The Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad (CC&C) was a railroad that ran from Cleveland to Columbus in the U.S. state of Ohio in the United States. Chartered in 1836, it was moribund for the first 10 years of its existence. Its charter was revived and amended in 1845, and construction on the line began in November 1847. Construction was completed and the line opened for regular business in February 1851. The CC&C absorbed a small bankrupt railroad in 1861, and in May 1868 merged with the Bellefontaine Railway to form the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway.
First charter and failure to build Early proposals The first railroad from Lake Erie to Columbus was proposed in 1831. Intended to run from Sandusky on the lake south to Dayton, with a branch to Columbus, no action was taken on this project. On February 8, 1832, the Ohio General Assembly granted a charter to the Columbus, Marion, and Sandusky Railroad. This line was authorized to have its terminus in Columbus and run through the towns of Delaware, Marion, and Upper Sandusky before connecting with the Mad River and Lake Erie Railroad. No construction ever began on this railroad, either.
First charter of the Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad The Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati Railroad (CC&C) was chartered by the state of Ohio on March 14, 1836, and authorized to construct a railroad from Cleveland to Cincinnati, passing through the cities of Columbus and Wilmington. The charter required that construction begin within three years, and that the road be completed no later than 10 years after the start of construction. The incorporators of the new CC&C included John A. Bryan and others from Franklin County, as well as investors from Clark, Clinton, Cuyahoga, Delaware, Greene, Hamilton, Holmes, Knox, Lorain, Madison, Medina, Richland, and Wayne counties, met to plan the railroad. Fundraising failed, no construction occurred, and the charter lapsed.
Revived charter and fund-raising Revival of the charter In 1844, John W. Allen, Philo Scoville, and five other Cleveland business and civic leaders sought to revive the CC&C charter. They succeeded in persuading the Ohio General Assembly to do so on March 12, 1845. The new charter specified that the railroad must construct a line between Cleveland and Columbus, and was permitted (but not required) to build a line from Columbus to Cincinnati. The railroad also had the right to connect to any other railroad in the state.
A group of railroad investors met in Columbus on May 1, 1845, to discuss the organization of the railroad. This group included William Dennison Jr., Lincoln Goodale, and Joseph Ridgway of Franklin County, and Irad Kelley, brother of Alfred Kelley, from Cuyahoga County. A temporary board of directors was elected, which included William Dennison Jr., Truman P. Handy, and Samuel Medary. The board agreed to open the corporate books and begin selling stock on June 3. Shares worth more than $25,000 ($ in dollars) were sold, allowing the company to be organized under the terms of its charter.
The board determined that, with the Columbus and Xenia Railroad soon to begin construction from Columbus to Cincinnati, the CC&C should not attempt to build a line from Cleveland to Cincinnati. Constructing the line from Cleveland only to Columbus was considered more feasible. An early estimate pegged the cost of construction at $1.5 million ($ in dollars).
The first permanent board of directors of the CC&C was elected on October 11, 1845. The board consisted of Samuel Medary, Robert E. Neil, William Neil, and William Starling Sullivant of Columbus and John W. Allen, Richard Hilliard, Henry B. Payne, Peter M. Waddell, and John M. Woolsey of Cleveland. Allen was elected president by the board, and William Neil the treasurer. Albert G. Lawrence, a non-board member, was elected secretary. Clevelanders predominated on the board because it was assumed that construction would begin in that city. The remainder of the board was from Columbus. By not picking board members from points between the two cities, the board hoped to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest in choosing the route.
Survey and failure to raise funds A survey party began examining possible routes for the railroad at the end of October 1845, and by November 15 a second survey group was in the field as well. The board of directors settled on a route in August 1846, although it admitted that there were no funds to begin construction. President Allen then claimed in November 1846 that the company not only had enough money to begin construction on the first of track but that work would also begin on December 1, 1846.
The CC&C attempted to sell stock to raise the necessary funds to begin construction. Shares worth $50,000 ($ in dollars) were sold by January 1847, far below expectations. The officers of the railroad told the board on April 3 that they could not raise funds anywhere in the state. The company resurveyed and restudied the proposed route with an eye toward cutting costs. The CC&C had so little funds on hand that by April 15 it was $3,913 ($ in dollars) in debt. The railroad and its backers publicly admitted the project was likely dead. The city of Cleveland donated $200,000 ($ in dollars) worth of city bonds to the railroad in April 1847 to help save it, but the company found that market conditions were so poor the bonds could not be sold. The board put any further expenditures on indefinite hold in May.
Appointment of Alfred Kelley
Financier Edmund Dwight, representing the wealthy Dwight family of Massachusetts and New York, visited the city in August 1847. The Dwights and Kelleys had invested in a bank in Cleveland, and the Dwights were strongly interested in Ohio railroads. Edmund Dwight told the board that improved investor confidence was needed to raise funds, and this required that the board seek a new leader who could ensure the efficient and timely construction of a well-built railroad. Allen resigned the presidency, and the board elected Alfred Kelley and Leonard Case Jr. to the board of directors. Kelley was appointed president on August 13. Kelly was well known throughout the state as the "father of the Ohio and Erie Canal", and was one of the most dominant commercial, financial, and political people in Ohio in the first half of the 1800s. He was also one of the ablest bankers and financiers in the state.
Kelley immediately began speaking with his colleagues in the banking and finance fields, and by early September 1847 indicated to the board that a favorable response had been found among investors in New York City. Kelley ordered of the line, beginning at Cleveland, to begin construction as a test of new construction methods and railroad technology. To ensure that the new charter did not lapse, on September 30, 1847, Kelley and other members of the board of directors went to Cleveland's Scranton Flats and ceremoniously filled a wheelbarrow with earth to symbolize the start of construction. The company hired an old man to work five days a week, continuously digging this trench, in order to prove to the state that construction was "ongoing". The railroad announced in late November 1847 that of line from Cleveland to Berea would be built. This contract was let to J.A. Ackley and Leander Ransom on December 1, although it is unclear how much (if any) of this track was constructed.
Kelley also began to raise substantial funds. He began his tenure as president by urging the board of directors (composed of wealthy Ohioans) to show faith in the business by purchasing company bonds. By September 15, 1847, the board had invested $100,000 ($ in dollars) in the CC&C. Board member Leonard Case later invested an additional $500,000 ($ in dollars). Kelley was a former resident of Cleveland, and promoted the railroad heavily in that city. By April 15, 1848, investors in Cleveland had purchased $100,000 ($ in dollars) in company bonds, with pledges to purchase another $100,000 when the company asked. Kelley delivered a rousing one-hour speech in Cleveland in early August 1848, after which another $73,000 ($ in dollars) in stock was sold.
Construction of the line Resurvey and construction report Kelley, who had extensive experience with route surveying and knew the topography of the state extremely well, ordered the routes resurveyed again, a process which began in October 1847 and ended about the end of January 1848. Engineers Frederick Harbach and John Childe issued a new report to the board of directors on August 19, 1848. They confirmed that the two most-favored routes in 1846 were still the best, although several changes were identified which greatly improved them both. The engineers' preferred route (known as the Western Route), began in Cleveland and was long, with a ruling gradient of just 0.28 percent. The proposed temporary southern terminus of the line would be in Columbus, where the CC&C would connect with the Columbus & Xenia Railroad.
The estimated cost of construction and equipment was $2.567 million ($ in dollars). These costs included the construction of 13 fuel-and-water way stations, the construction of a passenger and freight depot in Cleveland, the construction of a roundhouse with locomotive and rolling stock repair shops in Cleveland, the construction of a roundhouse in Columbus, and enough equipment to run two passenger trains and one to three freight trains a day between Cleveland and Columbus. The track gauge was set to .
Beginning of construction On September 29, 1848, the railroad announced that it would build the line as a single project. This was different from the approach most railroads took at the time. It was more common for a company to raise only enough funds to construct one segment of the road, and then open operations on that segment before beginning the fundraising needed to work on the next segment. Sometimes years could pass between the construction of segments. The CC&C, however, decided to grade, construct the track bed, and lay rail over the entire length of the line in one intense burst of activity. The contract for construction was awarded to the firm of Stone, Harbach, and Witt on November 1. Harbach was one of the two engineers who had resurveyed the line in late 1847 and early 1848. Amasa Stone had worked with Harbach and another railroad engineer, Stillman Witt, while building railroad bridges in New England. Kelley knew Stone well from his visits selling bonds back east. Kelley reached out to Stone, Harbach, and Witt, and asked them to build the railroad. Stone, Harbach, and Witt formed a company in late 1848 to do so, and agreed to take a portion of their pay in the form of railroad stock.
Kelley personally traveled to the United Kingdom in 1848 where he contracted with Sir John Guest & Co. of Wales for T rails weighing . The of rail purchased was sufficient to lay half the road. By the end of March 1849, the company had also signed contracts to purchase locomotives and rolling stock.
By the middle of May 1849, more than 1,000 men were at work grading the CC&C line and rail for the track had arrived in Quebec from the United Kingdom, awaiting shipment across Lake Erie to Cleveland. The city of Cleveland purchased $200,000 in railroad stock on May 27, 1849. Work was progressing so swiftly that railroad officials told the press in early June that as much as of the line might be operation by January 1, 1850. The rails did not arrive in Cleveland until July 1849, however, and this significantly delayed completion of the first portion of track.