http://americahurrah.com/Postcards/CP3.html
Part 2
Fitchburg, Massachusetts:
Its ties to the
Continental Railroad and the
Western Mines
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Please use the mouse to advance each slide.
Researched and developed by
Marilyn Zavorski
for
Teaching American History:
Westward Expansion and Life on the Frontier
Fall 2005—Fitchburg State College
The History
In late 1841 Fitchburg entrepreneur, Alvah Crocker, helped lead the way for the
establishment of the Fitchburg Railroad Company, which would connect Fitchburg
and Boston.
The Boston and Worcester Railroad had already been built between 1832 – 1835.
Alvah Crocker realized it was vital to his paper business and to the other
manufactures in Fitchburg to have direct transportation to their commercial markets
in Boston. The railroad was completed in 1845.
Mr. Crocker also envisioned the necessity of building a railroad west
from Fitchburg to the Great Lakes and beyond. The greatest obstacle was Hoosac
Mountain in North Adams (northwestern Massachusetts). In 1853 a large tunnel
boring machine was unable to penetrate the hard rock. The drilling then had to be
done slowly by hand. Hampered by debt and the Civil War, the Massachusetts
legislature took over the railroad company, and one of the commissioners appointed
to oversee the project was Alvah Crocker.
Around 1865/1866 Mr. Crocker asked a young mechanic, Charles Burleigh, at
Putman Brothers in Fitchburg to devise a way for a power drill to be successful in
boring this tunnel, since hand drilling had been fruitless.
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/htstory1.Html
“The result of Mr. Burleigh’s study of this difficult
problem was the invention by him of the Burleigh Rock-Drill
and Patent Air-Compressor, a combination which was capable,
not only of drilling holes from three-fourth of an inch to five
inches in diameter, to a depth of thirty feet, at a rate of from two
to ten inches per minute, according to the nature of the rock, but
also of thoroughly ventilating the tunnel at the same time, thus
obviating this great and fatal source of danger.
These machines have produced a complete revolution
in the work of rock-tunneling.”. . .
Hurd, D. Hamilton. History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers & Prominent Men.
Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1889, page 281.
HAND DRILLING
Smithsonian Institution
United States National Museum
1855 –
Model of Hoosac Tunnel—#49260-L
Close-up of Jack Drilling
1866
“Work during early period, 1855 – 1866, using hand drilling and black powder.”
Scale: ½” = 1’
Courtesy of Fitchburg Historical Society
Smithsonian Institution
United States National Museum
Model of Hoosac Tunnel—#49260
Close-up of Jack Drilling
“Work during early period, 1855 – 1866, using hand drilling and black powder.”
Scale: ½” = 1’
Courtesy of Fitchburg Historical Society
In 1867 Charles Burleigh
established the
Burleigh Rock Drill Company
in Fitchburg, MA.
Courtesy of Fitchburg Historical Society
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From the book, History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, with Biographical
Sketches of Many of its Pioneers & Prominent Men by D. Hamilton Hurd, 1889.
Click on the photo
to view an
enlargement of
the Burleigh Drill.
http://www.antiquephotographics.com/occupationalsst.htm
Smithsonian Institution
United States National Museum
1866 –
Model of Hoosac Tunnel—#49260-M
Burleigh Rock Drill
Center Section, 1866- 1875
Scale: ½” = 1’
Courtesy of Fitchburg Historical Society
1875
Smithsonian Institution
United States National Museum
Model of Hoosac Tunnel—#49260-N
Burleigh Drill,
Bottom of Central Shaft at right
“Working during the late period, 1866 – 1875,
using Burleigh air drills and nitroglycerin.”
Scale: ½” = 1’
Courtesy of Fitchburg Historical Society
While work continued on the 5-mile long Hoosac Tunnel, the
Burleigh Drill, with its interchangeable parts, was being
introduced to the world.
The continental railroad and western mining operations employed its use.
How was the Burleigh Drill sent west?
The choices included the Isthmus of Panama or Cape Horn water routes.
On February 16, 1855 the Panama Railroad was opened. The 49 miles of
railroad “will forever stand out as a prominent event in the history of
civilization,” stated a St. Louis, Missouri newspaper.
The transportation of passengers and freight across the Isthmus
became very efficient.
By 1855, the trip from Panamá to Chagres was accomplished in 7 hours.
The trip from Chagres to Panamá, was done in 12 hours.
1855 account of the opening of the Panama Railroad with freight rates.
The Western Journal and Civilian. Vol. XIII, No. 6. M. Carver & T. Cobb, Editors and proprietors,
St. Louis, Missouri,
May, 1855. Courtesy Bruce C. Cooper Collection
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Panama_Railroad_Stock_1868.html#Maps
Click on the map
to learn more.
Study this map.
“Forty-seven and a half
miles of railroad had
required 170 bridges
and culverts of 15 feet
or more, 134 bridges
and culverts of less
than 15 feet, a statistic
that gives some idea of
the difficulties there
had been in making
headway in such halfdrowned country.”
Observe how the
railroad followed
the river and mule
trails.
Now note the
number of river
branches which
the railroad had to
cross.
http://www.trainweb.org/panama/history1.html
http://www.trainweb.org/panama/goldtrain.html
1868
http://www.cprr.org/Mseum/Ephemera/Panama_Railroad_Stock_1868.html#Maps
The Panama Railroad began in the
new town of Aspinwall, named for
the New York railroad merchant,
William H. Aspinwall. In 1890 the city
was renamed Colon.
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Panama_Railroad_Stock_1868.html#Maps
January 28, 1855: The
Panama Railroad
From the Portland Maine
Transcript [Newspaper],
February 17, 1855.
Courtesy Bruce C. Cooper
Collection.
Read:
1867
http://www.canalmuseum.com/documents/panamacanalhistory038.htm
View of Culebra or the Summit, the Terminus of the Panama Railroad in Dec. 1854.
Sketched from Nature by F[essendon] N[ott] Otis.
Colored lithograph by Charles Parsons; Printed by Endicott & Co., N.Y., 1854.
10 x 14 in.
“The Panama Railroad ran from Aspinwall on the Gulf of Mexico to Panama City on the Pacific side, a distance of 49 miles. Despite the short distance,
it took five years to build. Construction started in December 1850 and the terminus on the gulf side was changed from Chagres to Aspinwall. Once
completed in January 1855, the railroad made crossing the Isthmus an effortless affair and significantly improved the journey to and from California.
The artist, F. N. Otis, also wrote Isthmus of Panama: History of the Panama Railroad; and of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (New York, 1867).”
http://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/images/gre01.jpg
The Fitchburg Connection
--The drill was westward bound.-The Fitchburg drill was used at the Comstock Lode,
the “famous ore deposit of silver and gold in the
Virginia Range of Storey County, Nevada.” Mining was
made possible here due to numerous inventions and
innovations, one of which was the Burleigh Rock Drill.
http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/comstockscience/home.shtml
Comstock Lode
“The rocks underground were not found in small chunks that could be moved
readily. Instead, miners had to drill holes into the rock by hand using a drill bit and a
hammer, load the holes with explosive, then shoot off the explosive to crack the
rock. The miners then dug (mucked) the broken rock into the ore carts. Later
improvements made it so the miners could use drills driven by compressed air to
make the holes to be loaded with explosives. The inserted photograph of a painting
by T.L. Dawes shows a miner using an early pneumatic drill, the Burleigh drill.
(Tingley, Horton, and Lincoln, p. 13; used by permission of the NBMG)
Miners first used black powder as the explosive, but switched to Alfred Nobel's
dynamite after its invention in 1866.”
http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/comstockscience/tour7.shtml
The Fitchburg Connection
At this same time, the Central Pacific Railroad was being built
and the Burleigh Rock Drill was in use.
The Governor: Leland Sanford,
By Norman E. Tutorow,
Chapter 6
Building the Central Pacific
Rail Road of California
1863 – 1869
page 252
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Stanford_Tutorow.html
The Fitchburg Connection
AND the construction
superintendent of the
Central Pacific Railroad
was
James H. Strobridge,
who had helped lay the
track on the Boston
and Fitchburg Railroad.
The Governor: Leland Sanford
By Norman E. Tutorow
Chapter 6
Building the Central Pacific
Rail Road of California
1863 - 1869
Page 244
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Stanford_Tutorow.html
How did the railroad supplies reach the west coast?
The Central Pacific Railroad relied on the Isthmus of Panama and Cape Horn
routes to ship their rails and locomotives.
Leland Sanford reflected about the task of building the railroad:
The “rail had to be transported to San Francisco via Cape Horn or the Isthmus of Panama,
and lightered for transportation to Sacramento, Cal., the initial point of the Central Pacific
Railroad.
Shipments via the Isthmus, as late as the year 1868, cost for transportation alone on rail,
$51.97 per ton, the rail costing, delivered at Sacramento, $143.67, not including charges for
transfer from ships at San Francisco to the lighter, or for transportation up the Sacramento
River.
During construction, by reason of high war risks, transportation rates advanced 275 per cent
per ton.
Via the Isthmus, for freight alone, there was paid as high as $8,100 for one locomotive.
On a shipment by the latter route of eighteen locomotives the transportation charges were
$84,466.80, or $4,692.50 each.”
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/LMC_PacRRCommission_1887.html
Leland Sanford contemplated the fact that:
“Delays and losses of ships and their cargo of
railroad material via Cape Horn and unforeseen
emergencies made it necessary to frequently use the
Isthmus route, that there should he no detention in the progress
of the railroad eastward.”
Consider:
Why would the Central Pacific Railroad Company prefer to ship
supplies, including rails and locomotives, via Cape Horn over
the Isthmus of Panama?
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/LMC_PacRRCommission_1887.html
Meanwhile, Back on the East Coast
The Burleigh Rock Drill and Compressor as
arranged for clearing for lots in NYC for J.T. &
Wm. Daly
Courtesy of Fitchburg Historical Society
AND in Massachusetts the 5-mile Hoosac Tunnel
was still under construction.
Courtesy of the Fitchburg Historical Society
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/htstory1.Html
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/htstory1.Html
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/htstory1.Html
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/htstory1.Html
November 24, 1873
The Fitchburg Historical
Society has correspondence
announcing the final blast,
which will open the Hoosac
Tunnel. The eastern and
western sections will then be
connected..
This November 1873
letter invites Mr. Wilson to
witness the final blast and
“pass entirely through the
Tunnel.”
Click on the letter to
view it close-up.
Courtesy of the Fitchburg Historical Society
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/htpage.Html
The Burleigh Drill Opens Fitchburg’s Connection to the West
Fitchburg Sentinel, Friday, March 2, 1945
Saved By Burleigh Drill
“…Use of the Burleigh power drill and tons of
nitroglycerine sent the (Hoosac) tunnel at a rapid pace.. . .
Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27, 1873, the west
shaft from Adams and the east shaft from Florida (MA)
joined at a variance of only nine-sixteenths of an inch,
marking the end of a gigantic engineering feet. The first
train from Boston to Troy (NY) passed through the tunnel
on Oct. 13, 1875.
The tunnel required 22 years for its
construction, compared with an estimate of 1500 days by
the engineers at its inception.”
Grain From the West
“…Northern New England and the West soon
exchanged merchandise. . .
Grain from the west was an important item
needed in this area. Fittingly, the first overland shipment of
grain from the west was destined to J. Cushing & Co., of
Fitchburg, and arrived here April 5, 1875, in a 22-car freight
train, the first to pass through the Hoosac Tunnel.”
Courtesy of Fitchburg Historical Society
Model of the
Burleigh Rock Drill
on display at the
Fitchburg Historical Society,
Fitchburg, MA
The invention of the Burleigh
Rock Drill by Charles Burleigh
not only connected Fitchburg
to the west coast, but aided in
the completion of the
Transcontinental Railroad,
mining operations, and
neighborhood development.
Primary Source and Reference Credits
http://americahurrah.com/Postcards/CP3.html
http://www.antiquephotographics.com/occupationalsst.htm
http://www.canalmuseum.com/documents/panamacanalhistory038.htm
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/htstory1.Html
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Stanford_Tutorow.html
http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Panama_Railroad_Stock_1868.html#Maps
Hurd, D. Hamilton. History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its
Pioneers & Prominent Men. Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1889.
Fitchburg Historical Society
Fitchburg Public Library
Fitchburg Sentinel, Friday, March 2, 1945
Kirkpatrick, Doris. The City and the River. Fitchburg, MA: Fitchburg Historical Society, 1971.
http://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/images/gre01.jpg
http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/comstockscience/home.shtml
The Transcript, Monday, October 8, 1973
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The End of Part 2:
Fitchburg, Massachusetts:
Its ties to the
Continental Railroad
and the Western Mines