The Trail of the Swinging Lanterns: A Racy, Railroading Review of Transportation Matters, Methods and Men
John Morison Copeland
9781465659538
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
When Sir John Franklin, arctic navigator, with canoe crews of Indians and voyageurs, eastbound after exploring the Great Lakes, pitched wigwams in the summer of 1839 at the confluence of stream and lake where the nucleus of present Cobourg, Canada, was taking root, little did these adventurous and actual forerunners of easy steam locomotion think that from a point where they camped a railroad would thirteen years later bisect the unbroken forest. Yet, it is so, and the whirligig of time has, likewise, seen recorded the obituary of that railway—has witnessed the effacement of the name of those early laid metal ribbons from the time tables of a young country which still hungers and lobbies for more and more tracks and trams. Cobourg and thereabouts, is ancient territory as settlements go nowadays. In 1796 the district was surveyed. Eluid Nickerson, who espoused the United Empire Loyalist cause, took out the first patent in 1802 during the reign of King George III., but in spite of its monarchial predilections, the locality has long been of interest to our cousins of high and low degree living south of Lake Ontario, and a few years after the construction of Cobourg and Peterborough Railway, of which I speak, several iron masters and capitalists from Pittsburg acquired the property, altering somewhat its original mission. The prospectus of this pioneer Canadian line was mooted in 1851 by local promoters: it took definite form in 1852 and on February 7th, 1853, Lady Mayoress, Mrs. S. E. MacKechnie, officiated in the ceremony of turning the first sod amidst tremendous public enthusiasm. As early as 1844 a daily stage ran in winter from Peterborough to Cobourg and Port Hope, and in summer the steamboat “Forrester” plied to Harwood and connected with the stage coaches. Close in the wake of this propitious beginning construction advanced, while feathered and furry prowlers of the virgin woods had their curiosity piqued by strange sights and sounds. Under the supervision of chief engineer Ira Spaulding, contractors Zimmerman and Balch pushed the line through valley and glade to Rice Lake’s fertile, sloping shores at Harwood where, later, sawmills sawed the stately pines that arrived in drives from Otonabee. During the following year Mr. Zimmerman collaborated in the extension as far as Peterborough, his tragic death in the des Jardins Canal disaster at Hamilton, March, 1857, terminating a useful life. Steel rails were an experimental luxury, iron scarce and expensive and timber often replaced them. Antique locomotives with impossible superstructures coughed and squeaked along, meanwhile eating a mighty hole in the wood pile, for coal and oil burners were not contrived, and what a risk it was to venture between the oscillating cars. Though crudely equipped, the road was nevertheless, a startling and welcome innovation for abbreviating space. The Grand Trunk Railway had not yet been built and the saddle horse and coach were the only substitutes for pedestrianism. Picture, if you can, a journey inside a two teamed springless stage, tediously winding westward past bear haunt, swamp and river; for instance, over the historic, old military road from Kingston. It must have been a hunter’s paradise.
