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Map. Cincinnati: Klauprech & Menzel, [1850–1859]. Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center.
https://collections.leventhalmap.org/search/commonwealth:cj82kn75h (accessed March 17, 2024).
The Lost Railroad

Joseph D. Fenicle, MS, PS

When the mayor of New York City, in 1810, took a pencil and Pennsylvania and a Railroad running West to Tiffin. They were
drew a proposed canal route on a piece of paper connecting the to be named the Clinton Railroad Company and the Clinton
Hudson River with Lake Erie, everyone thought he was crazy Line Extension Railroad Company, respectively. They were
In fact, Thomas Jefferson already said it was “a little short of incorporated on July 05, 1852, and April 09, 1853. The major
madness.” De Witt Clinton would not back down though and monetary contributors were from Hudson, Ohio and were also
when the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, and he was now unfortunately soon to lose everything thanks to the financial
the Governor of the State of New York, it was everything but a Panic of 1857.
“Folly”. Nicknamed Clinton’s Ditch, the Erie Canal has been
in continuous operation ever since and made New York City
the busiest port in the Country within 15 years of the opening
of the Canal. In fact, it changed the Empire State altogether
as today “nearly 80% of upstate New York’s population lives
within 25 miles of the Erie Canal”. 1

Not long after the canal opened, the beloved son of the
Governor, Colonel De Witt Clinton, Junior, proposed
not a canal, but a railroad. This time however, he placed a
straightedge on the map and drew a straight line and called it
the Clinton Air Line Railroad after his father. De Witt Junior
became an engineer in 1822 and worked for the New York and
Erie Railroad as well as the U.S. Topographical Engineers. A
professor at Western Reserve College, Henry Noble Day was
chosen as President of the operation headquartered in Hudson,
Ohio. The Air Line, by definition, is described as a straight line,
or “Straight as a Plumb Line” as used in an advertisement for
2
the Seaboard Air Line Railway along the East Coast. It went “as
the crow flies” and was to connect the Atlantic Ocean with the
Missouri River. Hudson was a natural railroad hub as the newly
completed Cleveland and Pittsburgh Railroad intersected
the Cleveland, Zanesville and Cincinnati Railroad while the
proposed Hudson and Painesville Railroad was to run North to
Lake Erie. Professor Day proposed a Railroad running East to Clinton Railroad Roman Arch Bridge near downtown Hudson, Ohio.
Photo courtesy of the author.

22 EMPIRE STATE SURVEYOR / VOL. 60 • NO 4 / 2024 • JULY/AUGUST