had to be drilled by hand and blasted with black
powder; and stumps that had to be dynamited. Intense cold froze the ground
to be graded and caused intense suffering among the African-American
laborers brought in by contractors from Tennessee, none of whom were
properly clothed and were often barefoot when they arrived. There was
also the problem of private owners along the route who refused a right-of-way.
One determined private owner, so the story goes, put out armed border
guards as the track layers approached. Undaunted, Webb’s crew are supposed
to have put their stretch through on a dark, stormy night, leaving details
to be ironed out by the attorneys the next morning. (And some people
considered Hurd a scoundrel.)
The late Louis Simmons, former Tupper Lake Historian, tells of one ingenious
“bonus device used to accelerate the construction.”
According to Louie, W.N. Roberts took charge of the construction work
on the north end and his son, Hershel Roberts, took charge of the southern
portion. A friendly rivalry developed between the Roberts father and
son to see who could get the most track laid in one day. African-American
trackmen made up the gang of Roberts senior, while his son had a crew
of sixty St. Regis Native Americans. The number of feet laid by each
was posted in the camps nightly. Hershel Roberts devised a scheme to
step up completed trackage that worked.
Every morning a keg of beer was carried and set on the grade a good,
optimistic distance ahead and the crew was told it could knock off and
enjoy the beer when they reached it. With that stimulus the gap was soon
cleared at the rate of a mile a day. Note: There were 3,000 ties to the
mile, according to a New York Herald reporter, who got the energetic
Dr. Webb to slow down for an interview. The reporter wrote that the rails
were extra-heavy steel and the road was to have the finest rolling stock
ever made. The reporter concluded his article by stating, “There will
not be enough traffic to pay for the oil on the wheels. The natives are
dazzled.”
That reporter should have been standing at the Junction Station here
a few years later when traffic hit its peak during the 1932 Olympics.
The railroad not only drew in most of the spectators but also a lot of
the snow to snow-starved Lake Placid. At the same time, section after
section of sleepers sped through the Adirondack night 15 minutes apart.
That reporter was the one who would have been “dazzled.”
Claribel Bruce Provided Valuable History of Railroad’s Demise at Santa
Clara
The “Tupper Lake and Ottawa”
My dad, Emrick Bruce, had watched the building of this railroad before the turn of the century and had a fair amount of pride that he was even remotely involved in a project that would help our little town. John Hurd, a lumberman from Santa Clara, California, had at one time observed that this area would provide ample opportunity to lumber virgin timber in this part of the Adirondacks and that transportation for logs and people would be needed. Besides providing four passenger trains a day and a couple of freights, Hurd gave our town its beautiful name, Santa Clara. Out of courtesy and appreciation, in exchange the townspeople gave the hill bordering the west end of the town the name Hurd — Hurd Hill.
Week after week this little railroad train took me to St. Regis Falls at 7:30 a.m., and returned me at 8:30 p.m., when I first attended high school. (Are you who are enjoying the convenience of the school bus listening?) My homework was done in the cold and old railroad station at St. Regis Falls, now transformed into the attractive and adequately spacious Town Building.
As filled as it was with the stale tobacco smoke, as rough and upsetting as the ride as we tore round the the bends to reach St. Regis Falls in 17 minutes, as many times as I had previously eaten breakfast and later wished I hadn’t, and as much as I rebelled at having to leave for school so early and arrive back at night so late, I still was grateful for the transportation that could get me to school on time each day, and grateful to John Hurd who never knew he was doing all of this for me.
St. Regis Falls Newsletter
Courtesy of Larry Woods