Fitchburg--Burleigh Rock Drill - Fitchburg State University · “The result of Mr. Burleigh’s study of this difficult problem was the invention by him of the Burleigh Rock-Drill

Fitchburg, Massachusetts:

Part 2

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Its ties to theContinental Railroad and the

Western Mines

http://americahurrah.com/Postcards/CP3.html

Please use the mouse to advance each slide.

Researched and developed by

Marilyn Zavorski for

Teaching American History:Westward Expansion and Life on the Frontier

Fall 2005—Fitchburg State College

In late 1841 Fitchburg entrepreneur, Alvah Crocker, helped lead the way for the establishment of the Fitchburg Railroad Company, which would connect Fitchburg and Boston.

The Boston and Worcester Railroad had already been built between 1832 – 1835.

Alvah Crocker realized it was vital to his paper business and to the other manufactures in Fitchburg to have direct transportation to their commercial markets in Boston. The railroad was completed in 1845.

Mr. Crocker also envisioned the necessity of building a railroad westfrom Fitchburg to the Great Lakes and beyond. The greatest obstacle was Hoosac Mountain in North Adams (northwestern Massachusetts). In 1853 a large tunnel boring machine was unable to penetrate the hard rock. The drilling then had to be done slowly by hand. Hampered by debt and the Civil War, the Massachusetts legislature took over the railroad company, and one of the commissioners appointed to oversee the project was Alvah Crocker.

Around 1865/1866 Mr. Crocker asked a young mechanic, Charles Burleigh, at Putman Brothers in Fitchburg to devise a way for a power drill to be successful in boring this tunnel, since hand drilling had been fruitless.

The History

“The result of Mr. Burleigh’s study of this difficult problem was the invention by him of the Burleigh Rock-Drilland Patent Air-Compressor, a combination which was capable, not only of drilling holes from three-fourth of an inch to five inches in diameter, to a depth of thirty feet, at a rate of from two to ten inches per minute, according to the nature of the rock, but also of thoroughly ventilating the tunnel at the same time, thusobviating this great and fatal source of danger.

These machines have produced a complete revolution in the work of rock-tunneling.”. . .

Hurd, D. Hamilton. History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers & Prominent Men. Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1889, page 281.

http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/htstory1.Html

Smithsonian InstitutionUnited States National Museum

Model of Hoosac Tunnel—#49260-L

Close-up of Jack Drilling

“Work during early period, 1855 – 1866, using hand drilling and black powder.”Scale: ½” = 1’

Courtesy of Fitchburg Historical Society

18661855 –

HAND DRILLING

Model of Hoosac Tunnel—#49260

Close-up of Jack Drilling


“Work during early period, 1855 – 1866, using hand drilling and black powder.”

Scale: ½” = 1’Courtesy of Fitchburg Historical Society


In 1867 Charles Burleigh

established the

Burleigh Rock Drill Company

in Fitchburg, MA.

V{tÜÄxá UâÜÄx|z{From the book, History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers & Prominent Men by D. Hamilton Hurd, 1889.

http://www.antiquephotographics.com/occupationalsst.htm

Click on the photo to view an

enlargement of the Burleigh Drill.


Center Section, 1866- 1875

Scale: ½” = 1’

Smithsonian InstitutionUnited States National MuseumModel of Hoosac Tunnel—#49260-M

Burleigh Rock Drill18751866 –


“Working during the late period, 1866 – 1875, using Burleigh air drills and nitroglycerin.”

Scale: ½” = 1’


Model of Hoosac Tunnel—#49260-N

Burleigh Drill, Bottom of Central Shaft at right

While work continued on the 5-mile long Hoosac Tunnel, the Burleigh Drill, with its interchangeable parts, was being

introduced to the world.

The continental railroad and western mining operations employed its use.

How was the Burleigh Drill sent west?

The choices included the Isthmus of Panama or Cape Horn water routes. On February 16, 1855 the Panama Railroad was opened. The 49 miles of railroad “will forever stand out as a prominent event in the history of civilization,” stated a St. Louis, Missouri newspaper.

By 1855, the trip from Panamá to Chagres was accomplished in 7 hours. The trip from Chagres to Panamá, was done in 12 hours.

The transportation of passengers and freight across the Isthmus became very efficient.

1855 account of the opening of the Panama Railroad with freight rates.The Western Journal and Civilian. Vol. XIII, No. 6. M. Carver & T. Cobb, Editors and proprietors,

St. Louis, Missouri, May, 1855. Courtesy Bruce C. Cooper Collection

http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Panama_Railroad_Stock_1868.html#Maps

http://www.trainweb.org/panama/goldtrain.html

Study this map.

Observe how the railroad followed the river and mule trails.

Now note the number of river branches which the railroad had to cross.

“Forty-seven and a half miles of railroad had required 170 bridges and culverts of 15 feet or more, 134 bridges and culverts of less than 15 feet, a statistic that gives some idea of the difficulties there had been in making headway in such half-drowned country.”

http://www.trainweb.org/panama/history1.html

Click on the map to learn more.

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1868

The Panama Railroad began in the new town of Aspinwall, named for the New York railroad merchant, William H. Aspinwall. In 1890 the city was renamed Colon.

January 28, 1855: The Panama Railroad

From the Portland Maine Transcript [Newspaper],

February 17, 1855.Courtesy Bruce C. Cooper

Collection.

1867

http://www.canalmuseum.com/documents/panamacanalhistory038.htm

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http://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/images/gre01.jpg

View of Culebra or the Summit, the Terminus of the Panama Railroad in Dec. 1854.Sketched from Nature by F[essendon] N[ott] Otis. Colored lithograph by Charles Parsons; Printed by Endicott & Co., N.Y., 1854. 10 x 14 in.“The Panama Railroad ran from Aspinwall on the Gulf of Mexico to Panama City on the Pacific side, a distance of 49 miles. Despite the short distance, it took five years to build. Construction started in December 1850 and the terminus on the gulf side was changed from Chagres to Aspinwall. Once completed in January 1855, the railroad made crossing the Isthmus an effortless affair and significantly improved the journey to and from California. The artist, F. N. Otis, also wrote Isthmus of Panama: History of the Panama Railroad; and of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company (New York, 1867).”

The Fitchburg drill was used at the Comstock Lode, the “famous ore deposit of silver and gold in the Virginia Range of Storey County, Nevada.” Mining was made possible here due to numerous inventions and innovations, one of which was the Burleigh Rock Drill.

http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/comstockscience/home.shtml

The Fitchburg Connection

--The drill was westward bound.--

http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/comstockscience/tour7.shtml

“The rocks underground were not found in small chunks that could be moved readily. Instead, miners had to drill holes into the rock by hand using a drill bit and a hammer, load the holes with explosive, then shoot off the explosive to crack the rock. The miners then dug (mucked) the broken rock into the ore carts. Later improvements made it so the miners could use drills driven by compressed air to make the holes to be loaded with explosives. The inserted photograph of a painting by T.L. Dawes shows a miner using an early pneumatic drill, the Burleigh drill. (Tingley, Horton, and Lincoln, p. 13; used by permission of the NBMG) Miners first used black powder as the explosive, but switched to Alfred Nobel's dynamite after its invention in 1866.”

Comstock Lode


The Governor: Leland Sanford,By Norman E. Tutorow,

Chapter 6Building the Central Pacific

Rail Road of California1863 – 1869

page 252http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Stanford_Tutorow.html

At this same time, the Central Pacific Railroad was being builtand the Burleigh Rock Drill was in use.


http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Stanford_Tutorow.html

The Governor: Leland SanfordBy Norman E. Tutorow

Chapter 6Building the Central Pacific

Rail Road of California1863 - 1869Page 244

AND the construction superintendent of the Central Pacific Railroad

wasJames H. Strobridge, who had helped lay the track on the Boston and Fitchburg Railroad.

Leland Sanford reflected about the task of building the railroad:

The “rail had to be transported to San Francisco via Cape Horn or the Isthmus of Panama, and lightered for transportation to Sacramento, Cal., the initial point of the Central Pacific Railroad.

Shipments via the Isthmus, as late as the year 1868, cost for transportation alone on rail, $51.97 per ton, the rail costing, delivered at Sacramento, $143.67, not including charges for transfer from ships at San Francisco to the lighter, or for transportation up the Sacramento River.

During construction, by reason of high war risks, transportation rates advanced 275 per cent per ton.

Via the Isthmus, for freight alone, there was paid as high as $8,100 for one locomotive.

On a shipment by the latter route of eighteen locomotives the transportation charges were $84,466.80, or $4,692.50 each.”

The Central Pacific Railroad relied on the Isthmus of Panama and Cape Horn routes to ship their rails and locomotives.

http://www.cprr.org/Museum/LMC_PacRRCommission_1887.html

How did the railroad supplies reach the west coast?

“Delays and losses of ships and their cargo of railroad material via Cape Horn and unforeseen emergencies made it necessary to frequently use the Isthmus route, that there should he no detention in the progress of the railroad eastward.”

http://www.cprr.org/Museum/LMC_PacRRCommission_1887.html

Leland Sanford contemplated the fact that:

Why would the Central Pacific Railroad Company prefer to ship supplies, including rails and locomotives, via Cape Horn over the Isthmus of Panama?

Consider:


The Burleigh Rock Drill and Compressor as arranged for clearing for lots in NYC for J.T. & Wm. Daly

Meanwhile, Back on the East Coast

AND in Massachusetts the 5-mile Hoosac Tunnel was still under construction.

Courtesy of the Fitchburg Historical Society





November 24, 1873

The Fitchburg Historical Society has correspondence announcing the final blast, which will open the Hoosac Tunnel. The eastern and western sections will then be connected..

This November 1873 letter invites Mr. Wilson to witness the final blast and “pass entirely through the Tunnel.”

Click on the letter to view it close-up.

Courtesy of the Fitchburg Historical Society

http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/htpage.Html

Fitchburg Sentinel, Friday, March 2, 1945

Saved By Burleigh Drill

“…Use of the Burleigh power drill and tons of nitroglycerine sent the (Hoosac) tunnel at a rapid pace.. . .

Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27, 1873, the west shaft from Adams and the east shaft from Florida (MA) joined at a variance of only nine-sixteenths of an inch, marking the end of a gigantic engineering feet. The first train from Boston to Troy (NY) passed through the tunnel on Oct. 13, 1875.

The tunnel required 22 years for its construction, compared with an estimate of 1500 days by the engineers at its inception.”

Grain From the West“…Northern New England and the West soon

exchanged merchandise. . .

Grain from the west was an important item needed in this area. Fittingly, the first overland shipment of grain from the west was destined to J. Cushing & Co., of Fitchburg, and arrived here April 5, 1875, in a 22-car freight train, the first to pass through the Hoosac Tunnel.”

The Burleigh Drill Opens Fitchburg’s Connection to the West


Model of the

Burleigh Rock Drill

on display at the

Fitchburg Historical Society,

Fitchburg, MA

The invention of the Burleigh Rock Drill by Charles Burleigh not only connected Fitchburg to the west coast, but aided in the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, mining operations, and neighborhood development.

Primary Source and Reference Credits

http://americahurrah.com/Postcards/CP3.html

http://www.antiquephotographics.com/occupationalsst.htm

http://www.canalmuseum.com/documents/panamacanalhistory038.htm


http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Stanford_Tutorow.html

http://www.cprr.org/Museum/Ephemera/Panama_Railroad_Stock_1868.html#Maps

Hurd, D. Hamilton. History of Worcester County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of its Pioneers & Prominent Men. Philadelphia: J. W. Lewis & Co., 1889.

Fitchburg Historical Society

Fitchburg Public Library

Fitchburg Sentinel, Friday, March 2, 1945

Kirkpatrick, Doris. The City and the River. Fitchburg, MA: Fitchburg Historical Society, 1971.

http://www.library.ca.gov/goldrush/images/gre01.jpg

http://www.nbmg.unr.edu/comstockscience/home.shtml

The Transcript, Monday, October 8, 1973

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The End of Part 2:

Fitchburg, Massachusetts: Its ties to the

Continental Railroad and the Western Mines

Documents

Fitchburg--Burleigh Rock Drill - Fitchburg State University · “The result of Mr. Burleigh’s study of this difficult problem was the invention by him of the Burleigh Rock-Drill