WITH

ITH no means of communication with the outer world the lot of the pioneer would simply mean a hand-to-hand struggle with unsubdued nature, and defeat and death as the final scene. Whether in his original journey he travel on foot, guiding his course by blazing the trees or following the trail of the primeval inhabitant, the Indian, or whether with creaking wagon he threads the primitive road, his means of communication with those left behind constitutes his greatest safety. For by that path can re-enforcements come to aid him in his warfare against nature, by it can the products of his toil go to swell the tide of the world's commerce, by it can he retreat when pressed by savage foe.

But to the pioneers of Monroe county communication with the outside world did not mean what it does now, but something so radically different that the young man of the present day can have, at best, but a faint conception of it. In 1831 a young man who had but recently arrived in the village of Adrian from "York State," wanted to obtain a small stock of goods from Detroit. Monroe was the nearest port, and bright and early one morning he started for Monroe on foot. The road was a primitive one, and settlers few and far between. It had rained, and the walking was heavy. The first night found him at a tavern near the present site of Dundee; the second day brought him to Monroe. After he had procured his goods and made arrangements for them to be hauled by wagon to Adrian he started on the return journey, still on foot. Arrived at a tavern near the site of the present village of Ida, he found a teamster there who was going a part of the way toward Adrian the next day. The road was so heavy that riding upon the load was impossible; but for the sake of company along the lonely way, he concluded to remain at the tavern over night and accompany the freighter's wagon

on foot the next morning. The literary resources of the hotel were not extensive; they consisted of a copy of the Bible and a much worn almanac of the year 1830; so after a hearty supper of biscuits, butter, milk, fried pork and venison, at a little after eight o'clock he retired to rest. Before the first gray streaks of dawn. appeared in the eastern sky he was called to a breakfast much like the supper of the night before, except that the biscuits were replaced by corn meal griddle cakes. After breakfast he indulged in a glass of cider and called for his bill, and these were the items: Supper, 6 cents; lodging, 6 cents; breakfast, 6 cents; cider, 3 cents; total, 21 cents. Having liquidated his indebtedness to "mine host" he started on foot alongside the freighter, and late that evening walked into the village of Adrian, whither a week or two afterward his goods followed him. That footsore pedestrian who knew by experience the means of communication used by the pioneers of Michigan was destined to have a wide influence over the means of communication in the years to come, though at the date of his journey the postchaise and the stage-coach were the best facilities for travel the world afforded. That young man was J. H. Cleveland, destined nine years afterward to be the first superintendent of the Michigan Southern Railroad.

In the "Pennsylvania Railroad-Historical and Descriptive," a work devoted to an intelligent and faithful chronicle of the rise of one of the greatest transportation companies America has yet seen, the artist, Darley, in a frontispiece entitled "The Old Ways," has perpetuated by his pencil a most graphic delineation of the methods of travel and transportation in the times of the pioneers. In the foreground and half way up a hillside stands the country tavern, its sign suspended between two posts on the side of the road which passes its door. On its porch in various attitudes is a group

awaiting the arrival of the stage-coach, which, with a head at every window, its roof covered with luggage and its driver's whip curling in the air, is just drawing nigh. In the foreground, creeping along, is a large "Conestoga wagon, with bent hoops supporting a canvas covering to protect its load from the rain; two buckets, one for tar and one for water, swinging to its hind axle; while in the valley to the right is seen a canal boat being slowly drawn toward a bridge in the far perspective. If we omit the canal boat and put the wayside tavern upon a plain instead of perched upon a hillside, the picture would be as true of Monroe county in 1830 as of Pennsylvania. The stagecoach, however, has long since disappeared from the highway. For many years one, and probably the last one, of the old-fashioned stagecoaches of the pioneer days to be found in Michigan, was kept in one of the warehouses at the dock, the property of J. M. Sterling; but this was destroyed in the fire of 1884. The country inns, too, have seen their glory depart, though at various places in the county the old buildings may still be seen. On the road from Toledo to Adrian, on the road from Toledo to Monroe, and along the old "Chicago turnpike," at Erie, at Laselle, at Brest and in Raisinville samples of the old buildings still exist, either remodeled into dwellings or standing forlorn by the roadside, mute, deserted and crumbling monuments of " a day that is past."

When in 1831 Mr. Cleveland made his journey from Adrian to Monroe and return, using that conveyance which nature alone provides, in Great Britain were sprouting the seeds of an industry destined to revolutionize the commerce of the world. The Stockton and Darlington Railway had been completed and was in operation some years previously, but had only been used for the transportation of freight; only two years before (1829) Stephenson had made his famous trial trip with the "Rocket" upon the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (afterwards a portion of the magnificent London and Northwestern system). The first experimental train load of passengers was drawn across Chatmoss, January 1, 1830, and the line was opened for public travel September 15, 1830. The Leicester and Swannington Railway (the precursor of the Midland system) was opened the 17th of July, 1832. We are accustomed to boast of the rapidity with which this

generation takes up and adopts the inventions. of science, but a comparison with those days will convince us that "progress" was as much the watchword in 1830 and later as at present. In less than a year after the Leicester and Swannington line was opened, and less than two years after the opening of the first railway carrying passengers, the territorial legislature of Michigan was asked for a charter for a railway. It was promptly granted April 22, 1833,* and empowered the corporators to construct a railroad from Port Lawrence (now Toledo, and then within the boundaries of the State of Michiganf) to the village of Adrian and thence to some point upon the waters of the Kalamazoo river, and to use as means of locomotion animals, steam engines, locomotives, or any other force. This was be known as the "Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad." With this charter begins the history of railroads in Michigan, and some few miles of the original road (from a mile northwest of Sylvania, Ohio, to a short distance west of the village of Ottawa Lake) now a portion of the Michigan Division of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway, is within the borders of Monroe county.

Though chartered in 1833 the project slumbered, and it was not till three years afterward that any real work was done; the first section of the road, Port Lawrence to Sylvania, ten miles, being opened in 1836. The roadbed was composed of wooden stringers laid on ties, with strap iron spiked upon the stringers. The cars were a modified form of stage-coach; the motive power, horses. But new life was infused into the undertaking the succeeding year. A locomotive (the "Adrian, No. 1") was contracted for to arrive as early in 1837 as the steainers on Lake Erie could bring it, and the remaining twenty-three miles, Sylvania to Adrian via Palmyra, was built and opened for travel in 1837. The locomotive arrived June 20, 1837, but the road was operated by horsepower till August, when the locomotive began to wake the echoes in the woods by the wayside. The passenger car run on the Erie and Kalamazoo was a cumbersome affair, prone to leave the track on slight provocation, and having arrangements for two." decks" of passengers. The freight cars were small, carrying thirty barrels of flour for a load. In 1836 * Territorial Laws of Michigan, Vol. III. † See chapter on the "Toledo War."

the board of directors issued a "tariff," passenger and freight combined, which is a marvel of simplicity and conciseness. The fare in the "pleasure car," Toledo to Adrian, was "twelve shillings," each passenger being allowed to carry fifty pounds of baggage free. Freight between Toledo and Adrian was four shillings per hundred pounds; salt, $1.00 per barrel.

The Toledo Blade duly chronicled the arrival of the locomotive with a few words of editorial comment, and (in its issue of June 20, 1837) inserted the following advertisement of the company:

It affords us pleasure to announce the arrival of the long expected locomotive (Adrian Baldwin No. 80) for the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad. The business of our place has been embarrassed for want of

it; goods have accumulated at our wharves faster

than we could transport them into the interior on cars drawn by horses, and as a natural consequence several of our warehouses are now crowded to their utmost capacity. It is expected that the engine will be in operation in a few days, and then, we trust, goods and merchandise will be forwarded as fast as they arrive. A little allowance, however, must be made for the time necessary to disencumber our warehouses of the large stock already on hand.

ADVERTISEMENT.

TO EMIGRANTS AND TRAVELERS. The Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad is now in full operation between

TOLEDO AND ADRIAN.

During the ensuing season trains of cars will run daily to Adrian, there connecting with a line of Stages for the West, Michigan City, Chicago and Wisconsin Territory.

Emigrants and others destined for Indiana, Illinois and the Western part of Michigan Will Save Two Days

and the corresponding expense, by taking this route in preference to the more lengthened, tedious and expensive route heretofore traveled.

All baggage at the risk of the owners.
EDWARD BISSELL,) Commissioners
W. P. DANIELS, E. & K. R. R.
GEORGE CRANE, Co.

The captious traveler of to-day might be puzzled to know how long the "ensuing season" lasted, and at what hours the trains arrived and departed.

This road had a stormy existence for some twelve years. During its carly days it carned from fifteen to twenty per cent upon its capital, but in 1840 the competition with the Michigan Southern began, which will be noticed in connection with the story of that road, and though it adopted the modern expedient of "feeders " by starting a branch road from Palmyra to Jacksonburgh (now Jackson, but which never was built beyond Tecumseh till 1857), and notwithstanding it was aided by the State of Michigan in this latter project, it soon became embarrassed; was run a portion of the time by a board of directors, sometimes by trustees appointed by the board, and part of the time by

a receiver at the Toledo end and a commissioner in Adrian; was a perpetual defendant in the courts; was sold under numerous legal judgments in 1818 to Washington Hunt, of Lockport, N. Y., and Georgo Bliss of Massachusetts, and was by them in 1849 leased perpetually to its quondam rival, the Michigan Southern, the successor of which still operates it as a portion of its main line. But its stormy childhood and youth have been succeeded by an age of peace and prosperity, for the "Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad Company" still exists, and draws from the treasury of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company the annual rental of $30,000.

One who stands by the side of the railroad to-day and sees magnificent trains of baggage, smoking, passenger and sleeping cars go thundering by, can have but a faint conception of the railroading of fifty years ago. Mr. C. P. Leland, the auditor of the present Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway Company, has been for years an enthusiastic student of its history; and after much trouble and inquiry succeeded in obtaining so complete a descrip- tion of the celebrated "pleasure car" of the old Erie and Kalamazoo, that he had a drawing of it made, together with the engine, "Adrian No. 1," thus forming an accurate picture of the passenger train of 1837, to enjoy the privileges of which the intending passenger was compelled to deliver up "twelve shillings." The drawing was submitted to the inspection of old

in it, and is vouched for as correct.

This car was divided into compartments, after the manner still pursued on English and Continental railways, and had three compartments, each when full holding eight passengers -twenty-four in all. The floor of the middle compartment was somewhat, higher than the end ones, and there was a projecting box below the general level of the car floor. This left a box-like space between the end compartments and beneath the middle one, and in this the baggage of the passengers was stowed. The road advertised (with numerous exclamation marks), "Toledo to Adrian - thirty-three miles and return the same day!!!!"

Of the "delights of travel" in those early days, Mr. Leland has a graphic description from an old Erie and Kalamazoo employe, who writes:

"During most of the year 1841 I was employed as repairing agent of the Erie and Kalamazoo Railroad, then in operation between Toledo and Adrian. According to schedule time, a passenger train with one coach would leave Toledo in the morning, make the run to Adrian, and return to Toledo in the afternoon, arriving about 6 P. M. The passenger car then used was about the size now in use upon street railroads, and was divided into three compartments, each having a front and rear seat facing each other and running from side to side of the car, with a side entrance to cach compartment. The track was ironed with the flat bar 'strap rail,' as it was called. As my home was in Toledo I found it necessary to go on each Monday morning over the road, spending the week in making such repairs as were

necessary, and returning home on Saturday evening.

"In December, 1841, one Saturday the train left Toledo on time for Adrian. I was then at Palmyra, intending to take the train for Adrian and return to Toledo that evening. Owing to a severe storm of rain, froczing as it fell, the track became covered with ice. The train reached Palmyra about 4 P. M. I entered the middle compartment of the car as the train started for Adrian, and met in the car J. Baron Davis and wife, of Toledo, sitting in the forward seat. Being acquainted with them, I thought I would take a seat with them, but seeing the cushion upon the seat out of place, I took the rear seat, facing the one I had rejected. We had not gone more than half a mile from Palmyra when a 'snake head,' as they were called (the loosened end of one of the flat bars, or strap rails, which, caught by the wheel which should pass over it, was torn from the stringer and forced upward), came crashing through the floor of the car, passing diagonally through the seat I had left vacant, the end of the bar striking me in my neck under the chin, and pushing me backward with such force as to break through the panel work partition which divided the compartments of the Just at this moment the other end of the bar was torn from the track and carried along with the car. Recovering my consciousness a little, I found myself with head and shoulders protruding through the broken partition, while I held the assaulting 'snake head' firmly grasped in both my hands. Being a stormy day I had an extra amount of clothing about

car.

my neck, which the bar did not penetrate, so that my injuries were not serious. The train was stopped. Frederick Bissell, the conductor, was much frightened. Before leaving the spot, the guilty 'snake head' was once more spiked down and we moved on, reaching Adrian at 6 P. M., having made the run of thirty-three miles in ten hours.

"The train left Adrian for Toledo at 7 P. M., and worked its way along over the ice covered track until we got out of wood and water, when we picked up sticks in the woods and replenished the fire, and with pails dipped up water from the ditches and fed the boiler, and made another run toward Toledo. Passing Sylvania we got the train to a point four miles from Toledo, when being again out of steam, wood and water, we came to the conclusion that it would be easier to foot it the rest of the way, than to try to get the train along any farther. So we left the locomotive and cars standing upon the track and walked into the city, reaching there at about 2:30 A. M. I was rather lame and sore from contact with the 'snake head,' but gratified that we were enjoying the 'modern improvement'-railway travel."

Between the date of the territorial charter to the Erie and Kalamazoo, and the journey narrated above, several changes had taken place. The valiant but bloodless "Toledo War" had been fought; that conflict in which the gallant troops

-"marched up the hill,

And then marched down again,"

and returned to the "Peninsula" covered with dust and glory; the Territory of Michigan had been received into the sisterhood of States, not exactly with the boundaries she coveted, for she had been compelled to exchange the

"long, low level of lonesome land"

for the rugged shores and pathless forests of the Upper Peninsula, and was inclined to grumble about it, as mankind are generally prone to do at blessings in disguise; the strip of territory invaded by the heroes of the Toledo war had been set as a jewel in the crown of Ohio; prosaic Port Lawrence no longer existed, but romantic Toledo occupied its former site; another railway had been put into operation from the city of Monroe westward, whose tale is soon to be told; a vigorous rivalry ex.

isted between the new Toledo and the new Monroe, destined to last for eight years from the date of the adventurous journey narrated above; several new railroads had been projected and partially built, as will be noted farther on, and the fever of "internal improve. ments" had taken fast hold of the State of Michigan and was fiercely raging.

Among the projected railroads but one particularly, and two incidentally, concern the prosent history. The one of particular interest was the "River Raisin and Lake Erie." It may be remarked en passant that the projectors of this line must have been remarkably modest men. They might have christened it the "Atlantic and Pacific," or the "Transcontinental," after the usual custom, but they were contented to give it an appellation which even fell short of its plans, though, strangely enough, it exactly described its termini. It was projected to extend from some point on Lake Erie at or near LaPlaisance Bay, through the village of Monroe to Dundee, thence to Blissfield, and thence to some connecting point on the Lake Erie and Kalamazoo, presumably Tecumseh, which was located upon the "Palmyra and Jacksonburgh" feeder of the Erie and Kalamazoo. The River Raisin and Lako Erie as built, however, was two and a half miles long, was later sold to the State for $32,500, about its cost, and its termini were respectively the city of Monroe and Lake Erie. In its short career as an individual railroad it never arrived at the dignity of owning a locomotive, but its trains were drawn by horses. The projected roads, which are only incidentally connected with this history, were the Detroit and Pontiac (later a portion of the Detroit, Grand Haven and Milwaukee), and the Detroit and St. Joseph, the original germ of the Michigan Central. The River Raisin and Lake Erie was chartered by the legislature March 26, 1836; but a few days less than a year thereafter (March 20 and 21, 1837) two acts were passed which materially affected the status of these roads, as well as of the Erie and Kalamazoo.

In its later years as a Territory, and its early years as a State, Michigan had been advancing in population with rapid strides. By steamer and sailing vessel, by wagon, on horseback and on foot, a continuous stream of people was flowing into her borders, coming to "spy out the land." The heavily timbered lands of