ALL...ABOARD! Railroad Workers

Railroad Workers: Who Built Hopkinton's Railroads?

Here’s an interesting piece of Contoocook history. Where Mr. Mike’s gas station is now located, once stood a boarding house, called Old Central House. It would later be moved across the street, and for many years would be the Grange Hall and later the Boys & Girls Club. But when it was a boarding house, right across from the train station, there resided a group of Irishmen, who helped build Contoocook’s railroads.

 Notes from Contoocook Grange (Hopkinton Historical Society 2014.17.24): “The home of Mrs. Edith Krzyzaniak and our grange hall was situated in Contoocook Square where the Esso station and Johnson Insurance Stands. It was built in 1831 and owned by Nathaniel G. H. Morrill. It was called Old Central House. A family of Blodgett and Walcott ran the Central House …. Young Irish men from Ireland boarded there and were Railroad laborers.”

In 1850, the census shows that the band of young Irish men were doing the same work on the Railroad in Bradford, also staying at a boarding house by the railroad. We presume that it was the same group of Irish laborers, following the work further down the line. Several people suggest that many young Irish men came to New Hampshire (and elsewhere) in the late 1840s due to the potato famine in Ireland. Many served as laborers on New Hampshire’s railroads.

Railroad Workers: Snapshot from the 1910 Census

The 1910 census Hopkinton census included nine men that listed their employment as working in some capacity for the railroad. Below is a list of the men, their job titles, and a description of the jobs.

• Laborer: George Sweatt (1850-1927), the laborer, could have been a general laborer in one or more departments, possibly "Bridge and Buildings,” where he might have been an apprentice or just "muscle" at the bottom of the pay scale.
• Section Hands: George W. Bailey (1872-1948), James W. Ripley (1849-1930), Fred True (1866-1935), and Benjamin H. Bartlett (1888-1960) were responsible for the care of the track and right-of-way for a section of the railroad, usually from two to eight miles. 
• Fireman: Bert Geer (1888-1976) was most likely a locomotive fireman, subordinate to the engineer on a locomotive and responsible for care of the boiler, maintaining boiler pressure (essential to getting the required amount of power from it), and general assistance in operating the locomotive. He kept it fed with coal fuel and filled with the proper amount of water from the "tender" (the small car behind the locomotive). He would have been responsible for filling the tender with fuel and water when necessary.
• Station Agent & Telegraph Operator: The roles of Forrest Gillingham (1874-1953) and Ernest McLam (1877-1952) were somewhat interchangeable. Operators were essentially for control of traffic (telegraphy and signaling) under the direction of the dispatcher, whereas agents may have those duties and also station duties such as ticket sales, processing of packages and local freight shipments, mail handling, etc.
• Section Foreman: Edward Sweatt (1866-1935) would have been the boss of a section gang.

Railroad Workers: Labor Relations

Railroad labor relations were not always smooth, as evidenced by the 1869 lawsuit of directors vs. conductors.

A set of rarely-used books on the Hopkinton Historical Society’s bookshelf consists of Railroad Reports of the 1870s through 1880s. One book on that shelf caught our attention, titled, “Concord Railroad Co. Vs. Geo. Clough and Trustees.” We were wondering what we could learn about life during the railroad era, who was George Clough, why was there a lawsuit, and why was the book on the Society’s shelf?

Here’s what we learned. George Clough (1817-1895; son of Rachel Clifford & Isiah Clough; husband of Eliza Hardy) was a Railroad conductor, living in Concord, NH, at the time of the 1869 lawsuit where the Board of Directors of Concord Railroad accused him and all the conductors of stealing money from passenger train fares; all of the conductors were summarily fired.  The case was tried by John Hatch George (of Concord and Hopkinton; he served on the Board of Directors of Contoocook Valley Railroad, and was attorney for Concord Railroad). A hand-written opinion found in the book reads, “Interesting insight into management operations; the [RR] Line, to cover poor management, fired all the conductors over an illegal ticket transaction which had been authorized by the line superintendent, General B. F. Butler; some of his former officers of the Army of the James were the detectives.” The copy of the book at Hopkinton Historical Society reads, “Compliments of George Clough,” who self-published the entire legal record in order to shed light on the tense relationship between directors and conductors. 

Forrest Gillingham, Station Agent

Forrest Gillingham (1874-1953) served as Station Agent at the Contoocook Depot for many years. He is listed as such in the 1910 census; the Society has images of him wearing a Station Agent’s hat in front of the Depot circa 1930; and Ken Smart remembers Mr. Gillingham as the Station Master while he worked for the railroad from 1947-1952.

Station Agents are typically the person in charge of a railway station. Duties might vary from station to station, but generally were responsible for control of traffic (telegraphy and signaling) under the direction of the dispatcher. Their station duties included ticket sales, processing of packages and local freight shipments, mail handling, etc. 

Railroad Worker: Ken Smart

I spent many hours at the Depot working for Forrest Gillingham, the station agent at that time. The timeframe would have been starting about 1947 until June 1952. Those were my Junior and Senior High School years.

I met four trains a day, six days a week as usually we had Sunday’s off because the mail did not run on Sunday. 

The duties were many but probably the most important was to insure the mail got from the Post Office to the train and back again. Luckily we did not have far to go as the Post office was located where Kerry’s Carpets [190 Pine St, Contoocook, NH] is today. I wonder what became of that three wheel push cart you can see me with in the attached picture?

As I remember the schedule, the first train of the day was around 8:00 am from Claremont and returned at 10:30 am from Concord. I would get out of school to meet the train thanks in part to Bill and Doris Milne, two of the teachers at that time. 

The afternoon schedule was 5:00 pm from Claremont and return from Concord around 7:00.

The job of keeping the old coal fired furnace running and the ashes removed was not a lot of fun nor was mopping the hardwood floors that were badly worn in places. But the overall job was a good experience for a teenager at that time even though it required taking a lot of teasing about it from my peers.

I never got to really operate the telegraph key as the speed of the operators on the line was faster than I could keep up with. Mr. Gillingham was quite proficient with the key as that was the main means of communication between train stations at that time.

Portion of a letter written by Ken Smart to the Contoocook Riverway Association during the restoration of the Contoocook Depot

Chandler, William Eaton. New Hampshire a Slave State: Senator Chandler's Series of Papers Commonly Known as the Book of Bargains. 1891.

Concord Railroad Corporation vs. George Clough and Trustees. Concord, NH. The People Steam Press, 1869.

Contoocook Railroad Museum. Accessed May 15th 2020. https://www.contoocookdepot.org/.

Hopkinton Historical Society. A Walk Through Two Villages Contoocook and Hopkinton. Hopkinton, NH. Hopkinton Historical Society, 2009.

Lord, C.C. . Life and Times in Hopkinton, N.H.. Concord, NH. Republican Press Association, 1890.

Mead, Edgar T.. Through Covered Bridges to Concord. Brattleboro, VT. Stephen Greene Press, 1970.

New Hampshire Antiquarian Society. Life and Times in Hopkinton 1735-1970. Hopkinton, NH. New Hampshire Antiquarian Society, 1989.

New Hampshire Antiquarian Society. Hopkinton New Hampshire 1765-1965. Hopkinton, NH. New Hampshire Antiquarian Society, 1965.

New Hampshire Railroad Commissioners Report. Concord, NH. Parsons B. Cogswell, 1885.

New Hampshire SP Contoocook Railroad Depot, Accessed June 17th 2020. https://catalog.archives.gov/id/77845393.

Tyler, Mala Duclos. Hopkinton and Contoocook. Charleston, SC. Arcadia Publishing, 2012.

Wallace, R. Stuart. Mausolf, Lisa B.. New Hampshire Railroads: Historic Context Statement. Concord, NH. New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources, 1999.