Once he had gotten final approval, Mr. Clergue began work on the railroad on Feb. 19, 1883. He began placing ads like the one below in the local papers in search of men and materials.
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| AD FOR RAILWAY WORKERS |
Local businessman Richard Hamor won the bid for clearing the area where the train tracks would be laid. As the Hamors cleared the way for the tracks, they also over saw the delivery of materials to the site as well, and a hotel began to be built on the summit of Green Mountain of stone and wood.. Meanwhile, as work progressed, the St. Sauveur Hotel was chosen as the site where the engineers and contractors met on a regular basis.
As winter set in, on Feb. 19, it is said crews began clearing a 100 foot wide strip of land up the mountain side, the work days were long, 12 hour shifts, with workers making only $1.50 per day. A place was needed to house all the workers and temporary housing was constructed along the shore of Eagle Lake, a large boarding house operated by Samuel E. Head. Many of the published articles on the Green Mountain Railroad fail to make mention of this large boarding house, and once the railroad was complete the boarding house was torn down.
A few months into the work, the workers tried to organize a strike, demanding higher wages, but Mr. Clergue would have no of it, and work soon continued on.
If you ever walked the route as I have done many times over the years, you will find that much of the route passed over open granite, which meant little blasting had to be done. In a few places, due to slight ravines, granite crib work had to be done, and to this day that granite crib work stands as solid as it did when it was put in and is one of the major features one finds as one hikes along the route - see photos of this stone crib work below.
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| GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILWAY CRIB WORK |
It is written that up to 15 oxen were used to haul cut lumber from near the summit to areas where it needed to be used. As soon as a section of granite was cleared, workers moved in and drilled six inch holes into the granite where one inch thick iron bolts were inserted leaving iron rods of eight to twelve inches sticking up out of the granite all along the route. (see photos below)
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| GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILWAY SPIKES |
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| IRON SPIKES MARK THE TRAIN ROUTE GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILWAY |
These rods were used to hold in place logs, and upon the logs crews positioned stringers parallel with the tracks and fastened them into place. The cog rails used were assembled at the Atlantic Works in East Boston, the same place that years earlier had made the rails for the Mount Washington Railway.
It is said that actual rail laying began around the first of May and over the next seven weeks work progressed rapidly, with the locomotive and work cars being used to ferry materials further along the tracks. A.S. Randall was hired to operate the locomotive, he had worked for the Mount Washington Rail rail for eleven years bore that. One of his jobs was operating the engine, another was to teach others how to operate it.
By June about half the track was laid in place and by mid June the final rail was hammered into place.
Clergue ordered a ten ton locomotive along with a passenger car and work cars from the Manchester Locomotive works, the same company that made the locomotives for the Mount Washington Railroad. The plan was simple, the ten ton locomotive would be placed on the steamship City of Richmound, but it soon became clear that the steamship could not handle the job and the schooner Stella Lee was hired to haul the heavy locomotive to Bar Harbor. It arrived at Hamor's wharf on April 18, and a team of 14 horses where brought in to move the 10 ton locomotive along skids, slowly moving up West Street, than turning onto Bridge Street and moving to the intersection of Bridge Street and Cottage street where work was halted as a quicker method of moving the locomotive along was explored. It was decided to replace the runners with wheels to speed progress up and two oxen were brought in and added to the 14 horses, but enve than progress was slow and the train moved less than a mile a day. It finally arrived at the shore of Eagle Lake Saturday, April 21. Hamor and sons purchased a large scow and brought that out to the lake as well, and was used to ferry workers, tools and equipment across the lake.
the lake was still frozen over so a crew set about cutting up sections of ice and clearing a channel across the lake, and on May 3, it was reported that the locomotive and work car, carried across on a barge, had made it across the lake to the site of the train station. The locomotive was named Mount Desert, and like the locomotives at Mount Washington, it burned wood which generated steam to power the locomotive. The passenger car was unique in that unlike the Mount Washington passenger cars, the Green Mountain one had opened sides and featured eight wooden benches. Should it happen to rain, rolled up canvas curtains were unrolled along the sides of the passenger car to protect passengers from rain or heavy wind. Besides the locomotive having a braking system, the passenger car also had its own braking system should anything go wrong. Unlike the Mount Washington Railway, the Green Mountain Railroad could run its locomotive the entire route without having to stop to take on water.
Frank Clergue had worked out the details for his railroad venture down to the last detail. Signs were placed around town at various hotels and boarding places advertising the Railroad and carriages made timely stops at each place to pick up any potential passengers. Large "Barges" - extra long horse drawn carriages were than used to ferry passengers out to the shore of Eagle lake. Once there, passengers would board the steam ship Wauwinet to transport passengers across the lake to the train station on the far shore. While the locomotive Mount Desert weighted 10 tons, the flat bottomed Wauwinet weighted more than 11 tons and proved to be even more of a challenge to get it out to the lake than the locomotive had been, and for a time it rested by Hamor's wharf while they sought a plan for getting it out to Eagle lake. On May 24 it arrived at the north shore of Eagle Lake.
At the newly constructed hotel on the summit of Green Mountain, its large dining room could seat 125 paying guests. The hotel also featured two parlors. The second story of the hotel had 16 sleeping rooms and the third story contained 10 more sleeping rooms. On top of the hotel was a glassed in observation tower. At one time a total of three observation towers were constructed on Green Mountain, one at the hotel, and one on each of the two nearby peaks not far from the summit, each observation tower had a stairway leading up to it, was glassed in, and featured powerful telescopes for viewing the night sky. June 30 was the day the railroad company began taking on regular customers, with the very first ticket being sold to M.W. Belshaw of San Francisco, Cal., him being the first person a ticket was sold to is recorded in the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier, July 11, 1883 edition. A two way ticket sold for $2.50.
At its peak two locomotives were used
Frank Clergue had much bigger plans for his railroad, he wanted to run the tracks from the shore of Eagle lake right into downtown Bar harbor, but citizens organized aginst his plan. In the end, Clergue got permission to extend the tracks further toward town but never followed through, mainly because so many in town were against his plan. There was a number of reasons people in Bar harbor did not want the train coming into the downtown area, many feared sparks from the train would set off fires in and around town, while others voiced concerns for the public's safety with a train that would cross public roads, pedestrianizes or cars could be hit by the moving train. Another concern was with all the noise a moving train would add to the traffic in town, it seemed very few people wanted the tracks extended into town.
Things seemed to be going pretty good for the railroad company until disaster struck, on August 2, 1884, in the evening hours fire broke out at the hotel on the summit of Green Mountain, burning the hotel to the ground. Before the ashes of the burned down hotel could even cool plans were already being drawn up to construct another hotel on the summit, and on August 5 work was begun on the new hotel, and by August 15 the rapidly constructed hotel was open for business.
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| GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILWAY TRACKS AND STATION |
In late 1887 competition arrived at the mountain when Elihu and Ralph Hamor along with John J. Carr organized the Green Mountain Carriage Road Company. In three weeks the old survey road up Green Mountain was replaced with a new road which followed a new route up the mountain side, branching off of the old survey road at one point and making its way up the mountain side quicker with more wide open views along the way. The railroad company was not happy and erected a gate across the new road, which remained up for about a day before the carriage road company tore it down. On July 23, a group of six men crossed Eagle Lake in darkness and boarded the train, taking it to the summit of Green Mountain, where they gathered supplies and slowly began walking down the new carriage road, digging and planting explosives as they went. A good section of the new carriage road was blown away that night by people from the Railroad company, but the carriage road did not stay closed for long. Repairs were quickly made and tempers flared with people for the carriage road company wanting to do damage back, maybe even blow up a section of the railroad tracks, but that never happened and the feud died as quickly as it started.
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| AD FOR GREEN MOUNTAIN CARRIAGE ROAD COMPANY |
In part, the railroad company was faced with an even bigger threat, a decline in arnings for two years straight, from 1888 - 1889, and in 1890 they became so desperate they lowered the fare from $2.50 to $1, business picked back up but with less money coming in the railroad company continued to slide further and further into debt. On July 30, 1891 a short article in the Bar Harbor Record spelled out the end of the line for the Graan Mountain Railroad Company.
On Jan. 17, 1893 the Hancock sheriff's department conducted a sale of all of the railroad company property, interestingly, one of the passenger cars was purchased by a local artist who moved it to main Street and converted it into an art studio.
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| NEWSPAPER CLIPPING OF THE FIRST TICKET SOLD |
Sadly, there was no interest in anyone purchasing either of the two locomotives and they were left to set not far from the shore of Eagle lake. But a few months later, in May of 1893, fire broke out at the Mount Washington Railway Station in N.H. and two of their seven locomotives were destroyed. Word soon reached the Mount Washington Railroad company about the two locomotives that sat at the base of Green Mountain and the two locomotives were purchased and moved to Mount Washington where they both saw service for a number of years.
The carriage road company also went out of business, but for a few years after, the hotel at the summit of Green Mountain remained open, but never again would it be the attraction it once was. In fact, rumors continued to swirl of illegal goings on, in part major violations of the prohitition law, and on August 21, 1895 Hancock County Sheriff along with Bar harbor police officers raided the hotel and seized a large amount of illegal liquor, arresting the proprietor and shutting the place down. It would never reopen. In the summer of 1896 what wood could be salvaged was, with the rest set on fire. By the end of 1896 most of the remaining tracks were removed and hauled off to be recycled, but despite such reports, not all was hauled off. One section of rail still remains on the mountain side, about two thirds of the way up the mountain, see photo below.
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| GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILWAY - LAST REMAINING SECTION OF RAIL |
Also many of the iron railroad rods still rise upward out of the granite all along the route, an effort was made to remove them, but it soon became evident they were too embedded into the granite and left in place. The few that were removed remained behind as well, in small piles here and there, rusting away.
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| PILE OF RUSTING RAILROAD SPIKES GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILWAY - ACADIA NATIONAL PARK |
I have spent a number of years researching and visiting the site and to this day the route the train once took can be followed fairly easily, starting at a pullover, with trail phantoms erecting small rock piles here and there to assist any would be hikers. This has been going on ever since the railroad company went out of business.
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| GREEN MOUNTAIN RAILWAY COMPANY BANKRUPT |
It would be a few years later before I discovered the route the train took from that pull over on down to the shore of Eagle Lake, at one point the tracks crossed a brook where a small water fall can be found, before making its way to the shore. A wooden bridge crosses the brook in that area along the Eagle Lake Carriage road, and the train station and its other buildings once stood near a slender piece of land that stretches out onto the lake not far from the brook.
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| SMALL WATERFALL WHERE TRACKS CROSSED BROOK |
LOCOMOTIVE ON THE MOVE
Bar Harbor Times
April 25, 1946
The job of conveying the locomotive from Hamor's Wharf to the foot of the Green Mountain Railway was undertaken yesterday. The locomotive, which arrived on the schooner Stella Lee, is a weighty affair (the boiler and fire box weigh about five tons) and it took a team of 14 horses to start it up the avenue. After getting it up between West and Cottage Streets it was decided to substitute wheels for "shoes" so operations came to a standstill, and were resumed today.
During its operation, not only did the Railroad Company apply to extend the tracks from the base of Green Mountain down into the Village of Bar Harbor, plans were being laid on paper to extend those tracks off in different directions, with cog trains traveling up to the summits of several mountain tops, and those plans might of seen the light of day had the company not gone out of business. Below is a piece from an old newspaper concerning extending the tracks into Bar Harbor.
I had read that after the Green Mountain Railway Company went out of business, everything was put up for auction, and during that auction a Bar Harbor artist purchased one of the passenger cars. He had the passenger car hauled to Main Street in Bar Harbor where the seats were removed and it was converted into small shop. I always wondered what ever became of that passenger car and the other day I came across an old newspaper article, listed below.
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