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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Bluefield Daily Telegraph<BR>February 12,
1909</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=4>WHY ROGERS HAD TO BUILD THE
VIRGINIAN</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=4>Original Intention Was to Construct Only Enough
to Connect Holdings With Other Roads</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG><FONT size=4>------</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center><FONT size=4>AFTER SCALP OF PRESIDENT OF CHESAPEAKE AND
OHIO</FONT></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG>At Meeting of Stockholders Held in Richmond Yesterday
New Directorate, Dominated by Standard Oil Interests, Was Chosen</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=center><STRONG>PENNSYLVANIA MEMBERS OF OLD BOARD ARE
RETIRED</STRONG></DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=left> The stockholders of the Chesapeake and Ohio
met yesterday in New York and as has been frequently predicted in the Daily
Telegraph elected several new members on the board of directors. The
action of the stockholders is significant, as it clearly shows that Edwin
Hawley, thought to be acting for men connected with the Standard Oil Company,
was able to show enough voting strength to change the directorate of the company
and place on the board men from Richmond, Va., and what is much more
significant, men connected with the National City Bank of New York and a large
New York Trust Company, allied interests of the Standard Oil, which is extremely
friendly to H. H. Rogers, who has built the Virginian Railway in spite of
opposition from the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> A close study of the men on the boards of the
Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio, the Chesapeake and Ohio, the Norfolk and Western
and the Virginian Railway, taken together with the fact that only recently
Robert Fleming, a well known English and American financier, who is largely
interested in the Canadian railroads, has made a special trip over the Carolina,
Clinchfield and Ohio, in company with the chairman of the board of that company,
and the fact that he has also visited the lower Norfolk and Western and
Virginian territory in addition to that owned by the Chesapeake and Ohio, would
make it appear that there is a big deal on whereby this part of the south is to
be developed in the near future, and that all the interests will work for the
same end.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> The new directors elected yesterday by the
stockholders of the Chesapeake and Ohio are K. A. Vanderlip, Edwin Hawley, H. E.
Huntington and Frank Castles, of New York, and Frank Trumbull and Fred Scott, of
Richmond, Va. The men whom they succeed are Samuel Rea, J. P. Green,
Walter G. Oakman, George H. Bowdwin, T. J. Fowler and Martin Erdman, who retired
from the directorate.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> A special from Richmond to the Daily
Telegraph, received last night says:</DIV>
<DIV align=left> "A special dispatch from New York tonight
says that at a meeting of the board of directors of the Chesapeake and Ohio
Railroad [<EM>sic</EM>] today the control passed from the hands of the New York
Central and the Pennsylvania and into the hands of the Hawley syndicate.
This transfer was affected by the resignations of Samuel Rhea, H. McK. Twomley,
Walter G. Oakman, John P. Green and Thomas W. Fowler as directors of the road,
and the election of Edwin Hawley, Frank A. Vanderlip, John W. Castles, Frank
Trumbull and H. E. Huntington.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> The change of ownership of the Chesapeake and
Ohio railway, taken together with the fact that after years of skirmishing in
the courts and in secret, the Virginian Railway, known to be the property of H.
H. Rogers, has secured the necessary traffic arrangements from the Chesapeake
and Ohio, which all asserted could never be done, is significant. This, as
was said by the Telegraph, shows that the interests are at last friendly and
this friendship could only be made possible through a change of
management. From a significant remark made by the former president of the
Virginian two days after the present company was made possible by the joining
together of the Tidewater and Deepwater companies, it was thought at that time
by the Daily Telegraph, to whose representative the remark was made, that
President Stevens, of the Chesapeake and Ohio, would have to quit because of his
formidable opposition to the building of the new railroad. During a
conversation held at that time it was said that the original plan of H. H.
Rogers was not to build a line from the Fayette, Wyoming, Raleigh, Logan and
Mingo fields to Tidewater but the opposition from the Chesapeake and Ohio was so
strong that it was necessary.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> H. H.Rogers, who had with other New York and
New England interests secured control of a large amount of coal lands through
the Hewitt heirs, wanted to open the lands and his plan was to build enough
railroad to bring the coal to the Chesapeake and Ohio and the Norfolk and
Western, on whose lines it was expected that it could easily be taken to
Tidewater. When opposition from the Chesapeake and Ohio and friendly
rivalry from the Norfolk and Western railway developed Rogers finally decided to
build a railroad of his own. Captain Page, who had surveyed the Hewitt
property and who was himself a large coal land owner and operator, was taken
into the secret and together with other interests and Dr. J. O. Green, son of
the late Norman Green, who maintains an office at Peck Slip in New York and at
the present time is president of the Tidewater Corporation of Virginia, was a
member of the clique which took charge of the work of constructing the new
railroad.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> With large plants at Page and Ansted and
miles of coal in sight the company knew that when the time came it would receive
all the backing it needed. That time evidently has come, now that the new
road which has been built without outside aid is the marvel of Wall
street.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> Whether or not the fact that Dr. Green, a son
of the late president of the Western Union Telegraph Company, is connected
with the concern would mean that George Gould and the Standard Oil crowd are and
have been working together or not is unknown, but it would look as if a plan was
on foot at that time to build a line across the country.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> While the western part of the Virginian was
under construction the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway fought the new road and was
bested in the matter of the Jenny's Gap tunnel and this is a matter which has
never been forgotten by anyone concerned in the trouble and surely not by the
Chesapeake and Ohio which company had to pull up its tracks from Jenny's Gap to
Lester and lose a tunnel which it had built at a cost of $75,000 [<EM>See "The
Battle for Jenny's Gap, by Ed Wiley, <U>The Arrow</U>, Vol. 17, No.2 Mar./Apr.
2001</EM>]<EM>.</EM> The Norfolk and Western, it will be remembered,
commenced to build a road from Giatto and Wyanoke to the Guyandotte river, where
it was to join with the Chesapeake and Ohio, but when the Jenny's Gap suit
commenced the Norfolk and Western said they would stop their work until the suit
was settled in favor of the Chesapeake and Ohio. The suit went against
that railroad and the Norfolk and Western finally decided that it would not pay
to mine coal along the Giatto extension over to Clark's Gap because it was said
there was a serious fault in the coal near Clark's Gap. Meanwhile, the
Virginian had put a few men to work making a cut close to the Jenny's Gap tunnel
and it was supposed that the new road had given up the idea of winning the suit
but the Norfolk and Western did not make the mistake of taking the bait, with
the result that it earned the friendship of the Standard Oil interests and it
was possibly due to H. C. Frick more than anyone else that the work was
stopped. Nevertheless the Norfolk and Western has never pulled up that
track although the Chesapeake and Ohio has torn part of its line up and it is
now said that the Piney Creek branch, which was the Jenny's Gap extension, has
been sold to the Virginian [<EM>See Tom M's 1/26/2009 posting about this on the
Mailing List</EM>].</DIV>
<DIV align=left> As the work of constructing the Virginian
continued the obstructions placed in the way of the new road by the Chesapeake
and Ohio continued until the whole railroad world wondered what the Virginian
would do when it had finished its construction work.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> This problem was in part settled when it was
discovered that the new road was building twenty-five miles of track into the
Winding Gulf country where there were large beds of coal. Although this
road went through seven miles of coal owned by the Pocahontas Coal and Coke
Company it was said and known that there was good coal further up on Stone
Creek, Tommys Creek and Thomas Creek, in addition to a number of other
forks, up all of which, the former president of the Virginian told a Daily
Telegraph man some time ago, the new road had secured rights of way. Later
it was discovered that the Virginian planned to build eleven miles of road up
some of the forks in addition to the twenty-five miles up the Winding Gulf
proper. What coals would be opened was the part which puzzled the experts,
but now it has come to light that the McCreery Brothers, of Beckley and Hinton,
are negotiating with New York and Boston parties for the lease of their coal
properties in Raleigh, Fayette and Wyoming counties. These properties are
said to be the best in that section and the Daily Telegraph learned some time
ago from a man who lives in Wyoming, and who said that he had drilled the
properties known as the McCreery properties, that the coal there runs from seven
feet to eleven and as high as twenty feet in thickness. If this is the
case it is hard to tell who owns the leases as it has been thought that the
McCreery interests are friendly to the Pocahontas Coal and Coke Company.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> In the Mingo, Logan, Kentucky and Virginia
fields it is said the same interests which planned the Virginian are making
surveys. It is further said and known that the Norfolk and Western has
options on Mate Creek but it now appears that the Carolina, Clinchfield and Ohio
with Messrs. Potter, Fleming and local interests, is also making a play for that
field and may go from Dante over through the fields leading past Matewan and
into Mingo and across the Norfolk and Western into Logan, from which point it
will make a detour coming to the Ohio river at Ironton, from which point it will
give easy access to the Ohio and be in a fair way to do business when the
results of the deepwaterways conferences are made public through the deepening
of rivers and the building of locks and dams.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> Some of the same interests which are
connected with the Carolina Clinchfield and Ohio and the Clinchfield Coal
Corporation are connected with the ownership of coal lands through which such a
proposed line would run and it is possible that the development is being made
for self-protection upon the acquisition of Pocahontas properties by the United
States Steel crowd and the Standard Oil crowd, so that that body of men may have
a coal property which will answer their needs as a necessary commercial
commodity, which is indispensable in the manufacture of steel.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> The far seeing policy of the Flat-Top Land
Association and the Pocahontas Coal and Coke Company together with the demands
of the Norfolk and Western, which originated and were made twenty-five years
ago, and which provided for coke ovens for the manufacture of coke, may just now
be having their innings with the result that should the steel and Standard Oil
crowds step in they will find a property which is in shape for handling and
suited to their every need.</DIV>
<DIV align=left> It would be absolutely impossible to secure
any official verification of some of the deductions made, but that they are
logical is the opinion of every man who is interested in the local field, but
who has been making hay while the sun shown and put by the driblets for a rainy
day and is now perhaps to be given a chance to get out and enjoy life like a
Coal Oil Johnny.</DIV>
<DIV align=center>------</DIV>
<DIV align=left>[<EM>As is usual with the microfilm copies of the newspaper
there were some semi-illegible initials and names but the best interpretations
are shown. Some of the more unusual surnames were searched on the Web and
found to exist as shown. Some of the speculation by this reporter,
particularly about the CC&O expansion north of the N&W, was wild as
viewed from today's perspective.</EM>]</DIV>
<DIV align=left> </DIV>
<DIV align=left><FONT face=Script size=6>Gordon
Hamilton</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>