- 1. George H. Burgess & Miles C. Kennedy, Centennial History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, 1846-1946., 1949, p. 9
- 2. Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, Pennsylvania State Archives. RG-17-Records of the Land Office Series 452: Records of the Board of Canal Commissioners.
- 3. “The survey was commenced in the month of June (1827) at Valley Forge on the Schuylkill river, about twenty-four miles above Philadelphia, and continued westward along the Great Valley of Chester county ... The country through which we passed was one of the finest agricultural regions in the United States, thickly settled with an intelligent population, and picturesque in its features ... The route left the valley after having followed it for a considerable distance, and ascended to the summit of the Mine Ridge dividing the Chester and Conestoga valleys, at a point known as the Gap, where a halt was made for the purpose of summing up the results of the survey so far. On account of the scarcity of water and other good reasons, the Chief Engineer decided against the adoption of a canal, and made report to that effect to the Board of Canal Commissioners.” William Hasell Wilson (Maj. Wilson’s son), The Columbia-Philadelphia Railroad and its Successor, 1896, p. 8-9.
- 4. Burgess & Kennedy, p. 10
- 5. Stockton and Darlington Railway, Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History,
- 6. The railroad was officially designated “The Philadelphia & Columbia Division of the Pennsylvania Railroad,” but during the early years it was usually referred to as the Columbia & Philadelphia or, more commonly, just the Columbia Railroad. After 1842 the name seems to be commonly altered to the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad. David W. Messer, Triumph II: Philadelphia to Harrisburg, 1828-1998; 1999, p. 13
- 7. The western terminus of this first eastern segment of the C&P from Philadelphia was the Green Tree Hotel at Intersection, where the line connected with the privately-owned West Chester Railroad in November 1832. The WCRR led south to the county seat of Chester County on a single, nine-mile track, and by May 1833 was able to send rail cars non-stop from West Chester to the Belmont Plane by way of Intersection.
James Jones, Railroads of West Chester: 1831 to the present. (2006), p. 15.
- 8. Messer, Triumph II, p. 15.
- 9. It would take almost 50 years to set this short-sighted decision right. Wilson, p. 67
- 10. The Canal Commissioners had gone out of their way to pronounce their unquestioning belief that canals were the superior means of transportation. In fact, so strong was the Commissioners’ bias that in their annual report of December, 1831, they stated emphatically: “... the Board believe that notwithstanding all improvements which have been made in railroads and locomotives, it will be found that canals are from two to two and a half times better than railroads for the purposes required of them by Pennsylvania.” Hubertis Cummings, Some Notes on the State-Owned Columbia and Philadelphia Railroad, Pennsylvania History, Volume XVII, No. 1, 1950 p. 48
- 11. Each locomotive, Lancaster and Columbia, weighed eight tons, and was capable of hauling thirty tons of freight. Each was surprising reliable, and were configured to take the many sharp curves of the new track system with ease.
- 12. The original 36-mile Portage Railroad utilized five separate inclined planes on either side of the mountain spine to ascend or descend, each separated by “level” stretches of various lengths.
- 13. Charles Frederick Carter, When Railroads Were New, 1909, p. 138.
- 14. Burgess & Kennedy, p. 246-7. The Tee rail was invented in the 1830s by Robert L. Stevens, president of New Jersey”s Camden and Amboy Railroad.
- 15. Carter, p. 127.
- 16. Built in 1834, the bridge was a seven-span, 1040-foot enclosed wooden truss on masonry piers, the first railroad bridge of its size built in the United States.
- 17. James Jones, Railroads of West Chester: 1831 to the present. (2006), p. 17-18.
- 18. One of these alternative routes would have run a line through the Great Chester Valley to Downingtown (on a route later to be constructed as the Reading’s Chester Valley Railroad in 1853).
- 19. Messer, Triumph II, p. 21. This realignment allowed P&C traffic to pass directly into downtown Philadelphia by way of the City’s street railroad. The 1850 alignment remains in use today as the four track “Keystone Corridor,” and roughly aligns with Lancaster Avenue.
- 20. Turnouts (or switches) are sections of track that allow trains to travel from one line of track to another.
- 21. Wilson, p. 39
- 22. Carter, p. 123-4.
- 23. Henry Varnum Poor, History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States of America, 1970, p. 367
- 24. It must be understood that the worst handicap for through-service on the Main Line of Public Works was, ironically, the fragility of the canals themselves. They froze over and became unusable during the winter months. High waters predictably damaged them during every spring thaw. And during the hot summer months, low water within the canal frequently interrupted operations as heavily-laden barges ran aground.
- 25. Carter Goodrich, Government Promotion of American Canals and Railroads, 1800-1890, 1974, p. 67.
- 26. Burgess & Kennedy, p. 25.
- 27. Within a decade after the opening of the Main Line of Public Works in 1834, the Commonwealth had realized that their once-innovative Allegheny Portage Railroad across the mountains was increasing obsolete and even dangerous, and began to investigate a more technically advanced alternative. Thus the State created the New Portage Railroad opened on July 1, 1855, built to avoid the inclined planes of the original Portage Railroad. From that date the Old Portage Railroad ceased to exist. Two years later, on June 25, 1857, the Pennsylvania Railroad purchased the entire Main Line of Public Works, including the new Portage line. Four months after, on November 1, 1857, the New Portage Railroad was declared “abandoned,” and all railroad traffic was rerouted across the Horseshoe Curve. Christopher T. Baer, A General Chronology of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, its Predecessors and Successors, and its Historical Context (1857)." June 2015 edition.
- 28. George W. Hilton, A history of track gauge: How 4 feet, 8-1/2 inches became the standard, TRAINS, May 1, 2006
- 29. Goodrich, p. 68.
- 30. Messer, Triumph II, p. 23. The Canal Commission was dissolved in 1859. The canals were retained for some years, carrying coal and lumber traffic. The Western Division canal was abandoned in 1863-5, and the Eastern and Juniata Division canals were sold in January 1867 to the Pennsylvania Canal Company.
- 31. Goodrich, p. 69.
- 32. Carter, p. 147.
- 33. Burgess & Kennedy, p. 293.
- 34. Messer, Triumph III, p. 176.
- 35. Messer, Triumph III, p. 163
- 36. Local Titles in Easttown and Tredyffrin, TEHS Quarterly, vol 1, #3 (April 1938)
- 37.
- 38.
- 39.
- 40.
- 41. Quoted in Berwyn Village walk – 1999, by Jack Ansley and Herb Fry, TEHS Quarterly, vol. 37, #4 (October 1999).
- 42. History of the Church of the Good Samaritan, Paoli by Phoebe Prime, TEHS Quarterly, vol. 9, #3 (1957)]
- 43. The Columbia-Philadelphia Railroad and its successor by William Hasell Wilson, 1896.
- 44. Abstracted from The Wayside Inns on the Lancaster Roadside between Philadelphia and Lancaster, by Julius Sachse, Second edition, 1912. The section on the Paoli Inn was written in 1886.
- 45. Daily Local News, 1928.
- 46. PRR CHRONOLOGY 1877 June 2006 Edition, Hagley Museum
- 47. Chester County deed L9-401 (1881)
- 48. Chester County deed U9-82 (1882)
- 49. Chester County deed H3-64 (1813)
- 50. Chester County deeds L4-183, L4-184 (1835)
- 51. Mifflin Lewis seems to have bequeathed his property to his eldest son, George Lewis. In 1859 George assigned the property (Chester County deed U6-119) to his brother, Harrison Lewis (1/4 share), and to his sisters Hannah Maria Rush (1/2 share), and Helen Louisa Lewis (1/4 share). Subsequently, in 1867, Harrison Lewis assigned his share to his mother Eliza Lewis (Chester County deed C7-247). Breou’s 1883 atlas shows the property under the name of Mrs Rush.
- 52. The Village Record of May 27, 1851
- 53. The November 5, 1870 edition of the Jeffersonian newspaper.
- 54. Letter from Utley Wedge to Dr. A.W. Waugh, October 20, 1930, Tredyffrin Easttown Historical Society Archives
- 55. Maintenance of Way Report; Thirty-Sixth Annual Report, Pennsylvania Railroad Company, January 1, 1883.
- 56. Chronicling America (https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov)
- 57. Daily Local News, August 10, 1883
- 58. Lancaster Daily Intelligencer, August 27, 1883
- 59. Maintenance of Way Report; Thirty-Seventh Annual Report, Pennsylvania Railroad Company, January 1, 1884.
- 60. Daily Local News, January 23, 1884
- 61. Chester County deed Z9-28 (1885)
- 62. Greg Pritchard, Master’s Thesis, ‘The Stations of the Philadelphia Mainline’, Cornell University.
- 63. A History of Devon by Herb Fry, TEHS Quarterly, vol. 41, # 1 (Winter 2004)
- 64. The Berwyn Railroad Station by Bob Goshorn, TEHS Quarterly, vol. 27, #1 (January 1989)
- 65. 1989 Manuscript by Herb Fry.
- 66. Some Observations on the Strafford Railroad Station by Bob Goshorn, TEHS Quarterly, vol. 25, #3 (July 1987).
- 67. Court of Common Pleas, Case #709 (1880).
- 68. Greg Pritchard
- 69. Chester County Historical Society
- 70.
Acres of Quakers: An Architectural & Cultural History of Willistown Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania, from First Settlement Through 1900, Willistown Township Historical Commission, 2006.
- 71. Jones, J. (2006). Railroads of West Chester: 1831 to the present. , 1-147. Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.wcupa.edu/hist_facpub/9.
- 72. ‘Historic Philadelphia-Pittsburgh Route’ by Robert Bruce, Motor Travel magazine, vol. 9, 1917-8. Found at Babel.hathitrust search
- 73. PRR CHRONOLOGY 1939 June 2006 Edition, Hagley Museum
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