The Steubenville and Indiana
Railroad:
The Pennsylvania's Middle Route
To the Middle West
By WALTER RUMSEY MARVIN*
There is not a port, a harbor, or even
a curved place on the Lake
Erie shoreline of Ohio which today is
not dreaming of the increased
prosperity it will gain from the
completion of the St. Lawrence
Seaway. A little more than one hundred
years ago there was hardly
a place in all Ohio which did not
foresee for itself boundless growth
and wealth as soon as the great eastern
trunk lines had pushed their
way to the borders of the state.
But--and this was the sine qua non
of the matter--for a place to benefit
from the oncoming railroads
it had to be on a railroad itself.
As a result of this eagerness to share
in a prospective good thing,
the decade 1841-50 saw seventy-six
railroad companies chartered in
Ohio and a vast amount of enthusiasm
aroused for the iron horse.
Almost every town could produce reasons
why it ought to be on at
least one line. A case in point is
Steubenville.
Any intelligent person could see that,
once the Pennsylvania
Railroad had crossed the Alleghenies
and reached Pittsburgh, the
trade of the West would flow toward it
in three main streams,
originating in Cincinnati, St. Louis,
and Chicago, the three prin-
cipal western cities. Since
Steubenville is squarely on a straight line
from Pittsburgh to St. Louis, almost on
a line to Cincinnati, and not
too far off a direct line to Chicago,
its chances were excellent of
* Walter Rumsey Marvin is executive
director of the Martha Kinney Cooper Ohioana
Library Association.
This article, like the one preceding it,
"Faith vs. Economics: The Marietta and
Cincinnati Railroad, 1845-1883," by
John E. Pixton, Jr., was originally a paper given
at a session of railroad history
specialists known as the Lexington Group during the
annual meeting of the Mississippi Valley
Historical Association at Pittsburgh, April
19-21, 1956.
12
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
getting on an important railroad.
Nevertheless, to make sure, the
people of the little port on the Ohio
River organized one of their
own, the Steubenville and Indiana,
chartered in 1848.1
Its proposed route was from
Steubenville to Mt. Vernon, Ohio,
and thence to some indeterminate point
on the Indiana border,
from which St. Louis or Chicago could
easily be reached. All told,
about a dozen railroad companies up to
then had been organized
in Ohio with roughly competing routes,
each apparently aiming to
carry the trade of the West to the
Pennsylvania's railhead at
Pittsburgh.
Efforts to unite the backers of some of
these competing ventures
behind a single undertaking failed
completely,2 so the Steubenville
and Indiana organizers went ahead on
their own. They resolved to
sell stock in some ten communities
during the summer and named
James Wilson as acting president. He
was the same Wilson who
edited a local newspaper, had been an
organizer in 1830 of the Ohio
Canal and Steubenville Rail-way
Company, the first rail line ever
chartered in Ohio, and was the
grandfather of Woodrow Wilson.
Little if any stock was sold, so the
promoters turned for help to
the next session of the legislature, in
1849.
That was standard procedure in Ohio in
those days. If a railroad
could not raise money under the terms
of its charter as first granted,
it went back to the lawmakers for
amendments to sweeten the
proposition. It might thereby obtain
the right to extend its line, or
build branches, or, best of all, get
authorization for the municipalities
along its route to use public funds to
buy its stock. Of the five other
rail lines chartered in 1848 with
routes similar to the Steubenville
and Indiana's, four of them went back
to the legislature for help
of this sort in 1849.
In the case of the Steubenville and
Indiana the legislature au-
thorized a number of municipalities to
buy its stock, gave permission
to bridge the Ohio River at
Steubenville if the state of Virginia
agreed, and allowed what was in effect
a change in the route so
that the line could go to Columbus.
Tonic of this sort brought
immediate action.
1 Laws of Ohio (Local),
XLVI (1848), 256.
2 Ohio State Journal (Columbus), April 24, June 8, 1848.
STEUBENVILLE & INDIANA R. R. 13
Friends of the enterprise, to the
number of five hundred it was
reported, soon met at Steubenville in a
"Grand Central Railroad
Convention," and there decided
that connections with Pittsburgh
and St. Louis should be the objectives
at the east and west ends of
the line and voted to start the surveys
at once.
The matter of a connection with
Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania
Railroad was not as settled as it
seemed, however. A week after
the convention a Steubenville newspaper
was saying that perhaps
the connection to the east should be
with the Baltimore and Ohio
at Wheeling, since there was talk that
the Pennsylvania was flirting
with a rival Ohio line, the Cleveland
and Pittsburgh.3
An obstacle of a different sort to a
connection with Pittsburgh
was pointed out by a second rival line,
the Ohio and Pennsylvania.
It boasted that no part of its own
route "will be subject to the
peculiar legislation of southern
communities."4 This was no doubt
a reference to the slavery laws of
Virginia, through the "panhandle"
part of which state a direct rail line
from Steubenville to Pittsburgh
would have to pass. Such laws might
have deterred some travelers
from entering the state.
Something was certainly deterring
investors from putting their
money into the Steubenville and
Indiana, for the company was again
on the doorstep asking for help when
the legislature met in 1850.
This time the lawmakers gave permission
to those municipalities
which had the right to buy stock in the
road with public funds to
borrow money in order to do so. Similar
privileges were also
granted competing lines, thereby
inspiring the editor of the Ohio
State Journal to wonder if the taxpayers might not eventually
suffer.5
Meanwhile the question of how the road
was to make a connection
with the Pennsylvania Railroad at
Pittsburgh had become more
pressing, for the state of Virginia at
this time refused permission
for a right of way across the panhandle
at Wheeling. In view of
that state's heavy investment in the
Baltimore and Ohio its refusal
to help a rival line was
understandable.
Two other possible links between
Steubenville and Pittsburgh
3 Western Herald and Steubenville
Gazette, quoted in the Ohio
Statesman (Co-
lumbus), May 8, 1849.
4 Ohio State Journal, August 28, 1849.
5 Ohio State Journal, April 9, 1850.
14
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
now, however, appeared on the scene.
The legislature authorized
the Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad
to run a branch to the south
to connect with the Steubenville and
Indiana .line and, a few days
later, chartered another rail company
with a route which would
accomplish the same purpose, the
Steubenville and Wellsville Rail-
road. A way to Pittsburgh was therefore
in the making, even if it
had to loop around the intervening
panhandle.
For the rest of the year 1850 the
directors seem to have done
nothing except to follow the custom of
the day and vote to pay six
percent interest on money paid on stock
subscriptions, and agree to
meet every Saturday, which they very
quickly ceased doing.
When the legislature met in January
1851, however, the road's
management must have bestirred itself,
for we find the lawmakers
for the third time easing the way, by
means of further amendments,
for municipalities to put public funds
into this line. It took more
than just a legislative act to put cash
into the company's coffers,
it would seem, for some places had to
be dunned to pay the amounts
they had voted. Payments when received
were in the form of
municipal bonds which the railroad had
to sell in the East. It tried
to get eighty-five cents on the dollar
for them after it had guaranteed
payment and made them convertible into
its own stock at the option
of the holder. The company also had to
hire canvassers to work for
a favorable vote in the referendum
required by law in each munici-
pality before it could buy stock.
When the company's president went east
in the spring of 1851 to
sell the bonds it had thus acquired, he
could offer three different lots
of Steubenville bonds and five lots
from other places, totaling
$549,000 face amount. The railroad
received from seventy-five to
eighty-five cents on the dollar for
these securities, which it had
accepted at par.
About this time the matter of a more
direct connection with
Pittsburgh came to life again in two
forms. Pittsburgh interests
organized the Pittsburgh and
Steubenville Railroad, a Pennsylvania
corporation designed to build that part
of the road which lay be-
tween Pittsburgh and the Virginia
border, although the problem of
crossing the panhandle had not yet been
solved. Pittsburgh's efforts
to get a rail link with the West went
back at least as far as 1831,
STEUBENVILLE & INDIANA R. R. 15
when its citizens were agitating for a
railroad to connect the Penn-
sylvania Canal, which terminated at
Pittsburgh, with the Ohio
Canal, which lay to the west of
Steubenville.
A second possible way for the
Steubenville and Indiana to be
connected with Pittsburgh was over the
Hempfield Railroad, which
was just then getting a charter from
the state of Virginia to run
east from Wheeling to the state line.
There were various objections
to this route, but at least it offered
a hope.
It was in the fall of this year, 1851,
that at last actual construction
began on the Steubenville and Indiana.
Almost immediately the
contractors found themselves
overwhelmed by labor troubles, which
grew so menacing as to be termed
"the 'Irish' rebellion" in the com-
pany's minutes.6 This was
putting it mildly, to judge by the lurid
newspaper accounts and the grim reports
presented to the directors.
Bitter warfare raged between rival
elements or factions among
the laborers, all of whom seem to have
been Irish. The Corkonians
from the south of Ireland, called
"Far-Ups," engaged in bloody
battles with their ancient foes, the
Connaughtmen, from the north,
known as "Far-Downs."
The causes of the fighting are obscured
by the mists of time. No
one familiar with Irish-American
history has been able to shed much
light on the matter. That there were
more men than jobs is one
factor, but not the only one. Religion
can be ruled out, since all the
participants were Catholics. The
contemporary comment that the
trouble was caused by a
"transatlantic feud" brought to the banks
of the Ohio is perhaps the best
explanation one can find.7
Gangs of hundreds of men from each side
would fight it out with
fists, pick-handles, rocks, and
occasional firearms until one side had
driven the other from the field.
Sometimes the losers were stripped
of their clothes and thrown in the
wintry water of the river or
nearest creek, but hardly any deaths
were reported.
As word of the fighting, which flared
up afresh every few days,
spread from Steubenville, Irish
laborers by the hundreds flocked to
the town, either to work or to fight.
In one week two hundred
6 Minutes of the Steubenville &
Indiana R.R., March 29, 1852. Pennsylvania Railroad
Library, Philadelphia.
7 American
Union (Steubenville), January 14,
1852.
16
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
arrivals were reported. A contingent of
three hundred armed
Corkonians was setting out from
Pittsburgh to aid their embattled
fellows, the mayor of Steubenville was
informed by telegram, but
fortunately the would-be warriors were
turned back in time by a
priest. On another occasion the
Steubenville authorities mobilized
all the men residents by ringing church
and school bells in order to
prevent one Irish faction from carrying
out its threat of marching
into town and searching the place for
members of the opposite
faction, said to be in hiding there.
Eventually, with the aid of cold and
hunger, the fighting spirit
was quenched, leaving the county
infirmary full of sick Irishmen to
be cared for at the expense of the
local taxpayers. Work was re-
sumed on the railroad, but under new
contractors. It is worth noting
that one of the old contractors had
been Israel Dille of Newark,
Ohio, a somewhat irresponsible railroad
promoter, whose career
would repay further study.
Labor troubles were not the only worry
confronting the Steuben-
ville and Indiana directors. Their
original dream that the rail line
to connect Pittsburgh with Chicago
would pass through Steubenville
dissolved when the Pennsylvania
Railroad invested heavily in the
Ohio and Pennsylvania Railroad in 1852.
This so-called "backbone
route," running along the
watershed between river and lake, is today
the Pennsylvania's main line to
Chicago.
The next year Steubenville's chances of
being on the line that
would run from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati
were similarly blasted when
the Pennsylvania put the huge sum of
$750,000 into capital stock
of the Marietta and Cincinnati
Railroad. This was to be the first of
three times in a period of two years
when the great eastern trunk
line would furnish cash or credit to an
Ohio railroad for extending
its tracks to a given point--and not
once would the extension be
made. In this case the Marietta and
Cincinnati was to extend its road
from Marietta to Wheeling as a link in
a proposed chain between
Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Five years
later the Pennsylvania wrote
off the stock as a total loss.8
At the same time as it made the
investment in the Marietta line,
8 Pennsylvania Railroad, 19th Annual
Report (1865), in the Railroad Record,
March 8, 1866.
STEUBENVILLE & INDIANA R. R. 17
the Pennsylvania hedged it by putting
$100,000 into the stock of
the Springfield, Mt. Vernon, and
Pittsburgh Railroad as a means of
opening up an alternative route to
Cincinnati by way of Springfield.
Here again the link was not built, but
this time the monetary loss
was not complete, for there was to be
some salvage.
At last, toward the end of 1853, came
the turn of the Steubenville
and Indiana. To be triply sure of
getting a connection with Cin-
cinnati, still the Queen City of the
West, and also with St. Louis, the
Pennsylvania agreed to endorse $500,000
worth of Steubenville and
Indiana second mortgage bonds, on the
understanding that half the
proceeds would be used for construction
between Steubenville and
Newark, Ohio, and half between Newark
and Columbus. Columbus
was already connected with Cincinnati
by rail. In return for the
endorsement of its bonds, which were
otherwise almost unsalable,
the Steubenville line agreed also to
put up an equal amount of its
stock as security.9
As will soon be seen, the line from
Newark to Columbus was
never built, thus constituting the
third occasion when the Penn-
sylvania did not get what it paid for.
On December 22, 1853, a week after the
arrangement with the
Pennsylvania had been approved, the
Steubenville and Indiana be-
gan operating its first trains as far
as Unionport, twenty-one miles
from Steubenville. The immediate
benefits to the road's finances
were negligible, in flat contradiction
of the article of faith held by
early railroaders that the sooner you
got your trains running the
stronger your credit would become. In
fact, the opposite proved true,
for from this time on the company had
nothing but misfortunes.
Labor troubles broke out again,
unctuously characterized by the
line's president as "more than the
ordinary share of those riots and
disturbances to which public works are
always incident."10 Financial
problems grew more pressing, and in the
absence of cash, unsecured
income bonds were tendered in payment
of bills.
The courage of the directors and their
faith in the enterprise
deserve mention, for they were
frequently called upon for personal
9 Minutes of the Steubenville &
Indiana R.R., December 16, 1853. Pennsylvania
Railroad Library, Philadelphia.
10 Ibid., January 2, 1854.
18
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
endorsements of company obligations.
Most loyal of all was the
president, James Means, head of a firm
of iron founders who had
gone into the railroad-car
manufacturing business. Not until the
Steubenville and Indiana was in truly
desperate financial straits was
it entered on the minutes that the
railroad had been using a large
number of cars made by this concern on
the understanding that it
would pay for them later, when it
could. It is not clear that the debt
was ever discharged in full.
Despite all obstacles the tracks were
pushed ever westward toward
Columbus, although construction was of
the sketchiest sort. Sidings,
stations, and warehouses, woodsheds,
water tanks, and baliasting--
all were omitted as far as possible.
Cheap green wood was used for
fuel, and the trains ran late for lack
of power. But the work con-
tinued until Newark was reached and the
road opened for its entire
length of 117 miles from Steubenville
on April 11, 1855.
Newark was as far west as the company
could ever afford to
build, and it was lucky to get that
far. Land in Columbus had been
bought for a depot a year or so before,
but by this time no hope was
left of reaching there. The directors
had toyed with various im-
probable schemes of getting the work
done without the use of
money, with results that can easily be
imagined. One individual
offered to build from Newark to
Columbus if the road would give
him a large quantity of its stocks and
bonds at eighty cents on the
dollar and let him keep all the cash he
could raise from selling
more stock along the route. The company
agreed to this plan, but
it came to naught.
At all events, the Steubenville and
Indiana line was completed,
as much as it ever would be, but it
still could not pay its bills. There
had been no evidence of excessive costs
in its construction or any
signs of dishonesty; almost all its
right of way had been donated by
enthusiastic landowners; its directors
were loyal and interested--
and yet the road got ever further in
the red. Its trouble was a lack
of traffic, resulting from faulty
connections at each end. (It in-
tersected no other road en route.)
It would be more accurate to say that
when the road was com-
pleted it had no connections at all at
either end. At Steubenville no
railroad connected with it until a year
and a half later, and at
STEUBENVILLE & INDIANA R. R. 19
Newark lack of cash and a difference in
gauge kept it for two years
from joining its rails with those of
the Central Ohio Railroad, which
went through Newark on its way from
Bellaire to Columbus.
The matter of its gauge was one of the
most serious problems
faced by the Steubenville and Indiana,
which had been built with a
track width of four feet, eight and
one-half inches, the so-called
eastern gauge, used by most roads in
that part of the country, in-
cluding the Pennsylvania. No doubt that
was one reason why the
Steubenville line adopted it. It was,
furthermore, the gauge used
in Indiana, the original western
objective of the line. In addition,
it was the gauge of the Columbus,
Piqua, and Indiana Railroad,
with which the Steubenville and Indiana
planned to connect at
Columbus after it had lost hope of
reaching Indiana on its own rails.
Ohio law called for a gauge, with
certain exceptions, of four feet,
ten inches, and yet in one year
cross-state routes were under con-
struction in the state using no less
than four different gauges.
By the end of the first year of
operation over its entire length
the Steubenville and Indiana was
considering spreading its rails to
the Ohio gauge, but it first had to
obtain permission from the
Pennsylvania Railroad. The latter had
by that time become its great
and good friend and virtual overlord.
Permission was granted after
the trunk line had driven a hard
bargain.
The actual change was made about the
time the Cleveland and
Pittsburgh Railroad was completing its
branch down the river into
Steubenville. It was this piece of
construction which was referred to
earlier as furnishing a link in a route
between Steubenville and
Pittsburgh, and so it became. Up to
then the only traffic moving over
Steubenville and Indiana rails out of
Steubenville had either origi-
nated locally or had come by river
steamer. Now, by a roundabout
way along the river's edge that soon
became known as the
"Circumbendibus Route," the
two cities were linked by track.
(Properly speaking, the tracks ran to
Allegheny, across the river
from Pittsburgh, but within two years a
bridge was carrying the
trains into the latter city.) The
roundabout route was a vastly longer
way to Pittsburgh than the direct line
across the Virginia panhandle
which the Steubenville's organizers had
counted upon, but for the
time being it had to do.
20
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
The opening of a route to Pittsburgh
had the effect of uncorking
the eastern end of the Steubenville and
Indiana and added to the
pressure to do the same thing at
Newark, the western end. The road
seems, however, to have lacked the
$20,000 needed to make a phy-
sical connection with the Central Ohio
tracks, even though by this
time the gauge of the two lines was the
same. Finally, in the spring
of 1857, the Columbus and Xenia
Railroad paid for the connection
at Newark. It had to wait fourteen
years before it was repaid.11
A contract between the two roads thus
joined allowed the trains of
the Steubenville line to run into
Columbus over the Central Ohio
tracks.
At once the Steubenville and Indiana
started advertising, "Great
Central Route--Pittsburgh, Columbus and
Cincinnati Short Line
Railroad--No change of cars between
Columbus and Pittsburgh."
Its principal competitor, the Central
Ohio, was advertising, "Great
National Route to the East and
West." The Marietta and Cincinnati
contented itself with using the slogan,
"The American Central Rail-
road Line."
But slogans could not stand up against
the panic of 1857. Hard
times were at hand and railroads were
succumbing. Despite help
from the Pennsylvania, despite the
through traffic which it could
finally get with both ends uncorked,
despite even the presence on
its board of directors of the brilliant
Thomas A. Scott as a repre-
sentative of the Pennsylvania, the
Steubenville and Indiana went
under. On September 2, 1859, Thomas L.
Jewett, the president of
the road, was appointed its receiver.
Four months earlier his brother,
Hugh J. Jewett, president of the
Central Ohio, had been named
receiver of that company, and three
months later a third road run-
ning east and west in Ohio, the Fort
Wayne line, also went into
receivership. The list could be made
longer.
Besides having to rehabilitate the
property in the manner of
all receivers, Jewett saw that the
access to Columbus should rest on
a more secure basis than an impermanent
contract with the Central
Ohio. Accordingly, as part of the
voluntary plan of reorganization
of the Steubenville and Indiana,
consummated in 1864, that com-
11 S. H. Church, comp., Corporate
History of the Pennsylvania Lines West of
Pittsburgh (n.p.,
1906), III, 23-24.
STEUBENVILLE & INDIANA R. R. 21
pany bought from the Central Ohio an
undivided half-interest in
the line between Newark and Columbus,
an arrangement that is
in effect today between the
Pennsylvania and the B & O as successor
corporations.
Access to Pittsburgh was a problem the
Steubenville and Indiana
could never solve. It remained for its
overlord, the Pennsylvania,
acting through various pawns, to bridge
the Ohio at Steubenville,
secure permission and build across the
panhandle of what was by
then the new state of West Virginia,
lay tracks to the Monongahela
River, bridge it, tunnel under the hill
in the heart of Pittsburgh, and
at last run its trains into the Union
Station. All this was not accom-
blished until 1865.
Three years later the Pennsylvania
merged into one corporation
the Steubenville and Indiana and its
two fellow subsidiaries which
together comprised the line between
Pittsburgh and Columbus. The
new concern was given the name of the
Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and
St. Louis Railway Company, but
everybody called it by the nickname
of "Panhandle," which the
line still has to this day. As the full
name shows, Steubenville was finally
established on a rail line that
linked it with the great cities of the
West about which it had
dreamed.