Chapter 15

Complete to Madison
1854

Luke Stoughton came to Wisconsin from Vermont in 1837. He was the founder of the village of Stoughton, located fifteen miles south of Madison, where the Milwaukee & Mississippi's tracks ended at the end of 1853. After farming and then operating a general store in Janesville over some ten years, Stoughton purchased the land at the bend of the Catfish River on which the village that bore his name would grow. He dammed the river to operate a gristmill and a sawmill. The site was first known as Stoughton Mills, and then Stoughtonville. Later Stoughton opened a general store. In 1852 he heard that the Milwaukee & Mississippi was planning to build its line through nearby Dunkirk. He promptly offered the company a large plot of land on the east side of Stoughton for its depot and rail yards. As it had with Jenkins Station, the Milwaukee & Mississippi accepted the offer and rerouted its line. It was not difficult to reroute the railroad at that time—it was simply a matter of relocating and surveying, as construction was still a year away.

On Monday, January 2, the first train steamed into Stoughton on the Milwaukee & Mississippi line, having come the full eighty miles from Milwaukee. It was pulled to the depot by the locomotive Menomonee, recently built at Milwaukee's Menomonee Locomotive Works, and was met at the station by agent Hiram Giles.

Work on the line between Stoughton and Madison continued through the winter of 1853—54 and picked up as warmer weather arrived in the spring. Tracks were laid eight miles to Door Creek Station—a small depot with a side track. Only eight more miles remained to Madison. Shortly after passing Lake Kegonsa, the track layers laid iron rails over a giant sinkhole. When the ground under the track disappeared, they enlisted surrounding homesteaders to cut down heavy timber and then haul, crib, and sink it into the hole. They relaid the track but found that on the next day, the cribbage had either sunk or floated away toward Lake Kegonsa and that the track was again left hanging. They repeated this process until the track finally had the support it needed.1

At Madison, the railroad bridge across Monona Bay, a long wooden trestle carrying the track six feet over the water, was finished in mid-May. The first passenger train reached Madison on May 18, a full year and a half from the date originally proposed by the contractors. The track, however, was not laid up to the depot until Monday, May 22.2 The next day was the official opening of the line between Milwaukee and Madison. The Wisconsin State Journal gave the following account:

Never was the day more auspicious. The heavens were cloudless, the air warm but not sultry…. By ten in the morning the streets were filled with teams and the sidewalks crowded with people. Great numbers of them were men who had settled in the country at an early day and had never seen a locomotive or railroad.

… By one o'clock in the afternoon the grounds about the Depot were thronged with people. … We should judge that at least two thousand people from the country were about the Depot, and at the end of the bridge where the railroad crosses the bay. … Bright colored parasols ranged in groups along the shore lent liveliness to the scene.

At length the unmistakable whistle of the engine was heard, and the long train with two locomotives at its head swept grandly into sight—thirty-two cars, crowded with people. … At the rear of the train were several racks occupied by the Milwaukee Fire Companies in their gay red uniforms with their glistening engines. A fine band of music attended them, and, at intervals as they slowly moved across the bridge, the piece of artillery brought along by the firemen was discharged. It was a grand but strange spectacle to see this monster train, like some huge unheard of thing of life with a breath of smoke and flame, emerging from the green openings—scenes of pastoral beauty and quietude—across the Third Lake. … It was estimated that at least two thousand were on board.³

Despite this auspicious opening, the route through Madison was not without its problems. For one, the tracks east of the bridge kept sinking. The Milwaukee & Mississippi's engineers had tried to achieve a quick, level, and direct route by locating the line across marshes that had a subsoil of peat and marl, but this proved to be an unstable combination. On one day in June a large section of track sank five feet. There was nothing to do but add fill as quickly as possible until the track was properly supported and service could resume.⁴

Also in June, Madison's Argus and Democrat newspaper pointed out the lack of a printed schedule for Milwaukee & Mississippi trains arriving at and departing from that city:

We have visits almost every day from persons inquiring as to the time of the arrival of the trains at Madison and the departures thence. Our Madison papers are searched in vain for the desired information. … We believe that the trains start about daylight in the morning, and shortly after dinner in the afternoon, but not having seen a time-table, or had occasion to look one up, we cannot say precisely.5

Another problem—and one more alarming to the average citizen than unpublished schedules—was the head-on collision of two freight trains in July near Palmyra due to an error in scheduling. It was Wisconsin's first such incident. Fortunately, there were no fatalities:

The station agent telegraphed from Whitewater to headquarters at Milwaukee, and then proceeded to the scene of the disaster, where he saw one of the locomotive engineers who had been involved in the disaster sitting on the side of the track and pouring sand from one hand into the other, nervously expecting, of course, that when the wrecking train arrived with the officials of the road he would be dismissed in disgrace. When Superintendent Brodhead came, all he did was to look at the wreck and observe: “That's a very bad mess. Get to work, men, and clear it away.” Nobody was discharged. Nobody was even reprimanded. Brodhead was an experienced railroad man, and realized that under the conditions the employees involved in the smash-up had acquitted themselves as well as was humanly possible.6

The line also encouraged development of a noncommercial variety: political growth, in particular the emergence of a new political party that would prove, in time, to be one of the two major parties dominating modern American politics. On July 13 the Milwaukee & Mississippi's newly opened line to Madison facilitated this historic event by carrying car after car of disenchanted Whig, Free Soil, Liberty, and Democrat party members to Madison to attend a “People's Mass State of Wisconsin Convention.” Delegates and activists assembled on the capitol grounds, where they enthusiastically organized a new party, which they named the Republican Party.⁷

Meanwhile, the Milwaukee & Mississippi Railroad had made a momentous decision to stop further construction and concentrate instead on running trains between Milwaukee and Madison. It still planned an extension to the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien, but wanted to wait to build until a few important pieces were in place. One was the purchase of charter rights from the Southern Wisconsin Railroad, which would enable it to build a second branch to the Mississippi from Milton on its main line to Dubuque, via Janesville, and the southwestern lead region. After this purchase, the company sent stock agent Deacon Edmond D. Clinton to hold meetings and encourage farmers and villagers to mortgage their properties in order to buy Milwaukee & Mississippi stock. Clinton's tour encompassed the villages of Clarno, Twin Grove, Juda, Clarence, Decatur, Sylvester, Jordan, Cadiz, Shullsburg, Benton, New Diggings, Jamestown, and Hazel Green. Clinton later recalled:

I informed them there was so little money in the country, we could not build as rapidly as we wanted to without resorting to farm mortgages. We had taken farm mortgages and used them successfully in building the road to Janesville. [I informed them,] this is the plan, that you give your note and mortgage to the company or holder, for any amount you wish to take, to run ten years, with coupons attached, interest payable annually, at the rate of 8 per cent, for which the company authorizes me, as their agent, to give you a receipt in full for the shares of capital stock, or any number of shares, of $100 each in said company. The company will give you an indemnifying bond that they will pay the interest for ten years, also pay your 2 per cent annually, making it that the company allows you 10 per cent interest, while the coupons called for 8 per cent.⁸

That summer, Benjamin H. Edgerton had located and staked the line between Madison and Prairie du Chien. By autumn Milwaukee & Mississippi stock agent Clinton, working along the route of the proposed southern branch, was setting stock sale records. By November he had raised $862,000. In Shullsburg he raised $127,000 in one day. Clinton had offered to have one of the company's locomotives named after the first person to mortgage their farm for ten thousand dollars. He later recalled that ^“John H. Bridge secured this honor, and the Company fulfilled their agreement."9 With Clinton's success, construction of the branch seemed imminent. President John Catlin wrote optimistically:

There is quite a flattering prospect for … the Southern Wisconsin road. … The distance from Janesville to Dubuque … is about 95 miles…. There has been subscribed nearly two millions of dollars. Its estimated cost is about $3,000,000. … It would form a very direct and straight road from Milwaukee to Dubuque.¹⁰

By year's end, however, it was obvious that the high hopes for extensive railroad construction in the state that had been held at the beginning of the year would not been realized. Milwaukee & Mississippi President Catlin was forced to explain his company's lack of progress:

Owing to the great depression in rail road securities which has prevailed through the year, only sixteen miles have been added to the finished part of the road and brought into use .. . from Stoughton to Madison, the capital of the State.¹¹

But Catlin knew that trackage alone was not an accurate indicator of the company's health. In his annual report to the stockholders he stated:

The gross receipts of the road for the year 1854 … are $456,864.78; and … $307,632.41 net receipts. The gross receipts for 1853 were $226,918.48, and the net receipts, $134,340.14. It will be seen that although the length of the road has not been greatly increased, yet the net earnings present the very satisfactory gain of more than one hundred per cent.¹²

At the end of 1854 the company had $1,424,000 dollars’ worth of stock subscribed, with $988,665 paid in, and a debt of $1,680,000. The railroad from Milwaukee to Madison had cost $2,679,082, or $25,760 per mile. The company owned twenty-two locomotives, eleven passenger and baggage cars, and 250 freight cars. The completion of the Milwaukee & Mississippi between Milwaukee and Madison in May had marked the end of an era during which Wisconsin possessed, for all practical purposes, only one railroad. That time had truly been the pioneer stage of railroading in the state. Superintendent Brodhead accurately described the line as one of “about 100 miles in length, with no through connections, terminating in the interior of the State, where there was scarcely a white man 15 years ago.”

Meanwhile, Chicago's interests were being promoted in Madison that winter. The Rock River Valley Union Railroad Company was using a house on the corner of Clymer and South Wisconsin streets (today West Doty Street and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard) as its headquarters to entertain legislators and further the company's interests. The reaction of the press to the strong-arming tactics of the Rock River Valley Union is telling. This house became known as “Monks’ Hall,” named for the impious activities that took place there, and the group that assembled there became known as the “Forty Thieves.” One observer wrote that “members of the legislature were taken in and done for … and nights were often made hideous… ,"13 Newer competitors were emerging as the star players in the state, supplanting the Milwaukee & Mississippi.

Developments were brewing for other competitors as well, some positive and some negative. A few notable mergers and agreements sunk some railroads, while others profited.

On January 3 the Racine Advocate reported that there were from fifty to five hundred men constantly at work on the Racine, Janesville, and Mississippi line. At the end of the month, that company announced in its annual report that it would build to Beloit instead of Janesville. When the Racine, Janesville, and Mississippi Railroad Company merged with the Rockton and Freeport Rail Road Company of Illinois in February, the new company that emerged was known as the Racine and Mississippi Rail Road Company. Janesville was dropped from the name. That spring the Racine and Mississippi began grading westward from Racine through well-settled farming country that had “respectable white clapboard farmhouses every half mile or so.” The line also crossed undulating tall-grass prairies, oak openings, swamps, and meadows.

The Racine and Mississippi also made headway in some significant locations, with rapid progress the result. In April the residents of the town of Beloit had voted 321 to 67 to subscribe to one hundred thousand dollars’ worth of the company's stock by issuing town bonds. In May the company had purchased its station grounds in Beloit at the state line, three blocks east of the Rock River and the Galena/Beloit and Madison line's depot. On June 15, the Racine Advocate reported that six to seven hundred hands were being employed on the Racine and Mississippi line, and that the road was nearly graded and ready for ties as far as the Fox River (Burlington), with work going forward toward Elkhorn. On July 17 the Racine and Mississippi Railroad Company received authorization from the legislature to build a “branch line” to Beloit. This line would, in fact, be its main line. It had abandoned all plans of building to Janesville, as originally specified. Meanwhile, the company was running trains over the first twenty miles of its line, between Racine and the Fox River.

On January 23 the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad Company merged with its exhausted rival, the Milwaukee, Fond du Lac, and Green Bay Railroad. The company resulting from the merger kept the name La Crosse and Milwaukee, was capitalized at $6,800,000, and owned the eighteen miles of roadway that the Milwaukee, Fond du Lac, and Green Bay had graded with such difficulty the year before. The La Crosse and Milwaukee promised to build the Fond du Lac line after the line to Portage was completed—a promise it would not keep.

In July the company let the construction contracts for its eastern division, Milwaukee to Portage, to Bradley, Whittemore & Company of Burlington, Vermont, a firm reputed to have extensive experience in railroad construction. These contractors were to be paid seven thousand dollars per mile, one-fourth in stock and three-fourths in cash—considerably less than the twenty thousand dollars per mile that had sunk the former Milwaukee, Fond du Lac, and Green Bay.14 The company introduced its first locomotive, the Westward Ho, at Milwaukee's Fourth of July celebrations. On the following day the company executed to Francis A. Palmer of New York, trustee, a mortgage on the eastern division to secure $950,000 in railroad bonds. At the end of the year the La Crosse and Milwaukee Railroad Company had expended six hundred thousand dollars on its road. Two thirds of the line between Milwaukee and Horicon was graded and six miles of track had been laid north from the Milwaukee depot at Chestnut Street.

Also in January, the Milwaukee and Horicon Railroad Company, whose route between Milwaukee and Horicon was identical to that of the La Crosse and Milwaukee, made an agreement with the latter whereby the La Crosse and Milwaukee would pull the Horicon's passenger and freight trains over the fifty-mile distance for 80 percent of the receipts. The La Crosse and Milwaukee would provide the locomotives, and the agreement was to last for twenty years.

The company began construction that summer. A Fond du Lac County resident wrote, “The Horicon & Berlin Railroad is now in process of construction, and will accommodate the western part of the county, passing through Waupun, Alto, Metomen and Ceresco [Ripon]."¹⁵ The company was also pursuing an extension of its line beyond Ripon to Berlin, Stevens Point, and to the junction of the Mississippi and St. Croix Rivers, as was allowed by its charter. The directors described this route as passing “through one of the richest and most fertile sections of Wisconsin, having unsurpassed agricultural, mineral, lumbering, and manufacturing resources."¹⁶ They ordered a survey of the line to Stevens Point, and soon company agents were calling on farmers along the route to mortgage their farms to purchase railroad stock.

In March the Milwaukee and Watertown Railroad Company's charter had been amended to allow the company to extend its line from Columbus to Stevens Point, Wausau, the headwaters of the Montreal River, and Lake Superior.17 The Milwaukee and Watertown completed the first eighteen miles of its line, from Brookfield Junction on the Milwaukee & Mississippi line to Oconomowoc, that year; the first passenger train from Milwaukee arrived in Oconomowoc on December 14.

In early summer Kenosha and Beloit Railroad Company engineer William H. Noble recorded that the grading was underway to Fox River with a workforce that averaged at various times two hundred men, sixty horses and carts, thirty cart wagons, sixteen cars, twenty wheelbarrows, and thirty additional men working on the superstructure.

The Beloit and Madison began laying strap rail at Beloit in April. This strap rail had already been twice-used—once by the Galena and Chicago Union and before that by the Michigan Southern. These rails were delivered to Beloit over the Galena's Belvidere-Beloit branch line. They consisted of iron plate 2½ inches wide and ^¾ inch thick and were laid on an oak ribbon, which in turn was laid on timbers or ties six inches square. These rails were laid from the Beloit depot across the Rock River Bridge, northward along the River's west bank, across a four-mile prairie, and through a five-hundred-foot rock cut to Afton (also known as Bass Creek), a small village with a sawmill and a public house. There the company erected a depot, an engine house, and a water station.

The Beloit and Madison had meanwhile leased its line to the Galena and Chicago Union, which on August 15 began running trains from Chicago to Afton via Belvidere and Beloit. The scheduled time from Belvidere to Beloit was four and a half hours, with one half hour more necessary to reach Afton. The fare from Beloit to Afton was forty cents—approximately half a day's wages for an average individual at that time. Stagecoaches that had previously departed from Beloit for Janesville and Madison now departed from Afton. The Beloit and Madison Railroad Company continued laying track beyond Afton, reaching Footville in December. The company now had seventeen miles of track from Beloit. The first train, which was actually owned by the Galena and Chicago Union, arrived at Footville from Chicago on December 18. The Beloit and Madison had only thirty more miles to build to reach Madison.

Other railways experienced ups and downs while struggling to get underway. The Mineral Point Railroad Company had begun building from its junction with the Illinois Central Railroad at Warren, Illinois, northward. That company had contracted its construction work with Robert & George Schuyler & Company of New York and sent President Moses M. Strong there in the spring. Strong had tended to company business, but he also invested personal funds in Schuyler & Company. Meanwhile, Schuyler began construction at Warren, then ran out of funds and stopped paying its workers. When Strong returned from New York, a group of workers stopped him on the road to Warren and, seeing that he was carrying company funds, demanded two months back pay from him. He escaped to Warren, but the group followed him there and he was forced to pay them in the hotel lobby.18

On July 6 Schuyler & Co. declared bankruptcy with the Mineral Point Railroad Company owing it $75,000 for completed work. The Mineral Point Company was itself $90,000 in debt, with no means of paying. Strong lost the money he had invested in Schuyler. His nephew, chief engineer Charles Temple, hadn't been paid by the railroad in months, and told Strong that he would be looking for work elsewhere.

The Mineral Point Railroad Company took a turn for the better in December. Its directors offered $170,000 worth of new stock and received subscriptions to $78,850 of it on the first day. That amount would allow the company to carry on—for the time being.

During the fall of 1854 the Rock River Valley Union Railroad Company, once a front-runner, was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Timothy F. Strong Sr. continued to lease the twenty-mile line between Fond du Lac and Chester, on which he ran two trains in each direction daily. The company's creditors, including Strong himself, were calling for reorganization. A. Hyatt Smith resigned from the presidency and was replaced by Charles Butler of Chicago. Mortgages were foreclosed, and the property was purchased by Robert J. Walker, trustee for the bondholders.¹⁹ Meanwhile the Rock River Valley Union's partner, the Illinois & Wisconsin Railroad, opened thirty-eight and a half miles of its line between Chicago and Cary, Illinois, with two broad-gauge engines from the East. Its president was William Butler Ogden, former president of the Galena and Chicago Union and brother-in-law of Butler. It was a promising shift for a railroad that was struggling to stay afloat.

Sixty-two miles of new track had been laid in Wisconsin during 1854, making for a total of 15 2 miles in the state. Trains were running from Milwaukee to Oconomowoc, Janesville, and Madison and from Chicago to Beloit and Footville. A graded roadway had been completed between Milwaukee and Chicago—all that was required was to lay the track. Wisconsin's economy was booming, and an increasing number of emigrants from the East were arriving every day. The stage was indeed set for further railroad development.