Page 279 - La Société canadienne d'histoire de l'Église catholique - Rapport 1961

COMMERCIAL HISTORY OF MILWAUKEE. 275

ELISHA ELDRED, HANS CROCEER, JOSHUA HATHAWAY, ELI-
PHALET CRAMER and their associates entered upon the con-
struction of the Milwaukee and Watertown Plank Road, and
pushed it with great zeal and success. Mr. ELISHA ELDRED
was the President, and gave his pornonal attention to the work.
It was about four years in construction. It was an admirably
built road in all particulars. Its coat, in cash, was $119,000,
or there-abouts. It was a most splendid success. Its effect
upon the prosperity of the town was magical. Ae an evidence
of the amount of business, its nett receipts for tolls were, at
times, equal to $1,300 per week. This road continued to do a
very large business until the completion of the Watertown
rail-road, in 1855.
The success of these roads produced a great furor for plank
roads. Messrs. LEVI BLOSSOM, ALANSON SWEET, and their
associates built the Janesville Plank Road as far as the Fox
River. This road was begun, as I am informed, by Mr. SWEET,
in 1849. Although an important road, and its opening a great
acquisition to the city, it did not meet with so great success as
the Watertown, or pay its stock-holders as well. These roads
were not all that we wanted, for however valuable they might
be as wagon roads, for a limited distance, they could not meet
the wants of the city, when a wider view was taken, embracing
the magnificent country stretching far behind us.
Out of this feeling sprung thc organization of the Milwaukee
and Mississippi rltil-road Company, in the spring of 1849. Its
first Directors were BYRON KILBOURN, J. H. TWEEDY, Dr.
WEEKS, ANSON ELDRED, JAMES KNEELAND, ALEX. MITCH-
ELL, E. B. WALCOTT, E. D. CLINTON, and E. D. HOLTON.-
Mr. KILBOURN was the first President. It was a great un-
dertaking for that day, under the circumstances. We were
without money as a people, either in city or country. Every
man had come to the country with limited means-and each
had his house, his store, him shop, his barn to build, his land
to clear and fence, and how could he spare anything from his