MADISON
Its Early Railroad History
FIRST LOCOMOTIVES--THE GRADE
North Vernon Plain Dealer - November 30, 1911
(Ed Fitzpatrick in the Louisville Courier Journal)
The filing of a certificate of satisfaction of a $2,000,000 second mortgage, executed in July, 1870, on the old
Jeffersonville, Madison & Indianapolis railroads, in the recorder's offices in Jeffersonville and New Albany the other day serves to recall
the poneer days in railroad building and operation in Indiana and Kentucky, and especially in the Falls Cities.
The first steam railroads to operate in the Falls Cities were what is now known as the Louisville & Nashville and the
Pennsylvania. They were among the first roads built in the Central Western States and it is with these that this article has to do.
The locomotive used on the line from Sixth and Main to the Portland wharf was called the "Elkhorn," and under Chancellor
Bibb's decision was a "dead one" and of no use to the Lexington & Ohio. About this time the people of Madison, Ind, were preparting to
celebrate the opening of the Madison & Indianapolis railroad, but they did not have a locomotive. They had contracted for one with the
Baldwin Locomotive Works, and it was shipped from Philadelphia to New Orleans in January, 1838, whence it was to come to Madison on a
flatboat via the Mississippi and Ohio rivers. But the vessel encountered a storm off Cape Hatteras, and in order to prevent shipwreck the
locomotive was thrown overboard.
The use of the "Elkhorn" was successfully negotiated for, and the locomotive was placed upon a flatboat in the Ohio
and taken to Madison. It was carried up the hill at that place by five yoke of oxen, and steam was raised for the first time in a locomotive
in Indiana on Sunday, November 27, 1838, and on the Tuesday following the first train on the Madison & Indianapolis road, afterward the
Jeffersonville, Madison & Indianapolis railraod and now the Pennsylvania line, was run in that state. The "Elkhorn" was used at Madison for some time
until a new locomotive could be brought from Philadelphia. It would require too much space in one article to relate the history, even briefly,
of rairoad progress in the Falls Cities since 1838 and it is to the old J. M. & I. that this article mainly is devoted.
By an act of the General Assembly of Indiana in January, 1836, the Madison & Indianapolis railway was chartered and
survey work was begun in April of that year. Up to that time Indiana had been spending large sums of money on what was known as "Internal
Improvements," these consisting of the building of turnpikes and canals, until the sum of about $15,000,000 had been spent. These internal
improvements having been pronounced failures, $300,000 was afterward appropriated to help build the first steam railroad from Madison to
Lafayette via Indianapolis. In April, 1839, only seventeen miles of the road out of Madison had been completed, when work was suspended.
The State, however, took hold again, and in 1871 the road had been extended from Madison to Vernon, then to Griffith, giving it a length of
twenty-eight miles. It was operated by William McClure as agent for the State until February, 1843, when the legislature determined to abandon
the scheme of internal improvements and to sell or lease the the uncompleted and to sell or lease the uncompleted projects to private corporations
who were to give a satisfactory guarantee as to their completion. The road was completed to Indianapolis October 1, 1817, and in 1852 the State
sold the road to the Madison & Indianapolis Company for %400,000, to be paid in four equal installments, but this was not carried into effect until
1865. The Jeffersonville railroad was incorporated in 1846, to build a road from Jeffersonville to Columbus, Ind., and in the fall of 1852 it was
completed.
The old Madison & Indianapolis railroad was partially owned by the State, and was leased to the Madison & Indianapolis
railroad for a sum equal to its net earnings in 1841, namely $1,151. The road, by the way, earns that much a day now. It was provided that the
State might redeem the road at any time previous to 1868, but, as stated, the road was sold outright to the lessee in 1852. Had the State taken
advantage of the terms of its lease it could have secured one of the most valuable pieces of railroad property in the west for a small sum, but
the members of the legislature never gave this subject much consideration. After being consolidated with the Jeffersonville railroad in 1862 it
was called the J. M. & I. In February, 1873, it was leased by the Pennsylvania Company for 999 years, and is known as the Louisville division of
this great system. When it was built both Madison and Jeffersonville were more important towns than Indianapolis, and contributed to the construction
of the road.
During the Civil War Jeffersonville was one of the principal points for feeding, equipping and re-enforcing the Union army.
Louisville was of course, of great importance, but is was on the wrong side of the river. As a result of these circumstances the city on the right
bank of the Ohio became one of the principal Union army posts. Nearly all of the troops from the North came via the J. M. & I. railroad, as well
as equipment and army store. There was a bakery, or series of bakeries, in the block where the new Jeffersonville post-office us being erected on
Spring street, in which 800 barrels of flour were used daily in making "hard tack" for Sherman's army.
The Madison his is 7,100 feet in length and there is a fall of 403 feet in this distacnce. The average grade is 5.77 per cent.
This is one of the steepest grades upon which friction traction engines operate in the United States. In order to get up the hill in early times a
system of cogs was used, but at present the trains are pushed up the engine being used like on a level track.
When the Madison & Indianapolis road was completed in 1838 there were only seventeen miles of railroad in the State, and now
there are 7,339 miles of steam road track in that State exclusive of the traction lines. In Kentucky thate was but one line, from Lexington to
Frankfort, and now there are 3,458 miles of steam railroad.