Post Roads & Iron Horses: Transportation in Connecticut from Colonial Times to the Age of Steam

265 Pages·2011·4.751 MB·English

by  Richard DeLuca

Post Roads & Iron Horses
A Driftless Connecticut Series Book
This book is a 2011 selection in the driftless
connecticut series, for an outstanding book
in any field on a Connecticut topic or written
by a Connecticut author.
Transportation in
Connecticut from
Colonial Times to
the Age of Steam
Richard DeLuca
Post Roads & Iron Horses
wesleyan university press
Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
∫ 2011 Richard DeLuca
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Typeset in Charter and Clarendon by
Keystone Typesetting, Inc.
The Driftless Connecticut Series is funded by the
Beatrice Fox Auerbach Foundation Fund
at the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.
Wesleyan University Press is a member of the
Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this
book meets their minimum requirement for
recycled paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
DeLuca, Richard.
Post roads & iron horses : transportation in
Connecticut from colonial times to the age of steam
/ Richard DeLuca.
p. cm. — (Garnet books) (Driftless Connecticut
series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-8195-6856-4 (cloth : alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-8195-7173-1 (e-book)
1. Transportation—Connecticut—History. I. Title.
II. Title: Post roads and iron horses.
he213.c6d45 2011
388.09746%0903—dc23
2011019301
5 4 3 2 1
For my mother and father
Olympia Nappi DeLuca
Nicola DeLuca

Contents
Preface / ix
Introduction: The Land and Its First Inhabitants / 1
Chapter One: Colonial Connecticut / 16
Chapter Two: Turnpikes and Stagecoaches / 48
Chapter Three: Steamboats and Canals / 79
Chapter Four: The Railroad, Part I / 120
Chapter Five: The Railroad, Part II / 151
Conclusion: A Period of Transition / 187
Appendix A: Population by Geomorphic Region, 1800–1920 / 193
Appendix B: Corporation Charters / 202
Appendix C: Connecticut Rail Lines / 217
Notes / 223
Bibliography / 239
Index / 247
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Preface
S
ituated on the northern shore of Long Island Sound, Connecticut
has always been the gateway to New England, and the land between
the major commercial ports of New York and Boston. This book is
the first to look in detail at the evolution of the transportation systems that
helped to define the history of the state and the region, and to explore how
these technological innovations transformed Connecticut from an agricul-
tural colonial settlement to a nineteenth-century industrial powerhouse.
Evidence of Connecticut’s multimodal transportation past can be found
on road signs around the state: Canal Street in Plainville, Aircraft Road in
Southington, Plank Road in Waterbury, Long Wharf Drive in New Haven,
Railroad Avenue in Cheshire, Toll Gate Road in Berlin, Old Stagecoach Road
in Weston, Trolley Place in Norwalk, and Rope Ferry Street in Niantic. These
names (and dozens more like them) reflect specific moments in a long and
complex history that spans four centuries and includes different modes of
transport. In that time, Connecticut people, including its many inventors,
were active participants in the economic and transportation developments
occurring in New England and the nation. Thus, the story of Connecticut
transportation is central to our understanding of a broader regional and
national history.
Transportation history is defined by three major themes: the land, and
how it is used; the technology of transport and its evolution; and the law,
and how it relates to the financing, construction, and regulation of transpor-
tation improvements. While each chapter in this book stands alone as a
portrait of a particular time or mode of transport, the importance of the
story’s three major themes—land, technology, and law—builds from chapter
to chapter across the centuries through turnpike, steamboat, canal, railroad,
and street railway developments of the nineteenth century to the fall of the
New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad’s transportation monopoly on
the eve of World War I. The result is a story dominated by private enterprise
and the technology of the external combustion steam engine yet complete
with a wide range of human actions and emotions: creativity and competi-
tion, arrogance and greed, errors in judgment and good intentions gone
| ix