INTRODUCTORY.

     The various stages of progress in methods of transportation through which most civilized American communities have passed may be grouped somewhat in the following order:  The Indian trail, the blazed path, the bridle path, the crooked wagon road (crooked to avoid obstacles), the worked wagon road, the post road, with its era of post boys and stage coaches, and contemporaneously, the flat boat, then the era of canals, and steamboat navigation, and lastly stream and electric railroads.
     In 1798, Judge Turhand Kirtland, who, as agent of the Connecticut Land Company, visited New Connecticut in the years 1798, 1799 and 1800, in the fulfillment of his duty as agent, laid out and opened a road through the wilderness from the Grand river, near Lake Erie, to Youngstown.  He arrived at the last named place with a corps of surveyors on the 3d of August and assisted Judge Young in running out the town.  The above mentioned road followed the old Indian and salt maker's trail as far as Weathersfield, in which place there was a salt spring.  From it branch roads were constructed leading to Kinsman and Hubbard, and one connecting with the "Girdled Road" in Ashtabula County, which ran from the Pennsylvania line to Cleveland and was the first road surveyed on the Reserve.  It is so called on account of the timber being girdled for a width of thirty-three feet all the way along the route.
     In 1801, through the influence of General Wadsworth, a mail route was established from Pittsburg to Warren via Canfield and Youngstown.  It was followed, in 1815, by a route from Erie to Cleveland through Ashtabula, and three years later a stage coach service was established on this route.  In 1819, another important public improvement, the Ashtabula and Trumbull turnpike, was constructed, connecting the lake at Ashtabula with the Ohio at Wellsville, by a substantial wagon road.
     A stag-e coach line from Erie, Pennsylva nia, to Cleveland, Ohio, was originated at an early date by Aaron Whitney, a wagon maker of Conneaut, whose coaches were built in part by Charles Barr, afterwards a citizen of Youngstown. Whitney later formed one of a company who established a coach line in 1824 from Conneaut to Poland, the other members of this company being John Kins-

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man, Caleb Blodgett, Seth Hayes, General Martin Smith, Samuel Helvering and Philip Kimmel.
     Under the constitution, congress was given authority to establish postoffices and post roads, and national roads were built accordingly in every direction between the principal centers of population.  The stage coach that dashed along the post roads night and day, changing horses every ten or twelve miles, changing horses every ten or twelve miles, was looked upon in its day as a prodigy of rapid transit, and for a time it served its purpose.  But a change was soon to come.  It is said that great inventions are always produced when necessary for the further advancement of the human race, just as great crises in the world's history produce great leaders.  The changes wrought by the locomotive were all described by a former Youngstown citizen, the late Walter L. Campbell, in words spoken more than thirty years ago, and which are in most respects still more applicable today.  At the pioneer reunion held in Youngstown in 1875, he said in part:
     "All along its shining way can be traced the course of a national material development that knows no parallel.  Not half a century has passed since first the feasibility of steam transportation by land was demonstrated, and yet within this comparatively short period what a vast empire has been won from savagery to civilization, from waste to use.  The locomotive has crushed the frail wigwams of the Indian village and driven the lazy inhabitants to find new lairs in lava beds and mountain fastnesses, where they still continue to lie and steal and scalp with that same delightful in difference to honor and manhood that has al ways given to their race such an exquisite charm.  Hunting grounds have been trans formed into productive fields, and pastures, where but now roamed the untamed bison, fatten the flocks and herds of civilized man; where but yesterday a few thousand roamed, and barbarians eked out a scant existence by fishing and hunting, millions of population today by industry and commerce thrive and live.  Held by rigorous natural requirements, civilization in this country must long have clung to sea coast, lake shore, or river bank, had not a new servant come to its aid.  The railroad gave it wings that released it from the dependence on navigable waters, lifted it over mountain barriers, and with rapid flight carried it inland far away from its original seat.  The language of the most extragavant extravagant hyperbole would see commonplace when applied to the wonders the railroad has wrought.  Why, it touches deep marshes and they become firm foundations for magnificent cities.  It enters uninhavited prairies, and powerful states, imperial in wealth and population, are born in a day.  It pushes across plains which but now were supposed to be arid wastes, and they are at once covered with the ranches of herdsmen.  It climbs the heights and penetrates the canyons of the Rocky Monutains Mountains, and there coal and iron and silver and gold tell of glories soon to be.  A tithe of the praise it deserves has not yet been told.  Patriotism claims it as a powerful and almost indispensable ally; without the facilities of intercourse afforded by steam locomotion, a very great duration of the Republic could hardly be hoped.  The jarring interests, the sectional prejudices and antipathies, the diversity of language and custom and tradition obtaining among the people composed of many different nationalities, living in regions widely separated from each other, unless counteracted, must surely have produced in time disintegration.  Steam is annihilating distance, overcoming local jealousies and hereditary national hates, and sounding the deep hidden harmonies of seemingly discordant interests; under its benign influence sources of weakness are converted into elements of national strength.  Extent of territory no longer excites those gloomy fore bodings which saw states far removed from the political center, and consequently little sensible of dependence upon it, under one pretext of another, ever ripe for revolution.
     "The diversity of industries, the variety of products, the countless sources of wealth which can only be found with territorial greatness, we can therefore enjoy without encountering the centrifugal tendencies hitherto necessarily connected with it.  Under the enlarging

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culture and constant contact from travel, peculiarities arising from birth are yielding the symmetry produced by association, thus are we developing a national character, not the less strong on account of being the fusion of many elements, nor the less rich becaused composed of many different national peculiarities.
     "The power that has been the author of all prosperity that has built these cities, peopled these plains, discovered and developed the riches of mountain and valley, that has given to our Union an assured hope of permanence and to our people a unity, strength and richness of character, that has scattered with lavish hand blessings wherever it has gone, this rail road power, with all due respect to our pioneer forefathers, I extoll above the stage coach, or horseback, or afoot."

RAILROAD ERA.

     The railroad era in the Mahoning Valley was foreshadowed as early as 1827, when a number of persons formed a plan for connecting the Ohio river with Lake Erie by a rail road, and obtaining a charter fixed the capital of the company at $1,000,000.  It was stipulated in the charter that the road should run from some point on Lake Erie between Lake and Ashtabula counties, and terminate at some point on the Ohio river in Columbiana county.  The project failed owing to the inability of the company to raise the required capital, the conservative business men of that day having much more confidence in a pike road or a canal as a means of transportation than in any such wild, visionary scheme as a railroad.
     Another attempt at railroad construction was made eleven years after by the Ashtabula, Warren and East Liverpool Company, capitalized at $1,500,000, which, however, was brought to a speedy and permanent stop by the panic of 1836-37.
     The construction of the Ohio and Pennsylvania canal, which was completed from Beaver, Pennsylvania, to Warren, Ohio, in 1839, and opened with great rejoicings, also had the effect of delaying railroad enterprises.  The part this canal played in the development of the Mahoning valley was well described by a writer in the History of Trumbull and Mahoning Counties (1882).  He says:
     "The Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal was a work of inestimable importance to Warren, Youngstown, and Cleveland, by creating a market for coal, iron, and produce. Inadequate and unsatisfactory as it was, it demonstrated the possibilities of the region, and its few boats were the inception of an immense carrying trade.  In a sense the canal may be considered the foundation of a railroad system which penetrates every valley and reaches to every coal, iron, and limestone bed, but it is a foundation which the superstructure has pressed out of existence, leaving only a dry bed, and an occasional wrecked hull as souvenirs of its existence.  Even the bed in many places has become the track of locomotives.

ERIE RAILROAD.

     The Erie Railroad was organized Nov. 13, 1895, to take over the property of the New York, Lake Erie & Western R. R. Co., which was sold under foreclosure, together with the leasehold of the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio R. R., and the ownership of the Chicago & Erie R. R., Nov. 6, 1895.  It was decided to vest the company, so far as was practicable, with the direct ownership of the various properties comprised in the system, including its principal leased lines.  It is unnecessary here to go into all the details of the various mergers, purchases, and consolidations, by which this was effected, or to give any description of those parts of the system not directly concerned with the transportation facilities of the Mahoning valley.
     The Mahoning division of the Erie road embraces the Cleveland & Mahoning R. R., the Niles & New Lisbon R. R., the Liberty & Vienna R. R., the New Castle & Chenango Valley R. R., the Sharon R. R., the Westerman R. R., also, formerly the Youngstown & Austintown R. R.
     The Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad, the first successful railroad enterprise in the Mahoning Valley, was inaugurated at Warren,

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Ohio, the charter being granted Feb. 22, 1848, and work commenced in 1853.  The board of directors was composed of Warren, Youngstown, and Painesville citizens.  A portion of the stock was subscribed by Eastern capitalists.  The company was for some years in financial straits, and at one time it became necessary for the directors to pledge their own personal estates as security for mortgage loans.  Under the able management of President Perkins, however, the enormous debt of the road was gradually reduced, and at the time of his death in January, 1859, success, though not quite attained, was assured.  The road was paying a satisfactory dividend when, in 1863, it was leased to the Atlantic & Great Western Rail road Company, (see New York, Pennsylvania .& Ohio Railway Company), for the term of ninety-nine years.
     The Liberty & Vienna Railroad was built under charter in 1868.  In 1870 its capital was increased to $300,000, and the road extended through Girard to Youngstown.  This extension was sold in 1871 to the Ashtabula, Youngstown & Pittsburg Company, the remainder of the line being retained by the Liberty & Vienna Company.  A consolidation was effected in 1872 of the Cleveland & Mahoning, the Niles & New Lisbon, and the Liberty & Vienna Railroads under the name of the Cleveland & Mahoning Valley Railroad Company; the different branches retained their old names.  In 1880 they were leased to the lessee of the Cleveland & Mahoning Railroad, the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad Co., for the unexpired term of 1863.  Under the lease of 1880 all the lines of the Cleveland & Mahoning Valley Railroad Company came under the control of the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio Co., and in 1895 under that of the Erie Railroad Co., as above stated.
     The Sharon Railroad comprised the line from Sharon, Pennsylvania, to Pymatuning, Pennsylvania, 7.93 miles; the Middlesex, extension from Ferrona to West Middlesex, 8.86 miles, and the Sharpsville extension, from Boyce, Pennsylvania, to Sharpsville, Pennsylvania, 1.55 miles, a total of 10.12 miles.  It was chartered July 16, 1873, and opened in August, 1876.  It was leased to the Erie Railroad Co., till Apr. 30, 1882, at a rental amounting to the interest on the bonds, six per cent on the stock, and the expenses of organization.
     The New Castle & Chenango Valley Railroad extends from West Middlesex to New Castle, Pennsylvania, a distance of 16.73 miles.  It was chartered May 3, 1887, with a capital stock of $292,450, and opened in 1889. It was leased to the Erie Railroad till Apr. 30, 1982, at an annual rental of 32 per cent, of the gross earnings, with a minimum rental equal to the bond interest.  The cost of construction was $541,093.
     The Youngstown & Austintown Railway, now no longer in existence, extended from Youngstown, Ohio, to Leadville mines, with a branch at Mahoning and Tippecanoe shafts, a total length of 10.18 miles.  It was built in 1871-1872, to haul coal from the mines for transportation over other roads.  The road was operated by the company until May 1, 1883, when it was leased to the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio R. R. Co. for a term of ninety-nine years.  The lease was assumed by the Erie Railroad Co. under the terms of reorganization, the entire capital stock, $10,500, being owned by the Erie Railroad Co. under said terms.
     The Westerman Railroad is a leased line operated under trackage contracts.  It runs from Sharon, Pennsylvania, to a point three quarters of a miles west of the Pennsylvania Ohio State line.  It is owned by Christian H. Buhl, of Detroit, Michigan, and was leased, Jan. 1, 1886, to the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio Railroad Co. at a rental of $4,000 per annum, the lease to expire May 1, 1982.  The lease was assumed by the Erie Railroad Company.
     The New York. Pennsylvania & Ohio Railway Company (Erie Railroad).  In 1851 a charter was granted to the Franklin & Warren Railroad Company to construct a railroad from Franklin, Portage County, via Warren, to the State line, with power to continue the same from the place of beginning in a westerly or southwesterly direction to con-

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nect with any other railroads within this State, which the directors might deem advisable.  Under this authority a line 246 miles in length, was constructed from Dayton to the State line, crossing the Cleveland & Mahoning at Leavittsburg.  The name had been changed in the meanwhile (in 1855) to The Atlantic & Great Western Railroad Company.  In 1857 the Meadville Railroad Company was chartered in Pennsylvania, and purchased of the Pittsburg & Erie Company (chartered in 1846), its property, rights, and franchises in Mercer and Crawford counties, embracing the proposed line of the Meadville company therein.  The name of the Meadville Railroad Company was changed in 1858 to the Atlantic and Great Western Railroad Company of Pennsylvania.
     The Erie & New York City Railroad Company, chartered in 1852, failing to complete its proposed line, in 1860 sold 38 miles of its road from Salamanca to the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad Company in New York, chartered in 1859.
     The Buffalo extension of the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad Company was chartered in 1864, and in 1865 the four companies consolidated under the name of the Atlantic & Great Western Railroad Company, and in that name operated the through line from Dayton to Salamanca, and the branch from Jamestown to Buffalo.  In consecjuence of suits brought for foreclosure the property of the consolidated company was turned over to a receiver, Apr. I, 1867, General R. B. Potter receiving the appointment.  After passing through several receiverships and being leased as often, it was finally sold at foreclosure sale in January, 1880, an association of mortgage bondholders being the purchasers.  In March the same year it was conveyed to five corporations, in consideration of $45,000,000 capital stock, and $87,500,000 mortgage bonds.  They organized the New York, Pennsylvania & Ohio Railway Company, taking out charters in Ohio and Pennsylvania.  The road was originally constructed with a width of six feet gauge, but a few months after it had passed under the above named management was reduced to what is known as the standard gauge.  In 1895, as we have seen, it was leased to the Erie Rail road Company.

PENNSYLVANIA LINES.

LAKE SHORE & MICHIGAN SOUTHERN RAILWAY.
(Franklin Division)

[Pictures of:
TERMINAL STATION OF THE YOUNGSTOWN SOUTHERN RAILWAY, YOUNGSTOWN;
VIEW ON THE LINE OF THE YOUNGSTOWN & SOUTHERN RAILWAY (North Lima Coal Mines on the Left)
VIEW ON THE LINE OF THE YOUNGSTOWN & SOUTHERN RAILWAY, NEAR YOUNGSTOWN;
JOHN FRECH BUILDING, LOWELLVILLE]

PITTSBURG & LAKE ERIE RAILROAD.

BALTIMORE & OHIO RAILROAD