The Short Story of How the B&O Railroad Came to Woodstock
The Old Main Line
On May 24th, 1830, tickets went on sale for the first passenger train service between Mount Claire in Baltimore and Ellicott Mills, a distance some 13 miles. Three Years earlier 25 Baltimore bankers and merchants had met in the home of George Brown, a director at Alex Brown & Sons, to charter the Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road Company with a 25-million-dollar stock issuance.
Artist: Heinmiller. Source: Library of Congress.
The first trains were horse-drawn. At the half-way point Between Baltimore and Ellicott Mills tired horses were swapped with fresh ones; the town which grew up around this swapping point was appropriately named Relay. In August of 1830 the famous race between a horse-drawn train and a prototype steam engine, the Tom Thumb, designed by Peter Cooper, would take place along that route. The horses won the race that day (as readers probably remember from their elementary school days), but only because a drive belt on Tom Thumb broke loose. Soon newly designed steam engines were replacing horses on the railroad tracks. The first of these went into service in 1832. It was named “the Grasshopper” because the distinctive vertical motion of two long rods reminded onlookers of grasshopper legs as they moved up and down and back and forth. The engine was designed by Phineas Davis, previously a well-known clockmaker. Ironically, Davis was killed while riding a B&O train on the Washington DC line when defective track caused his Grasshopper to derail.
Photographer: William Barrett. Source: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
The original goal of the B&O directors in 1827 was the Ohio River at Wheeling, Virginia (the state of West Virginia did not yet exist), a distance of about 300 miles. But in the short term, the B&O set its sights on the Potomac River. In short order rights-of-way had been acquired and road beds were being prepared between Ellicott Mills and Point of Rocks. The route traveled northwest through the Patapsco River valley to Marriottsville and then west along the South Branch to Mount Airy and then southwest to Point of Rocks on the Potomac, some 60 miles. In 1835 another track opened going from Relay to the nation’s capital. That route was soon extended to meet with the original line at Point of Rocks and then the B&O headed northwest to Wheeling, first to Harper’s Ferry, then on to Cumberland and finally to the Ohio River at Wheeling in 1852. Over the next two decades the B&O extended west from Wheeling to Chicago (1875) and, by a more southernly route, from Cumberland to St Louis (1873). After 2 more major routes were added, one from DC down the Shenandoah Valley and the other from Baltimore to New York (not until 1888), the final reach of the B&O was complete.
Once the line from Relay to Point of Rocks through Washington, DC was complete it became the preferred route for passenger trains. The original route looping through the Patapsco Valley was then named the Old Main Line, a name still in use today (abbreviated OML), and was given over mostly to freight trains, a sort of by-pass for slower-moving traffic. However, passenger trains still operated on the OML. If you remember this writer’s presentation on the history of the Woodstock College, you’ll remember that the B&O was the main form of transportation for Jesuits going to and from Woodstock until at least the 1920s. Well into the 1940s this writer’s grandfather and great-uncles rode the OML trains. They used to catch an eastbound at Woodstock, then transfer at Relay to attend Washington Senators baseball games at old Griffith Park. It was in 1950, when the stations at Ellicott City and Sykesville were closed, that passenger trains stopped running and the OML became what it is today, a route for coal cars, container flatbeds and car carriers.
See here for a map of the current route of the OML between Ellicott City and Sykesville.
The 2nd Division
Construction of the OML was divided into 5 segments, constructed simultaneously. The segments were called divisions, each about 12 miles in length. The 1st Division ran from Relay to Elysville (later known as Alberton and then Daniels), and the 2nd Division, of most interest to Granite historians, ran from Elysville to Sykesville. By 1830 Hugh Riddle and True Putney (both from New Hampshire) had taken over operations at The Branch (later named Waltersville Quarry) and they provided stone for the construction of bridges and viaducts on the initial section of the railroad line to Ellicott Mills. In 1832 they contracted with the B&O to produce stone stringers and other building stone for the 2nd Division. At the same time they were under contract to provide stone for the C&O canal. To aide in the transport of stone, Putney and Riddle built their own railroad from the quarry to the river, a distance of about 2 miles, and they built a bridge across the Patapsco to the OML. The bridge was appropriately named Putney’s Bridge and Granite residents affectionately named Putney & Riddle’s railroad “The Dinky Track” because of its narrow-gauge (2 ½ feet between rails instead of the standard 4 foot and 8 inches).
As part of the 2nd Division the B&O also constructed a siding from Davis Branch going west to Woodstock, a distance of almost 2 miles (the siding is still there today). Railroad cars parked on the siding were loaded with granite from The Branch and the siding also served the Fanny Frost Quarry and the Eureka Mine, both located on the south side of the Patapsco near Davis Branch. These quarries produced feldspar rock which was shipped by railroad to the plants of the Eureka Mining Company and Goldings Sons Company in Trenton, NJ where feldspar rock was crushed for use in the manufacture of pottery. The Davis Siding also served Fox Rock Quarry, operated by John Emery and Cyrus Gault on land leased from Nicholas Owings in 1836. Fox Rock Quarry also produced stone stringers and building stone for the B&O. In fact, the B&O built the mile-long road which led from the quarry down the steep face of the northern edge of the Patapsco valley to the bridge crossing to Woodstock. Stone was hauled along that road to the OML by mule and wagon.
Two of Woodstock’s most famous residents, both fathers of future US Senators, were contractors in the construction of the 2nd Division. The first of these was Caleb Dorsey Davis. Born in Woodstock, he married Louisa Brown, a 3rd great-granddaughter of Thomas Brown, the famous “Patuxent Ranger”. Caleb spent 10 years or so as a merchant in Baltimore, where he became so enthused with the future potential of steam power that he joined as an early investor in the early investor in the B&O project and then moved back to the Davis family farm in Woodstock and signed on as a B&O contractor. The Davis farm dates back to 1740 when Caleb’s great-great grandfather, Thomas Davis, bought land from the Brown family for his son Robert. The town of Woodstock actually began life with the name of Davis Tavern (sometimes spelled Davis’s Tavern). That was also the name of the first post office, started in 1836 (the name Woodstock first appeared in print in 1838).
Which of Thomas Davis’s descendants started the tavern and where exactly it stood is lost to history, Henry Gassaway Davis, Caleb’s 2nd oldest son, worked as a railroad brakeman and advanced to executive status with the B&O and he served for a time as station master at Wheeling. He finally quit the railroad to start a coal company around Elkins, West Virginia (the nearby town of Davis, West Virginia is named after him) and eventually he served for 2 terms as a US Senator representing West Virginia. He was a vice presidential candidate in 1904. His ticket lost to Teddy Roosevelt.
The second of Woodstock’s famous residents associated with the 2nd division is Peter Gorman, a first generation American born in Philadelphia to Northern Irish parents. How and why he came to Woodstock is not known, but by 1834 he had married Elizabeth Brown, another 3rd great-granddaughter of Thomas Brown, and was involved in the construction of the 2nd division. Peter’s famous son, Arthur Pue Gorman, the future US senator, was born in 1839 in the two-story stone house Peter built right along the railroad tracks in Woodstock. The house was built on a lot leased in 1838 from Dr. Thomas Herbert; the lease was for 99 years at $12 a year rent.
Gorman was also involved in granite quarrying. Sometime before 1845 he operated a quarry owned by John Warfield along the middle branch of the Patuxent and by 1850 he and another son, Henry, were operating 2 granite quarries near Savage and supplied stone for the B&O. In 1851 he sold all of his holdings in Woodstock (most of them inherited by Elizabeth from the Brown family) and moved to his Fairview estate north of Laurel (the lease on his Woodstock stone house was assigned to Henry Davis). In 1861 Gorman was arrested by the Mayor of Richmond while on a business trip and sent to Libby Prison. He was arrested for sedition after publicly speaking out against secession. The Mayor refused to release him despite offers by some of Gorman’s friends in Maryland to post bail. It seems that he was at Libby for some months before John Letcher, governor of Virginia, secured his release. Gorman’s death in 1862, it was said by his family, was the result of nervous disorders developed while in Libby Prison.
Gorman family lore has it that in 1834 Peter, along with one of his supervisors, John Watson, were nearly beaten to death when a riot broke out between German and Irish railway workers on the 2nd division near Davis Branch. Two days later poor John Watson actually was killed near Savage by workers on the Relay-to-Washington track. This wasn’t the first riot along the 2nd division. In 1831 an angry mob of mostly Irish workers, it was said, tore up track between The Forks and Sykesville and brought down rock and debris from the surrounding hills with charges of black powder. The workers claimed that they had not been paid by the contractor, a fellow named Truxton Lyon from Pennsylvania, who was soon dismissed by the B&O. A local sheriff couldn’t handle the situation. A militia unit, the Baltimore Light Brigade, was called in and 68 arrests were made.
Granite Stringers and Strap Iron Rails
The reader may be wondering about the mention of stone stringers above. For the first 15 years the B&O built tracks with a combination of granite stone (marble was sometimes used) and strap iron. Granite was worked into long blocks about 10 inches square and along one edge a slight channel was cut and also a deeper grove. Two stringers were set parallel into the railroad bed to define the width of the track and then strap iron was nailed into the channels (holes drilled first). The iron straps were 2 ½ inches wide, ½ inch thick and usually 15 feet in length. Train wheels rode on top of the iron with the outside lip of each wheel extending into the groove. See here and here for photos of abandoned stringers and strap found along the OML
It doesn’t seem like a very exact way to lay down a railroad track, does it? Is it any wonder that those early trains didn’t travel at much more than 10 or 12 miles per hour? But speed was the least of the problems. Under the weight and heat of a steam engine strap iron often broke free from the nails causing derailments and, worse yet, sometimes hurdled through the air endangering the life and limb of anyone in the vicinity. The flying straps were called snakeheads. There are documented cases of snakeheads flying through the floor boards of railroad cars causing serious injury, and in a few cases death, to the passengers on board.
Change came rather quickly. By 1845 iron T-rails were developed as was the system of mounting rails onto heavy timber crossties, the track design which soon became ubiquitous and is still is in use today. Along the way other rail systems were tried and discarded. On of these involved mounting iron T-rails rails onto stone footings or sleepers. Some of these sleepers were uncovered by the flood-waters of Hurricane Agnes along an abandoned rail bed of the OML near Daniels.
Local legend has it that iron rails were manufactured at the Elba Furnace in Sykesville. That’s unlikely – there were no rolling facilities at Elba. However, there were plenty of other iron rolling mills producing rails around Maryland. One was the Avalon Rolling Mill located along the Patapsco just above Relay, a mill started by the Dorsey family and later operated in the manufacture of nails by Evan Ellicott. The Caton Rolling Mill was located along Gwynn Falls. The B&O started its own iron furnace and mill at Cumberland. The huge Mt Savage Rolling Mill produced rails at the Mt Savage plant in Allegany County. There were many others all over Western Maryland, one in Lonaconing, two in Cumberland, one in Keyser and one along Beaver Creek near Antietam, to name just a few. The Elba Furnace in Sykesville did, by the way, produce thousands of tons of iron for the manufacture of railroad car iron wheels, wheels newly designed to ride along the new iron T-rails.
The Three Alignments of the OML
The first road bed of the OML built in the early 1830s, after crossing the Patapsco at Illchester, closely followed the west and/or south river bank (in what is now Howard County) all the way to Marriottsville. In 1838 small changes, called the 2nd Alignment, were made to the layout. A few sharp bends in the track were softened to allow for increased speed and two bridges were built for a short foray of about half a mile on the north side of the river. One bridge was located on the west end of Elysville and the other just below Brice Run. Pieces of the stone supports for those bridges are still visible in the middle of the river. Both of those bridges were replaced after being severely damaged during the Great Flood of 1868.
The 3rd Alignment of the OML began in 1904. After this alignment about 3 miles of track ran on the north side or Baltimore County side of the river from Alberton (formerly Elysville) to the newly built Eureka Bridge which crosses the Patapsco just downriver from Line Run. Two tunnels were built to avoid laying track along S-curses in the river, the first called Davis Tunnel, a 500-foot tunnel named after Davis Branch, and the second called Dorsey Tunnel, a 1000-foot tunnel named after Dorsey Run. Note that the Dorsey Tunnel was built as a double-wide tunnel to accommodate a very long siding extending from Alberton (later Daniels) to Eureka Bridge. The siding was built to accommodate the heavy rail traffic serving the Alberton mill during the first half of the 20th century. The siding was eliminated by the B&O around 1950.
See here for a map of the three alignments of the OML in the area between Daniels and Davis Branch.
The Woodstock Train Station
In 1884 the train station sitting along the tracks just to the west of Woodstock Road opened for business. Everyone in Granite who knows anything about local history knows about that station; plenty of photographs still exist. It was designed by the well-known E Francis Baldwin, the designer of the B&O Warehouse (now Camden Yards), Mt Royal Station, Point of Rocks Station and about 100 other train stations around the country, including the Sykesville Station, also opened in 1884. In fact, the Sykesville & Woodstock stations are almost exact copies, as are a number of the other B&O stations attributed to Baldwin. The station was closed to passenger service in about 1950 and demolished during the following year. The B&O purchased the land for the Baldwin Station on July 10th, 1883, about 4/10s of an acre, from the 3 adult children of Dr. Thomas Herbert, one of whom was James Rawlings Herbert, the famous Confederate Civil War Colonel and later the Brigadier-General in the Maryland National Guard.
Photographer: Rev. John Brosnan. Courtesy of Digital Georgetown.
Some local history sources say that the B&O presence in Woodstock (then called Davis’s Tavern) dates to 1835. One of those sources is the Woodstock Letters (published at the Woodstock Jesuit College starting in 1872). The writer of one of those Letters speculates that a train station was first located within the Davis Tavern. In 1848 the B&O bought an acre plot of land for a station from Peter Gorman. That plot was located just south of the tracks and just to the east of Woodstock Road, the northwestern corner of a tract of land called “Good Fellowship” given as a land patent to Christopher Randall in 1728. Whether there was an actual station building on this lot between 1848 and 1884 is not known. It seems likely that there was, but this writer has never seen any mention of it or any photos or drawings to confirm that and there’s no mention of Woodstock before 1884 in any of the B&O archives available online. So it’s possible that the station in Woodstock before 1884 was just a stopping point or maybe a platform.
Note: The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of the Granite Historical Society.
