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Question:
Is the present White St. station, built in 1903, the only one to stand in that location?
Answer:
No. There were two prior to it at what is now the site of the Danbury Railway Museum.
Question: When was the Danbury
& Norwalk RR’s Main St. depot opened, closed, and torn down?
Answer: It was opened in 1852,
closed in 1903, and razed in 1914.
Question: Was that Main St. structure the first railroad station in Danbury?
Answer: Yes.
There was no earlier one behind it on Ives St.
Question: How many depots have there been in downtown Danbury?
Answer: Five: the
one on Main St. and four on White St.
Question: Did the Housatonic RR connect its track to the D&N after the 1886 lease?
Answer:
Yes, in 1889, by means of a trestle across the Still River.
Question: When was the Danbury loop track installed?
Answer: It was completed
in May, 1896 by the New York, New Haven and Hartford RR.
These intriguing questions about Danbury’s railroads, their depots, and their track connections have been either
unasked or unsatisfactorily addressed for many years. The answers are found for the most part right where they have been buried
for over a century, in local newspaper accounts. With the clarification of a few seeming contradictions, the evidence is largely
in agreement on places, dates, and events. Cross-referenced with other relevant historical information, the sources all combine
to tell a fascinating tale of the railroads that served the Hat City in this period. While incremental railroad development
took place in many other Connecticut towns, Danbury’s manufacturing importance, its nearness to New York City, its strategic
potential for traffic in several directions, and the close proximity in town of all the rail facilities that had been built
independently, make this story truly unique. Date citations in the footnotes, unless otherwise specified,
are to articles in the hometown newspaper that began as the Danbury Times in 1837 and, with changes of name, ran
throughout this period. Event dates often differ from the article dates and, where necessary, are clarified in the text. Danbury’s
competing weekly newspaper in the 1860s, The Jeffersonian, has also been checked. Clarifications and comments on
this work are welcome in what, like all good history, is intended to be an evolving portrayal of past events. The scholarly
exchange of this material is encouraged. For-profit reproduction is prohibited under personal copyright privileges retained
by the author and TylerCityStation.
10.1: The Danbury &
Norwalk RR - 1852 Main St. Depot
[10.1.1] Danbury’s
first railroad, the Danbury & Norwalk, opened its depot in 1852 where the U.S. Post Office is today at 265 Main St. The
site for this station was controversial from the start. References in the newspaper sounded like the coming U. S. Civil War.1 The North and South here were borough factions, the latter of which
wanted the terminus to be at the southerly end of Main St. Second-best for them was an additional depot somewhere in
the lower part of town along the track that was first projected to come up along Main St. on its east side. The railroad directors
settled on a single northerly depot,2 which was actually a more central location in the borough.
As a result, the route was moved farther to the east to curve north around Town Hill and end with the station “fronting
Main st.” on the lot owned by N.H. Wildman. The “pioneer train” arrived from Norwalk on February 10,
1852, “reaching the termination of the track within a few rods [30 feet] of the depot.”3
Pictures show a board-and-batten building with a plain roof and a storefront-like appearance on the Main St. side.4
The pictures are reproduced below at [10.1.3] and [10.1.4]. On the back side, a tall center roof gable with teardrop-inset
trim gave this depot a rural look identical to the D&N’s Bethel and Wilton structures. Access from Main St. to the
platform was down steps on the south side of the building, which first stood at a level to allow trains to come in underneath.
A poetic tribute to the new railroad says people “flock’d down
[our italics] to the passenger cars” and later refers directly to the stairs as
well.5 This evidence seems to clarify that, from the opening of the D&N,
the track ended at the depot which fronted Main St. and which was not located to the rear of this property at Ives St. as
some have thought. The Danbury inset from Clark’s 1856 map shows this initial arrangement accurately. Regular service
commenced on March 1, 1852. As business increased, improvements were made. In 1866, the building was lowered and the bottom
level was enclosed for use as a baggage area, with the platform being covered and moved eastward toward Ives St.6 The state railroad commissioners reported later that more land had been
purchased to extend the yards.7 An extra track crossing Ives St. was added and facilities
were expanded easterly of that street at this time. The Smith and Van Zandt map and the Beers atlas show the newer layout
and even some comparative differences between their publication times, both in the year 1867.
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| TCS Collection |
[10.1.2] This is the Plan
of Danbury inset from Clark's 1856 Map of Fairfield County. The D&N comes in from the east below the Still River and ends right at the depot, 'fronting' Main St. as it has been described. The way
the word 'Pasenger' is stretched out has perhaps led some to believe that the station was the small building
on Ives St., a block east. Other early D&N facilities are seen along the track along the street that would be called
Railroad Place, or 'Avenue' as it is seen on some maps.
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| Courtesy of the Danbury Museum & Historical Society |
[10.1.3] This
is the front view of the 1852 Danbury & Norwalk RR station, which once stood at 265 Main St. where the post office is
today. This ca. 1900 photograph shows trolley tracks in the street and signage that still says Adams Express (left) and
Martin's Express Co. (right). Presumably then this is prior to when this structure was closed by the NYNH&H, which
opened its new White St. station on July 12, 1903.
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| Courtesy of the Danbury Museum & Historical Society |
[10.1.4] The rear of the 1852 D&N station, with its gabled upper level, is similar in appearance to other
D&N stations like Wilton. Click here. The car is stenciled as 'Great London Circus Sanger's Royal British Menagerie,' which would merge with P.T.
Barnum's 'Greatest Show on Earth' in 1881 [click here]. An article in the Pittsfield Sun [09/11/1872/01] says this circus will "commence its regular
tenting season at Danbury on the 16th of April and then proceed on an extensive tour through New England."
This may date this photo to the April 1873 Danbury 'tenting.' Barnum, a native of Bethel and favorite son of Danbury,
may also have 'tented' in the Hat City.
Track 10.2: The New York, Housatonic
& Northern RR - 1869 White St. Depot
[10.2.0]
This expansion of facilities in 1867 appears unrelated to, but did anticipate, the arrival of Danbury’s second
railroad, the New York, Housatonic and Northern RR. It began operations officially late in September, 1868, and briefly
used the Main St. station. Chartered as a New York corporation in 1863, the NYH&N was to run some 40 miles from White
Plains on the New York and Harlem RR to Brookfield, the Housatonic RR’s closest southwesterly approach to New York.
A map of the mostly straight route shows its value. It promised to eliminate the HRR’s “tardy and useless ‘eastings’
to Bridgeport,” cutting an 84-mile trip from this point to the ‘Empire City’ down to 61 miles, and beating
the D&N by ten or so miles as well.8 Anticipation of such a better route to Albany,
the West, and Canada dated back to even before the HRR was chartered in 1836. The 16-mile Connecticut portion of the
NYH&N was authorized by the state legislature as of July 1, 1864 with a July 1, 1868 deadline for completion.9 The
original route surveyed through central Danbury, calling for an “air line... a Railroad on stilts,” possibly with
its depot on Town Hill,10 was abandoned in favor of a more northerly, grade-level line through
the Still River meadow. The route in Connecticut was finalized by the commissioners in April, 1866 and the NYH&N began
working south from what became known as Brookfield Jct. There it could start earning income quickly, meeting HRR trains from
Bridgeport and Pittsfield and interchanging traffic for Danbury. It graded a roadbed wide enough for two tracks but laid only
a single track for the 5.5 miles to start with, and purchased three merchandise cars, one passenger car, and a dummy engine,
the latter being an inexpensive, light-duty locomotive in a coach-like enclosure known for its silent or ‘dumb’
operation.11 The dummy was first used to haul gravel to ballast the road and thereafter
it was kept as the road’s only locomotive.12 The NYH&N built to a terminus
in the Still River meadow in Danbury with a link installed to the D&N. This link branched off just east of Nursery
Ave., today the northern leg of Wildman St., and curved down to make a south-facing connection with the D&N just below
its bridge over the river. This was done on November 26, 1867.13 Prior to this, D&N Supt. John W. Bacon successfully petitioned the railroad commissioners
that his road not be required to station a switchman at the junction "as it will, at present, be but little used."13a An earlier 1854 survey map by Samuel Nott shows roughly where this
was. One of the first trains to use the new road in late May, 1868 was reportedly from Albany and bound for New York City
via the link and the D&N.14 The first freight delivery on the line brought 75 tons
of plaster from Brookfield Jct. to a nearby processing mill in the Beaver Brook section of Danbury.15 The
first NYH&N passenger train arrived in the Hat City on September 24, 1868 and the “Brookfield car” was taken,
“much to the astonishment of ‘the Dummy’” and brought to the Fairfield County Agricultural Fair in
Norwalk by the D&N via the Danbury junction.16
[10.2.1] The NYH&N
was known here by many names: the Brookfield, the White Plains, the Junction, or the Branch road, and combinations thereof,
and was referred to often as the NYN&H with the ‘Northern’
and the ‘Housatonic’ reversed. These vagaries perhaps anticipated the corporate enigma it was to become. Insufficient
financial support, more so on this end, was surprising in light of the road’s visionary route and good prospects and
was likely due to local suspicion of an out-of-state corporation and support for the hometown D&N.17 The
NYH&N would come to languish unfinished for nearly two decades, dogged by absconding contractors, preying speculators,
and economic downturn in the Panic of 1873. More than once its officers were accused of improprieties that brought lawsuits,
controversy, and ridicule.18 Ribbed thus as ‘The Dummy Road’ by some here
like the scalawags who stole the engine’s connecting rods and ran the passenger car off the tracks,
it was implored by other locals to make good its New York aspirations and boost the Danbury economy.19 Initial
enthusiasm on the southern end resulted in donations of 13 acres of land in exchange for stock in the road.20
Even from the beginning, New York City was the ultimate destination and a sister company, the Southern Westchester RR, was
incorporated in 1872 and merged with the still mostly unbuilt NYH&N by the same promoters.21 They
included Yale graduate George Washington Mead, an attorney, a scion of a distinguished family, and the road’s first
president. Word of this promising new road even reached Europe where
financing was being arranged and bonds were being offered for sale.21a
Despite its limited resources, the NYH&N provided good service, with from three to five daily trains each way. It quickly
cut into the business of the stage coach to Brookfield, except in periodic emergencies when the dummy was out for repairs.22 On one such occasion, Beaver Brook farmer Amos Morris and his team of oxen did locomotive
duty pulling the passenger car. A woodcut in a New York periodical, reportedly Harper’s Weekly,
immortalized the event.23 The dummy, a handsome machine, described as “resplendent
with red paint, polished steel and burnished brass... ‘like a thing of life which is a beauty forever...’’’
sported Morris’s name and a pair of ox horns for more than a month after his service.24 In
an unfortunate later turn of events, a cow belonging to the venerable “Uncle Ame” was hit on the tracks and “converted
into beef by the dummy.” The same paper reports that the passenger car, refurbished in Bridgeport presumably at the
HRR shops, had returned as one of the most attractive pieces of rolling stock in the state.25 Despite
its rustic and, at times, almost comical nature, the little NYH&N quickly became a local transportation player in Danbury.
In its first year, the little road logged 12,000 train miles, 40,685 passenger miles and 16,000 freight-ton miles, netting
$6447.98.26 This works out roughly to a weekly net of $120 for six days of four round trips,
130 passenger miles, and five freight-ton miles. A meager beginning, but one not without promise.
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| Westchester County Historical Society |
[10.2.2] This
NYH&N stock certificate shows five shares purchased by Jacob Mead of Cross River, NY, one of the towns the railroad was
to traverse. It is possible that the these shares were given in return for the donation of land to be
part of the right of way, as mentioned above. The signatures, affixed at company headquarters in New York City on March 11,
1867, are of Treasurer Sewall Sergeant and President George W. Mead. The Mead names may not be a coincidence since other Meads
known to be members of the president's family are seen on additional NYH&N documents.
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| Westchester County Historical Society |
[10.2.3] Detail from Samuel Nott's 1854 map for a railroad from
Danbury to Kensico Falls, which is just north of White Plains, New York. This road was to connect in Danbury with the
Hartford, Providence and Fishkill RR that was building west through Connecticut. The dashed line shows the HP&F and the
connection point (red arrow) with the D&N, which the NYH&N seems to have utilized in 1868. The meeting point
with the HRR at Brookfield Jct. is at the blue arrow. The green arrow is the route going south out of Danbury
toward New York.
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| TCS Collection |
[10.2.4] The prospectus
map shows just how the NYH&N intended to address the 'tardy and useless eastings' that the HRR route to Bridgeport
entailed vis-a-vis travel to New York City. The prospectus laid out many solid reasons why the NYH&N would be a success.
The HRR supported the NYH&N in spite of what might have seemed to others the promotion of competition with itself. The
factors that arose to keep the NYH&N from succeeding certainly had nothing to do to the 'air line'-like
route.
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[10.2.5] This is the fold-out map of Danbury from the Beers 1867
atlas of New York and vicinity. Click on thumbnail (left) for more detail. It clearly shows the development
of the D&N facilities in the decade or so since the Clark map above. Note also how the passenger shed (red arrow) now
projects out from the station to Ives St. This was part of the 1866 reconfiguration. The dotted line shows the planned
route of the NYH&N, which would open by September, 1868, to a point (blue arrow) in the Still River meadow near the Bartram and Fanton Mfg. Co. on Canal St. (left of blue arrow). Click here for a northward view of the factory. The train in the background of the
view is on the old NYH&N. Would that the dummy were pulling it so we could have a picture! The fact that it is not the
dummy dates the photo to after the 1872 HRR lease. It probably is the HRR's Useful on the job. We have not yet been able to learn the fate of the NYH&N dummy engine [add 9/20>] but we recently came across this description in the Connecticut Western News [CWN/01/19/1872/02]: "A model locomotive.-- While on the Housatonic road a few days since, our attention was directed
to a peculiar looking object attached to a passenger car on the Danbury road. It had the appearance of a huge dry goods box,
perhaps 10 feet square, which was perched on four ordinary car wheels, to two of which was attached a piston-rod. These two
thus rigged, performed the duties of “driving wheels.” In the center of the top of this uncouth box, a six inch
stovepipe loomed majestically heavenward. On each end was attached a “cow-catcher,” and a reversible head light
tied on with ropes adorned to that part of the concern headed toward Danbury. This we understand is the entire passenger locomotive
power of the Danbury railroad, which is said to be 5 ½ miles long. The company attempts to dignify this box by the
appellation of “dummy engine,” but this scheme is too thin. A genuine, natural born dummy engine, would look down
upon such a caricature as that, as a stork would gaze on a turkey buzzard." While there is a decidedly humorous touch,
here we have to give credence to the details described and are in search of a photograph that approximates what the NYH&N
dummy engine really looked like. If there is anyone out there who would like to draw a sketch, we would be happy to post and
credit the artist. Contact us via email to caboose@tylercitystation.info
[10.2.6] Things changed quickly for the NYH&N. The Jeffersonian reports that it
gave up running to Main St. and began to use its own terminus within two months, perhaps to avoid rental fees at the D&N
station.27 This track terminus was below White St. in the meadow and was adjacent to
the Bartram and Fanton factory on Canal St.28 A wooden engine house was relocated
to this spot on the north side of the track, presumably from a more easterly location in the meadow, at this time. While a
bit difficult to visualize precisely, the newspaper says this was done by jacking it up and running the dummy under the building
to move it.29 An important later newspaper article entitled “The
New Railway Deal” says the NYH&N’s first terminus was “in the shelter of a discarded freight car...
in the lots at the upper end of Canal street, then a mere a cow path. This is as far in its struggle to reach White street...
as its material would permit..."30 The History of Danbury by James Montgomery Bailey, famed far and wide for his
wit as 'The Danbury News Man' and editor of the Danbury Times, concurs,31 as does a map drawn by O.H. Bailey (no relation). The
NYH&N erected a small depot, mockingly called a “little shanty,” Danbury’s second railroad station,
at this terminus early in the next year.31 Late in 1869, this depot was “improved and made comfortable.”33 One
was erected at Brookfield Jct. as well, replacing the large tree that first served the purpose there. Responding to the call
to extend the Danbury terminus the short distance to White St., the NYH&N did so late in the next year and moved the 'shanty'
at that time to a parcel purchased from a Mr. Joseph Bell.34 A shed was later put up
over the passenger platform.35 The fold-out map of Danbury from the 1867 Beers atlas
shows the NYH&N already owning large tracts of land here. L. Peter Cornwall puts the NYH&N station on Balmforth Ave.,
but he says north of White St., perhaps unaware there was a short piece of Balmforth going below White and ending at
Canal St.36 With this in mind, it seems certain that the
“shanty” depot ended up standing at Canal St. and Balmforth Ave., just south of White St., more or less just where
the 1903 NYNH&HRR station, now the Danbury Railway Museum, stands today.
[10.2.7] The question
of the removal of the link with the D&N has evaded answer thus far. Cornwall reports the move with amazement and implies
that it came about early on.37 The “New Railway Deal” article seems to time
the event to the NYH&N’s use of its own terminus, which, as reported elsewhere, came by December of 1868. The only
later mention of the link is in June of 1869 and is merely as a point of reference.38 Probably
only intended as a temporary means to move construction materials for the new road - the NYH&N did intend to go into New
York on its own track - the link was already gone. The intermittently advertised and often loosely coordinated ‘connections’
with the D&N ended in May, 1871, the last being for the D&N’s midday, southbound train. After
the NYH&N started using its own terminus, passengers apparently just walked the short distance from White St. to Main
St. For as long as the link was in place, however, it may have figured into a play for a lease, most likely aimed at the HRR. This
was probably not the NYH&N’s original intent, but the cash-strapped road needed the income as well as the improved
stature with investors to fund completion to White Plains. Some say the upstart NYH&N was held in disdain by the other
roads.39 Certainly this was true of the D&N. It had aligned itself with the
New York & New Haven RR and the city of Bridgeport to oppose the NYH&N charter bill in the legislature, all three
fearing its diversion of rail traffic at Danbury.40 The HRR, on
the other hand, had backed the NYH&N, apparently gambling that the White Plains connection would mean more than enough
traffic to offset that lost for it to Bridgeport. Within a few months, the HRR was allowing the NYH&N to book passengers
through to Albany and traffic connections to the north were increasingly emphasized in its schedules.41
The 13x30-ft depot that the NYH&N began to use shortly at its upper terminus was in fact the HRR’s old Stockbridge,
Mass. station, donated and reassembled by the HRR for the use of both railroads at Brookfield Jct.42
The next year the HRR lent use of its locomotive Fairfield while the dummy was out of service.43 The NYH&N in turn may have
given up the link to make itself a free agent and available to the HRR to compete with, and not lose business to, the D&N.44 Running its own trains directly into Danbury, the HRR would also
no longer have to rely on stage connections to Brookfield and Hawleyville. While the D&N might have wanted the NYH&N
as a branch to Brookfield, it had no interest in the entire road and thus pursued an independent, defensive strategy. It built
a 4-mile spur into Ridgefield in 1870 to offset other roads, the NYH&N among them, projected to come through that town,
and a Bethel branch debuted in 1872 to meet at Hawleyville with the HRR, with the Shepaug RR for its Litchfield traffic,
and with the Boston, Hartford and Erie RR, which was being built from the east. With all these developments taking place,
the HRR made a move to shore up its own position.
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| Westchester County Historical Society |
[10.2.8] 1868 broadside advertising the NYH&N at its opening.
There were five daily round trips between Brookfield Jct. and Danbury. Note the D&N depot reference showing
that the track connection between the NYH&N and the D&N was in place at the start. The reasons for its removal and
the exact date are still shrouded in mystery. The full-size locomotive and string of passenger cars were stock advertising
representations and perhaps delusions of grandeur for the NYH&N. The dummy engine and its single passenger car probably
looked closer to what is seen in this link. Click here.
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| TCS Collection |
[10.2.9]
This is a close-up from O.H. Bailey's 1875 bird's-eye
map of Danbury. Click here for the full map. Farther to the east, this track is labeled as HRR
and this shows the terminus inherited from the NYH&N. The 'shanty' depot may be the tiny building at the
red arrow, still alongside the engine house and not quite at Balmforth Ave. (yellow arrow), as seen on the better-detailed
1880 Hopkins map below. This, plus the lack of the rest of the HRR's 1872 reconfiguration with new engine
house, turntable and Canal St. freight house, as seen on the Hopkins map, makes Bailey's map more likely
reflective of 1870 than 1875.
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| Westchester County Historical Society |
[10.2.10] An 1870 woodcut showing Amos 'Uncle Ame' Morris
and his team of oxen taking over for the dummy. This was said to have appeared in a New York periodical, reportedly Harper's
Weekly. A painstaking search of all three Harper's magazines, as well as other periodicals being published at the
time, has not found the actual issue in which this was printed. The quest continues! Note the erroneous 'New York and
North. Housatonic' on the passenger car.
[10.2.11] Amos Morris, still
looking handsome and fit at an advanced age, and a man of some stature, hardly the short, bumpkin farmer shown in the
woodcut above. He served for just a few days in the War of 1812, was suddenly awarded a pension late in life
and was rather amused by it. He lived to the age of 96, and died as Danbury's oldest resident at the time. His obituary
was carried far and wide. He was a great story teller and colorful figure, who reportedly took great pleasure in showing
visitors the woodcut hanging over his fireplace, depicting himself and his team of oxen pulling the NYH&N passenger car.
The day his obituary appeared in The Evening News [DEN/08/12/1886/01],
an article entitled "The Danbury Railway Lease" ran just below it to announce the HRR deal to take over
the D&N.
[10.2.12] Amos
Morris, at rest in Wooster Cemetery in Danbury, Section I, if anyone cares to pay him a visit. We had hoped to find some indication
of his heroic service for the NYH&N on his obelisk. His obituary, on the front page of The New York Times [NYT/08/13/1886/01], says he "made himself locally famous when the first passenger
train was started over a railroad running into Danbury. The single car couldn't be got up the grade until Uncle Amos hitched
his oxen to it and pulled it up the incline. This feat earned a picture in Harper's Weekly." It has yet to be found anywhere from 1868 to 1872 or so in any of
the Harper's magazines.
Track 10.3: The Housatonic
RR - 1882 White St. Depot [10.3.1] On March 1, 1872, shortly before the
opening of the D&N’s Bethel branch, the HRR leased the NYH&N’s finished portion.45 Almost
from the start this little line had been proving its worth. Entrepreneur Isaac (Ike) Ives, uncle of Danbury composer Charles
Ives, had his lumberyard behind the D&N station on the street named for the family, but Ike was also adjacent to the NYH&N
terminus. He began getting wood shipped from Bridgeport via the HRR and the NYH&N instead of via
the D&N. Tweedy & Co., one of Danbury’s many hat firms, started receiving some of its coal, and other businesses
were getting goods via this new routing also.46 As lessee of the branch, the HRR started
to compete more vigorously with the D&N.47 The HRR quickly cut fares to Brookfield in
half, lowered fares to Bridgeport, and began mail service on the line.48 Competition
with the D&N, however, was still keen. Ads boasting that eastbound passengers saved an entire five minutes going to Bridgeport
on the HRR instead of via Norwalk49 showed the fight for every customer, but, with its wider
reach and greater resources, the odds were certainly in the HRR’s favor. As the value of the branch increased each
year, the HRR could only want to buy the branch outright and ultimately purchased it in a proxy transaction with its own president,
William H. Barnum. He had bought it on May 6, 1881 “as Trustee for” the HRR50
from a Mr. John N. Whiting, an attorney. Even at this late date, Whiting was said to be interested in completing the NYH&N
all the way to New York City.51 This was a surprise to many. Eight years earlier, the
Eastern States Journal, a White Plains newspaper,
had said sarcastically that unless President Mead had discovered a new arithmetic that “changed 0+1 into untold millions,”
there was no hope.52 Bankruptcy, in fact, did come in 1875 but so did reorganization
and Connecticut legislative extensions all the way up to 1881. On the eve of this resurrection, Whiting cashed in and broke
the NYH&N into pieces, selling the branch to Barnum for $65,000 and the unfinished portion to another party for $150,000. The
combined sales prices were nearly twice the $111,000 purchase price paid in the 1880 foreclosure auction and it has never
been determined if Whiting or others were ultimately behind all these transactions.53 One
does wonder how the only profitable asset of a bankrupt railroad could enrich another company for years and then be lopped
off and sold to that company’s president for a relatively small sum. An unsuccessful motion to vacate the sale to Barnum
was made by the bankruptcy trustees, who, curiously, were some of the railroad’s own officers. The Danbury newspaper
commented that “as long as ... [Mead and company] are alive we shall not cease to hear of trouble” with “The
Dummy Road.”54 These unseemly repercussions probably dissuaded the HRR from acquiring
the rest of the line to White Plains, in spite of the fact that the grading on the 23 miles in New York was largely complete
and the HRR appears to have had the legal right to finish the project.55 The only certainty
in all of this is that the wily William H. Barnum, astute businessman, influential national political figure and former U.S.
senator, and cousin to showman P.T. Barnum, had succeeded in pulling off what the D&N had not been willing or able to
attempt: just buying the operational part of the NYH&N and ditching the rest. By this time Danbury was said to have become
the busiest HRR station, second only to Bridgeport itself.56 Barnum conveyed the branch
to the HRR on October 9, 1882 for the $65,000 he had paid,57 and, though
other roads would later attempt to replicate its route and concept, the NYH&N ended here as a viable legal entity. Aided
by the ownership of its Brookfield branch, the HRR would continue to prosper, do battle with the D&N, and finally lease
it in 1886. [10.3.2] Improvements on the NYH&N
property in Danbury took place both with the HRR lease in 1872 and also with the purchase in 1882. The newspaper said
that the lease “will work a revolution in the management of the Brookfield branch” and that a passenger building,
freight depot, and a new engine house were to be built “at once.”58 A full-service locomotive, the Useful, was already running on the line early in 1872. This small 1871 HRR-built
4-4-0 replaced the dummy engine,59 presumably until the bridge
over the Still River near Brookfield was strengthened and heavier locomotives could be used. The changes in
Danbury can be seen in detail on G.M. Hopkins’s 1880 map. Track ends as a west-facing
railhead at the large street plaza between Canal St., Balmforth Ave., and Maple St. Below it 1,200 feet of new iron60
lead to a turntable and new engine house north of the track and to a new freight house on the Canal St. side. A small passenger
station stands right at the plaza. This is still the NYH&N’s 1869 “shanty” and not the HRR’s promised
new station, which, as late as 1880, the newspaper says the HRR had not built.61 That
new one, finally erected in late 1882, was a 58x22-foot structure. It had platforms all around, a bay window at track side
on the north, and a carriage stand on the south side. Inside, there were separate men’s and women’s waiting rooms and a baggage room. After complaining for years about its passenger facilities
in several towns, the railroad commissioners complimented the HRR on “the new and commodious station building”
at Danbury.62 The HRR also added onto the freight building making
it 108x24 feet at this time.63 A picture of the freight house prior to
expansion is in Cornwall.64 The
costs of these improvements were $5,000 for the passenger depot and $1650 for the addition to the freight house.64a
The “New Railway Deal” article says that now, in 1886, a “large
and handsome station grases (sic) the site of the shanty” and that the meadow, “covered with track” by this
time, was no longer the obstacle to the NYH&N it once was.65 The
latter has to be read broadly since, by the article’s own account, the “shanty” had been at White St. since
1870. The article also clinches the progression of structures at this site from the “shanty,” to the 1882 HRR
depot, and later, as we know now, the 1903 NYNH&H station.
[10.3.3] The 'wily'
[epithet ours] William Henry Barnum. U.S. senator, businessman, and president of the HRR. Barnum purchased the NYH&N,
which the HRR had been leasing since 1872, from John N. Whiting, an attorney, and re-sold it to the HRR in 1882 at no
profit to himself, thus making the busy branch a permanent part of the HRR. Barnum's life and career is quite extraordinary.
He was also involved in other railroads in Connecticut, including the never-realized Lee and New Haven RR project. His
papers are among those of the Barnum Richardson Company at the Dodd Research Center at UConn. Click here. Pres. Grover Cleveland arrived at the Lime Rock station via the HRR in 1889
to attend Barnum's funeral. Barnum-Richardson was located at Lime Rock and produced, among other things, railroad car
wheels.65a
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Track 10.4: The New York & New England RR - 1881 White St. Depot
[10.4.1] Even as these events
were playing out, Danbury’s next railroad was in the process of opening in 1881. The New York & New England was
the 1873 successor of the bankrupt Boston, Hartford and Erie RR. The BH&E had been chartered in Connecticut in 1863,
a year earlier than the NYH&N, and when the NYH&N got its right of way approved, it was agreed in principle that the
BH&E would be located alongside of it through Danbury and that only a single crossing of the NYH&N, necessary for
the BH&E to go due west, would be allowed. The commissioners wanted the track adjacency to minimize land seizures and
to reduce the number of grade crossings for safety reasons. In August of 1868, the commissioners fixed the BH&E line through
all of the outlying town of Danbury, but, with controversy brewing, not in the central borough itself.6667
Westward from Brookfield, they allowed the BH&E to take the NYH&N’s unused second-track grading to reach White
St. Beyond the borough’s western border at Fish Weir Bridge, the routes diverged and there was no dispute. The
right of way between White St. and the bridge, on the other hand, was to be hotly contested for over a year. Speculation was
that the BH&E might use an alternate route in Danbury, build north of Danbury altogether, attempt to get control of the
NYH&N, or that it might just try to share track with it. For the latter privilege, the NYH&N demanded $100,000 and
the BH&E refused.68 The commissioners approved the rest of the BH&E’s
preferred right of way late in 1869, even though it intersected the NYH&N’s unbuilt route out of Danbury four times,
effectively destroying it.69 The commissioners justified their actions to President
Mead by pointing out that his road had failed to acquire needed properties, even after the deadline had been extended to July
4, 1869.70 In fact, the NYH&N, curiously, had only bought three small parcels in
this area in the entire five years of its existence. Undaunted, the NYH&N sued, complaining also about losing its second-track grading to the east. The Superior Court injunction was quickly dissolved by the
state Supreme Court of Errors. The state’s highest court upheld both the jurisdiction of the commissioners and
their rulings, agreeing that rights of way were given to be shared if necessary to the public interest, that the NYH&N
had its franchise intact and could still build but had to apply for a new route west of White St., and that monetary damages
should suffice for its losses otherwise, as originally agreed.71 [10.4.2] Ten years later, the 1880 Hopkins map shows the status quo unchanged on
the eve of the NY&NE’s completion. The still-single, main-line track, under lease to the HRR, is properly designated
in the meadow as being owned by the NYH&N until it reaches White St., where a temporary construction track
continues west labeled as the NY&NE. Haggling continued into 1880 when a Superior Court commission stipulated that
a panel of three civil engineers would decide on how the NY&NE was to cross the NYH&N property in the meadow.71a When that company finished the line though Danbury in
the next year, it was on the BH&E right of way for three miles westward from Brookfield, adjacent to and south of the
NYH&N, crossing it just before Nursery Ave., and continuing on the NYH&N’s north side to White St. There
it hooked up with the NY&NE track on the Hopkins map and followed the BH&E’s court-affirmed right of way westward. To avoid the entanglements of NYH&N land ownership and HRR facilities in the meadow,
the NY&NE attempted to buy the NYH&N in the foreclosure auction.72 So much confusion
surrounded this whole affair, that the Bridgeport Standard, was reported
to have said, apparently in error, that the NY&NE had purchased the NYH&N and that HRR officials were deciding
how to deal with that.72a The D&N was also said to be interested in the branch by this
time.73 All were outbid by Whiting who later passed it to Barnum, the NY&NE had
to pay the soon-to-disappear NYH&N both for land it needed north of the tracks and also to get the HRR turntable and engine
house moved south of the tracks to land still owned by the NYH&N.74
Regular service on the NY&NE began on July 25, 1881. Its “handsome” new station was built at White St.
where the BH&E had intended to put its depot.75 The 38.8x24.2-ft main building was
flanked 12.7x17.2-ft wings. The main building had separate
waiting rooms for men and women, with the octogonally shaped ticket office centered on the track side. The wings were
used to house the baggage and express rooms and the toilet facilities. Six- and eight-ft wide platforms surrounded the structure,
the one on the front being 300 feet long. The stone foundation work was contracted to Rice & Moran of Danbury and the
carpentry was done by Leman Oatman of Hartford.75a Ironically,
this simple but 'first class' structure was diagonally across from the NYH&N “shanty,” which would
be replaced by the end of the next year with the new HRR station that was duly praised by the commissioners. The arrival of the competing NY&NE,
as well as the late 1882 purchase of the NYH&N, may have helped push the HRR to finally upgrade its Danbury facilities,
all of which it now owned outright. L.R. Burleigh’s 1884 map shows the facing depots. Advertisements for the New England
Hotel, boasts of its location across from these two White St. railroad stations.76
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| TCS Collection |
[10.4.3] This is a shot
from the 1884 Burleigh bird's-eye map of Danbury. Click here for the entire map. The map key identifies building #22 as the HRR
station (built in 1882) and building #21 as the NY&NE station (built in 1881). The HRR freight house is to the right
of the 1882 station, showing its increase in length from the addition put on by the HRR in 1882. The 1852 D&N station
is out of sight to the lower left and the New England Hotel is out of sight just west of the NY&NE track crossing White
St. See the next item. The bird's-eye artist has accurately captured the stations' features, especially the distinctive
wings of the NY&NE depot.
[10.4.4] This is an
advertisement from the 1887-1888 Danbury city directory. Proprietor C.F. Spencer boasts of the location of his New England
Hotel right across the street from the HRR and NY&NE passenger stations. Unfortunately for him, this would change
on March 17, 1889 when the HRR would move its station to Brookfield Jct. and run all trains here into the 1852 D&N
Main St. station, a few blocks away. The White St. site would remain empty until the NYNH&H opened its own station
there in 1903.
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| Dodd Center, UConn |
[10.4.5] The 1881 NY&NE
station, with its distinctive wings, was moved out of the way in the early 1900s to its location behind the Danbury 'Yellow
Building,' as the old NY&NE freight office became known. This was to make room for the 1907 double-tracking of the
Maybrook line through Danbury. This structure still stands today on the Leahy's Fuel property opposite the Danbury Railway
Museum.
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| Dodd Research Center, UConn |
[10.4.6] This is the 1882
HRR Danbury station that replaced the NYH&N's White St. 'shanty' depot, the fate of which is not known. When
this 1882 station was built, the NY&NE depot, pictured above, was already standing across the tracks, as shown in the
Burleigh map. This HRR station was moved on March 17, 1889 to Brookfield Jct., where it is seen here. The move was after the
HRR installed the link that would allow trains access from the north into the D&N Main St. station, thus making their
White St. station redundant. This station stood until at least 1934, its fate thereafter is not yet known. See Track 9 for
more on Brookfield.
Track 10.5: A
New Link Installed, Hawleyville - 1887
[10.5.1] By 1883 then, Danbury had
gone from two to three railroads, each with its own passenger station and freight facilities. These roads were the D&N
with its station on Main St. and yards stretching out behind it across Ives St. and along Railroad Place, and the HRR and
NY&NE with stations and yards facing each other across the tracks below White St. The three railroads were independent
and unconnected: the NY&NE ran east-west and the other two were stub-end operations, the D&N to the south and the
HRR to the north. With the HRR’s takeover of the D&N on October 1, 1886, the subject of reinstalling the link between
those two roads was quickly raised. The “New Railway Deal” article says that the old link connection, which “was
long ago removed and its site obliterated, is to be revived.” It also pays faint, belated homage to the now-gone NYH&N
saying it would finally make itself useful by joining the two larger roads which once “despised” it.77,78 This
proposal was to start 800 feet east of the existing crossover and build up to a half mile of track on the south side of the
NY&NE to meet the D&N after intersecting Austin St., Nursery Ave., and Wildman St. Objections to this came from the
NY&NE, whose track would be crossed an extra time, and others in the nearly two dozen additional parties affected. One
wonders why the HRR didn’t try to do this west of the NY&NE crossover, nearer to the site of the original link,
and on its own side of the tracks, so to speak. While the commissioners were optimistic about an agreement,79
Demon Greed reared its ugly head. When Pres. Barnum came to Danbury to buy land for this link, landowners asked exorbitant
prices of $800 and $5000 for lots that had cost them $50 and $200. The HRR balked and the Danbury newspaper said that
a court-appointed appraisal commission would have to determine fair prices.80 The HRR plan was very similar to a survey
done in 1881 by the NY&NE when it opened and considered connecting with the D&N.
[10.5.2] With the link stalled here, another plan was quickly
put into play, possibly with an eye toward working one location against the other. This alternative strategy was to reconfigure
track at Hawleyville and install a connection there instead. The HRR had, of course, acquired the six-mile D&N Bethel
to Hawleyville branch with the 1886 lease. The jointly built branch had been financed by the D&N but operated by the Shepaug,
which was paid for handling D&N traffic on the line.81 Apparently,
the high land prices in Danbury did not come down by the summer of 1887 and the HRR decided to go ahead with the Hawleyville
plan.82 It proceeded to install a quarter-mile piece of track there allowing through
trains to completely bypass Danbury. Hitherto, coming into Hawleyville from the south, trains could only head into an east-facing
connection with the HRR or cross over it onto the Shepaug. The new track would turn HRR trains west and then north around
Danbury. This piece of track also served as the west leg of a wye to facilitate directional changes
for other trains as well at the important junction that Hawleyville had become. Tentatively touted as a cheaper alternative
to the Danbury link, it turned out not to be. The newspaper pointedly remarked that the work there required a half-mile of
fill up to 22 feet deep and a stone arch bridge as well.83 The project was nonetheless
completed by the end of the summer of 1887. [10.5.3]
With the Hawleyville connection in
place, many observers thought the Danbury link was dead. As a result, they justly feared that the Hat City would be left
out of the burgeoning traffic between Boston and New York City, especially now with the HRR largely under the control of the
NY&NE.84 The NY&NE
was fighting tooth and nail to assemble a route out of southern New England free of the NYNH&HRR, the ‘Consolidated’
monopoly. Since the Hawleyville branch had opened in 1872, some north-south traffic had been able to skirt around Danbury
and, after the 1881 opening of the NY&NE, this was true of east-west traffic as well. Now,
the Hartford and Harlem RR was in the offing, the latest 'parallel road,' which the NY&NE was backing and which
was expected to begin sending freight up the D&N from a new Norwalk connection
and then via Bethel to points east.85 In 1887, this all-rail, inland route was several miles shorter and still faster than via the shoreline. That
routing would not become more competitive until the Thames River in New London was bridged and the Consolidated leased the
New York, Providence and Boston RR, both events occurring in 1889. Another means of circumventing the Consolidated was
closer to fruition. This was the New England Terminal Company, a D&N/HRR/NY&NE-jointly financed operation organized
in December, 1888, to ferry cars to the East River piers in New York City from Wilson Point in South Norwalk. The Long
Island and Eastern States Express would also begin shipping out from here to Oyster Bay and thence over land to Brooklyn in 1891. New York to
Pittsfield express trains were also soon to be using the D&N and the Hawleyville link instead of the Bridgeport
routing.86
By 1889 the railroad commissioners were reporting that 42 freight trains per day were already going via Hawleyville, thus
shifting virtually all through traffic away from Bridgeport.87
In addition, eyes were still on Canadian outlets for the HRR and, for a while, the NY&NE was bidding for
the Shepaug and intending to extend it to Winsted to connect with the Hartford and Connecticut Western RR.
All this traffic threatened to skip past the Hat City without better connections there. Some support for the Danbury link
did come from the fact that the now more heavily used Hawleyville route left a lot to be desired. After just a few months,
the paper reported that the HRR “is now aware that they made a great mistake in building the link at Hawleyville.”
It says the grade on the branch at Plumtrees, 100 feet to the mile or 2% in technical parlance, was limiting the best engines
on the road to ten freight cars, and that the numerous curves were slowing the passenger trains as well. Still rooting for
the home town, the paper says optimistically that a link at Danbury might be built yet.88
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| USGS |
[10.5.4] This shot from
an 1892 topographic map shows the situation at Hawleyville in that year and as it had existed since the installation
of the 1887 link by the HRR, as marked by the arrows. This was to enable trains to bypass Danbury because of a lack of
a link there to connect the HRR's leased D&N and with its Brookfield branch, the former NYH&N. The image below is of the Plumtrees culvert on the Bethel branch. This would
probably be off the lower left corner of the topographic map.
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| Leroy Roberts Collection |
Track 10.6:
An Old Link Restored, Danbury - 1889
[10.6.1] It took a new HRR vice president and general manager, the dynamic William H. Stevenson, to make the Danbury link
happen. Stevenson had started his railroad career working as a clerk for the HRR in Bridgeport, and had moved over to the
Consolidated, becoming superintendent of its New York Division in 1882. By 1887 he was with the rival NY&NE89
and his HRR appointment began a spirited effort to strengthen that road. This, of course, included extending
the HRR into the Elm City itself by buying the only railroad there that the Consolidated did not control, the New Haven &
Derby RR, and cleverly connecting it to the HRR at Botsford. This gave the HRR a tidewater outlet in New Haven, in addition
to Norwalk and Bridgeport, and even more east-west traffic. The outright invasion of its capital city may well have been the
last straw in persuading the Consolidated to put an end to the HRR. Stevenson realized the need to deal with the Hawleyville
bottleneck. Improvements, as requested by the commissioners, were made on the branch but he also saw the Danbury link as part
of the answer.90 Coincident with the formation of the New England Terminal Company,
Stevenson arrived in Danbury in December, 1888 with surveyors who quickly located a point in the meadow for the connection
between his D&N and HRR lines. Land north of the Beckerle factory, which was at the corner of Liberty and Chestnut
Sts., was purchased within a week for a mere $3,000 and, in spite of the ice and snow, work commenced immediately.91 Trees were cut, timbers and rails delivered, and gravel was being poured.92 On
January 9, 1889, the last rail was spiked down in heavy rain. The work centered mostly on the 800-foot trestle over the swampy,
flood-prone land. Because the actual crossing of the Still River was on a diagonal, the paper says the trestle appeared to
be S-shaped when viewed from the approaches. HRR engine #19, the W.D. Bishop, named for the first NY&NH president
and son of HRR founder Alfred Bishop, made the initial crossing.93 After a twenty-year
absence, the link was back and the stub-end tracks were again connected.
[10.6.2] The energetic
William H. Stevenson, vice president and general manager of the HRR and also president of the New Haven and Derby RR. Stevenson
was the moving force behind the NH&D Extension that would open new markets for New Haven goods in Danbury and beyond.
He also completed the reconnection of the old NYH&N with the D&N in January of 1889 via the link shown on the
map below.
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| Danbury News |
[10.6.3] This
schematic map appeared in the Danbury newspaper [DEN/12/18/1888/08] showing how the HRR track, formerly the NYH&N, and
the D&N were to be reconnected. The original link was just east of here at Nursery Ave. It took 800 feet of track and
trestle to complete the angled crossing of the Still River here, causing the newspaper to say that it looked like
an S when viewed from either end.
[10.6.4] The Evening
News of Tuesday, February 5, 1889 gave the first newspaper timetable with all HRR trains now leaving from the Main St.
D&N station.
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| Rowayton Historical Society |
[10.6.5]
Pictured to the right is the W.D. Bishop, HRR locomotive
#19, at an unknown location. This was the first engine to utilize the 1889 link in Danbury that reconnected the NYH&N
with D&N.
[10.6.6] The HRR lost no time in streamlining
operations to capitalize on this feat. The paper reported that all passenger operations, with some 32 daily trains, would
now use only the Main St. station.94 The first branch train crossed the new trestle on February
1, 1889. At the same time all freight operations were to be moved to the HRR’s White St. yard. No plans
were yet indicated for the either the D&N freight house on Railroad Place or the HRR’s
1882 passenger station on White St., now both unneeded. It was said that the freight house might be moved and joined to the
White St. freight facility but an 1897 Sanborn map shows the D&N building still at the old location. The passenger station
was, however, another matter. Already rumored at least two years earlier, there was talk again at this time of a new union station to be shared by the HRR and the NY&NE.95 Perhaps
this was part of some master plan on Stevenson’s part. In any case, the existing passenger station did
not fit into the grand scheme. It was moved to Brookfield Jct. on March 17, 1889. With a large crowd watching the show, 50
men loaded the 50-ton structure onto a train of two flat cars pulled by HRR locomotive #8. Lashing
it to a car on the adjacent NY&NE track helped get it to the Beaver Brook district where the HRR consist cut loose and
curved northward up the branch with more precarious adventure to come, including a pass by the hut of Dave Warner, the local hermit. The newspaper also found humor in the fact that the unwitting traveler might be fooled
the next day by the sign at Brookfield Jct. which would still say 'Danbury.’96 With
the 1882 station gone, the unoccupied site at Danbury was now presumably available as the location of the new union station.
A picture in Cornwall appears to show the open foundation where the HRR depot stood across from the NY&NE station.97 The photo is reproduced below at MP 10.7.3.
[10.6.7] This reconfiguration of the HRR properties in March, 1889 left Danbury, once
again, served by two railroads using just two passenger stations. Even with these changes, however, the situation was
less than ideal. The reinstalled link only improved access from the north into the Main St. station. There was no wye,
and no easy ‘through’ service via Danbury. Reverse moves and train and engine changes were still necessary. Some
consists used the Hawleyville routing with its better north-south access. The HRR’s premier Berkshire
Hills Limited Express was, on schedules as late as June 6, 1892, taking the Hawleyville
branch on the way north to Pittsfield and using the Danbury link on the way south. The ultimate resolution would begin
to materialize just days later with the Consolidated getting control of HRR stock, leasing it on July 1, 1892,
and beginning to operate it and its lessors on November 1. As to the passing of the fifty-year-old HRR, the commissioners
said simply that financial difficulties had doomed the road. They also reported that a new
connection was in the works to better join the D&N and the HRR at Danbury.98 Whether
this had been part of Stevenson’s plan is unclear but the result was the
now-iconic loop track. Once in place, the commissioners said, HRR traffic for New York would go via Danbury and not Hawleyville.
They also continued to talk of the new union station. J.M. Bailey says the Consolidated bought land, additional to what came
with the HRR, on October 30, 1895 for the new White St. station.99 That new station,
first mentioned eight years earlier, was not yet to be built for eight years more.
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| USGS |
[10.6.7] This is a close-up
of the 1892 topographic map of Danbury. The end of the D&N line is at the
red arrow. The 1889 link is in place at the blue arrow and the 1896 loop is not yet built. The single crossing of the
old NYH&N, the rights to which the railroad commissioners had given to the BH&E, is shown at the green arrow
where the NY&NE crosses the HRR. It was just east of this point where the HRR proposed in 1887 to reestablish the link
to the D&N with an additional crossing of the NY&NE. One wonders why the HRR did not think of building it west
of the existing crossover out of the way of the NY&NE. Had they done so, the Hawleyville link may not have
ever been constructed.
Track 10.7: The New York, New Haven & Hartford RR - 1896 Loop and 1903
White St. Depot
[10.7.1] For the
time being, the Consolidated worked with what it had, using the aging Main St. structure it inherited from the D&N in
1892. Meanwhile, the tables were turning quickly against an NY&NE greatly weakened by the loss of its allied HRR system.
By 1895, the Consolidated was able to get majority control of the stock of the NY&NE and reorganized it as the New England
RR, thus eliminating its last sizeable competitor in Connecticut, aside from the Central New England Railway. Rumors flew
again about things to come, including a new station on White St. In the meantime, in anticipation of that and to better utilize
the NY&NE depot in its north-south service, the Consolidated executed the plan to construct a single, tightly-drawn, loop
track to join the two depots and rail yard areas. This necessitated moving the old HRR freight house eastward away from White
St. to allow the loop to meet the HRR track across from the NY&NE depot.100 The
paper reports that work on the loop started on May 31, 1896, a Sunday, chosen as a time least disruptive to rail traffic.101 Within the day, the track leading to the Main St. station was shifted south and a new
track was laid around the back side of the old D&N roundhouse. Trestle work, probably already in progress to cross the
Still River here, pointed the new track to the corner of White and Canal Sts. where gravel was being poured. The entire project
was completed within the week. New timetables went into effect on June 14, 1896. While the railroad was pleased with
the new connection, it was still a complicated ballet of train arrivals, departures, and movements through the link and around
the loop between the two stations. Undoubtedly, there was confusion for the public as well with trains using one station
or the other, but not both. Generally, it appears that Pittsfield and New York trains left from White St. and trains going
only as far as South Norwalk or New Milford departed from Main St.102 People were also upset
by the deteriorating physical condition of the two stations. J.M. Bailey says that on February 19, 1894 the railroad
was petitioned to replace the depot on Main St., later described in a newspaper article as a “rookery,” a term
meaning a brothel, a roosting place for birds, or a hang-out for the poor, or some combination of the three.103 The
NY&NE station, which was being shared by the two roads and where Consolidated tickets were being sold, was said to be
only “slightly better.” Official Danbury records show the common council ordering the superintendent of public
works “to erect a fence across the sidewalk on Main St. at both sides of the depot of the N.Y. N.H. & H. R.R. to
prevent a possibility of parts of that ancient structure falling on pedestrians”104 In
spite of all this, both stations continued to be used until July 12, 1903 when the new NYNH&HRR White St. station, Danbury’s
fifth, finally opened. Even with the Main St. station closed, schedules in 1904 show intricate train movements around the
unique downtown, rail-loop trackage that still exists in Danbury today.105 The dismantling
of the Main St. station began on July 8, 1914 and its passing was commemorated in the newspaper six days later.106 Tracks
behind it were cut back to Ives St. and the only remaining tenant, the Adams Express Co., was relocated to a platform and
shed built by the railroad along track 20 in the White St. yards.107 With a siting controversy
reminiscent of the old depot itself in 1851, the property was ultimately given to the federal government for use as the
new city post office. Treasury Secretary William McAdoo's name is on the 1915 cornerstone for the building that stands
there today.
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| TCS Collection |
[10.7.2] This is the map
from the 1897 Danbury city directory, possibly the first map to be issued with the directory. It is the first one discovered
that shows the link as well as the loop in place, the latter having been just installed the year before the map was published.
The blue arrow points to the D&N station; the red arrow to the NY&NE station; the brown to the 1896 loop; and, the
yellow to the 1889 link.
|
| Courtesy of the Danbury Museum & Historical Society |
[10.7.3] This valuable
panorama dates to somewhere between 1896 (the loop is in) and 1903 (the NYNH&H station is not yet built). What
appears to be an excavation opposite the NY&NE station does not fit the footprint for the 1903 station. It may be
the foundation for the 1882 HRR station that was moved to Brookfield Jct. in 1889, though
it would be a little surprising if the excavation was left open until 1896 or later.
Note the NY&NE water tank to the left and the single-story future 'Yellow Building' beyond the station. The old
HRR freight house has been moved to the east to make way for the loop track. The people gathered have walked over
from the NY&NE station, which was used to board trains for Pittsfield and New York after the NYNH&H got control of
the NY&NE in 1895 and put the loop in the next year.
Track
10.8: Aftermath and Reflection
[10.8.1]
Not surprisingly, the installation of first the link and then the loop at Danbury quickly reduced traffic
on the Hawleyville branch. With 16 grade crossings, no stations, few industries, and little traffic, the commissioners saw
no point in opposing the NYNH&HRR’s petition for abandonment of the old D&N branch.108 The
push for the elimination of grade crossings, then in earnest, was a primary factor. Moreover, the branch was no longer
used as a route to the north or east now that the loop was in place at Danbury, and with the New Haven’s complete control
of the NY&NE by 1898, there was no need for it as competitive freight cut-off to Norwalk either. The
route, only four miles shorter than going via Danbury, was expendable. In place of it, the commissioners
said that Litchfield traffic would simply use a new connection at Hawleyville to go directly to the Hat City via the old NY&NE
route. June 1, 1911 marked the formal abandonment of the D&N’s Bethel branch.109
Little did the D&N know when it opened the branch in 1872 that it would come to play such an adversarial role in Danbury’s
railroad history. The removal of the trackage, always noticeably redundant on railroad maps of the period, thus allowed
the branch to fade into oblivion. The interplay of all these developments is perhaps now better understood in light of the
events in Danbury.
[10.8.2] With the link, the loop, and the 1903 station,
major rail configurations ended in Danbury. The loop, a simple and serviceable solution, finally allowed traffic to flow
reasonably well through the Hat City and into its dual railroad yard areas. The old D&N facilities became known as the
Main St. yards, remnants of which were in use into the 1960s serving the Swift Brothers meat plant on the track to Ives St.
The White St. HRR yards were increased in size by an extensive purchase of land in 1893110
along Canal St., which was ultimately taken as railroad property. Augmented by the NY&NE parcels, this whole area went
on to be the focus of rail operations in Danbury. The loop remained single-tracked apparently until the 1925 electrification
of the Danbury branch.111 The double-tracking of the loop is reflected
on the 1929 Sanborn map and that work probably filled in the two trestle crossings in the Still River meadow. The double-tracking
of the NY&NE as the Maybrook line through Danbury, with the portion eastward to Berkshire Jct. just using the adjacent
HRR track, had come in 1907.112 This was perhaps the final legacy of the railroad commissioners’
earlier rulings for side-by-side tracks. The NY&NE station had to be moved out of the way at this time. The NYNH&H
relocated it behind the Danbury ‘Yellow Building,’ then its division headquarters, nicknamed for the railroad’s
1894 general office building in New Haven. The Danbury namesake had been the freight house of the former NY&NE and became
the headquarters of the CNE in 1918. The NYNH&H had gotten control of the CNE in 1904, put the Maybrook line west of Danbury under its jurisdiction in 1912, and ultimately moved most of its staff from Poughkeepsie to the
Hat City.113 Official 1915 valuation maps show Danbury facilities as owned by the NYNH&H
and operated by the CNE, a situation that lasted until the CNE was merged out of existence in 1927. The 1881 NY&NE
depot and freight house both still stand today north of the tracks. The property there, first leased and later sold to prominent
local businessman and Danbury Fair promoter John W. Leahy, continues to be the home of Leahy’s Fuel.114 After
Metro-North erected its own new station, operations ceased at the 1903 White St. station, which was renovated and reborn in
1995 as the Danbury Railway Museum. The museum’s operating turntable is on the site where the HRR relocated it over
a century ago. [10.8.3] The 1903 station is an enduring symbol of several
decades of railroad history in Danbury. While technically not built as a ‘union station,’ the original plan to
unite the HRR and the NY&NE here seems to justify the term in an honorary sense. Even if built from 1892 to 1898
it would have served both the Consolidated and the NY&NE/NERR. Perhaps the reason it did not come about any sooner was
that the NYNH&H wanted to wait until, as was seemingly destined, it controlled and integrated all of Danbury’s railroads
and facilities. It is quite ironic that these facilities were literally right next to each other all along. From Main
St. to White St., the distance of barely a half-mile set the stage for a half-century of high drama in the Hat City. This
might have been avoided had Danbury not declined its first offer of a railroad, the HRR itself in 1836. Shortly thereafter
in 1845, New Haven also turned away a railroad, the Naugatuck. Interestingly, in both cases the promoter was Alfred Bishop
and the beneficiary was the city of Bridgeport, which became the terminus for the NRR and the HRR and experienced a twelve-fold
population increase, the largest among Connecticut’s major cities, from 1850 to 1900, according to the U.S. Census.
The further resulting coincidence was that, in 1868 when the NYH&N belatedly arrived in Danbury to link it with the HRR,
the city of New Haven was belatedly financing the New Haven & Derby RR to win back some of the Valley traffic it lost
with the NRR. The NH&D and NYH&N roads were kindred spirits. Both were short lines of but a few miles, afterthoughts,
controversial and redundant in some ways in connecting points that already had rail service. Often maligned by contemporaries
and historians alike, these visionary HRR step-children had significant roles to play in Connecticut railroad history and
are worthy of reconsideration. Part of the ‘Little Derby,’ touted as a gateway to the west and made a reality
by William H. Stevenson, indeed served that purpose as the first link in the NYNH&H’s vital Maybrook line. All that
was ever built of the ‘Little Dummy,’ promoted by George W. Mead and secured for the HRR by William H. Barnum,
became a gateway to the north, a link surviving today after some of the original HRR is gone. The NYH&N’s bold plan
to connect Danbury to the ‘Empire City’ was the dream of abortive roads all the way up to the 1920s with the New
York, Westchester and Boston RR and its Westchester Northern extension. Such a route may have supplanted the value of the
D&N itself, the Hat City’s second-choice railroad. Had Danbury said yes to the HRR in 1836 and had the NYH&N
been completed, this story would be quite different. Hindsight, as they say, is the best teacher and the histories of men,
cities, and railroads are written as much about the risks not taken as about the ones that were.
|
| Dodd Research Center, UConn |
[10.8.4] The 1903 NYNH&H
station, now the Danbury Railway Museum, today minus the passenger awnings seen here. This pristine shot looks like
it was taken shortly after opening, the 'crowning achievement' of a half-century of high drama in the Hat City.
Note the still-single loop track. Double-tracking for the loop would not come until 1925, probably in connection
with the electrification of the Danbury line. The NY&NE, running behind the station, was double-tracked as the Maybrook
line in 1906.
|
| Leroy Roberts Collection |
[10.8.5] Danbury freight house, after the NYNH&H enlargement from its smaller
dimensions in HRR days. Compare size in photo at MP 10.7.3.
|
| Leroy Roberts Collection |
|
| Photo - Copyright NHRHTA, Inc., used with permission |
[10.8.6] Danbury
facilities map in 1926 [left] and 1941 [right]. The turntable
location is the same as 1882. This whole area contained the Danbury properties of the D&N and the HRR, both leased in
1892, as well as the NY&NE which the NYNH&H controlled by 1895 and purchased in 1898. All these roads were later merged
at various dates.
[10.8.7]
At left, the May, 1872 newspaper timetable first showing
the line to Brookfield being operatedas the HRR's 'Danbury Branch.'
[10.8.8] At right
and below, the June 14, 1896 NYNH&H timetable for the Danbury and Berkshire divisions. This was the first one issued
after the loop was installed and to reflect the changes at Danbury. It shows trains stopping at either the Main
St. D&N station or at the White St. NY&NE station. The White St. shot [MP 10.7.3 above] shows people waiting to board
a train across the track from the NY&NE station.
Track 10.9: Notes
1. DT/03/05/1851/02
2.
DT/10/02/1850/02 3. DT/02/11/1852/02 4. Cornwall, p.51 5
DT/03/03/1852/02 6. DT/07/12/66/03 7.
CRC
15 [1868], p.18 8. Prospectus, p.15
9.
PSL, V: 609 10. DT/05/18/1865/02 11.
DT/10/08/1868/03 12. JF/08/15/1868/03;
13. JF/11/16/1867/03;
DT/11/28/1867/03
13a. CRCR 5: 225
14. DT/06/04/1868/03
15. DT/07/16/1868/03 16. DT/10/01/1868/03 17. DT/11/02/1865/02 18. See Circulars 19.
DT/04/22/1869/03; DT/09/05/1867/02 20. DT/12/24/1868/03 21. DN/09/18/1872/02
21a. DT/07/22/1869/02;
NYT/10/22/1869/08
22. DT/01/28/1869/03 23. DN/04/07/1870/03 24. DN/04/28/1870/02 25. DN/05/10/1871/02 26. CRC 17 [1870], p.179 27.
JF/11/21/1868/03 28. DT/12/03/1868/03 29. DT/11/19/1868/03
30. DN/11/09/1886/02 31. J.M. Bailey, p.278 32. JF/01/16/1869/03 33. DT/12/23/69/02
34. DT/10/22/1868/03; DT/10/7/1869/03; DN/12/07/1870/02 35. DN/06/07/1871/02 36.
Cornwall, p.67 37. Cornwall, p.26 38.
DT/06/03/1869/03 39. J.M. Bailey, p.277 40.
DT/06/30/1864/02? 41. DT/05/06/1869/03 42.
DT/11/18/1869/02; DT/12/02/1869/03 43. DN/03/17/1870/03 44. Cornwall, p.26 45. DN/03/13/1872/02;
CRC 20 [1873],
p.43 46. DT/07/15/1869/03 47. Cornwall,
p.45 48. DN/04/03/1872/02; DN/05/21/1872/02; DN/07/17/1872/02 49. DN/05/07/1873/04 50. Blakeslee,
p.9 51. PSL, IX: 251 52. ESJ/10/03/1873 53. DN/05/11/1881/01; NYT/04/04/1880/09 54.
DN/06/15/1881/01 55. PSL, IX: 617 56. DN/05/11/1881/04 57. NHRHE, p.3 58. DN/03/13/1872/02 59. Cornwall, p.67; DN/01/17/1872/02
60. DN/05/22/1872/02 61. DN/12/22/1880/01 62. CRCL, 5/22/83
63. DN/01/08/1882/01 64. Cornwall,
p.67
64a. Letter to the railroad commissioners, December 2, 1882, from Supt. W.H. Yeomans.
65. DN/11/09/1886/02
65a. Lord, p.80
66. DT/09/17/1868/03 67. CR, 1869, p.198 68. DN/04/12/1870/02; NYT/10/29/1869/08 69. DT/10/21/1869/03 70.
PSL,
VI: 395 71. CR, 1869, p.196
71a.
DN/04/28/1880/; DN/05/12/1880
72. NYH/02/29/1880
72a. NHDP/07/17/1880
73. HDC/03/29/1880/02 74. DN/12/15/1880/04; DN/04/27/1881/01 75. DN/07/27/1881/08;
DT/10/14/1869/03
75a. DN/09/01/1880
76. Danbury Directory,
1887-1888,
opp. p.164 77. DN/11/09/1886/02 78. DN/02/09/1881/04 79. CRC 35 [1887], p.4 80.
DN/02/08/1887/03
81. Cornwall, p.39 82.
DN/07/27/1887/04 83. DN/07/29/1887/03; also mentioned in CRC (1887) 35: 4. 84. DN/01/27/1887/03 85.
DN/12/22/1887/03 86. DN/01/02/1889/04 87.
CRC38
[1890], p.13 88. DN/12/22/1887/03
89. DN/12/20/1886/02 90. CRCAR, 35 [1889], p.8 91. DN/12/19/1888/02;
DN/12/26/88/07 92. DN/12/21/1888/03 93. DN/01/10/1889/03 94. DN/01/31/1889/03; CRCL, 7/10/89 95.
DN/07/27/1887/04 96. DN/03/18/1889/03; HC/03/20/1889/06 97.
Cornwall, p.73 98. CRC 40 [1892], p.14 99.
J.M. Bailey, p.566 100. DN/06/03/1896/03 101.
DN/06/03/1896/03? 102. DN/06/10/1896/03 103.
J.M. Bailey, p.564; DN/06/10/1896/03 104. Year Book, 1898/99, p.
56 105. Cornwall, p.78
106. DN/07/7/1914/08; DN/07/08/1914/16;
DN/07/09/1914/08; DN/07/14/1914/06 107. DN/07/09/1914/06 108. CRC 56 [1908], p.7 109. CRC 59 [1911],
p.23 110. J.M. Bailey, p.562 111. 1919
photo, Shoreliner 15.1 [1984],
p.34; Blakeslee, p.29, says the first
electric train into Danbury was on June
29, 1925 with regular service
debuting on July 6. See also NHRHTA Newsletter
[NL18.4.10] quoting
Along the Line for June, 1925 that said that
the "juice" was ready
to be turned on.
112.
Blakeslee, p.21 113. HC/08/14/1912/15; HC/08/17/1918/11 114. DNT/10/26/1950
Appendix
A. Historical depots and dispositions
#1. D&N Main St. station, 1852-1903; torn down in 1914.
#2. NYH&N “shanty,” 1869; moved
to White St, 1870; torn down? 1882.
#3. NY&NE 1881 White St. station; now on Leahy’s Fuel property.
#4.
HRR 1882 White St. station; moved to Brookfield Jct. 1889; torn down? after 1934.
#5. NYNH&H 1903 White St. station;
Danbury Railway Museum since 1995.
Appendix B.
Historical depots and railroads: (years rounded)
Years
# of RRs # of Depots RRs using
Depot # 1852-1868
1 1 D&N@#1;
NYH&N@#1 [9/68-11/68]
1868-1872 2 2 D&N@#1;
NYH&N@#2
1872-1881 2 2 D&N@#1;
HRR@#2
1881-1882 3 3 D&N@#1;
HRR@#2; NY&NE@#3
1882-1886 3 3 D&N@#1;
HRR@#4; NY&NE@#3
1886-1889 2 3 HRR@#1+#4;
NY&NE@#3
1889-1892 2 2
HRR@#1; NY&NE@#3
1892-1896 2
2 NYNH&H@#1;
NY&NE@#3
1896-1903 1 2 NYNH&H@#1+#3
1903-1968 1 1 NYNH&H@#5
Research Locations [Referenced sources may be at other locations as well] CH0
Connecticut History Online. www.cthistoryonline.org
CHS
Connecticut Historical Society, Hartford. www.chs.org
CSL Connecticut State Library,
Hartford. www.cslib.org
DMHS Danbury Museum & Historical Society. www.danburymuseum.org/
Dodd Thomas J. Dodd Research Center, University
of Connecticut, Storrs.
www.lib.uconn.edu/online/research/speclib/ASC
DPL Danbury Public
Library. www.danburylibrary.org
DRM Danbury Railway Museum.
www.danbury.org/drm
MAGIC Map and Geographic Information Center. http://magic.lib.uconn.edu
Mudd Seeley G. Mudd Library, Yale University, New
Haven. www.yale.edu
WCHS Westchester County Historical Society. www.westchesterhistory.com
WCSU Archives and Haas Library, Western Connecticut State
University, Danbury.
http://library.wcsu.edu
Bibliography
Annual Reports, Brochures, Maps, Timetables. Various railroads,
various dates.
CHS, CSL, Dodd, DRM
Bailey, James Montgomery. History of Danbury, Conn. 1684-1896.
CHS, DPL
Bailey, Oakley Hoopes. Bird’s-Eye
View of Danbury. 1875. CHO [online]
Beers, Frederick W. Atlas of New York and Vicinity. 1867. CHS
See the Plan
of Danbury foldout map. This single map is also at DPL.
Blakeslee, Philip C. Lines West: A Brief History.
1951.
Self-numbered
text pages are from the Camm Historical Series pamphlet. Online,
see the NY&NE section at http://catskillarchive.com/rrextra/abnere2.Html
Burleigh,
Lucien R. Bird’s-Eye View of Danbury. 1884. CHO [online]
Circulars, Nos. 1 & 2. Published in
1872 by a disgruntled NYH&N investor. WCHS
Clark,
Richard. Clark’s Map of Fairfield County. 1856. MAGIC [online]
[CRC] Connecticut. Railroad Commissioners. Annual Report of the General Railroad
Commissioners. 1854-1911. ‘General’ was
dropped from title with CRCAR 22 [1875].
The bracketed
year is the report year, which may vary from the publication year.
Many of these reports have been digitized and are online
via Google Books. CSL, Mudd.
[CRCL]
Connecticut. Railroad Commissioners. Letters. CSL
[CRCR] Connecticut. Railroad Commissioners. Records. CSL
[CR] Connecticut Reports. 36 Conn. 198 is the official citation for this
case. CSL
Cornwall, L. Peter. In the Shore Line’s Shadow: The Six Lives of
the Danbury & Norwalk Railroad.
1987. DPL
Cornwall’s landmark work does not speak at
all of the HRR’s 1882 passenger depot nor
does
he say much about a rail yard in the area below, though the picture (p. 67), taken
between 1872 and 1882, shows the freight house there. He also makes no mention of the
1889 link and says the loop was installed by the HRR. Maps from 1889 to 1896 contradict
this. The 1897 Danbury Directory map is the first to show both the link and the loop. See
also the Sanborn maps for 1892 and 1897. Much of Cornwall’s research appeared as “The
Danbury and Norwalk Railroad: A Successful Enterprise.” in five parts in Shoreliner 16.4-
17.4, 1985-1986. Part 3 [17.2], p.8, cols. 1 and 2, needs to be corrected similarly as
noted above. The articles do have some useful details that are not found in the book.
Danbury Directory.
1868?-. Various publishers. CHS, DMHS, DPL, WCSU
[DT] Danbury Times. 1837-. Weekly. Merged with The Jeffersonian to become
The Danbury
[DN] News as of March 17, 1870. The Evening News
began on September 8, 1883 as an
[DEN] afternoon daily, Monday-Saturday, excluding Wednesdays.
CHS, CSL, DPL; WCSU has the
complete run.
Hopkins, Griffith Morgan. Atlas of Danbury, Connecticut. 1880. CHS, DPL
See plate K; note that the index map in front of the atlas has the ‘shanty’ depot on the
wrong side of the NYH&N track. The plate is correct.
[JF] The Jeffersonian. March 14, 1860 - March 5, 1870. Weekly. Purchased by the
Danbury
Times and merged with it to create The Danbury
News.
Lord, Robert F. Country Depots in the Connecticut Hills. 1996
Newspapers, other various.
[ESJ] Eastern State Journal
[HC]
Hartford Courant
[HDC] Hartford Daily
Courant [NYH]
New York Herald [NYT] The New York Times
[NHRHE]
New Haven Railroad Historical Events. Scroll down right sidebar. www.nhrhta.org
Nott, Samuel. General Map Accompanying
the Report on Surveys Between Danbury and Kensico.
1854. WCHS
[PSL] Private
and Special Laws of the State of Connecticut. 1837-. CSL
Prospectus of the New York, Housatonic & Northern Railroad Company. 1864. Published with
a
map, description of the right of way, and detailed tables of distances,
expenses, expected
revenues, and comparisons with major operating
railroads of the time. Mudd, WCHS
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps. 1885-1947.
DPL
has 1904 Danbury maps; CSL has entire set online; on-site access only.
Smith, E.C. & E. Van Zandt. Map of Danbury, Connecticut.
1867. CHS
Year Book for the City of Danbury. 1898/99?-1935/36?.
DPL, WCSU
________________________________________________ NOTES ON BERKSHIRE
JUNCTION We thoroughly enjoyed, and learned quite a bit, from Casey Cavanaugh's 2010
article "Berkshire Junction" in the NHRHTA's Shoreliner 32.1 but some clarification
of historical detail seems to be in order and perhaps will invite reader input that is always welcome at
TCS: 1. On page 17, the article says that the New York, Housatonic and Northern RR
was obtained by the Housatonic RR in 1872 and this allowed a "connection" in Danbury. The lease did occur in
1872, but the track connection, put in on November 26, 1867, was long gone, out by 1868, as best we
can tell. Its removal, which Peter Cornwall [In the Shore Line's Shadow, p26] notes, shaped
the history of Danbury's railroads for the next 20 years. See Track 10, MP 10.2.0, 10.2.7. The permanent
link would not come until 1889, a short time after the HRR leased the D&N late in 1886 and the loop
would not come until 1896 when the NYNH&H put it in. So, it is not correct to say there was a
link in 1872. 2. Also on page 17, it says that the NY&NE shared track with the
HRR. All the many accounts we have seen say that the NY&NE built its own line (and tunnel) and paralleled the HRR
to the north through Hawleyville and crossing to the south side of the HRR just east of Hawleyville at
a point we think we have seen called Hawleyville Jct. The NY&NE continued west to Danbury and the HRR veered north
to Brookfield Jct. at Hobarts. See the Edwin B. Storrs Newtown article
maps in Shoreliner 11.1. Click here and here for the relevant 1892 topographic maps that show the side-by-side rights of way but and no track shared
by these independent, competing companies.
3. On page 24, it says that the HRR probably operated
in 1881 with a hand-thrown switch at Berkshire Jct. This does not seem to have been possible, simply
because there was no connection at all before the NYNH&H created one in 1908. The HRR/NYH&N Brookfield
branch ran parallel on the NY&NE's north side until the lines crossed each other just east of Wildman
St. in Danbury and there was no junction there either, just the diamond. The topographic map shows
the crossover. Until they began cooperating with each other later in the 1880s, there was no love lost
between these rival companies. The NYNH&H leased the HRR in 1892 and got total control of the NY&NE by 1898.
Even then, it appears to have been 10 years before Berkshire Jct., not on employee timetable 47 [10/6/1907],
made its debut on ETT 47A [1/5/1908], with SS 199 going into service
on 3/15/1908. These improvements were part of the elimination of grade crossings and double-tracking between
Hawleyville and Danbury at that time as part of the Maybrook line. Similar upgrades between Berkshire Jct.
and New Milford would be completed in 1913, making Berkshire Jct. every bit the important place that Mr.
Cavanaugh recounts. [REFS: HC/02/20/1907/03; HC/02/08/1908/13; NHAR37.1908.5;
NHAR38.1909.7; HC/08/13/1909/04]
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