urden
became apparent when the Erie began operations. They made necessary such
high freight rates that shippers held indignation meetings and again and
again made appeals for legislative relief. Although much money had been
raised after 1849 for improvements, the condition of the Erie steadily
grew worse. It soon became notorious for many accidents due to
carelessness in running trains and to the breaking of the brittle iron
rails.

But in spite of these drawbacks the business of the Erie grew. In 1852
it acquired the Ramapo and Paterson and the Paterson and Hudson River
railroads and in this way it obtained a more direct connection with New
York City. It changed the tracks of its new railroads to the six-foot
gage, which the Erie had adopted from the start and which it persisted
in maintaining for many years despite the world-wide practice of
establishing a standard width of four feet eight and one-half inches.

The most conspicuous figure in the history of the Erie Railroad system
in these early days was Daniel Drew. From 1851, when the main line was
opened, until 1868, this man was a director and, for the larger part of
the time, treasurer. Born in 1797, he had driven cattle when a boy from
his native town of Carmel in Putnam County to the New York City market
and, for some years later, he had been proprietor of the Bull's Head
Tavern. Shrewd, unscrupulous, illiterate, good-natured, and sometimes
generous, he was in many ways unlike his great adversary in the railroad
world, Commodore Vanderbilt. Drew affected a pious and sanctimonious
attitude in all his dealings, while Vanderbilt had a more frank and open
nature and usually made no pretensions to righteousness.

For many years following 1851, Drew, who owned or controlled nearly
one-half the stock of the Erie, appeared to think that his office of
treasurer carried with it the right to manipulate the stock of the
road at any time it might help his pocketbook to do so. He frequently
advanced money which the road could not obtain elsewhere, always taking
full security and excessive commissions. This practice gave him the
name of "speculative director," and by the time his great contests
with Commodore Vanderbilt broke out, he was reputed to be worth many
millions, most of which he had acquired by juggling in Wall Street with
Erie securities.

The entire period in the affairs of the Erie system from the ascendancy
of Daniel Drew in 1851 to the end of the Civil War