GENERAL STONE'S ELEVATED RAILROAD Portrait of an Inventor Mark Reinsberg

Part III

several months after the close of the Philadelphia Centennial and the dismantling of his monorail exhibit, Roy Stone lived an ForA intensely private life, leaving no documentation whatever. One can imagine that the General returned to Cuba, , dis- heartened by the debacle and deeply involved in the problems of bankruptcy. There were health problems as well. Towards the end of winter, 1876/77, Stone resolved to cash in an old IOU. On a gloomy and introspective March day, the General traveled to Belmont, the seat of Allegany County, New York.He did so in order to make a legal declaration, an affidavit needed "for the purpose of being placed on the invalid pension role of the /'

State of New York County of Allegany ss: On this 12th day of March A.D. 1877 personally appeared before me clerk of said County ... Roy Stone aged forty (40) years, a resident of the village of Cuba ... who being duly sworn according to law declares that he is the identical Roy Stone who was ... of the 149th Regiment Penna. Vols., and was on the 7th day of September, 1864, made a Bvt. Brig. Genl. U.S. Vols., ... That while a member of the organization aforesaid, to wit Colonel, 149th Regt. P.V. in the service and in the line of his duty at Gettysburg in the State of Penna., on or about the first day of July, 1863, he was wounded in the right hip by a musket ball fired by the enemy. That he was in command of the 2nd Brig. 3rd Div.1st Army Corps, Maj. Genl. Doubleday com- manding, and was directed by General Doubleday to advance his position and place his brigade on the Chambersburg Pike. That while holding said pike and in command of said brigade deponent 8 MARK REINSBERG JANUARY was wounded as aforesaid 40 .... That he was treated in no hospital but after being wounded was taken prisoner, paroled on the field and taken to the house of in Gettysburg 41 where he remained two weeks and was then taken home That prior to his entry into the service above named he was a man of good sound physical health, being when enrolled a manu- facturer. That he is now wholly disabled from obtaining his sub- sistence by manual labor by reason of his injuries above de- scribed received in the service of the United States, and he there- fore makes this declaration for the purpose of being placed on the invalid pension role of the United States. That he has heretofore refused to make such application because he was abundantly able to take care of himself and did not think it right so to do while he had means enough of his own .... Claimant's signature ROY STONE

Pension applications, even for well-attested Civil War injuries, usually took many months to process. To compensate for the scanty or missing medical records of that military era, the veteran had to submit affidavits to the Pension Commissioner. He needed the eye- witness testimony of old comrades, of his officers, of regimental surgeons. He needed the corroborating statements of civilian doctors who had known his state of health before and after military service. He often would have to seek out former employers and other towns- folk, preferably people of some standing— in the community,—to vouch for the physical labor he was once but now no longer able to perform. To proud old soldiers, this could be humiliating. Once resolved upon this suppliant act, the General held weighty advantages, and the service his application received was uncommonly swift. For one thing, there was good proof already on file in the form of a letter from Dr. John Dickson of Pittsburgh, dated June 13, 1864, certifying, that on the 1st August 1863 Ioperated on Col. Roy Stone for the removal of a minnie ball from the Iliac Fossae. In conducting the operation it became neces- sary to separate the origin of the iliacus internus from the bone. From this he recovered sufficiently to resume his duties. A fall from his horse [in the ] has broken up the union, and he willnow be unfit for duty ... 40 See Stone's and Doubleday's accounts of the action in Official Records, War of the Rebellion, Series I,Vol. xxvii,pt. 1, 243-331. Also Doubleday's testimony, Report of the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, 38th Cong. 2d Session, Report No. 142, pt. 1, vol. I, 307. 41 President Lincoln stayed at the Wills house on the eve of the Gettysburg address. 1967 GENERAL STONE'S ELEVATED RAILROAD 9

Now old Dr. Dickson came out of retirement to sign his opinion in palsied hand that "the injury inflicted by said wound was ... an injury from which said Stone would never recover to an extent that he could do bodily labor sufficient to earn his livelihood." An addi- tional medical record was submitted showing "that the officer, during the civilwar, contracted chronic diarrhea, and ... he suffered from a recurrence of this trouble to such an extent as to wholly unfit him for business at times." General was also living in retirement, in Mendham, New Jersey, finishing his military Reminiscences. As Stone's superior officer at Gettysburg, his statement could be of great assistance. Doubleday obliged. This is to certify that Gen. Roy Stone was colonel of the 149th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers on the 1st day of July, 1863, at the ; that he was then in command of the Second Brigade, Third Division, of the First Army Corps ;that he was desperately wounded in the hip while gallantly holding the center of the corps line against vastly superior numbers, and as his commanding officer on that occasion Itake pleasure in certifying to his great gallantry at that time and to the inestimable service he rendered the country by holding the position assigned to him, for had it been yielded earlier in the day the enemy would have pressed on and have taken possession of Cemetery Hill, which would have caused the battle to have ended in retreat or defeat, instead of victory. His services merit him a special recompense from the Government. Stone filed his pension application on April 7, 1877. About two months later his claim was approved for compensation at the rate of $22.50 a month. The local chronicles of Cuba give us no glimpse of Stone at his nadir. The General still was a representative of the town elite. Ifhis financial reverses were not a complete secret, they did not produce any sudden change in his personal style. By the modest standards of the town, he continued to live in a fine house with elegant furnishings. An aristocratic family was perhaps expected to require extended credit. He was "The General/' and that in itself was something special. Cubans, by their own deference, helped to surround him with an aura. Mrs. Stone evidently maintained the family's rank and social obligations without a sign of weakness in this crisis period. Ninety years later, we hear remembrances not of economic disaster but of genteel aloofness, and of twelve-year-old Romaine's participation in the calling-card etiquette of Cuba's fashionable set. 42

42 Impressions drawn from a conversation held in July 1963, with a resident of Cuba, Richard W. Morgan, whose ancestors were near-neighbors of the Stones. It should be added that the 1875 Census of Cuba lists a French tutor as a member of the Stone household. 10 MARKREINSBERG JANUARY

Meanwhile, the head of the household had received some unex- pected encouragement on his invention. The same oil men who had ridden on the Elevated in Fairmount Park were again making in- quiries. They wanted toknow ifitcould be used to haul freight as well as passengers over rugged open country. Stone no longer rejected the idea. Since the summer of 1875, he had heard much about a great new oil field emerging from the wasted timber lands near Bradford in northern McKean County, Pa. The petroleum territory lay only a few miles below the southern boundary of Cattaraugus County, about thirty miles from Cuba. By the spring of 1877, this field was under feverish development, with a dozen oil towns mushrooming east of Bradford, frantically calling for transport facilities. Bradford stood in a sparsely-settled tier, inaccessible by rail or steamboat. Before the boom it had been the center of a substantial lumbering activity along Tunungwant Creek. Now it was burgeoning as a tool shop for the surrounding oil industry, aching to end its physical isolation. What caused the oil operators particular grief were the wagon roads of Bradford township, especially the new trails they themselves had cut cross-lots to the scattered well-sites. 43 In autumn and spring rains these primitive dirt roads became impassable troughs of mud. Oaths and whips and herds of horses were to no avail ;the teamsters under those conditions were unable to deliver the drilling and well equipment desperately wanted in the field. In urgent need of trans- portation, also, were the many oil men living in town who would, if they could, commute daily to their leases. Rumors were circulating of a plan to build a narrow-gauge rail- road linking the oil towns to Olean, New York. The entrepreneurs (supposedly E. W. Coddington and A.I. Wilcox) 44 who approached Roy Stone did not think that was worth worrying about. Especially if the General were right that his Elevated could be built for half the cost of a narrow-gauge. They wanted the cheapest possible transpor- tation, as did the other oil men. And Stone's construction cost estimate

43 E. Willard Miller,"The Industrial Structure of the Bradford OilRegion," Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine, March-June, 1943, 70. 44 Charles W. Logan, "The Tegleg* Railroad," Railroad Stories, Nov. 1934, 44. Wherever Logan's details can be checked against other sources he usually proves inaccurate, but unfortunately he is our only source for certain information. 1967 GENERAL STONE'S ELEVATED RAILROAD 11 of $3,000 a mile, plus a mere $3,000 for the locomotive, was most attractive. 45 That was $97,000 less a mile than the figure stated at Phoenix- ville,and itreflected more than the difference between an urban and a rural right-of-way. The inventor had seen how he could dispense withPhoenix iron columns and the special iron truss. These, after all, were intended for a big-city elevated system. But in the open country he would use iron for the bearing rail only. Wooden beams could serve for the guide rails,and timber posts for the supporting structure. The more Stone thought about it, the better suited his method seemed to the rough and hilly terrain around Bradford. No grading of the right-of-way would be necessary. The support posts could be cut on the job to whatever length was needed for the desired track elevation. As to the cost of these materials, nothing was cheaper just now in McKean County than stripped hemlock logs.46 The General's old enthusiasm was rekindled. This plan, he assured the oil men, must supersede all the railroads of the present day, owing to its cheapness of construction and operation. Early in the fall of 1877, the McKean Miner advised its readers, "Roy Stone's single-track railway is to be built." The editor had been informed "by those who ought to, and do know all about it,"that The organization of a company has been effected, the contract let, and the track willbe ready for the rolling stock in sixty days .... The leading members of the company have thoroughly investigated the matter, and are fully convinced that the "one-legged" railway, as it is called, is perfectly adapted to their needs, ... as it can be built and put in operation at less than one-half the expense of the narrow gauge. It willbe completed this season as far as the headwaters of Foster Brook, and should future developments warrant (as it is believed they will) it willbe continued, following the course of Knapp's Creek, to connect with the B.N.Y.&P. at Eldred.47 On October 4, 1877, the State of Pennsylvania granted the corporation its charter. The name chosen for this pioneering monorail venture was the Bradford &Foster Brook Railroad Company. Stone was listed as one of the directors of the company 48 but not in any 45 EliPerkins, quoted by M. A. Leeson, History of the Counties of McKean, Elk, Cameron and Potter, Pa., Chicago, 1890, 156. 46 Miller, op. cit., 61:"The hemlock was cut principally during the summer months when the bark could be peeled easily. Most of the logs were not used and were allowed to lie where they had fallen. There are few ex- amples of greater waste in the history of the lumbering industry." 47 McKean Miner, Sept. 27, 1877, 3, col. 3. 48 Ibid.The directors were A. I. Wilcox, F. G. Babcock, L.H. Bradley, M. N. Allen, W. H. Johnson, Lucius Beaumont, Roy Stone, George Gilmore, T. L. Higgins, C. H. Foster and W. Coddington. Wilcox was president of the company and Allen secretary-treasurer. The executive committee consisted of Allen, Wilcox and Gilmore. 12 MARKREINSBERG JANUARY

other capacity. We learn that the capital stock was limited to $27,000, divided into 540 shares of $50 each. 49 It seems rather unlikely that Stone was one of the investors. For his services and the use of his patents, itis a good guess that he was at least partly compensated with shares of stock. Construction work began inlate October and was pushed forward rapidly. There was reason for haste. Rumors had proved to be well- founded. A competing narrow-gauge line, the Olean, Bradford & Warren Railroad, also had begun construction. The local press played up the rivalry between "the Elevated and the Narrow-gauge" : The former have a large gang of men getting out logs at Lafayette, and are sawing out the timbers with dispatch. They have the piles now driven across the millpond, which [is the hardest] part of the road to build. The Narrow- gauge is nearly graded to Tarport, and a large gang of men are at work. The contract for building<> the road from Gillmore City to State Line willbe let next week ....5 The two roads would run parallel to each other between Bradford and Derrick City. But compared to the five miles originally projected for the Elevated, its rival would be twenty-three miles inlength. Olean was an important town on the Erie railroad ;the narrow-gauge would become a branch of the Erie. What probably disturbed the backers of the Elevated much more than any prospective competition was the derision of their neighbors and business associates. Typical of comments going the rounds was a remark that the inventor "must have caught the idea from seeing a boy slide down the banisters." 51 The whole plan was receiving such unfavorable advance publicity that one of the principal investors made an effort to soften the local verdict. M.N. Allen, an oil operator who had formerly edited the Titusville Courier, paid a personal call on an old newspaper colleague in Smethport. After- wards, the editor of the McKean Miner wrote : We must confess to having harbored some skepticism in regard to the successful working of the project, but we are convinced, after listening to Mr. Allen's views and explanations of the matter, that whatever the result of a final test of the scheme, itdoes not lack a thorough and intelligent faith on the part of its promoters .... Many people, uninformed as to the construction or working of a road of this kind, and a portion of our contemporary press, have manifested a disposition to "throw cold water" on this enterprise. This seems to us unwise and uncalled for.Ifthe road is to be a failure, itwillonly be known after a fair

49 Vernelle A. Hatch, editor, Illustrated History of Bradford, Burk Bros., Bradford, Pa., 1901, 204. This source adds John B. Brawley to the list of directors. 50 McKean Miner, Nov. 1, 1877, 3, col. 2. 51 Railroad Gazette, Jan. 4, 1878, 3. 1967 GENERAL STONE'S ELEVATED RAILROAD 13 trial. If it is a success, it willopen a new era in railroad construction and will prove a public good of incalculable measure. 52 Though identified so closely with the project, Stone does not seem to have had an active hand in its management. We assume, without evidence, that he was present for the initial stages of construc- tion and that he served as chief engineer of the embryonic railroad. The efficiency and ingenuity of the track-laying won the respect of one local correspondent, who provided the Oil City Derrick with a meticulous description of the work in progress. THE ONE-LEGGED RAILROAD The construction of the road is simple, rapid and easy. On the hard ground logs six feet long and from a foot and a half to two feet in diameter, are placed at right angles to the line, and from twelve to fifteen feet apart, the distance varying. In these logs vertical-sawed posts, fourteen by fifteen and a half inches, are dovetailed and wedged. These verticals vary in height, and by their length the grade of the road is regulated. On the top of these verticals the horizontal pieces to which the rails are spiked are laid, with their ends squarely against one another. These sleepers are ten inches wide by fifteen and a half in thick- ness. By a proper arrangement of vertical and horizontal pieces of timber the timbers on which the rails are laid are kept firmly in position, and two wooden rails, three feet three and a half below the top of the iron rail and twenty-two inches apart are spiked to the *vertical posts. Across streams and the swampy ground piles are driven ....5 One mile of the Bradford &Foster Brook had been built by the middle of January 1878, enabling the line to operate as far as Tarport. Construction pushed on haltingly through the winter, hindered not only by the weather but by landowners' lawsuits seeking damages and annulment of the monorail's charter. The legality was upheld by the Attorney-General of Pennsylvania, ironically on the grounds that Stone's plan was a narrow-gauge road within the meaning of the law. Early in May, about five miles of track had been completed and the company published 54 what was apparently its first time-table, effective May 6, 1878. It showed eight roundtrips a day between Bradford and Derrick City. The journey took twenty-five to thirty minutes each way, indicative of no remarkable speed. There were stops at Kendall— Creek, Foster Brook, Babcock's Mills, and Harrisburg Run nameplaces that do not resound in American history. Never- theless, the opening of regular service was a kind of historic event. Townsfolk called it the "Peg-Leg Railroad." And that grotesque nickname, made all the more meaningful by the then conspicuous

52 McKean Miner, Nov. 1, 1877. 53 Quoted in McKean Miner, Dec. 6, 1877, 3, col. 4. 54 In the Bradford Daily Era, May 6, 1878, where because of a typographical error the schedule is dated "1877." 14 MARK REINSBERG JANUARY

number of CivilWar amputees, has lingered across three generations as a monorail synonym. 55 According to the Miner, the initial patronage was excellent. "The numerous trains are constantly crowded with passengers, and unless we are greatly mistaken the company willbe compelled to add several new coaches soon, in order to accommodate the traveling public." $6 But the company was also running into mechanical problems that could not be concealed from the small, inquisitive community. True or false, there was an impression locally that an accident was chronicled every day. The locomotive was unreliable. Named after the company's president, the Col. A. I. Wileox was a ten-ton LaFrance engine with lugubrious twin stacks, possibly the same unit Stone had demon- strated at Phoenixville. As before, the engine had two boilers, one on each side of the central wheels, and two rotary engines. A wit com- pared it to a "gigantic pair of boots swung over a clothes line." 57 In the opinion of management, it was "the botch ... which has proved such a source of annoyance to the running of the road." 58 Among other deficiencies, it was underpowered. There were also freight-handling problems, with revenue con- sequences. The gondola, or flatcar, had been made to specifications in the Erie shop. It weighed seven tons and extended twenty-two feet, carrying shipments on a high platform, and in narrow low decks on each side of the rail. The sheer altitude of the upper deck (the track on which itrested was often ten feet off the ground) made the loading and unloading of freight "difficult,costly and slow." 59 For all its limitations, did the Peg-Leg at least give its passengers a comfortable ride? No one seemed willing to say that it did. Ap- parently it was a rather rough ride, fraught with anxieties, but ac- ceptable to its oil-smeared, outdoorsmen clientele. And the fame of the Peg-Leg spread rapidly to surrounding counties. Itbecame a sight- seeing attraction which all visitors to Bradford were encouraged to

55 Ihave not been able to determine exactly when the term "Peg-Leg" was first applied to the B.&F.B. While not doubting that it was in oral currency during 1878-79, Ihave found no printed reference to the nick- name during the life of the Elevated. The earliest Peg-Leg reference I have seen is inLeeson, 1890. Iwould welcome correction on this, or any other point. 56 McKean Miner, June 27, 1878, 3, col. 5. 57 Attributed by EliPerkins to "an Irishman," in Leeson. 58 McKean Miner, June 27, 1878. 59 OilCity Derrick, quoted in McKean Miner, Dec. 6, 1877; and Logan, op. cit., 46. 1967 GENERAL STONE'S ELEVATED RAILROAD 15 ride, "just for the experience, ifnothing else." 60 The passenger coaches probably were flatcars fitted with re- movable benches and covered with canvas awnings. They were open in the summer and we do not know if they were enclosed in the winter. Ifthey had resembled the double-decker used in the Centennial Exhibition, we should expect to find photographs or descriptions, as there are of the locomotive, but none has been found. The only written impressions by an actual rider are the remarks of a famous journalist- humorist of that era, EliPerkins. After a trip aboard the Elevated Railway with its inventor in February 1878, Perkins wrote : The cars run astride an elevated track on a single rail. The rail is nailed to a single wooded stringer which rests on the top of piles. So evenly balanced is the train, that passing over a pond or creek at the rate of twenty miles an hour the water is hardly disturbed .... The locomotive is a queer looking thing .... The boiler is without a flue, the engine without a piston, and the driver without a crank. Irode with Gen. Stone around corners and up steep grades at thirty- miles an hour.61 What Perkins also saw and did not remark on was the narrow- gauge track of the O.B.&.W. Railroad running parallel to that of the Elevated, less than 100 feet apart on some stretches. Inall,the mono- rail's exclusive use on its short route lasted about a month, for on February 11 the rival road had completed construction, and com- petitive service was inaugurated shortly thereafter. 62 To meet this challenge, we are told, the Peg-Leg reduced its passenger fares from 40 to 25 cents. Agreat subject for Currier &Ives would have been a race between the two railroads. Inlocal memory, such contests occurred frequently and were spectacles worth witnessing. The Narrow-Gauge, its bantam locomotive puffing and snorting like an over- trained race horse, and the Peg Leg with its unique equipment, which an Irish- man wittily described as "a train of cars running on a fence," humming around the snaky curves like a bicycle scorcher on the home stretch ... was a sight ... ,63

60 Hatch, op. cit. 61 Leeson, op. cit. The fact that the water was hardly disturbed begs the ques- tion in regard to passenger comfort. 62 Stations on the Olean, Bradford & Warren, according to Railroad Gazette, March 15, 1878, 144, were (with distances from Bradford) Tarport, 1 mile; Foster Brook, 2.20; Babcock's Mill, 3.20; Derrick City, 4.10; Gilmor, 4.70; Red Rock, 5.40; Bell's Camp, 8.10; State Line, 10.43. The time-table shows two passenger and two mixed trains each way daily between Olean and Bradford; one passenger train each way between Bradford and Red Rock; and one mixed train between Bradford and State Line. Service was therefore less frequent than on the B.&F.B. 63 Hatch, op. cit. 16 MARK REINSBERG JANUARY

Flaws in its locomotive were costing the Peg-Leg line the more important race. In June, those defects forced the Bradford &Foster Brook to suspend operations for several days when business was at a peak. 64 The chagrined company (of which M.N.Allen had by nowbe- come General Manager) placed an order for a new engine with the Baldwin people inPhiladelphia. Despite this, Allen and his colleagues must have felt some optimism about the future. They extended the road an additional mile to Gilmore City, another oil town on Foster Brook. Towards the middle of August, the new Baldwin locomotive was delivered. With its single smokestack ithad more the appearance of a proper engine, and no time was lost in trying it out. It was heavy. The company had ordered a fifteen-ton locomotive, but this was evidently a lot heavier, and "grave fears were enter- tained that it would not prove satisfactory." It was not the extra weight alone but the fact that it was placed so high as to make the engine top-heavy, "causing it to sway terribly from side to side." 65 Notwithstanding these anxieties, on the morning of August 15, the new equipment was put into service. 66 At 10 :00 a.m., hauling two open cars filled with passengers, the train had just left the Bradford depot and was nearing the creek, when this swaying motion loosened the timbers of the track, noticing which the engineer promptly shut off the steam. The train moved along fiftyyards, tearing the timbers and completely demolishing the track. The cars were at once upset, falling entirely over on their sides, thus exposing the passengers to imminent danger of life and limb.Halfway across the stream the engine stopped, having struck against one of the upright posts, which alone prevented it from tumbling into the creek upside down. As itwas, it struck firmly at an angle of 45 degrees. 67 The crew was unhurt, but over a dozen passengers were injured. Others on the tilted flatcar "were unceremoniously dumped into the creek, getting a thorough drenching." Except among the injured parties, there was probably a good deal of joking about the immersion. None of it served to enhance the Peg-Leg's reputation. The Col. A. I.Wilcox was brought out of its brief retirement. And another new locomotive was placed on order, this time with the Gibbs &Sterrett Company of Titusville,Pennsylvania. Mercifully for Stone, his name was no longer being connected withthe enterprise. By the summer of 1878, his attentions had turned

64 Bradford Daily Era, June 1, 1878, 3, col. 5. 65 OilCity Derrick, quoted inRailroad Gazette, Aug. 23, 1878, 418. 66 Logan, op. cit., 46. 67 Oil City Derrick, op. cit. 1967 GENERAL STONE'S ELEVATED RAILROAD 17 elsewhere. He was starting to contemplate a new career and a differ- ent way of life. On June 29, foreclosure had taken place on the mortgage of his Vandalia property. InOlean, later, the heart of the estate was sold at public auction. Highest bidder was a former neighbor, Erastus Willard,who on September 30 acquired all the buildings and 149 acres for the sum of $1450. 68 Afterwards, an elderly woman approached Mr.Willard and asked ifhe might consider selling her a small portion of the property. She was a widow, from southwestern Pennsylvania originally, and her name was Margaret Marker. For sentimental rea- sons she desired to own the place; she had once lived there with her daughter and son-in-law, and it had been a happy time. The records of Cattaraugus County, New York, show that for a consideration of $350, Mrs. Marker acquired 30 acres "upon which is situated the Rustic Dwelling House." 69 Over the summer months, meanwhile, the General had been back and forth to New York City. An opportunity had arisen there, in no way connected with his invention. In fact, it would require that he give the matter no further thought. It would require that he say goodbye to Cuba and allof his associations along the Allegheny River. He had had occasion to meet with General of the Corps of Engineers. Newton was in charge of a project that had al- ready occupied twelve years of his life, the clearing of navigational hazards from New York harbor. The two old comrades had spent some time discussing the great work that remained to be done in the East River, and the vexing problems of a job now in hand at Diamond Reef. The reef lay under water in the middle of the harbor, and many ships had run into it at the outset of a voyage or when apparently safe inport. Newton was in need of a versatile engineer to superintend the removal of this hazard from aboard a steam drilling scow. What made the task so difficult was the nature of the reef: a bed of stiff clay and cemented sand, filled with rounded boulders of all sizes up to 20 or 30 tons' weight, and so hard as to defy all ordinary methods of excavation. 70 Stone did not hesitate to suggest a possible new method. It was (in the modern parlance) the kind of challenge that interested him.

68 Cattaraugus Co., Mortgage Sales, Liber 3, 97. 69 Ibid., Deeds, Liber 98, 310. 70 Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers, US. Army, 1879, Appendix D, 382, "Report of Mr.Roy Stone, Assistant Engineer." 18 MARK REINSBERG JANUARY

Besides, he had nothing else in hand just then, having more or less given up hope on his patents. Ifthe truth be known, he needed a job. Newton hired Stone as an assistant engineer, beginning in Sep- tember 1878. Evidently it was on a temporary or trial basis. For an ex-lumberman, aged 42, suddenly to find himself superintendent of a steam drilling scow in the middle of New York harbor was a most improbable career shift. One can imagine that all parties involved had their doubts. Nevertheless, Stone threw himself into the new role with great zeal and resourcefulness. On September 10 he had the scow placed on Diamond Reef and sent down divers to reconnoiter. Confirming the conglomerate com- position of the reef, he asked for and received permission to try one of his own ideas. It was a new invention of his which he called the "hydraulic excavator." Essentially it was a pump and hose device that produced a powerful underwater jet stream of water. It was intended to loosen the clay and cemented sand around the boulders so that they could be dredged or blasted. At the same time, it would flush the light debris away from the shelf by induction. The experiment was conducted during October 1878. A powerful pump was started on the deck of the scow. Two stout 2*^-inch hoses were lowered into the harbor, where divers working at depths of 20 to 30 feet aimed their jet streams at the reef. Itwas a crude and cumber- some-looking contraption, requiring four or five men for handling. Attached to each nozzle was a spar about 45 feet long, graduated to show the depth of water. These were provided with top and bottom guys to hold them against the tide, with steam tackle for lifting and lowering. There were also crossbars mounted for rocking and twist- ing, so that the nozzles might work their way downward among the rocks, and with hand tackle for holding them down against the re- action of the discharge. 71 When the divers surfaced they reported a dynamic underwater scene. The nozzles had quickly penetrated the sand and clay of Dia- mond Reef to a depth of five or six feet. In the process they carved out a hole almost as wide as it was deep. Properly placed, this would undermine a giant rock and tumble it into the hole, thus lowering the entire shelf. Stone's invention worked. Itwas removing the reef more rapidly and more economically than anyone had expected. On this he established his engineering reputation.

71Ibid., 382-83. 1967 GENERAL STONE'S ELEVATED RAILROAD 19

The Corps of Engineers, in a subsequent report, took official note that Mr. Roy Stone was allowing the government to use his hydraulic excavator (Patent No. 224,309) without charges for royalty.72 On December 31, 1878, the harbor working season ended. Stone brought the scow into winter quarters and ordered the necessary repairs, plus some mechanical improvements he had conceived. After this, we assume, he returned to Cuba. He learned that his old patron, Samuel J. Reeves, had died during December in Phoenixville. He heard also that Clarke, Reeves &Co. had just landed an order from the Metropolitan— Elevated Railroad for its East Side line in New York City at that time the largest bridge-work contract ever given out. As for the Bradford &Foster Brook, it was now in a bad way financially. Stone's stock in the company was virtually worthless. Since the accident in the middle of the summer, the public had been re- luctant to ride the Peg-Leg. Also since the summer, another narrow- gauge line (the Kendall &Eldred, easterly branch of the O.B.&W.) had opened up in further competition with the Elevated. Moreover, prices on the crude oil market were falling because of overproduction which, along with bad weather, put a damper on activity in the entire Bradford field.73 Still,the company hoped to win back its lost customers by pro- viding faster, more reliable service. On January 24, 1879, the new Gibbs &Sterrett locomotive was delivered. On January 27, as twilight came on, the engine was being given its first trial. This unit was not as heavy as the Baldwin engine, and much better balanced on the center rail. The boiler was constructed in two equal parts, one on each side of the rail, which gave the engine the lowest possible center of gravity. Remembering what had occurred on the trial run of the previous locomotive, M. N. Allen shook his head and waved away spectators along the track. No paying passengers or guests were allowed aboard. The engine was hauling one flatcar (the canvas-roofed "summer coach"). There were eleven authorized riders, consisting of the crew, representatives of the manufacturer, and company officials. The General Manager, who stood on the flatcar, described the start of the trip.

72 Ibid., 1880, Appendix 4, 497. The patent application was filed Sept. 16, 1879. 73 A.R. Crum and A. S. Dungan, Romance of American Petroleum and Gas, New York, 1911, vol.I,30; and Logan, 46. 20 MARK REINSBERG JANUARY

We left Bradford at nearly five o'clock and ran very slowly. The safety valve which was set at eighty pounds constantly blowed off steam most of the way going up. At Foster Brook we had considerable difficulty in getting the draw- bridge over the wagon road shut, so that the steam had run down considerably when we started to go up the hill.... After starting up the grade, which is quite heavy, the engine stopped. 74 It had stopped halfway between Foster Brook and Babcock's because of a trifling mishap. The new fireman, obeying an order to open up the throttle, had burned his hand on escaping steam. The nut which held the handle on the throttle was found to be loose. The locomotive was halted for the moment needed to tighten the nut, then the engineer himself had opened the throttle to go ahead. During this brief interval, Allen had called out to the fireman from the rear of the train, inquiring about the steam and water. The timing of the question may have been calamitous. Itis said that just as the engineer was opening the throttle, the confused fireman opened the injector, throwing a mass of cold water into the boiler. 75 The new locomotive stood motionless for an instant. Then the right-hand boiler blew up. It was a terrible explosion that scattered the engine in darkness across a snow-covered field in McKean County, Pennsylvania. Six of the eleven men aboard the train were killed. It was the end, also, of General Stone's Elevated Railroad. Some time before its demise, Roy Stone had moved his family to New York City. There he began his new career as a civilengineer. He was eager to resume work on the reef when spring came. He wanted to finish that routine job so he could begin the great assign- ment awaiting in the East River. He had in mind an idea for an invention which (he was confident) would clear a path through the hazards of Hell Gate.

Postscript and Acknowledgments Nearly a quarter of a century later, Roy Stone founded the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads. At the time of his death, in 1905, he was hailed as "the father of the Good Roads movement" in America. His son Richmond did well in history at Harvard, won the New England championship in fencing, and started a career in law in Washington, D.C. He died of pneumonia in 1896 at the age of twenty-three. His 74 Bradford Daily Era, January 28, 1879. 75 Railroad Gazette, Feb. 21, 1879, 97, suggests that "the connection between the two sides of the boiler had been closed, so that one side had very little water init" 1967 GENERAL STONE'S ELEVATED RAILROAD 21 daughter Romaine was widowed in her first marriage to Lawrence Turnure, Jr. She subsequently, in 1903, married Lord Monson (9th Baron) of England. Mrs. Roy Stone lived on in Morristown, New Jersey, until 1925. The foregoing episode is the first of four intended biographical essays on Stone. Iam grateful to Northwestern— University, especially Mr.Franklin M.Kreml, vice-president planning and development, for the support given to this research. Iwish to thank Misses Marianne Yates, Mary Roy and Dorothy Ramm of the Transportation Center library for their assistance over a period of several years. Ihave also to acknowledge, with deep appreciation, the help of General Stone's granddaughter, Mrs. Margaret Bevan of Sussex, England.