On an April day in 1852, an Erie Railroad locomotive chug-chugged its way from Corning up through Coopers, then Campbell, then Savona, and on to Bath. After which it reversed course and returned to Corning, making, I imagine, the fastest round trip that had ever been done between those points since the first human hunters found their way here. It could, I suppose, have been accomplished using relays of horses, but I never heard of anyone trying it. Besides, the roads were terrible.
In the previous year the Erie had opened a direct line between Lake Erie and New York City, passing through Hornellsville, Addison, and Corning on the way. Now a major branch line was making its way from Corning and Bath through Kanona, Cohocton, Wayland, and Dansville on up to Rochester. Where once it would have taken the weary traveler days just to get to Rochester, now he or she could ride up, do business (or make visits) and return, all on the same day.
Along with that, of course, freight and mail could be carried quickly and cheaply either into or out of our area.
When Charles Williamson came out to develop this region in 1793, he had 1.2 million acres to choose from – all the way from the state line to Lake Ontario, and from Pre-Emption Road to the Genesee River. Yet he set his seat and his land office inconveniently on the edge, where he cut a clearing from the forest and named it Bath.
This he figured would become the great metropolis of western New York, thriving because the Conhocton, Chemung, and Susquehanna Rivers would be the great artery of commerce, trade, and travel.
He was right, too – until some busybody went and put in the Erie Canal. Once that opened in 1825, little no-account shanty towns like Buffalo, Syracuse, and Rochester started to boom, and our region was economically bypassed.
But in the legislative horse-trading to create his canal, DeWitt Clinton had promised a follow-up transportation project for the Southern Tier. Probably they were all thinking in terms of another canal, or maybe an improved highway. But they soon seized on a brand-new technology, and the Erie Railroad was born. And that, as Robert Frost would say, has made all the difference.
The railroad sited its main repair shops in the unincorporated hamlet of Hornellsville, provoking growth that created the City of Hornell. Addition of a parallel electric trolley line stimulated growth in the “suburb” Village of Canisteo.
A one-track short line running up to Prattsburgh (the K&P) didn’t seem like any great shakes, but it created a junction significant enough to keep five hotels in business in the hamlet of Kanona.
Another short line, running up from Pennsylvania, clinched the deal when Brooklyn executives were looking for a new home for their business. The Erie main line could ship product out to east and west. The short line could bring up charcoal, wood, and sand. The junction at Corning, they decided, would make a fine location for a Glass Works.
Railroad stops at Watkins and Penn Yan brought families from the big cities for extended summer visits. With a little help from steamboats taking visitors out to their lakeside resorts, Keuka and Seneca became travel destinations, and our tourism business was born.
With thousands of undergrads making the trip for decades, Cornell University and the Lehigh Valley Railroad grew up together.
Without the eight-mile one-track Bath and Hammondsport Railroad, the grape and wine business around Hammondsport might have become a curio, rather than a major enterprise. And Glenn Curtiss could never have developed the industries he did without that railroad. Minimally he’d have had to move to Bath. If he hadn’t, he’d have spent his days in the bike shop, and maybe one day opened an auto dealership.
We don’t notice the train so much any more, unless we have to wait at a crossing, but an incredible amount of our economy still runs on rails. On Friday April 3 at 4 PM we’re having Mike Connor give a Steuben County Historical Society presentation on our area railroads. Mike has spent his career as a railroad executive, and he’s also president of the Erie-Lackawanna Historical Society. His talk is free and open to the public, at the Bath Fire Hall. We hope you’ll join us.