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In 1858, when Sylvester Marsh proposed building a railway to the summit of New Hampshire's highest mountain people laughed. "Crazy Marsh" would have an easier time if he were building a railway to the moon, they quipped.
Mount Washington, with its summit a forbidding 6,288 feet above sea level, would require a climb of almost 4,000 feet in altitude in a little more than three miles. Grades approaching 40% and averaging nearly 25% would be required for the ascent. Small wonder people laughed and said it couldn't be done.
Sylvester Marsh, however, was not a man to be laughed at. In April of 1823 Marsh, then 19 years of age, left home in Crampton, New Hampshire with three dollars in his pocket. He went first to Boston, and later turned up in the wild city of Chicago. Sylvester Marsh was one of the pioneers of the Chicago meat packing industry and made a fortune.
Then he lost everything, ending up deep in debt following the great financial panic of 1842. That should have been the end of Sylvester Marsh's story, but it wasn't. Marsh paid off all his debts, re-established his fortune and, just 15 years later, retired back to his native New Hampshire with more money than he had ever had.
Almost as soon as he returned to the Granite State Marsh began planning his railroad up Mt. Washington. The more people laughed at his railway, the more determined he became to see it built.
In 1858 Marsh went to the state legislature seeking a charter for his mountain climbing railroad. Although the legislators greeted his proposal with some mirth Marsh patiently explained how he would do the impossible. The engines, he explained, would push cars up the mountain using a cog wheel under the engine to engage a rack in the middle of the track, much as one's feet would engage the rungs of a ladder. A ratchet device, patented by Marsh, would prevent the cog wheel from turning backwards. Descending the mountain the ratchet would be disengaged and the cylinders would be opened to take in air, which would be compressed, slowing the train's downhill progress.
Impressed, the state granted a charter and all that was left was for building to begin.
The idea of using a cog wheel to assist an otherwise conventional railway locomotive had been suggested before, but no one had ever conceived of such a plan as using the cog wheel for the sole source of adhesion and power. Charter or no, people still thought Marsh crazy and would hear nothing of his talk of a railway to the clouds.
Finally Marsh invested the sum of $500 having a model of his cog wheeled locomotive and a section of track built. Marsh would load a heavy weight onto a car and, while prospective investors watched, the model would shove the car up an incline equal to that of the proposed railroad. A few people were convinced and pledged money to the enterprise.
As soon as the Civil War was over Marsh began to press forward with his improbable railroad. The nearest railhead to Mt. Washington was at Littleton, some 25 miles away through mountainous Crawford's Notch. Everything needed to build the railroad would have to be dragged over the abominable corduroy road with teams of oxen.
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A locomotive was ordered from Campbell and Whittierin far off Boston to be built to Marsh's specifications. To ensure that the job was done right Marsh's son was dispatched to oversee its building.
A path hacked out of the wilderness by Ethan Allen Crawford, an innkeeper of some local note, was chosen for the route. Logs were hewn into timbers for constructing an experimental track using hand tools until machinery for building a sawmill could be carted in the following summer.
Finally, late in the summer of 1866 the locomotive arrived by oxcart for assembly. Yet the 25 mile trip from Littleton was not without incident. One of the oxcarts bearing the parts of the locomotive went off the edge of the road and sank in the mud. While workmen tried to get the cart back onto the road the cart tipped over, pinning a man in the bottomless mud. Several hours of feverish labor were needed to free the man. It was recorded with some satisfaction that the man was "very sturdy" and survived the ordeal.
Once assembled, the locomotive was placed on the track to assist the construction crews. Before going to work the locomotive was christened, as was the custom in those days. The name given to the machine was "Hero" but an old timer who saw the contraption thought it looked more like a bottle of Peppersass, a hot sauce liberally applied to baked beans, so "Peppersass" it became.
It was the strangest locomotive imaginable, with two small wheels in front and two larger wheels in the back. The bottle-shaped boiler was upright, but tipped well forward so it would stand straight while ascending the mountain. The cylinders drove a pair of cranks which, in turn, powered a gear train which powered a cog wheel on the front axle. The whole thing looked totally incapable of ascending anything, let alone New England's highest mountain.
Yet that is just where everyone was wrong. The machine could climb mountains. Placed upon the experimental track the Peppersass easily climbed the steep grade pushing a flat car loaded with prospective investors. Convinced by the steady performance of the strange locomotive funds were voted to begin work on the line up to the summit.
Before mainline construction began Marsh made one more improvement on his cog railway concept. The experimental track had been built with the cogwheel climbing up a rack in the center which looked much like the steps of a staircase. When the line to the summit was started the design of the rack was changed to that of a pair of heavy angle irons spanned by round wrought iron rods every four inches, so that the track became a literal ladder to the sky.
Tracklaying began in earnest in 1867. About a half mile of track was built that year. Because the mountainside is strewn with house sized boulders and debris which would have required extensive blasting and filling to achieve a uniform grade, the Mount Washington Cog Railway was built almost entirely on trestlework, touching solid ground only where convenient. Of the three and a quarter miles of track, three miles are built on trestles.
From the Base Station the railroad heads straight into the sky, scaling the mountain from the west. Immediately the tracks cross the swift running Ammonoosuc River and begin a straight forward mile long climb to Waumbek Tank, about one third of the way up the mountain.
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The climb is made on the North side of the rocky spine which separates the Burt and Ammonoosuc Ravines. Thick woods almost undisturbed by man blanket the lower portion of the railway.
At the tank trains stop to take on water. Ascending trains use about a ton of coal and nearly 1500 gallons of clear mountain water. The water is pumped up the mountain from the Base Station in pipes laid alongside the tracks.
Continuing up the mountain the tracks turn slightly south, ascending under the shelter of the ridge. Up and up the tracks go snaking their way around huge boulders and skirting massive rock outcroppings to pass the Halfway shelter and approach Jacob's Ladder.
At Jacob's Ladder the grade reaches an unbelievable 37.41% on a trestle more than 20 feet tall. The trestle breaks into the clear at Jacob's Ladder and is often subjected to violent winds which whistle through the mountain notch. So strong are the winds that the trestle must be anchored with heavy steel cables to keep it from being blown away.
Beyond Jacob's the grade moderates as again the shelter of the mountain is reached. The track swings north again crossing the Long Trestle which skirts a sheer drop of 1000 feet into The Great Gulf of Burt's Ravine, then breaks into the clear at the Gulf Tank two thirds of the way to the summit.
As the tracks rise above Jacob's Ladder an unusual phenomenon takes place. The trees, which were so plentiful around the base, suddenly turn into grotesque caricatures of themselves, and then vanish completely. Above this "timber line" trees cannot grow. Even in mid summer the ground is frozen only a few inches from the surface. From there to the summit only a few high altitude flowers and grasses grow.
Beyond the Gulf Tank the trestlework is generally low, skimming along as it makes the final, approach to the summit. Construction pushed the track to within about a fifth of a mile of the peak in 1868, when a sudden storm halted construction on Oct. 16, forcing the workmen to drop their tools and run for shelter.
The following spring workers retrieved the tools which had laid in the snow all winter and finished the Cog road in time for the Fourth of July. Little Peppersass, and a second similar engine called the George Stephenson, were soon hard at work pushing cars of wonder-filled travelers who could no longer laugh about Marsh's "railroad to the moon."
Today trains pull up in front of the Summit House, the largest building on the mountain top. The present Summit House is the third building of that name and is located just south of the site of the original, a stone hotel erected in 1852.
The second Summit House, a two and a half story wood frame building was erected on the site of the present Summit House in 1872-3. It was built of lumber hauled up the mountain by the Cog Railway. It took over 200 trips to run the materials up the mountain. That Summit House was destroyed in a 1908 fire.
The present Summit House was built in 1915 and, while it is no longer a hotel, it is open to the public in summer, housing a restaurant and shops.
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The oldest building standing on the mountain top is the Tip Top House. It too was originally a hotel, built of stone in 1853 and rebuilt in its present form in 1862. Today it is a storehouse for the New Hampshire Park Department.
In 1870 a weather observatory was established atop the mountain. The most powerful winds ever witnessed by man, an awesome 231 miles per hour, was recorded in a spring storm in 1934 by scientists manning the observatory.
The summit, in spite of its barren desolation, draws humans like a magnet draws nails. On a clear day the Atiantic Coast is sometimes visable, and on an exceptional day far off Canadian mountain peaks can be seen. Circus Showman P.T. Barnum called the view "the second greatest show on earth" with good reason.
Old Peppersass, for all of its odd looks, proved a most successful locomotive in service. Eventually it was joined by four more similar locomotives featuring the same upright boiler, two cylinder layout of the original. After 12 years of steady service puffing its way up the mountain the Peppersass was retired in 1878 as being completely worn out.
The locomotive was not scrapped, however, being retained at the Base Station, until 1893 when the famous locomotive was taken to the renowned Columbian Exposition in Chicago. After the exposition closed the Peppersass was displayed at the Field Museum on the fairgrounds.
1904 found Peppersass on the move once again. It was moved from Chicago to St. Louis where it was a display at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition held that year. From there the old mountain climber went into the keeping of the Baltimore and Ohio for whom it eventually appeared at the Fair of the Iron Horse in 1928.
Through the efforts of Rev. Guy Roberts, the noted champion of White Mountain life and lore, the B & 0 transfered the old locomotive to the custody of the Boston and Maine which had, by then, acquired the Cog Railway.
Old Peppersass was taken to the B & M repair shops in Concord, N.H. where the shop crew lavished their attention on the ancient machine. When it was found that the old boiler easily met tests for both steam and water it was decided to make the locomotive operational once again.
The repair crew welded the frame which held the front wheels and driveshaft, and replaced a few minor parts while engineer E.C. "Jack" Frost tried to raise steam in the old boiler. The old boiler gave off a horrible smell and the water turned to froth on the first attempt. Undaunted, the repair crew bored a hole into the wrought iron boiler to find out what was the matter. To their surprise they discovered that the boiler was half filled with nuts and cherry stones stored by squirrels.
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Elaborate plans were made for the return of Old Peppersass to the Base Station . On July 20, 1929 the Base Station was decorated with flags and bunting as governors for six states and 500 honored guests descended on Mount Washington for the event.
The day was perfect. The sky was clear and there was not a breath of wind. At about 2:30 the speeches were over and Old Peppersass made the climb up Cold Springs Hill from the enginehouse, to the Base Station under her own steam under the practiced hands of engineer Frost and fireman William Newsham.
Innumerable news photographers and even four newsreel camera crews were on hand to witness as the old engine was christened with a bottle of water from the Lake of the Clouds. Then Governor Charles Tobey received the locomotive for the state of New Hampshire. The guests climbed aboard six special trains for a trip to the summit. Old Peppersass was going to make her final climb up the mountain as the last member of the gay procession.
The last of the special trains pulled a flat car for the benefit of the news photographers, who delighted in hopping off the slow moving train in efforts to obtain better pictures of the old engine. Although it had only been intended that the Peppersass run a short distance up the mountain the photographers would never be satisfied and the summit beckoned above, so the engineer continued the ascent beyond Waumbek Tank, where it had originally been intended for the engine to turn back.
Reaching the Halfway House engineer Frost brought the machine to a halt, but only to take on wood. When the engine restarted its climb, there was a loud bang, but as the engine continued to ascend in a normal fashion the noise was soon forgotten.
At Jacob's Ladder the sixth train stopped and let off Rev. Roberts and several others who wished to take photographs as the Peppersass crossed the high and steep trestle. In a moment the old engine crossed the trestle, the engineer and fireman waving their tall silk hats and giving the whistle a workout. On up the steep long trestle went the old engine, finally stopping at the Gulf Tank.
There Frost received unconditional orders to begin the trip back down the mountain. All six of the regular trains had reached the summit and there were no sidings to allow the trains of guests to pass the old and slow engine. The engineer looked longingly up to the summit, and then placed the engine in motion back down the mountain. Just as the engine began to move the engineer's son Caleb Frost climbed aboard along with Daniel Rossiter, the official photographer of the gala event.
A few moments later another figure appeared, scrambling wildly across the rocks. Winston Pote, a news photographer who had forgotten his lunch some five hours earlier, had been filming at the water stop and decided to hitch a ride down to the Base Station where his lunch awaited him. Obligingly Frost stopped a nd offered a helping hand, then with yet another passenger a board the descent was continued with clank, some grinding and the roar of steam.
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Pote later recalled that he was astonished at how rough and noisy the ride was on the old machine. Conversation was limited to shouting. Frost had a huge oil can and tried to use it, while the fireman occasionally tossed a piece of wood in to the firebox.
Climbers along the trackside waved and the happy group on the old engine waved back.
Soon they reached the top of Long Trestle. Looking down the mountain into the 1000 foot deep Great Gulf Engineer Frost hollered, "How do you like the looks of that!" to his fireman. Photographer Rossiter stepped to the left side companion way with his camera for a better look.
Without warning there was a loud crack, like a sledgehammer blow, sending the wheels of the old engine flying up into the air. With a terrible grinding noise the machine settled back onto the track and began to slide. Frost grabbed the old hand brake wheel, but it spun loosely and without effect. His mouth opened, shouting "Jump, Jump!" but the words could not be heard, so terrible was the clatter.
Pote grabbed his film bag and threw it to a grassy spot. Young Caleb thought it was a good idea and jumped after it, suffering a torn shirt.
The engine began rocking violently from side to side as pieces of flaming firewood and great clouds of embers were thrown from the firebox. Pote turned to grab his Graflex off the wood pile at the back and saw a terrifying sight! There was Jacob's Ladder and that was no place to jump!
Just as the engine sped out onto the high trestle Pote jumped. His foot caught on the "Peppersass" sign, so his jump became a head first dive into the rocks below, where he suffered a broken jaw and knee.
The engineer and fireman jumped a moment later, making a miraculous 30 foot drop at the highest part of Jacob's Ladder. Both suffered several broken bones but survived.
Photographer Rossiter was still clinging to the speeding engine as it flew off the reverse curve at the foot of Jacob's Ladder. He was killed instantly. The engine went to pieces on impact, the boiler flying just past a terrified photographer who had watched the whole thing without raising his camera.
Only the ashpan remained on the tracks. It slid another 900 feet down the tracks, stopping near the Halfway House.
Presently a hiker appeared carrying Pote's film bag. Pote himself was staggering a round on his broken knee holding his jaw together so that the bones wouldn't rattle. The first down train picked him up before continuing on to pickup the injured engineer and fireman. The train then returned to the Summit House, as the railroad track was damaged.
The injured and guests were forced to leave the summit by way of the twisting carriage road. It was later found that flying embers had burned many small holes in the clothes of the injured.
Souvenir hunters swarmed over the wreckage carrying off pieces of the old engine, but before the end of the summer all that remained had been taken back to the B & M repair shops. The parts were assembled and returned to the Base Station for display where it may be seen to this day.
It was found that the front axle had had an old progressive break, and had failed, causing the runaway. It had never been intended for the old engine to make that final climb. The engine that conquered the mountain was finally counquered itself, not by the mountain but by Father time.
As for Sylvester Marsh, his fame as an engineer resounded about the world. Offers from Europe to build similar railroads there were turned down, as Marsh preferred to stay in New Hampshire. Marsh remained the president of the Cog Railway he built to the end of his days, leaving a mark of determination which will never be erased.
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