Bernardsville News from Bernardsville, New Jersey • Page 42

Page Fourteen I'M- NEWS OBStRVtR TRIBUNE ECHOES SENTINEL HUNTERDON REVIEW Thursday, January 27, 1972 ENGINE NO. 24, the Madison, leads the afternoon Accommodation over the Passaic River bridge at Millinglon Gorge about 1895. 100 Years Ago Saturday the Iron Horse Arrived By FELECIA STITCHER Staff Writer "Mr. Editor: Perhaps you heard a noise from this direction this morning and wondered what it was. Well.

that was our locomotive whistle. The long looked for. much talked of, railroad is here at last. "At 6:35 this morning the first passenger train of the N.J. West Line R.R.

left Bernardsville for Summit, there to connect with the Dover Express of the D.L.&W.R.R. It reached Basking Ridge at 6:40 where quite a number of people were gathered to take the trial trip, and if we may judge from the first, we may safely say that it is a success. "The engineer is experienced and careful, the conductor kind and gentlemanly. Many familiar faces were seen here and there throughout the car and on all the same expression of pleasure and satisfaction." The anonymous writer of these words to the Somerset Messenger on January 29, 1872, probably did not know that his folksy description would chronicle for posterity an event oi' major historical significance to the Somerset Hills. This Saturday will probably go unnoticed to most as the 100th anniversary of the first rail service from Bernardsville to New York a two-hour and 10-minute journey made once a day in each direction at the lime.

But it becomes an occasion to recall so of the stumbling blocks on the way to that memorable and some of the significant event! following it. Much of the recorded history of what began in as the Peapack and Plainfield Railroad has been done by Kenneth A. Turner Jr. oi Basking Ridge, an ardent railroad buff who lias painstakingly researched the progress of the line since its inception. Turner, who made available to The Bernardsville News his extensive notes and photographs, has close personal ties with local rail transportation.

His grandfather was one of three Bernards men who lost their lives in the famed Meadows wreck of I 894. A great-grandfather was a well-known peach grower in Bernardsville wlm used the line daily at harvest time to move his produce to urban markets. The first step toward construction of a railroad through the Somerset Hills came in 1855 when the Peapack and Plainfield Railroad Company was incorporated by an act of the Legislature and authorized to build a line "from a suitable place in or near Peapack through the Counties of Somerset and Hsscx, passing at or within two miles of Liberty Corner, to some suitable point in or near Plain Held." The act also authorized the company to collect tolls at a rate of three cents a mile for passenger and five cents a mile per ton of freight. Six years later, the name was changed to Pcapack and Passaic Valley Railroad and the stipulations that the road pass within two miles of Liberty Corner and terminate near Plainfield were repelled. In the Passai, Valley and Peapack Railroad Company was incorporated with capital stock amounting to $1.2 million and with John H.

Anderson of Bernards as president It was empowered to construe) the line from "some point in the County of Union of the County of Somerset through the township of Springfield, into the of New Providence so up the Passaic Valley at or near Basking Ridge and so on to the Village of Peapack." Two years later, the railroad was given permission to extend the line to the Delaware River between Frenchtown and Milford. Financial problems, however, plagued the fledgling company and in 1868, the Legislature authorized "certain towns" along the proposed route to issue bonds and take stock in the railroad. Bernards Township issued bonds totaling SI 27,000 and less than a decade later became embroiled in litigation challenging the legality of the issuance. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case twice, ruling in favor of Bernards in 1883 and for the bondholders in 1890.

The second decision produced some local confusion as the Unionist Gazette reported on April 10, 1 890: "In consequence of the recent decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in the matter of the Bernards Township bonds case the internal affairs of the township have become considerably complicated. J.T. Ballentine. the tax assessor, has resigned and application has been made lor die appointment of a tax commission The effect of this condition of affairs will be to deprive the bondholders of the power to enforce the collection of any judgment against the township In 1869, construction began from Summit to Bernardsville and in 1870, the name of the line was changed once to the New Jersey West Line Railroad Company.

On March 22, 1870, the Somerset Messenger reported on the track-laying progress: "The quaint little village of Baskingridge of Revolutionary renown has at last finished its Rip Van Winkle sleep and is wide awake to the requirements of its present and future generations as the changes now taking- place are proving. Among the many changes are the Passaic Valley and Peapack R.R. nearly completed, running through the Money problems persisted and in 1871, Asa Packer, multimillionaire president of the Lehigh Valley Railroad who was seeking a route to tidewater, took over and promised to complete the road within 18 months. There were grumblings about the acquisition as described in this report of June 13, 1871 in the Sentinel of Freedom. "The officers of the Lehigh Valley are now anxious to extend their business but seem determined to do it on the lowest possible terms and no secret is now made of the cheap manner in which they achieved their N.J.

acquisition." But Packer lived up to his word and 10 months ahead of his deadline, the line was opened from Bernardsville to Summit where it connected to the Morris and Essex, then under lease to the Delaware, Lackawanna Western. According to the late Bernardsville historian Edwin S. Spinning, the engineer for the maiden trip was Pennington Day and the first conductor, George L. Taylor, who at the time of his death in 1900 was the oldest conductor on the line. Within live months service was oXDiindcd to two eastboiiiid and two westbound trains daily.

With the opening of rail service, speculators quickly moved in, some treating cityfolk to a barbecue along witli their sales pitch for small parcels of land in Basking Ridge. The railroad encouraged residential development by offering free commutation for a year to every man building in Bernards. Oscar Conkling opened his coal and lumber business at about this time. The large peach orchards around Bernardsville also came in for mention by the press. On August 18, 1874, the Sentinel of Freedom noted in a dispatch datelined Bernardsville: "Although the large orchards cannot compare in size with the Maryland and Delaware orchards, yet there are several in this neighborhood of considerable extent.

One of the largest in Somerset County is that of Ezra Dayton, situated within half a mile of this village. It is said to contain upward of 25.000 bearing trees. Last evening the first of the special or extra peach trains was run over the West Line R.R. This train is a great convenience to the growers as it does not leave Bernardsville until 9 o'clock in the evening thus giving the growers the entire day to pick the fruit and enable them to load in the cool of the evening. About the first of September will bring the N.J.

peach crop to its highest point. Five or six carloads per day will leave here." Dayton was the great-grandfather of Kenneth A. Turner. The railroad, meanwhile, continued to fight a losing battle with debts and in 1878 was sold for $50,000 to R.G. Rolston, who organized a new corporation known as the Passaic and Delaware Railroad Company.

Samuel Sloan was elected president, which in effect placed the railroad under the control of the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western, since he also headed that line. The formal leasing was accomplished in 1882. This news was joyfully greeted, if the report of The Jerseyman in Morristown on August 16, 1878, is any indication: "It has been announced that the West Line Railroad has been leased to the D.L.&W. Co. If this is true, it will be welcome news to the people along the route as the road is now in about the worst condition possible and very dangerous to travel over." The new management set about remedying conditions, but this also became a cause for complaint, as evidenced by the somewhat biting "Basking Ridge Item" in the Somerset Messenger of November 20, 1879: "Our railroad, according to official notice, will be closed for repairs on the Passaic Bridge, the trains running only as far as Millington, leaving the commuters from this place and Bernardsville to make their way as best they can to their destinations.

"Some wonder at the seeming neglect of the convenience of the patrons on the road, but upon reflection it will be found to be on a par with other rulings of our very accommodating railroad, to wit: high freight tariff, neglect, refusal to stop at stations as marked on the schedule, setting excursion tickets (for a single passage) in New for Basking Ridge for while in Basking an excursion to New York costs $1.90." In 1890, Bernardsville lost its status as the line's terminus when the track was extended seven miles to Peapack. In contrast to the pace of the West Unc construction, this was completed in six months. Excerpts from the Unionist Gazette from May 1, 1890, to November 27, 1890, record the construction progress: "If certain obstacles can be overcome a large force of men will be put to work on this end of the Peapack extension of the R.R. from Bernardsville. The terminus will be on land owned now by Ellis Tiger "Between 150 and 200 Italians are employed on the extension.

(Many of these settled in the area, forming the nucleus of today's Italian-American population here). "Our railroad is progressing rapidly. The cars came to Charles Barker's mill on Tuesday. "Our usually quiet village is stirred because of the friction between the Reformed Church of this place and the Peapack extension railroad company. The friction is occasioned by entailed property upon which the railroad proposes to iild its depot, roundhouses, etc.

"The Passaic and Delaware Railroad commenced running trains two weeks since. We get excellent train service, nine trains a day, five in and four out. Peapack should boom in a lively manner if railroads and Democrats have anything to do with booms." On 15, 1894, one of the railroad's worst wrecks occurred near the Hackensack River drawbridge when the Dover Express, proceeding slowly in a thick fog, was rammed in the rear by the South Orange Accommodation. The two rear cars of the Dover train, which bore the brunt of the impact, had been coupled on from the Passaic and Delaware at Summit. Local residents who died in the crash were Edward Kinsey of Bernardsville, William J.

Turner (the grandfather of Kenneth A. Turner) and Edward M. Gark of Basking Ridge. Those injured included William Barclift of Gladstone, Rev. Nicholas Bowers of Lyons, Harry S.

Cornish and Ernest H. Shafer, both of Basking Ridge. The worst accident on the Passaic and Delaware came at 8:25 a.m. June 5, 1908, when the Millionaire's Express carrying 300 passengers and traveling at 50 m.p.h. was derailed at a stone crusher siding in Millington.

Henry Dalrymple of Gladstone, the engine driver, blamed spreading of the rails for the mishap, in which 11 persons were hurt. The rear trucks of the first car were torn from the car, breaking the train in half. The rear cars jumped the track and rolled over. Track repairs were going on at the time and railroad officia's, after formal investigation, concluded that insufficient spiking of the switch rail had caused the wreck. The line was gradually modernized over the years.

The bridge at Millington Gorge was replaced in 1892 and again in 1928 and electrified service was inaugurated on January 25, 1931. (Steam locomotives continued to be used in freight service on the branch until 1954) It was an occation for celebration and school children were permitted to view the first electric train on what is now known as the Gladstone branch. Today, a Bernardsville to Hoboken express travels the 35 miles in 53 minutes..