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Show Was First Railway Consolidator & Dean Richmond, Now Almost Forgotten, Forgot-ten, Was the Founder and Flrrt President of the New York Central System. v "1 suppose that most Americans who know anything at all about the matter believe that Commodore Van-derbilt Van-derbilt was the father of modern railway consolidation, but my opinion is that that honor belongs not to the founder of the Vanderbilt fortune and the great Vanderbilt railway system, but to Dean Richmond, a man whose name, even, is now practically forgotten for-gotten except by a few of us old-timers." old-timers." So said, a few years before his death, which occurred in 1901, Commodore Com-modore Alfred Van Santvoord, th-e organizer and at the time of bis death the owner of the largest steamboat steam-boat line plying upon the Hudson river. In the course of his long ca- reer as president and director of important im-portant steamboat lines, Commodore Van Santvoord, whose father had large interests in the Erie canal boats from 1830, five years after the canal was completed, to about the beginning of the Civil war, was thrown into intimate personal relations rela-tions with both Commodore Vander-blle Vander-blle and Dean Richmond, who was, from the early forties until his death in 1S66, the most prominent business man in western New York, and for the better part of that period the most Influential Democrat in New York state from the party organization organiza-tion point of view. "Dean Richmond gained a fortune in business in Buffalo in the early days of the Erie canal," continued Commodore Van Santvoord. "He dealt in western produce and shipped it to the east by the Erie canal. While he was making himself the greatest produce merchant of western west-ern New YoBk different companies were busy building railroads across the state from Albany to Buffalo. There were seven In all. You had to change cars five times in going from Albany to Buffalo. "One day, while Dean Richmond was riding upon an Erie canal boat from Batavla to Syracuse, the thought suddenly occurred to him that the Erie canal boats were towed directly from Buffalo to New York city or Albany; whereas, the seven railroads which paralleled the canal did not offer continuous passage either eith-er for passengers or freight. 'That is a bad situation for the railroads,' said Dean Richmond to himself. 'Why not overcome It by stringing these railroads together? Why not join them and make one line out of them.' Then we can run passenger cars through from Albany to Buffalo, and greatly shorten the time and inconvenience incon-venience of the trip. We ought also to be able to run freight cars through. If we can do that, then we can compete with the canals.' "As soon as Richmond reached Syracuse, he set about the work of consolidation. He secured control of the stock in the various railroads and then went to Albany and easily got the consent of the legislature to make one system out of seven. When he did that he was made, in 1853, vice-president vice-president of the line, which he called the New York Central railroad, and later became president. He died about two years before Commodore Vanderbilt undertook the greater consolidation which was the basis of the Vanderbilt system. I have always felt certain that it was from Dean Richmond that Commodore Vanderbilt Vander-bilt got the hint for his great consolidation, con-solidation, which resulted in the Vanderbilt Van-derbilt Bystem, and I have often wondered won-dered whether, had Dean Richmond lived, Commodore Vanderbilt would have secured control of the New York Central railroad. I confess that . I can't decide that question. I know, however, that Dean Richmond, in consolidating con-solidating those seven railways that ultimately became so important a part of Commodore Vanderbilt's system, sys-tem, took the first step in those colossal colos-sal railway consolidations which were made after his death." (Copyright, 1911, by E. J. Edwards. ' |