Syracuse University Library
Special Collections Research Center
Gerrit Smith Broadside and Pamphlet Collection

Midland Road, Lake Ontario Shore Road.

Smith, Gerrit, 1797-1874.

Digital Edition.

This digitization project was supported by Regional Bibliographic Databases and Interlibrary Resources Sharing Program funds, awarded by the New York State Library.

Call number: Smith 548

MIDLAND ROAD. LAKE ONTARIO SHORE ROAD.

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PETERRORO May 26 1868.

JOHN B. EDWARDS, Esq., Oswego,

MY DEAR SIR,

I have, just now, been reading in the Oswego Advertiser and Times of 23d instant. Can it be that the Chief Engineer "shows that, by actual measurement," the adopted route of the Midland Road is but two miles and a half longer than the shortest route ? Although I live but some two miles from this shortest route, I have not before heard that an "actual measurement" of it has ever been made. I subscribed three thousand dollars toward enabling the Directors to make their Surveys, &c. - and, yet, (strange fact!) I never could persuade them to survey this route. Any other route, no matter how absurd it may be, they are ready to spend money - my money - in surveying. But for my route, though confessedly the shortest and levelest of all, they have no respect. The simple truth is that, if confronted by their own survey of my route, the Directors could not have had the face to adopt another - certainly not to adopt the longest of all the routes.

Notwithstanding what your Editor says, I am confident that he is misinformed. I must still believe, that the difference between the two routes is more than ten miles. I mean that the distance from Oswego to the South line of Madison County is more than ten miles greater by Fulton, Constantia and Oneida than by Fulton, Phoenix, Cicero, the neighborhood of Canaseraga, Clockville and Pine Woods.

Suppose, now, that we make this disagreement between the Midland gentlemen and myself turn to the benefit of the Orphan Asylum of Oswego, or of the Poor of Oswego ? I hereby authorize you to pay for me to the said Asylum, or for the said Poor, a sum equal to one thousand dollars a mile for every mile that the difference in the length of these two routes falls short of eight miles, provided these Midland gentlemen will agree to pay, at the same rate, for all the distance above eight miles. To illustrate - if the difference in the length of the routes shall prove to be as much as ten miles, they will have to pay to said Asylum, or for said Poor, two thousand dollars, and if as much as eleven, three thousand dollars. On the other hand, if it shall prove to be as little as three miles, I shall have to pay five thousand dollars, and if as little as two miles six thousand dollars.

If this proposition is accepted, let there be without delay a written agreement in accordance with it; and let it be signed by myself and, if you please, by yourself as my security, and by a couple of responsible and honorable Midland gentlemen of your City. Let the survey be at the joint and equal expense of the two parties. I suppose it will need be only from Phoenix to the South line of Madison County - the surveys from Oswego to Phoenix, and from Oswego by Fulton, Constantia and Oneida, Morrisville and Eaton to the South line of Madison County having already been made. (If Morrisville is not in the finally adopted route, I do not require that the survey through it be taken into the account.)

I pass to another matter. In this same Number of his Newspaper your Editor regards me as having "surren

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dered" my opposition to "Town Bonding". He, certainly, cannot infer this from my recent subscription to the Stock of the Lake Ontario Shore Road. The large amount of that subscription shows that I still think that Rail Roads should be built by private subscriptions. And he ought not to infer it from my being President of a Road, stock in which some Towns talk of subscribing for. It is not for me nor for the Company of which I am President, to say who shall, or who shall not, take stock in it. Just here I would say that with all my opposition to Town Bonding, I have (as my printed sheets on that subject show) never taken the ground that the laws should forbid it. I would that individuals of Oswego might make up a subscription to the Shore Road of several hundred thousand dollars. But if the City prefers to have it a City subscription, I see not that consistency requires me to resign the Presidency. I admit, however, that the honor and the love of office are apt to blind one to what he might otherwise see.

Your Editor refers also to my well-known opposition to "zigzagging after bonds" : and he fancies that, in the case of this Shore Road, I have given up such opposition. He is mistaken, if he supposes that the paper written by myself, from which he quotes, says that the Directors will consent to build their Road on any other than "the best" route. But not the slightest "zigzagging" has ever been proposed in the case of this Road. Between the Oswego and Genesee Rivers there is no rivalry of routes. The two rival routes between the Genesee and Niagara Rivers are entirely independent of each other, and there is to be not the least "zigzagging" in the case of either. There will not be the least motive or occasion for any. I am uncertain which route will be adopted. The South route is claimed to be between one and two miles shorter than the North one, and the North route is claimed to be a little leveler than the South one. They are both admirable routes: and the object in building this Road; being to furnish the link, which is to connect the Commercial East with the harming and Mining West, would, probably, be realized about as well by the adoption of one as of the other of these routes. This much, however, candor requires to be admitted - that where routes are so nearly equal in merit a greater subscription for the one than for the other will be like to turn the scale - Hence are the advocates of each of these Lake Ontario Rail Road routes under a very urgent motive to swell their subscriptions for it to the utmost.

Your Editor presumes that my "opposition to the Midland will cease". It will, when the Directors return to the original purpose of building it on the shortest and levelest route. To tempt them to such return I recently offered to make their Company an absolute gift of twenty-five thousand dollars. I probably could have afforded to double the offer. For the building of the Road, as now laid out, will be not only a dead loss to Oswego of the six hundred thousand dollars which she is required to pay, but it will be certain to result in establishing a great East and West Thoroughfare, a dozen miles South of her.

With great regard,

your friend,

GERRIT SMITH.