The New York and Erie Railroad
Previous to this time, there was no pretense that the interior route from the Shawangunk to the Delaware was impracticable, and it could not be said that the line on the banks of that river was even suggested in such a way as to alarm the people of the county. The company was pledged to run the road by the way of Brownson's, and had made the necessary surveys. In 1840, the President of the road informed the citizens of Monticello that it had been determined to immediately file locations of the interior route.
About this time the citizens of Thompsonville urged the superiority of the route in which they were interested, and this gave the company a very bald excuse for not immediately performing their promise to John P. Jones and others of Monticello. Probably they had never intended to do so. They had done considerable work above the mouth of the Callicoon, but little or none in Sullivan below that point. This is strong proof to establish their falsehood and treachery.
Early in 1841, our citizens were informed that the company had determined to adopt the Delaware river route, a route which, it was alleged, they had not then even surveyed, and the proposition was made to Monticello that the railroad-managers would contribute ten thousand dollars toward making a turnpike-road from that place to the nearest point on the Erie road. This proposition was indignantly spurned, and a contest ensued in the Legislature of the State which continued several years.
From 1841 to 1845 the company annually applied to the Legislature for the privilege of constructing a portion of their road on the Pennsylvania side of the river, and made exaggerated statements in regard to the interior route. These statements were warmly combated by the people of Sullivan and other counties. The company also asked to be released from the State-lien. The latter request was finally granted conditionally, and in the same year (1845) the application to carry the read into Pennsy1vania was defeated, or rather withdrawn when it was found that there was but a minority in its favor, and a section substituted appointing Orville W. Childs, John B. Jervis and Horatio Allen, engineers, to locate the road through the interior of Sullivan, and if necessarv through a portion of Ulster, if they found a practicable route, the adoption of which would not be greatly prejudicial to public interests; but in case they did not so locate, the company were authorized to construct a portion of the road on such route as the directors should decide, through said counties of Ulster and Sullivan.
The friends of the interior route considered this practically a triumph, and congratulated themselves that it had been won without the aid of the Hudson and Delaware Canal Company, which had co-operated with them until 1845, and then compromised with the railroad-company.*
* The railroad company consented to a perpetual injunction being entered, prohibiting them from making their road on the bank of the river occnpied by the canal.