The cost of excavating a cut to put the railroad below street grade and the price of the highway bridges needed to carry these streets over the railroad was prohibitive. Another consideration was the high cost of buying, or taking by eminent domain, many private homes. The city fathers knew too that if the railroad were built with numerous railroad-highway grade crossings the residents would be subjected to smoke and frequent noise from train whistles. Opposition was growing. Finally, Trinity College’s president and trustees attended the hearings held at Hartford’s Center hall and threatened to move the college from its present location if the railroad project went forward. The directors suggested an alternative eastern route between Colt’s Patented Arms Company and the Connecticut River. The cost of securing undeveloped land along the proposed eastern route would be uncontested and much less expensive.
Connecticut Valley Railroad Stock Certificate #144. Three shares ($300) made out on May 13, 1871 to Benjamin Douglas of Middletown, CT. It is signed by President James C. Walkley and Secretary Levi Woodhouse. It still has its revenue stamp attached. COURTESY MIDDLESEX COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
In fact, Mrs. Elizabeth Colt, Samuel’s widow, had her lawyers approach the railroad’s board of directors and inform them that she would subscribe to $30,000 of stock if the railroad were built on the eastern route near her arms manufacturing plant. At a September CVRR board of directors meeting, about 20 prominent and influential citizens of Hartford showed up and also offered to subscribe to $25,000 of the railroad’s capital stock if the easterly route were taken. The board of directors argued and voted on the two different routes nine times, the first vote coming on May 7, 1870. The eastern route was selected by a vote of 8 to 5 at a board meeting on November 17, 1870. This was such a bitter dispute that once settled, Director and Chief Engineer Marsh and Director Seymour immediately resigned. The board of directors then chose replacement directors: Joseph S. Woodruff and George Beach. On December 29th 1870 they appointed Hiram Fowler the new chief engineer.
A meeting of the board of directors on Friday, March 18, 1870 had opened proposals for rail construction of the Connecticut Valley Railroad. Of approximately 50 bids, there were 14 for the whole road, and the rest for various segments. The following day another meeting was held and by informal vote, the directors accepted a bid from New York’s Dillon, Clyde & Co. who was willing to take 15 percent of their bid in CVRR stock as final payment. Dillon, Clyde & Co. had a good reputation as they had contracted under the Union Pacific Railroad on the recently completed transcontinental railroad. Most recently, they had been working on the Boston, Hartford & Erie Railroad where work had stopped. This left the company in a good position to move to the CVRR. Their contract called for all the work including grading, masonry, building bridges and laying ties and rails. However, the contract specified that the CVRR would furnish ties, iron rails and spikes. This agreement to build the railroad was settled before the line was completely located.
Dillon, Clyde & Co. subcontracted the bridges to A. D. Briggs and Company of Springfield, Massachusetts. J.R. Smith supervised the construction of all the covered Howe truss bridges on the line—over the Sebethe River (Mattabesset River) and Sumner Creek in Middletown, over Higganum Cove and Mill Creek in Haddam, and probably over the Falls River in Centerbrook. Drawbridges were built to span the Park River in Hartford and at Chester Creek in Chester. Dillon, Clyde & Co. also engaged A.M. Wright of Greenfield, Massachusetts to lay the ties and rails. The CVRR contracted with Capt. Oliver B. Clark of Chester to furnish 165,000 ties at 53 cents each; and by March 23, 1870 Clark had delivered 80,000. The original rail was iron weighing 50 pounds per yard. Engineers utilized three steam shovels to construct this line—one at Fort Hill, Middletown, probably on the river side of the hill on which the Connecticut Valley Hospital is located; another in Cromwell where there are some big cuts and fills north of where the North Cromwell railroad station stood; the third in Haddam north of where the Arnolds Station was situated. Each steam shovel was said to be capable of moving 800 to 1,000 cubic yards of material in a working day.
Rail-mounted NYNH&HRR Steam Shovel, 1910. This photo was taken at a gravel pit located on the west side of the Valley Line about one mile north of Old Saybrook Station. Material from this borrow pit was used to fill in trestles crossing the north and south coves in Old Saybrook. This Model 40 steam shovel was built by Marion Steam Shovel Company of Marion, Ohio. COURTESY BARBARA J. MAYNARD.
Construction was paused in Deep River, on June 9, 1870, when an unidentified human skeleton was found about two feet below the ground surface. The body was removed to a more suitable burial plot.
Railroad construction during this time was very dangerous. On June 15, 1870, a laborer working on the section of the railroad that had been subcontracted to Ryan—one of the many subcontractors hired to grade one or more sections of the new line—was killed when a sand bank caved in. He was the first documented casualty, but there would be more death and suffering—and re-internments—on a construction project 44 miles long.
On September 14, 1870, George Long, a workman on the CVRR, was seriously injured by a premature powder blast at Dunham’s grove, three miles south of Middletown. All his clothes were blown off, the sight of one eye lost, and he suffered other serious injuries.
Grade Crossing in Middletown, 1872. This photo shows a Middletown grade crossing with the Connecticut River and Portland in the background. This is the earliest known photograph of the Valley Line. COURTESY SPECIAL COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVES, OLIN LIBRARY.
On November 23, 1870 the remains of Lady Fenwick, the first white woman to be buried at Saybrook Point, in 1645, was exhumed to allow the railroad to build over her burial site. Although her body had been in the ground for 225 years, remarkably, there were identifiable remains including an intact skull with a large amount of brown-reddish hair. Her body was reinterred at the present day Cypress Cemetery, a quarter of a mile west of the original grave.
On December 21, 1870 a boy working on the railroad at Deep River placed a mass of glycerin to melt over a fire and then walked away. Before he was 200 feet from the flame, the glycerin exploded with a concussion that shook every house in the village. The newspaper did not report if the boy survived the blast or not.
Of course the casualties did not end with the project’s completion. In time, for example, a dispute arose over the large number of highway grade crossings in Middletown. The Air Line, already built through Middletown, had more favorable topography and grade crossings were minimal. There were five grade crossings at the extreme western side of Middletown. The need for some large fills caused the Air Line to excavate some large cuts, which facilitated the building of bridges for streets to cross over the railroad. However, the level terrain along the Connecticut River necessitated 17 grade crossings: from north to south Miller, Portland, and Bridge Streets; Rapallo Avenue; Green, Ferry, Washington, Court, Center, College, William, Union, and South Streets; then three River Road crossings followed by an unnamed crossing in Maromas. Eventually there were 11 fatalities at six of these crossings. Seven of these highway grade crossings and one pedestrian crossing remain today.
In more than 80 years of newspaper microfilms, 138 total deaths were recorded—the last being on August 23, 1932. They are categorized as:
• Train wrecks: 9 (See Chapter 7)
• Pedestrian, automobile or horse & wagon grade crossing accidents: 23
• Trespassing, often drunkards stumbling and/or sleeping on the tracks: 59
• Suicide or murder staged to look like an accident: 4
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