James Mitchell Ashley - Radical Republican and Under and Above Ground Railroad Baron
That I might have refused to help
those slaves to escape is true. But
I could not refuse and be true to
myself. I would have regarded
such refusal as the act of a
coward shielding himself
behind infamous laws. [1]
Young Man Ashley
According to some of his critics, James Mitchell Ashley may have been an Abolitionist idealist, but when it came to building his railroads-the Ann Arbor and The Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon- he turned as businesslike as a steam engine. Ashley’s personality was an interesting combination of idealist and pragmatist joining with an America that had just begun to think in rhythm with in the clackety clack of train wheels racing over tracks stretching to the western horizon while at the same time harboring a Underground Railroad for escaped slaves fleeing across the “land of the free” to Canada. James Ashley reflected the contradictions of his young country, but he also possessed the same qualities that made America great – vision, perseverance, and unbounded optimism. These qualities illuminated Ashley’s own life like a locomotive headlight in a murky tunnel.
James Mitchell Ashley Senior was born November 14, 1824 in Allegheny County Pennsylvania, the son of John Clinton Ashley, an ordained minister in the Campbellite Church, and Mary Ann Kirkpatrick Ashley. He had four brothers and three sisters and their parents taught the Ashley children at home for the most part. [2]
In 1838 when he was fourteen, James left home because his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps in the ministry of the Campbellite Church. As Ashley put it in his memoirs:
Before and after leaving home, my relations with my
father were not only strained, but for some years
were entirely broken off. I could not accept his
dogmatic theology, nor his manner of imparting
religious instruction. It was otherwise with my
mother. My relations with her were never strained
or broken.[3]
Ashley did not want to be preacher, he wanted to be a newspaperman.[4] He fled to the home of Jared Nurse and his wife, who lived in the western part of Scioto County, Ohio. Mrs. Nurse was a friend of his mother and she and her husband were old-fashioned Quaker Abolitionists. After briefly working on a farm and in the medical printing office of a patent medicine man calling himself Dr. Sylvester, Ashley returned to the farm of his Abolitionist friends. Shortly after his return, Ashley’s benefactor Mr. Nurse told him that his father was coming to reclaim him. Vowing to run beyond his father’s reach, Ashley hitched a ride on a pine board raft and floated down the Ohio River to land safely in Cincinnati.[5]
Failing to find a job in a printing office, Ashley applied for a berth as a cabin boy on the steamer Waucusta for a salary of $15.00 per month. While serving on the Waucusta, Ashley traveled up the Tennessee River to Nashville to get a load for Pittsburgh and when he reached Nashville he decided to travel out to the Hermitage to see General Andrew Jackson. After conferring with the captain of the Waucusta about taking leave to see the General the captain told Ashley that the ship would remain in port until the next afternoon or evening. Ashley hurried to the livery stable and bargained to be driven out to see General Jackson at the Hermitage – about ten miles out of town.
When he reached the Hermitage, Ashley nervously struck the old-fashioned brass knocker on the door. The General’s butler showed Ashley into the library where General Jackson received him sitting in an old fashioned high back chair. The General soon discovered that Ashley had run away from home and why, and according to Ashley:
with marked earnestness and natural dignity advised me to go back home and enter college, adding by way of argument that if after graduation I did not want to preach, that they could not make me.
I never forgot his commanding and kindly treatment, but did not follow his prudent and well-meant advice, which seemed to me then and is clear to me now had a wily twist in it. My visit however had a lasting and healthy influence on my boy life.[6]
General Jackson invited Ashley to spend the night and arranged for a ride back to town so Ashley could catch his ship. When Ashley returned to Nashville, he discovered that the Waucusta had left for St. Louis after the captain and commission men had a bitter dispute about freight rates. Ashley’s few keepsakes, clothing and wages had gone with her, but he didn’t attempt to borrow or receive kindness from strangers. He worked his way on a steamer from Nashville to Louisville and when he reached Louisville, he secured a place on the steamer Arabia at $15.00 a month.
After several months as second clerk on the Arabia, Ashley voluntarily left to accept the position of chief clerk on the Gazelle at $20.00 per month. Shortly after this, Ashley gave up his position on the Gazelle to join a personal friend who was the owner of a flat boat and cargo. They took the flat boat, called a “broad horn” down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. When he returned from New Orleans, Ashley served as second pilot and assistant clerk on the Transit. As Ashley put it:
I worked at the wheel six hours a day from six a.m.
to 12 o’clock, and acted as second clerk, night or
day, as occasion required. For this hard service, I
received $40.00 a month. But it was too much for
a boy of sixteen and I broke down under it and
was compelled to give up my place and take
a rest.[7]
In the fall of 1840, Ashley once again returned to the farm of his abolitionist friends in Scioto County, Ohio and eventually recovered his health. One day he crossed the Ohio River with Mr. Nurse and group of farmers to attend a Whig mass meeting near Fleming Springs, Kentucky to hear Henry Clay and Tom Corwin of Ohio, during General William Henry Harrison’s “Log Cabin” and “Hard Cider” campaign in 1840. According to Ashley, Tom Corwin was a dark white man whose voice and manner made a lasting impression on him. Corwin had not been speaking long when a man in the audience shouted, “How about the nigger?”
those slaves to escape is true. But
I could not refuse and be true to
myself. I would have regarded
such refusal as the act of a
coward shielding himself
behind infamous laws. [1]
Young Man Ashley
According to some of his critics, James Mitchell Ashley may have been an Abolitionist idealist, but when it came to building his railroads-the Ann Arbor and The Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon- he turned as businesslike as a steam engine. Ashley’s personality was an interesting combination of idealist and pragmatist joining with an America that had just begun to think in rhythm with in the clackety clack of train wheels racing over tracks stretching to the western horizon while at the same time harboring a Underground Railroad for escaped slaves fleeing across the “land of the free” to Canada. James Ashley reflected the contradictions of his young country, but he also possessed the same qualities that made America great – vision, perseverance, and unbounded optimism. These qualities illuminated Ashley’s own life like a locomotive headlight in a murky tunnel.
James Mitchell Ashley Senior was born November 14, 1824 in Allegheny County Pennsylvania, the son of John Clinton Ashley, an ordained minister in the Campbellite Church, and Mary Ann Kirkpatrick Ashley. He had four brothers and three sisters and their parents taught the Ashley children at home for the most part. [2]
In 1838 when he was fourteen, James left home because his father wanted him to follow in his footsteps in the ministry of the Campbellite Church. As Ashley put it in his memoirs:
Before and after leaving home, my relations with my
father were not only strained, but for some years
were entirely broken off. I could not accept his
dogmatic theology, nor his manner of imparting
religious instruction. It was otherwise with my
mother. My relations with her were never strained
or broken.[3]
Ashley did not want to be preacher, he wanted to be a newspaperman.[4] He fled to the home of Jared Nurse and his wife, who lived in the western part of Scioto County, Ohio. Mrs. Nurse was a friend of his mother and she and her husband were old-fashioned Quaker Abolitionists. After briefly working on a farm and in the medical printing office of a patent medicine man calling himself Dr. Sylvester, Ashley returned to the farm of his Abolitionist friends. Shortly after his return, Ashley’s benefactor Mr. Nurse told him that his father was coming to reclaim him. Vowing to run beyond his father’s reach, Ashley hitched a ride on a pine board raft and floated down the Ohio River to land safely in Cincinnati.[5]
Failing to find a job in a printing office, Ashley applied for a berth as a cabin boy on the steamer Waucusta for a salary of $15.00 per month. While serving on the Waucusta, Ashley traveled up the Tennessee River to Nashville to get a load for Pittsburgh and when he reached Nashville he decided to travel out to the Hermitage to see General Andrew Jackson. After conferring with the captain of the Waucusta about taking leave to see the General the captain told Ashley that the ship would remain in port until the next afternoon or evening. Ashley hurried to the livery stable and bargained to be driven out to see General Jackson at the Hermitage – about ten miles out of town.
When he reached the Hermitage, Ashley nervously struck the old-fashioned brass knocker on the door. The General’s butler showed Ashley into the library where General Jackson received him sitting in an old fashioned high back chair. The General soon discovered that Ashley had run away from home and why, and according to Ashley:
with marked earnestness and natural dignity advised me to go back home and enter college, adding by way of argument that if after graduation I did not want to preach, that they could not make me.
I never forgot his commanding and kindly treatment, but did not follow his prudent and well-meant advice, which seemed to me then and is clear to me now had a wily twist in it. My visit however had a lasting and healthy influence on my boy life.[6]
General Jackson invited Ashley to spend the night and arranged for a ride back to town so Ashley could catch his ship. When Ashley returned to Nashville, he discovered that the Waucusta had left for St. Louis after the captain and commission men had a bitter dispute about freight rates. Ashley’s few keepsakes, clothing and wages had gone with her, but he didn’t attempt to borrow or receive kindness from strangers. He worked his way on a steamer from Nashville to Louisville and when he reached Louisville, he secured a place on the steamer Arabia at $15.00 a month.
After several months as second clerk on the Arabia, Ashley voluntarily left to accept the position of chief clerk on the Gazelle at $20.00 per month. Shortly after this, Ashley gave up his position on the Gazelle to join a personal friend who was the owner of a flat boat and cargo. They took the flat boat, called a “broad horn” down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans. When he returned from New Orleans, Ashley served as second pilot and assistant clerk on the Transit. As Ashley put it:
I worked at the wheel six hours a day from six a.m.
to 12 o’clock, and acted as second clerk, night or
day, as occasion required. For this hard service, I
received $40.00 a month. But it was too much for
a boy of sixteen and I broke down under it and
was compelled to give up my place and take
a rest.[7]
In the fall of 1840, Ashley once again returned to the farm of his abolitionist friends in Scioto County, Ohio and eventually recovered his health. One day he crossed the Ohio River with Mr. Nurse and group of farmers to attend a Whig mass meeting near Fleming Springs, Kentucky to hear Henry Clay and Tom Corwin of Ohio, during General William Henry Harrison’s “Log Cabin” and “Hard Cider” campaign in 1840. According to Ashley, Tom Corwin was a dark white man whose voice and manner made a lasting impression on him. Corwin had not been speaking long when a man in the audience shouted, “How about the nigger?”
Ashley noted that calling a man a nigger in front of such an audience in that place was an insult, but Corwin took it in stride. He paused for a minute, looked at the man and said, “My friend, that’s a delicate question to ask a man of my complexion.” The audience cheered and Ashley roared with laughter. No one interrupted Tom Corwin again, instead they applauded his speach from start to finish. Ashley concluded that he never again heard an orator of Corwin’s equal and he had heard all of the great anti-slavery leaders including Frederick Douglass, whom he considered one of the greatest.
Ashley’s parents had a profound influence on his ideas and later life. In his memoirs he provided some insight into his adamant refusal to be a minister and his ardent Abolitionism. When he left home, his mother wrote him often giving him advice about how to conduct himself and his affairs. She especially urged him to visit a relative in Washington as she as he could stand the journey and advised him to stay with his father’s family in Norfolk, Virginia. She enclosed a letter addressed to Colonel Richard M. Johnson, then the Vice President of the United States, with instructions to use it. The letter was from Reverend John T. Johnson, the vice president’s brother and a leading clergyman in the Campbellite Church. He was a friend of the Ashley family and he had written to Ashley’s mother, urging him to make the trip. The Reverend and Jim’s mother were determined that he would go to Mr. Campbell’s College at Bethany, Virginia, with the view of getting him out of the life he was living and ultimately landing him in the church and in the ministry.
Ashley noted that he that the religious and social life of the vice president had been discussed at the family dinner table by his father and a majority of preachers who wondered whether or not Mr. Johnson was an infidel or orthodox in his faith. The question was suggested by the fact that Vice President Johnson when a representative in Congress and a member of the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads had made a report in the House in answer to many petitions relating to the transportation and opening of the mails on the Sabbath day.
The Post Office Committee had instructed Johnson to report against granting the prayer of the petitioners. This report and Mr. Johnson’s speech raised the grave question of whether or not he was an infidel. As far as Ashley could determine, the consensus of the majority of the elders and clergymen of the Disciple Church felt that Mr. Johnson was not a reliable representative of the orthodox faith or he could not have made such a report or speech.
Another discussion concerned Mr. Johnson’s domestic conduct. He was a bachelor and the Ashley’s family and the clergy explored his bachelorhood. It took Ashley two years to discover that Johnson was living in concubinage with one of his bondwomen who had presented him with two daughters and a son. According to Ashley, the scandal was the fact that he recognized the children as his and did not treat them as slaves as under Kentucky law as he was entitled to do and as many white men in the south had done without serious scandal. Mr. Johnson not only recognized his colored children, but also was quite generous with them, providing against their being chattelized and sold as slaves by his administrator after his death. He also did what he could do to protect them and give them an education and leave each of them a portion of his property.
Ashley said that “the discussions which I heard among churchmen and clergymen on Mr. Johnson’s conduct made a very unfavorable impression on my mind and did much to alienate me from the church and determined me against entering the ministry.”[8] Ashley also recalled that in his eleventh or twelfth year Ashley accompanied his father on a horseback trip to the home of Reverend John T. Johnson in Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky. The next day they called on his brother Richard Johnson, who then was a candidate for Vice President on the ticket with Martin Van Buren. Ashley’s father was on his way to a big meeting of the Campbellites in that county, to meet other church ministers and Reverend Johnson, the Vice-President’s brother.
Ashley resolved to write to Col. Johnson as everyone then called the Vice-President, and he did so, enclosing his brothers’ letter of introduction that his mother had sent him. In his letter he told Vice President Johnson of his mother’s wish that he should visit Washington and witness the inauguration of General William Henry Harrison. He told Colonel Johnson about his visit to the Hermitage of General Andrew Jackson. Ashley thought that his account of his boyhood visit to General Jackson gave him standing with the Vice President that he would not have otherwise enjoyed.
Ashley’s parents had a profound influence on his ideas and later life. In his memoirs he provided some insight into his adamant refusal to be a minister and his ardent Abolitionism. When he left home, his mother wrote him often giving him advice about how to conduct himself and his affairs. She especially urged him to visit a relative in Washington as she as he could stand the journey and advised him to stay with his father’s family in Norfolk, Virginia. She enclosed a letter addressed to Colonel Richard M. Johnson, then the Vice President of the United States, with instructions to use it. The letter was from Reverend John T. Johnson, the vice president’s brother and a leading clergyman in the Campbellite Church. He was a friend of the Ashley family and he had written to Ashley’s mother, urging him to make the trip. The Reverend and Jim’s mother were determined that he would go to Mr. Campbell’s College at Bethany, Virginia, with the view of getting him out of the life he was living and ultimately landing him in the church and in the ministry.
Ashley noted that he that the religious and social life of the vice president had been discussed at the family dinner table by his father and a majority of preachers who wondered whether or not Mr. Johnson was an infidel or orthodox in his faith. The question was suggested by the fact that Vice President Johnson when a representative in Congress and a member of the Committee on Post Office and Post Roads had made a report in the House in answer to many petitions relating to the transportation and opening of the mails on the Sabbath day.
The Post Office Committee had instructed Johnson to report against granting the prayer of the petitioners. This report and Mr. Johnson’s speech raised the grave question of whether or not he was an infidel. As far as Ashley could determine, the consensus of the majority of the elders and clergymen of the Disciple Church felt that Mr. Johnson was not a reliable representative of the orthodox faith or he could not have made such a report or speech.
Another discussion concerned Mr. Johnson’s domestic conduct. He was a bachelor and the Ashley’s family and the clergy explored his bachelorhood. It took Ashley two years to discover that Johnson was living in concubinage with one of his bondwomen who had presented him with two daughters and a son. According to Ashley, the scandal was the fact that he recognized the children as his and did not treat them as slaves as under Kentucky law as he was entitled to do and as many white men in the south had done without serious scandal. Mr. Johnson not only recognized his colored children, but also was quite generous with them, providing against their being chattelized and sold as slaves by his administrator after his death. He also did what he could do to protect them and give them an education and leave each of them a portion of his property.
Ashley said that “the discussions which I heard among churchmen and clergymen on Mr. Johnson’s conduct made a very unfavorable impression on my mind and did much to alienate me from the church and determined me against entering the ministry.”[8] Ashley also recalled that in his eleventh or twelfth year Ashley accompanied his father on a horseback trip to the home of Reverend John T. Johnson in Georgetown, Scott County, Kentucky. The next day they called on his brother Richard Johnson, who then was a candidate for Vice President on the ticket with Martin Van Buren. Ashley’s father was on his way to a big meeting of the Campbellites in that county, to meet other church ministers and Reverend Johnson, the Vice-President’s brother.
Ashley resolved to write to Col. Johnson as everyone then called the Vice-President, and he did so, enclosing his brothers’ letter of introduction that his mother had sent him. In his letter he told Vice President Johnson of his mother’s wish that he should visit Washington and witness the inauguration of General William Henry Harrison. He told Colonel Johnson about his visit to the Hermitage of General Andrew Jackson. Ashley thought that his account of his boyhood visit to General Jackson gave him standing with the Vice President that he would not have otherwise enjoyed.
Whatever his reasons, Vice President Johnson sent Ashley a cordial letter urging him to come to Washington and offering to help him turn his visit into an education experience. As soon as Ashley felt strong enough to travel, he sent out for Washington in 1841, taking a steamer up the Ohio River to Wheeling and taking the wage from Wheeling to Baltimore. From Baltimore he took the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to Washington. This first railroad experience made an indelible impression on Ashley and laid the foundation for his impact on Michigan and Ohio railroad history. Ashley noted:
This was the first railroad I had ever seen and it
interested me more than anything I met with
on the entire trip. The road was built of oak
timber stringers, which were laid lengthwise
and flat bars of iron spiked on these
long pieces of timber. [9]
The day after reaching Washington, Ashley called on Vice-President Johnson and handed him his own letter. Ashley said that Johnson gave him a Highland welcome and beyond question, I was one of the happiest boys in the whole country.”[10]
According to Ashley Vice President Johnson lived on Maryland Avenue east of the Capitol and lived modestly. He asked his landlady to secure room and board for Ashley, and she gave him a room two or three doors from the house where the Vice President lived. In a few days, the Vice-President invited Ashley to go to the White House with him and introduced him to President Martin Van Buren. Ashley ranked meeting President Van Buren next to meeting General Jackson in importance in his “boy-life” thus far.
This was the first railroad I had ever seen and it
interested me more than anything I met with
on the entire trip. The road was built of oak
timber stringers, which were laid lengthwise
and flat bars of iron spiked on these
long pieces of timber. [9]
The day after reaching Washington, Ashley called on Vice-President Johnson and handed him his own letter. Ashley said that Johnson gave him a Highland welcome and beyond question, I was one of the happiest boys in the whole country.”[10]
According to Ashley Vice President Johnson lived on Maryland Avenue east of the Capitol and lived modestly. He asked his landlady to secure room and board for Ashley, and she gave him a room two or three doors from the house where the Vice President lived. In a few days, the Vice-President invited Ashley to go to the White House with him and introduced him to President Martin Van Buren. Ashley ranked meeting President Van Buren next to meeting General Jackson in importance in his “boy-life” thus far.
The Vice President also introduced Ashley to Secretary of State Forsythe, Secretary of Treasury, Levi Woodbury and a number of other distinguished men, including the speaker of the House R.M.T. Hunter of Virginia. When the Speaker told Ashley that he knew his father, Ashley answered that his father wanted to see Hunger in the presidential chair. Vice President Johnson complimented Ashley for answering Hunter as he did and said that nothing that he might have said to Hunter could have pleased him more. Ashley’s opinion of Vice President Johnson changed radically and he did not then or later find fault with him for not stopping the mails on Sunday or for providing for his children by his bond women and not letting them be sold.
During his Washington visit in March 1841, Ashley witnessed the inauguration of William Henry Harrison as vice and John Tyler as Vice President. He also saw Generals Scott, Macomb and Wool and other army and navy dignitaries. A few days after the inauguration Ashley visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon mansion and tomb, and then moved on to his father’s relatives in Virginia that his mother had encouraged him to visit. Returning to Washington in late March, he witnessed the death of President Harrison one month after his inauguration and the swearing in to office of John Tyler. The death of President Harrison and inauguration of Vice President John Tyler as president affected Ashley so much that he stayed in his room for several days.
Ashley the Newspaperman
As soon as he felt strong enough to travel, Ashley went home to Ohio for a period of rest and regaining his health. He worked in the western Virginia lumber camps for a while, but as one of his biographers, John M. Morgan put it, “he was invited to leave because of his anti-slavery sentiments.[11] He returned to Portsmouth where he accepted a position as clerk and bookkeeper with Waller & McCabe, dry goods and general merchants at Portsmouth, Ohio. Ashley did not enjoy being a clerk and his ambition still settled on the newspaper business. He learned the printer’s trade and performed the general work required in printing offices in the weekly newspapers that were published in those days.
Ashley proved to be quick typesetter, earning the highest wages at the time which were 12 cents per thousand ems. His skill made him employable on most newspapers in the county. He obtained his first regular newspaper work in the office of the Weekly Tribune in Portsmouth, a Whig paper owned and edited by General Hamilton. He worked briefly as editor of a democratic paper called the Scioto Valley Republican and later with the help of Edward Jordan, later Solicitor of the Treasury under Secretary S.P. Chase, he founded The Democratic Inquirer. Altogether, Ashley worked on newspapers in Wheeling, West Virginia, Maysville and Louisville, Kentucky, St. Louis and New Orleans. He enjoyed the newspaper life, but since he had promised his mother that he would find a more profitable line of work than being a boatman or newspaper person, he began actively searching for gainful employment. [12]
Ashley the Abolitionist
According to Ashley, he had to give up publishing The Democratic Inquirer, his newspaper in Portsmouth because of his anti-slavery views and pro-slavery sentiment in his part of Ohio resembled that of the deep South. Every where he worked as he put it he found himself “at war with the prevailing opinions about slavery, and determined to locate in one of the northwestern states.”[13]
Influenced by his father, his experiences with Vice President Richard Johnson, and his own sympathetic and humane nature, Ashley by this time was a confirmed Abolitionist. The Compromise of 1850 with his stringent and far-reaching fugitive slave law strengthened Ashley’s Abolitionist sympathies. He expressed his opinion of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 by saying that it had been enacted into law by:
A congress of plotting conspirators
northern political nondescripts and dough face imbeciles
with the approval of acting President Fillmore—the copperhead
betrayer. [14]
By 1851 Ashley had had helped many fugitive slaves escape to freedom, so many that the slave catchers considered him as dangerous as anti-slavery pamphlets. He also ran for the mayor of Portsmouth that year and lost by only sixty votes. His defeat convinced him that for him the future lay beyond Portsmouth and established a pattern for future Ashley elections- a close count, win or lose. Since he no longer felt safe in southeastern Ohio, Ashley decided to move to Minneapolis, Minnesota, but on his way west he made a stop in Toledo. He had heard favorable things about Abolitionism in Toledo and he quickly formed his own opinion:
The favorite underground route in northwestern Ohio
to Canada was via Toledo. There were then sleuth hounds
here in northern Ohio who were rotary states
standing candidates for Congressional nominations,
who would rather have seen us in state prison at Columbus,
than in Congress at Washington.[15]
In November of 1851, Ashley returned to Portsmouth and married Emma J. Smith. Journeying to Toledo with his new bride, Ashley opened a drug store on the corner of Summit and Jefferson. The drug store provided a living for his family, but rumor had it that he spent more time talking to his fellow Toledoans in front of the drug store than he did behind the counter. The store burnt in 1857 and Ashley did not rebuild it. He also resumed his Underground Railroad activities. One time he hired a gambler to drive an escaped slave across treacherous Lake Erie ice to Canada. By 1861, the beginning of the Civil War, he had accumulated a number of experiences in Toledo in aiding escaping slaves that were quite as dangerous as his experiences in Portsmouth.[16]
Ashley the Politician
In his search of a more stable future, Ashley had read law with Charles O. Tracy in Portsmouth, Ohio while he worked on his Portsmouth newspapers. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1849, but the law did not interest him much and he rarely practiced it. As he put it: “I did not undertake to follow the profession because the practice was distasteful to me.”[17] Instead, he developed an interest in politics mostly because of his experiences in Washington in 1841 and 1842 and he dedicated his political life to the abolition of slavery. He attended the Democratic National Convention of 1844 as a Van Buren supporter he blamed Van Buren’s defeat for the nomination on the slave interests.[18]
After he moved to Toledo in late 1851, Ashley continued to be interested in politics. In July 1852, Ashley changed his party allegiance to Republican. He is recorded as voting with the Republican party, which subsequently formed after withdrawing from the Democratic party on account of the slavery agitation.[19] Ashley was involved in the campaign of 1854, chiefly distinguished for the popular uprising that stemmed from the attempt to repeal the Missouri Compromise line of 1820 that divided free and slave territory in the United States.
This action was connected with the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska with the right of property in slaves until they should become states. In the North this movement inflamed smoldering Anti-Slavery sentiment existing in both the Whig and Democratic parties that led to combined action against the policy. The Whig party and a large number of Democrats merged into what was temporarily known as the “Anti-Nebraska” party and soon came to be called the Republican party. Former Mayor of Toledo Richard Mott ran as a Republican candidate for the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1855-March 3, 1859) and Ashley as his friend and fellow Republican was in the thick of this fight. He described it this way:
In 1854, under the general uprising of the
in all the free states against the repeal of the
of the Missouri Compromise and with the
active cooperation of the “Know Somethings”
a secret anti slavery organization, Mr. Motts Majority
was over 3,000. In 1856, Mr. Motts majority was cut down to
861. A large number of the “Know-Something” organization
(which disbanded) and a few of the Anti-Nebraska democrats who battled
the party in 1854, returned to their old party affiliations and voted
in 1856 for Buchanan and Fillmore and against Mr. Mott, who supported
Freemont.[20]
In 1856, Ashley made a speech at Montpelier, Ohio, in Williams County supporting the Republican ticket and summarizing his views at this point in his life. He devoted the main part of his speech to inciting hatred and contempt for slaveholders and the more conservative Northerners. He quoted from Southern Black Codes and told stories of slaves being sold instead of receiving the freedom they had been promised. He said that every man who takes the oath to defend the Constitution has the duty to interpret it as best he can and not uncritically accept the interpretations of others. He felt that the Constitution granted Congress only the powers specifically enumerated in it and since the Constitution does not specify a fugitive slave act, Ashley denied the constitutionality of such laws. He said:
I should hold, that under our national Constitution,
neither the Congress of the United States
nor the legislature of any state, had the power
to make a slave, any more than to make a king.[21]
He concluded this speech as he did many of his other orations with a quotation from the anti-slavery poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier. Ashley won a delegate’s position to the 1856 Republican National Convention and in 1858, he ran for Congress, winning by a small margin. When he went to Washington in 1859, he route led him through Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, where his aides tried to prevent him from leaving the train. They were afraid that he might cause some trouble because the state of Virginia was in the process of hanging John Brown, the passionate Abolitionist. Circumventing General Taliaferro, Robert E. Lee and a large body of troops, Ashley entered Harper’s Ferry and interviewed both John Brown and his wife. After John Brown was hanged, Ashley carried the body of the old Abolitionist to his family.[22]
Reelected in 1860 and 1862, while in Congress, Ashley served as chairman of the committee on territories, and spearheaded the organizing of the territories of Arizona, Idaho, and Montana. He helped establish the procedures to separate West Virginia from Virginia and admit it to the Union as a state. [23] He cut a dashing and substantial figure in Washington as the friend of President Abraham Lincoln. In 1862 he introduced legislation in Congress to outlaw slavery in Washington D.C. William H. Young, president of the Afro-American League of Tennessee and AME Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett presented him with a souvenir booklet honoring his antislavery contributions.[24] In 1863, at the zenith of his political career, he introduced the first proposition to amend the Constitution of the U.S. to abolish slavery. [25] In 1864 he was reelected to Congress and in 1865 he helped secure passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States. [26]
In August 1866 Ashley was a delegate to the Loyalist Convention held in Philadelphia. The defeated Southern States and representatives from the victorious North, including Radical Republicans, tried to agree on approval in their state constitutions of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to blacks. As a delegate, Ashley fought for the rights of blacks from his Radical Republican viewpoint.[27]
After his 1866 reelection, Ashley planned to initiate plans in 1867 to impeach President Andrew Johnson. He believed that Andrew Johnson was a co-conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.[28] He played a vocal role in trying to have Johnson impeached and convicted, but he never could come up with hard evidence to back up his words about the supposed conspiracy. In 1868 he was defeated in the Congressional election, perhaps because his campaign to give the Negro the vote ran against the prevailing sentiment in his home state of Ohio. President U.S. Grant appointed James Ashley as governor of Montana territory and he served from 1869-1871. In Montana, Governor Ashley’s career took one of its many ironic twists. As governor, he won the fight to assign the land that the Federal Government granted Montana Territory for a public school system. In winning this fight, Ashley alienated railroad men who wanted part of the government land grant for the line they wanted to build. Applying pressure in Washington, they managed to have Ashley removed from his governorship, but too late to block passage of his land-for-education project.
Returning to his law practice in Toledo, Ashley participated in the Liberal Republican convention in 1872 and soon after that switched to the Democratic Party.[29] Fellow Democrats proposed Ashley for Congress several times, but he never won the nomination. In a wry comment to a friend, he said that he was out of a job in politics, so he decided to build a railroad.[30]
Ashley the Railroad Man
Mid-nineteenth century America was bustling and extending tentacles of commercial growth across the Continent. The Trans-continental railroad stretched shining rails across the prairies and equally glittering commercial dreams into the future. In an article celebrating the building of the ferry boat Great Western, the second car ferry of any type on the Great Lakes to carry goods across the Detroit River, the Detroit Free Press summed up the mood in the country and foreshadowed Ashley’s contributions to its growth when it noted:
New lines of railroads are being opened, and still
numerous others are being projected.. The carry
facilities of the old established lines are being
greatly increased… [31]
The article pointed out that one of the obstacles in the way of a smooth, continuously operating railroad line for mid west was adjusting the differing gauges between railroads such as the Atlantic and Great Western, the Great Central Route that included the New York Central, Great Western (of Canada) Michigan Central and Illinois Central. The other obstacle was the Detroit River and to conquer this, the Great Western Railway constructed the Great Western ferryboat, completed in the spring of 1866. From his no- political- office, no- active- business position in Toledo, Ashley took note of the commercial climate of the country and re-ignited his early passion for railroads. Railroads were the wave of future, a great business investment, an opportunity for adventure and a way to eliminate his son’s long wait at Detroit for a train to Toledo. His son’s tedious stopover reminded Ashley of one of his earlier visions – building a direct railroad line from Toledo to Ann Arbor. The fact that his two oldest sons, James Jr. and Henry were going to attend the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor fit like a jigsaw piece into his overall puzzle of what to do next.
By1875, Ashley had moved to Ann Arbor Michigan and was investigating the possibility of a railroad extending from Toledo across to the Michigan peninsula. By 1877 Toledo already had literally built itself a reputation as one of the major rail hubs of the nations. Railroad networks stretched like spider veins east, south and west of Toledo and still do today thanks to James Ashley, despite changes of name and management. North of Toledo, a direct line ran to Detroit. The rest of the lines in Michigan – the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Canada Southern, the northern branch of the Wabash, the Michigan Central, the Detroit & Lansing and the Grand Trunk – all ran east and west with Detroit as the center. The Grand Rapids & Indiana ran north and south along the shore of Lake Michigan. Ashley studied the railroad situation and how it fit into his plans. He immediately saw that towns were usually served by only one line, so there was no competition, driving the rates upward. The second factor Ashley considered was that the only way for cross traffic to transfer from one line to the other was by going either east or west all the way to the lakes.[32]
In 1877 Ashley purchased railroad terminals at Toledo and began to build the road north of Lake Michigan that became Toledo, Ann Arbor and Northern Michigan Railroad. He was its president for the next sixteen years and in the process linked his destiny with Ann Arbor’s.
According to a Peninsular Courier newspaper editorial Ann Arbor had allowed “golden opportunities to pass, sleeping like Rip Van Winkle while railroads were built north and south, along the lines where small towns sprang up creating a market for produce which formerly came to Ann Arbor. ..”Shall we take the tide at its food, or omit it?" ”the Courier asked. [33]
The editorial explained at length the difficulty of getting a second railroad to come to Ann Arbor, besides the Michigan Central and the Courier rationalized that every town could not be a commercial hub, especially if like Ann Arbor, its future was forever “linked to the success of the University.” The Toledo, Ann Arbor and Saginaw Railroad Company came together in 1866 and in 1870 Ann Arbor citizens approved a loan of $100,000 to complete the road that was now called the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Northern Railroad.[34] This company sank into the bottom of the Panic of 1873. It took James M. Ashley until 1878 to make the dream of a working north-south railway come true.[35]
When Ashley decided to go into the railroad business, he turned to his friend Thomas Scott, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a member of President Lincoln’s cabinet. The Owosso-Argus Press characterized Ashley as the typical pioneer railroad builder who “pushed steel rails across deserts, bridged rivers, and pierced mountains to bind the country with a network of tracks, the nucleus of the American transportation system of the day.”[36]
Ashley built his Ann Arbor railroad a few miles at a time. With Toledo as a starting point and the southern terminal, he pushed the rails northward. He originally intended to run the railroad from Toledo to Ann Arbor and from Ann Arbor to some place in northern Michigan, with a port on Lake Michigan as the northern terminal but with the destination not known.
By this time, Ashley knew something of the history and geography of Michigan and this knowledge must have influenced his next moves. Michigan grew wheat on a large scale and Ashley’s Toledo support, including his son H.W., had interests in focusing the Michigan grain market toward Toledo and away from Detroit. Ashley studiously and intentionally avoided running his new railroad near or in Detroit.
Ashley had a general idea of the northward route that his railroad would take. When he built to one point he played the towns ahead for competitive bids to determine the exact route. He was not above shifting his line a few miles right or left if an ambitious community offered him a reasonable bonus to pass through the town. He begged, borrowed and appropriated everything he could to put into the railroad. He talked farmers into donating right-of-way and into holding “bees,” bringing their horses and plows to grade the line. He convinced them to donate ties and money. He solicited local capitalists along the route and sold them a bond or two. He raised money in dribbles and drabs, collecting it as he went along. His bank balance showed little and his credit imbalance reached the limit.
Other railroads benefited by the new Ann Arbor connection, often aided financially and otherwise. These roads give him some of their old rolling stock and loaned him locomotives and often gave him old but still serviceable rails or sold them for a song. At one point, Ashley found himself with an empty bank account, exhausted credit and no rails with no one to give or sell him any.
Finally, he completed grading a right-of-way north of Ann Arbor. The ties were on the ground but no steel. For a time it looked as if the end had come for “Big Jim” Ashley, but he solved his problem in a creative way. Just when things looked darkest for Ashley, a steel company shipped 32 carloads of rails to a contractor building a road north of Saginaw. These cars were routed over the Ann Arbor tracks and when the cars were safely on his tracks, Ashley confiscated the rails, brought them to Ann Arbor and finished his stretch of road. The authorities arrested him for this unethical procedure and took him to jail, but his friends came to his aid, helped him settle with the steel company and he was out and back on the job in a few days. The rails remained where he laid them.
Big Jim Ashley’s most loyal friend was his big Irish contractor named Jack Carlin who was famous for holding the loyalty of his gangs against delays in payrolls and other hardships as long as he furnished them with a place to sleep and plenty to eat. His “boys” were tough, whiskey-drinking fighters to the last man. In those days, railroads always fought when crossed by other railroads. These crossing controversies usually started in court and generally ended in a pitched battle at the point of intersection with the side having the toughest fighters holding the crossing.
Big Jim Ashley and Jack Carlin seldom went to court. When they came to a crossing Carlin marshaled his gangs and with fists and clubs, and fought his way across. Carlin’s customary strategy was surprise attack. He could complete the grade and lay the rails until he reached the right of way of the opposing road. About that time the other railroad rushed men to the place to “hold the crossing” against the threatened trespass. Carlin would load the construction train with rails and other necessary material and go into camp about five miles back from the right of way. When he considered the time appropriate to strike, he distributed axe handles to his warriors and swept down on the crossing.
The fight at Ann Pere, near Howell, was the site of one of the most famous crossing fights in Michigan railroad history. When the Ann Arbor crossed the Detroit, Lansing & Northern Railroad about three hundred men went to battle. Rocks flew and clubs cracked heads. A gondola loaded with stone was ditched on the crossing to block the offending right-of-way. The battle raged around this car. Carlin and his boys took the crossing and held it against counter attacks. They blew the derailed car into bits with dynamite, graded the few feet of intervening roadbed, laid the rails and ran the construction train across. When the train passed over the crossing the battle came to an abrupt end. It was the unwritten law of old time railroading that when a single car was moved over it, the crossing was completed and there was nothing more to be done about it.
James M. Ashley first started work on his railroad in 1877. In spite of handicaps and lack of money he pushed his line north to Ann Arbor, reaching the city in 1878. On June 20, 1878, the first excursion on the Toledo Ann Arbor took place when 1,360 Ann Arbor citizens came to Toledo. The Toledo Cadets with a band and the Toledo Temperance Reform Club met them. A little over a week later on June 28, 600 men and women, including the Toledo Bench and Bar Association boarded the morning train for Ann Arbor. The nine-car train also carried Milverstedt’s 16th regimental band, and Captain Hopkins 4th battery that keep booming salutes all of the way up the line. A two and a half hour ride over a smooth roadway brought them to Ann Arbor in time to witness conferring 136 degrees at the University of Michigan commencement. The ladies of Ann Arbor provided lunch and the visiting Toledoans explored the city until the train left. Regularly scheduled service from Toledo to Ann Arbor began on July 1, 1878.[37]
The railroad’s effect on Ann Arbor became apparent almost before the sound of its first locomotive whistle reached the city. In July 1879, the Ann Arbor Weekly Argus announced that the Ann Arbor Road was competing with the Michigan Central so effectively that the rate on a ton of coal had fallen from $2.25 to .55 cents. The Ann Arbor grain market had increased from 128,000 bushes of grain for the year ending in June 1878 to 480,000 bushels ending in June 1879. The producers received six cents a bushel more by using the Toledo route.[38] In 1883 the Argus said that the worse case scenario for Ann Arbor would be if the Toledo road fell into the hands of the Michigan Central, but, continued the Argus the Ashleys had “the pluck and ability to hold the fort.”[39]
During the next few years Ashley focused on attaining two goals. He wanted to retain control of his railroad and he wanted to expand the line north into the northwest part of the Lower Peninsula. He began by building north to Mt. Pleasant, 171 miles from Toledo, entering Mt. Pleasant in 1886. The railroad passed through a well-developed district with considerable local wealth and financing the project was not so difficult. The idea of financing in those days was to build the road on local aid and bonds. This meant that communities and districts that the railroad passed through bonded themselves to finance the project through their districts. This method was popular at that time, but the Supreme Court later invalidated the bonds.
After Ashley and his road reached Mt. Pleasant, he looked for new directions. He had originally planned to run the railroad through St. Louis, Michigan and was negotiating with interests in St. Louis for financial support when he met Ammi W. Wright, millionaire Alma lumberman. Formerly from St. Louis, Wright had quarreled with officials and businessmen of the town and moved to Alma, just three miles away and a town that he had practically founded.
When Wright heard about Ashley’s negotiations to bring his railroad to St. Louis, he put in a bid on Alma’s behalf and Ashley decided to go to Alma instead. Wright owned a well-graded logging road from Alma to a point near Mt. Pleasant. He finished this track into Mt. Pleasant and sold the 22-mile system to Ashley for a few hundred dollars. Ashley concluded negotiations for this stretch of rail in the last part of 1886 and immediately made plans to continue the line from Alma to Cadillac. Before the first Ann Arbor locomotive entered Alma over the new line, Ashley was busy organizing the Toledo, Ann Arbor & Cadillac Company to build and operate the Alma-Cadillac section. This division was completed in 1888.
Aided by Cadillac capital, and the Cummers interests in particular, Ashley started the last lap of his system- the stretch from Cadillac to Frankfort. Some of his right of way had been graded by the lumber company controlled by Cummers and was given to Ashley outright. The summer of 1889 saw the Ann Arbor rails reach Frankfort and the first through train from Toledo to Frankfort entered the little Michigan lake port on November 17, 1889.
Big Jim Ashley had realized his most cherished dream. Despite all of the obstacles he had built a railroad through the heart of Michigan’s wheat and lumber districts and reached Lake Michigan, 291 miles from the Ohio terminal. In addition he had built 76 miles of sidings and spurs in Michigan. His railroad moved wheat southward to the Toledo market and also lumber from the great pine forests it traversed. Gross earnings in 1889, the first year of operations from Toledo to Frankfort, reached $1,014,306 and it realized a fair net profit in spite of excessive construction expense.
All of the time he was building the Toledo and Ann Arbor, Big Jim kept a watchful eye out for other rich districts of the state where commerce might be brought to his main line. As a result he promoted several railroads that acted as “feeders” for the Ann Arbor, but he personally invested in only one – The Toledo, Saginaw & Muskegon Road running from Ashley, Michigan to Muskegon, 93miles away. The last rail of this line was laid in 1887 and it was absorbed by the Grand Trunk System.
In 1888, he promoted the Toledo, Saginaw & Mackinac Company to build from Durand to Saginaw. He attempted to build this line at the time he was incurring heavy expenditures on the Frankfort division of his main line. Lack of money forced him to give up this project. Wellington R. Burt of Saginaw whose daughter had married Ashley’s son finished this road which the Grand Trunk also absorbed.
Ashley was prominent in the organization of the Detroit, Charlevoix & Mackinaw Company in 1887 that proposed to build 140 miles of track from Petoskey south via Charlevoix, Bellaire, Kalkaska and connect with the Ann Arbor at Marion. He also planned a road from Saginaw to Mackinaw and another from Mt. Pleasant via Big Rapids to Manistee. While the Chippewa Valley Railroad Company was organized to build this last project, the road was never finished. The Saginaw-Mackinaw line was surveyed but was not built in Ashley’s time.
James M. Ashley built more miles of railroad on less money than any other builder of his time and place. As an organizer, promoter and builder of railroads, he stands without peer in American railroading. His financing of them was a little shaky when it came to accumulating money. He built is railroads on resources the length of a railroad spike, but his human resources were always plentiful. Associated with him on his board of directors in 1890 were well known men in business, lumber, and financial circles of the time. His directors besides himself were: A.W. Wright, Alma lumberman; Henry W. Ashley, his son; James M. Ashley, Jr., is son; Wellington R. Burt, Saginaw millionaire lumberman and his father-in-law; William Baker, Charles M. Whitney, E.A. Todd, T.W. Childs, S. Dean and David Robinson Jr. Many of these men were with him from the start and aided personally with both money and credit.
Big Jim’s next frontier proved to be Lake Michigan itself. It appeared that the wide blue waters of Lake Michigan were unconquerable for man or railroad, but Big Jim’s vision saw across 70 miles of Lake Michigan waves to the resources on the Wisconsin and northern Michigan shore. This vision produced his crowning achievement – the bridging of Lake Michigan by ferryboat. He constructed and operated the first loaded car ferry in America. He saw the possibility of using a number of big western roads and bringing their business to the Lake Michigan gateway. He saw Frankfort not just as a railroad terminal but as an open doorway to the west.
The idea and existence of ferryboats is as old as Charon and the River Styx, but the idea of a ferryboat loaded with freight cars crossing a lake as wide as Lake Michigan was startling and new. The financing and building of this railroad, ferryboat system would be as practical as a car ferry across the Atlantic Ocean. Railroad men scoffed at the idea of railroad cars on water much as Lake Men had scoffed at the plans for the first all steel freighter. Steel and railroad cars could not float separately, and certainly not together!
Big Jim disagreed, respectfully and otherwise. After canvassing the shipbuilders he found a builder, Craig Shipbuilding Company in Toledo, willing to take a chance with certain reservations. Craig Shipbuilding Company agreed to construct a boat easily convertible into a passenger steamer providing that Big Jim could guarantee a sale for the craft if the carferry idea proved impractical. Big Jim found a vessel line willing to buy the boat if the railroad couldn’t use it and with this assurance of ultimate sale, Craig Ship Building company laid the keel of Ann Arbor Carferry No. 1.[40]
Craig Ship Building built Ann Arbor No. 1 in 1892 with grain holds, three horizontal compound engines, three fire box boilers and four tracks for 24 RR Cars.[41]
Railroad executives from coast to coast shook their heads in disbelief. Officials of the Ann Arbor railroad followed the ship’s construction intently and gravely. Big Jim forged ahead. The boat launched, but Big Jim immediately ran into another big obstacle. Freight shippers adamantly refused to ship their goods by carferry. Their goods were consigned to very material destinations in Wisconsin and points beyond and not to the bottom of Lake Michigan! Big Jim argued, threatened, cajoled, but could not get freight for the ferryboat.
After months of trying, Big Jim finally got his first boat load. He told a Pennsylvania coal company supplying the Ann Arbor Road with coal that unless it routed a few carloads of Wisconsin coal consignments via the Ann Arbor and its new carferry, he would give the Ann Arbor’s coal business to another company. Desiring to keep Big Jim’s account, the Pennsylvania Company allowed him to twist its arm.
The day the carferry made her maiden voyage loaded with coal cars, she chugged into a 40-mile gale. Ashley and his companions watched anxiously from Frankfort, afraid that the carferry would founder, but she made the trip across to Wisconsin in five hours. Ashley immediately obtained funds to build another carferry.
Also in 1892, Craig Shipbuilding built Ann Arbor No. 2 Carferry. It had grain holds, three horizontal engines, and three firebox boilers. Well built and durable, Ann Arbor No. 2 served the railroad for over twenty-five years.[42]
The Toledo and Ann Arbor road earned a profit and grew in importance. Ashley improved it until it became such a desirable property that Eastern financial interests stet out to acquire the system and it passed out of Ashley’s control. It was reorganized under Newman Erb, an eastern railroad man. For awhile it made money, then it passed through a period of financial difficulties ending in bankruptcy. Finally the Wabash railroad purchased it and reorganized and operated it as a unit of the Wabash system, using it as a new direct route from the east to the northwest.
W. Frank Bradley, former superintendent of the Ann Arbor Railroad, a close associate of Ashley’s, told his version of the founding of the railroad in a story in the Owosso Argus-Press in June 1936. According to Bradley, The Pennsylvania Railroad had started to build a line north from Toledo and had almost reached the Ohio state line when a change in policy stopped the building. Simultaneously, the Pennsylvania Railroad took control of the Grand Rapids & Ironton Railroad.[43]
Thomas Scott sold the Grand Rapids & Ironton Railroad to Ashley and Ashley sold his 6 percent bonds for 60 cents on the dollar. Following a practice common in those days, he got townships, countries and villages to vote bonds as a bonus to promote the building of the railroad. There were so many large systems pushing their lines west that at this time the market was glutted with high grade bonds. This made a bad financial structure for the railroad. The high rate of interest was a handicap that the railroad always labored under, in effect paying ten percent of their capital. Ashley first called it the Toledo and Ann Arbor and to push the road further north he sold bonds on the property.
Different corporations made up the railroad and issued the first mortgage bonds. From Owosso north, the railroad was called the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Mt. Pleasant Railroad. From Mt. Pleasant to Cadillac, it was the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Lake Michigan Railroad but these various corporations were owned by the Toledo, Ann Arbor and North Michigan Railroad.
The Ann Arbor Road labored under another handicap besides paying a high rate of interest on bonds. The other handicap was that both the Pere Marquette and The Grand Rapids & Ironton were land grant railroads. A land grant often meant great forests of white pine where a single section would provide funds to build twenty miles of railroad. These grants that gave the railroad ownership of lands within a certain distance each side of the roads, but if settlers had preempted the land, they had the option of selecting the sections of land still owned by the government. The development of the Ann Arbor Railroad through these lands owned by their competitors, enhanced the value of lands owned by the competing corporations. This was a curious parallel to Ashley’s Montana position when he fought against the railroad men for his land grant-education policy.
Ashley had three extremely individualistic sons, so individualistic that each one often pursued a separate policy about railway matters without consulting each other. James Ashley Jr. was vice president who later worked out of the New York office of The Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway Co.[44] But before he made New York his base of operations James Ashley Jr. moved to Ann Arbor with his parents and earned a law degree from the University of Michigan while he lived there. In 1875, his father put him in charge of construction for the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Northern Michigan Railroad and later James Jr. helped design the Ann Arbor car ferries.[45] H.W. was general manager in Toledo and Charles was chief attorney. When the question of ferrying cars across the lake came up, James Jr., as vice-president, let a contract for building two car ferries to the Craig Ship Building company in Toledo, Ohio. H.W., as railroad general manager in Toledo, did not know anything about the car ferries for several weeks.
Great Lakes shipbuilding entrepreneur John Craig’s success story parallels Ashleys. Craig and his family began life on the Great Lakes in 1866 when his brother-in-law Robert Linn informed Craig that his schooner designs were acceptable. The Craigs traveled from New York to Gibraltar, Michigan and Craig became part of the firm of Linn & Craig. By the 1870s John Craig had recognized the advantages of producing steel hulled vessels and eventually he left the partnership with his brother-in-law to open his own yard at Gibraltar. 1877 they purchased a new yard in Toledo Ohio. Spurred on by H.W. Ashley, production began in 1888. Contracts poured in to the Toledo yard and Craig became a leader in vessel design. [46]
With the apparent success of the car ferries, James Jr. in New York had weighted the share market from about $4.00 a share to $48.00 per share in a depressed market. With improved credit because of the success of the car ferries, the Ashley brothers purchased on an Equipment Trust Plan ten locomotives, 1,000 boxcars on a small payment down and monthly payments.
At this time, W.R. Burt of Saginaw, H.W. Ashley’s father-in-law, purchased a private car and the Ashleys used it extensively. The railroad had always paid low wages to its officers and employees and the purchase of all of this new equipment angered the employees since they did not know that the purchases were based on the $1.00 down principal. The employees demanded more wages. Chief P. M. Arthur, then grand chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, met several times with H.W. Ashley. He was an old Scotchman and all he asked for was recognition of the Union. He warned H.W. Ashley that if the men went on a strike, employees of other roads would refuse to move cars going to connections. Ashley and Arthur broke off and Arthur called a strike. The general office of the Engineers had an ample war chest and they went into the market and sold the shares short. Once the shares began to go down the Bears of Wall Street attacked the shares and in a few days the shares dropped from $48 to $4 per share. Arthur and his associates probably made a tidy profit. This act demonstrated the individualism of the Ashleys. J.M. in New York did all he could to boom the shares and H.W. precipitated a fight that had disastrous results.
These and other factors resulted in a receivership of the Ann Arbor Road. The Craig Shipbuilding Company as a creditor, applied to the U.S. Court and W.R. Burt was appointed receiver. Sam Sloan was President of Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and his son-in-law was principal owner in the Kawanna, Green Bay & Western Sloan resolved to link these roads together and quietly purchased the shares of stock necessary to do this. At this time there was no default on the bond’s interest and the principal creditor, the ship building company, could be cared for and remove the receiver. There was clause in the bylaws of the company, stipulating that tellers were elected at one meeting for the next meeting. The tellers were Ashley men so that the Ashleys would control the stock. Sloan came to the annual meeting, prepared to vote the Ashleys out. The meeting broke up in a slugging match and each side tallied the results.
In the meantime, Burt, as receiver, had taken Mr. Billings, a one-man railroad commission for the State of Michigan, over the road. Billing issued an order to put the road in safe condition or he would close it up. Mr. Burt appeared in the U.S. Court of Toledo and Judge Taft gave him authority to issue Receiver’s Certificates to put the road in safe condition. These securities had precedence over shares and bonds. Burt issued them to such an extent that the shareholders soon found their securities washed out and the bonds dropped to 50 percent of the face in the market. In either of two years they moved more cubic yards of earth in improving grades and alignment, than they did in building the road. There were 42 miles put on a new right of way and nine miles shortened the line. In time the road was reincorporated as the Ann Arbor Railroad and Burt became president. The reorganization was quite drastic in financial structure.
There was but seven million of 4 per cent bonds and a like amount of common stock, with a small issue of preferred stock and the $250,000 would pay the interest each year. Mr. Burt also built up a cash surplus of $500,000, largely because of the low wage rate for officers and employees that prevailed for a long time after the strike. This $500,000 cash attracted the attention of speculators. Mr. Burt sold out in 1904 and for a long time the railroad was owned by one syndicate and then another. Finally, in May 1925, the Wabash Railroad took it over. According to Bradley, the Ann Arbor Road did not fit into the Wabash system of things. He predicted that the Ann Arbor would probably become part of the B&O Railroad and then the system “would cross Michigan and the Ann Arbor fits nicely into this scheme.” [47]
Despite Bradley’s prediction, the Ann Arbor did not merge with the B & O Railroad. The Wabash Railroad operated the Ann Arbor from 1925 through August 1963, when the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad took over the Ann Arbor Railroad. On September 30, 1977, Conrail assumed control of the Ann Arbor as part of the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act. The State of Michigan kept it from being absorbed into Conrail by purchasing the line. In October 1988, the Ann Arbor Acquisition Corporation bought the Ann Arbor Railroad. In January 1999, the Ottawa Yard, the Ann Arbor’s main yard in Toledo, was moved to accommodate the expansion of the Toledo Jeep plant. In 2001 the historical steam back shops were demolished and in 2003 much of the former Owosso steam shop and roundhouse area was sold to the Michigan State Trust for Railway Preservation for use as a steam locomotive technology museum.[48]
Ashley was also instrumental in organizing the Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon Railway Company in December 1886. The road extended from Ashley, Michigan on the Toledo, Ann Arbor and North Michigan Railway to Muskegon on Lake Michigan, a distance of 95 miles.[49] The stockholders of the Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon were J.M. Ashley, Win. Baker, John Cummings and D. Robison Jr. of Toledo and E. Middleton of Greenville Michigan and L.G. Mason of Muskegon, Michigan.[50]
According to Bradley, the Ashleys died leaving modest estates except H.W. whose estate amounted to almost one million dollars. Bradley concluded: Mr. Hoover speaks of the rugged individualist;
you could see a fine example of rugged
individualism in the Ashleys. But in this
case it produced a colossal failure which
cooperation might have prevented. [51]
Ashley ultimately failed in his goal of keeping family control of his railroad lines. He leased the Muskegon branch to the Grand Trunk in 1888 and finally selling it. The Toledo, Saginaw and Mackinaw operated was abandoned in 1890. The Ashleys lost control of the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan in 1893. In 1891 sixty-eight year old James M. Ashley turned over active management of the Toledo Road over to his sons. Henry served as general manager, James, Jr. vice-president and Charles as lawyer. Ashley retained his title as president, but since his financial condition had improved he took a trip to Europe with his wife and daughter. When he returned he occupied his time with political matters and lectures and never resumed active direction of the road.[52]
A combination of events forced the Toledo and Ann Arbor into receivership. After Ashley retired from active management, his sons ran the railroad erratically. The Panic of 1893 did not directly hurt the Toledo and Ann Arbor, but the bad times guaranteed that the railroad could not obtain new loans. The ferocious northern Michigan winter of 1892-1893 froze railroad profits. The car ferries got through the ice on Lake Michigan, but snow and ice on the land route reduced traffic and revenues. The strike of March 8,1893 called by Chief P.M. Arthur of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers brought about a default of bond interest . The Ashleys fought to retain control of the Toledo & Ann Arbor but finally the road was sold for $2,627,000, less than half of its bonded debit, and the Ashley equity was wiped out.[53]
Ashley met his second goal of extending his railroad. The litmus test of history has proven that Bradley’s assessment of the Ashley railroads as being as “colossal failure” because of the lack of cooperation between rugged individualists is colossally off the mark. If Ashley had not been such a rugged individualist he would not have worked to make his dream of a railroad from Toledo to Ann Arbor a reality. If he had not been a rugged individualist he would not have combined his idealism that increased the speed of the Underground Railroad and his pragmatism that slowly created railroads from land grants and land grants from railroads to a system still operating in the 21st century.[54]
End Notes
[1] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960. Second Chapter, p. 4. Canaday Center. Ward M/ Canaday Center for Special Collections, University of Toledo.
[2] Letter to John Morgan, Canaday Center, University of Toledo from Mrs. Grace F. Ashley Fogel, Denver, Colorado. In the letter, dated October 1, 1959, Mrs. Fogel said that James was born in 1822, but the rest of the published biographical sources state 1824. In his autobiographical material in the James Ashley papers, Canaday Center, University of Toledo, the date is given as November 24, 1822. James had four brothers and three sisters. John K. Ashley was born in Pittsburgh on July 24, 1824. (He and James were often confused. In fact, Ashley, Michigan, was supposedly named after John, but the correct railroad baron brother is most likely James.) John studied medicine with a Dr. Carpenter in Athens, Ohio and practiced in Masterston, now called Lebanon in Monroe County, Ohio until 1852. Then he moved to Illinois and over the next fifty years practiced medicine in various towns around Wayne City, Illinois. He died May 26, 1905 and is buried in Stine Cemetery, Ciane, Illinois.
Benjamin Ashley was born in Pittsburgh in January 1826. He learned the baking and candy making business in Cincinnati, Ohio and established a baking and candy business in McConnellsville, Ohio. He died there in 1848.
William Henry Ashley was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on July 22, 1828. He learned the cigar business in St. Louis, Missouri and served in the Mexican War. He was a U.S. Deputy surveyor in Colorado from 1861 to 1880. He lived on a farm near Hope, Idaho and died May 28, 1907 at Sandpoint, Idaho.
Eli M. Ashley was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on May 28, 1833. He was educated at the Western Liberal Institute at Marietta, Ohio and engaged in the drug business in Toledo, Ohio from 1854-1861. He moved to Colorado, arriving in Denver on July 17, 1861. He was the chief clerk of the U.S. Surveyor General’s office in Colorado for seventeen years, and was president of the Denver Board of Education in 1875. In 1886, he organized the Western Chemical Company and was elected its president. In 1887 he served as president of the Denver Chamber of Commerce and the chairman of the Republican State Committee in 1891 and 1892.
Mary Jane Ashley was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1831. She died April 20, 1849 and was buried beside her mother, Mary Ann Kirkpatrick Ashley in Paw Paw Cemetery in Lebanon, Ohio.
Louisa Ashley was born in 1835 and another sister Anna Maria Ashley in 1837.
[3] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960. Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, The University of Toledo, p. 32.
[4] A sect that broke from the Baptist Church that believed in practicing the primitive Christian or New Testament faith. By 1827, they had formally been excluded from the Baptist denominations and they were called the Disciples of Christ or the Campbellites. Their sect spread rapidly throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virginia. Rev. Philip Schaff, Rev. Samuel Macauley, Editors, A Religious Encyclopedia or Dictionary. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1894) p.377.
[5] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960. Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections. The University of Toledo, p. 24.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid, p. 25.
[8] Ibid., p. 26.
[9] Ibid, p. 27.
[10] Ibid.
[11] John M. Morgan. “Railroad Built on Wind: James M. Ashley and the Ann Arbor Railroad.” Masters Thesis, University of Toledo. Copy in the Ward M. Canaday Center, Mss-002, James M. Ashley Papers, 1860-1960. Box 2.
[12] A biography of Ashley in the Woodlawn Cemetery Necrology, Toledo’s Attic, http://www.attic.utoledo.edu/att/WOOD/ashley.html states that he failed at the newspaper business. The evidence clearly shows that he did not fail at it, but on the contrary, grew tired of being an itinerant newspaperman and voluntarily and with the encouragement of his mother, chose another profession.
[13] Memoirs of James M. Ashley. Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960. Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, The University of Toledo p. 32.
[14] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, The University of Toledo, Second Chapter p. 1.
[15] Ibid, p. 5.
[16] Clark Waggoner, History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County Ohio. (New York: Munsell & Co., 1888) p. 83.
[17] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, The University of Toledo, p. 35.
[18] James M. Ashley and Emancipation, A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. John M Morgan, the University of Toledo, 1940.
[19] Clark Waggoner, History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County Ohio (New York: Munsell & Co., 1888 ) p. 27.
[20] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections. Chapter on my Congressional Campaigns, Chapter X. p. 1.
[21] Clark Waggoner, History of Toledo and Lucas County, p. 28.
[22] John Morgan, “Railroad Built on Wind: James M. Ashley and the Ann Arbor Railroad.” Master’s Thesis, University of Toledo. P. 3. Morgan tells this interesting John Brown story, but it does not appear in Ashley’s memoirs.
[23] “James Monroe Ashley”. Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889 & edited Stanley L. Klos, 1999. This source states Ashley’s middle name as Monroe, but all of the others state that it is Mitchell.
[24] Souvenir presented to James M. Ashley on Emancipation Day, September 2, 1893. Philadelphia: Publishing hose of the A.M.E. Church, 1894. African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907. American Memory. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aap:@field(M010+@band(91-898107)):
[25] Speech of Hon. J.M. Ashley, of Ohio: delivered in the House of Representatives, on Friday, January 6, 1865; on the constitutional amendment for the abolition of slavery. New York: W.C. Bryant & Co., printers, 1865.
[26] Sherman W. Jackson. “Representative James M. Ashley and the Midwestern Origins of Amendment Thirteen.” Lincoln Herald 80 (Summer 1978): 83-95.
[27] “The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson” . Harper’s Weekly, December 29, 1866. http://www.impeach~andrewjohnson.com/06FirstImpeachmentDiscussions/iiib-18.htm
[28] Robert Horowitz, Great Impeacher: A Political Biography of James M. Ashley (New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1979) p. 15.
[29] Maxine B. Kahn, “Congressman Ashley in the Post –Civil War Years.” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 36 (1964): 116-133, 194-210.
[30] Memoir by Charles S. Ashley. Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana, Vol. VI, p. 197.
[31] The New Iron Steamer. An Enterprise of Much Commercial Importance. A Ferry Capable of Transporting a Train of Cars Across the River. Detroit Free Press, September 26, 1865.
[32] Toledo Blade, November 17, 1882. P. 1.
[33] J. Fraser Cocks, III, General Editor. Pictorial History of Ann Arbor, 1824-1974. Michigan Historical Collections/Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor Sesquicentennial Committee, 1974. Michigan Historical Collections, The University of Michigan.
[34] Henry E. Riggs, The Ann Arbor Railroad Fifty Years Ago. Published by the Ann Arbor Railroad Company, 1947. The Michigan Central Railroad had come to Ann Arbor in 1839 and the record as early as 1845 indicated that the Michigan Central charged what citizens considered to be excessive rates.
[35] Ibid, p. 1.
[36] The Owosso Argus-Press, Owosso, Michigan , November 23, 1915. Big Jim Ashley Built the Ann Arbor on Shoe String.
[37] Toledo Blade, June 28, 1878, p. 3.
[38] Ann Arbor Weekly Argus, July 11, 1879, p. 2.
[39] Ann Arbor Weekly Argus, August 17, 1883, p. 2.
[40] Ann Arbor No. 1, Ann Arbor, No. 2, Father Edward J. Dowling, S.J. Marine Historical Collection Data Base, University of Detroit-Mercy Libraries. http://shipping.dalnet.lib.mi.us/ipac.jsp?session=10832JK5262P8.207&menu=search
[41] In 1896 the forward boiler and engine were removed and in 1901 the American Shipbuilding Company of Cleveland, Ohio installed new boilers. In 1910, it burned to the water line at Manitowoc, Wisconsin and the hull was sold to The Love Construction Company of Muskegon, Michigan for use as a sand scow. Ann Arbor R.R. Carferries. http://www.1dnweb.com/~bessey/AnnArbor.html
[42] Ann Arbor No. 2 was taken out of service in September 1912 and in 1914 sold to Manistee Iron Works for scrap. Ann Arbor R.R. Carferries. http://www.1dnweb.com/~bessey/AnnArbor.html
[43] Inside Story of How Jim Ashley Put the Ann Arbor Road Over, The Owosso Argus-Press, Tuesday, June 30, 1936. By W. Frank Bradley. Although 78 years old when he wrote the story, Bradley was still active as president of the Ohio & Michigan Sand & Gravel Company of Ohio. C.E. Bradley, his brother, worked as a machinist at the Ann Arbor shops since 1894.
[44] Letter Addressed to Honor. Thos. Cooley. Letter head Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway Co., Vice President’s Office; Broadway; J.M. Ashley, President Dated October 21, 1884. Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, University of Toledo.
[45] When World War I broke out, James Ashley Jr. joined patriotic groups like the Defense League, the Liberty Loan and the Red Cross. He died of a heart attack in November 1919. “Jim Ashley, Railroader, Patriot Dies,” Toledo Blade, November 3, 1919.
[46] Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Craig Shipbuilding Company Collection, Bowling Green State University.
[47] Inside Story of How Jim Ashley Put the Ann Arbor Road Over, The Owosso Argus Press, Tuesday, June 30, 1936. By W. Frank Bradley
[48] A Brief History of the Ann Arbor Railroad. http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/8294/aahist1.html
[49] According to the Ashley, Michigan website the village was platted by Ansel H. Phinney, George P. Dudley and Miles W. Bullock in 1883. Phinney became its first postmaster in January 1884, and in 1887 Ashley was incorporated as a village. The website says that the village was named for “John M. Ashley, promoter and builder of the Toledo, Saginaw & Muskegon Railroad, but James M. Ashley is the person who was one of the founders of the Toledo, Saginaw & Muskegon Railroad.
[50] Clark Waggoner, History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio (New York: Munsell & Company, 1888) p. 38.
[51] Inside Story of How Jim Ashley Put the Ann Arbor Road Over, The Owosso Argus-Press, Tuesday, June 30, 1936. By W. Frank Bradley.
[52] Owosso Argus Press, June 30, 1936.
[53] Toledo Blade, October 23, 1893, p. 1.
[54]A severe diabetic attack slowed Ashley down in 1893 and while he was on a fishing trip in the summer of 1896 the severe attacks returned. He died on September 16, 1896 of a heart attack. His body was return to Toledo from Ann Arbor and he was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.
During his Washington visit in March 1841, Ashley witnessed the inauguration of William Henry Harrison as vice and John Tyler as Vice President. He also saw Generals Scott, Macomb and Wool and other army and navy dignitaries. A few days after the inauguration Ashley visited George Washington’s Mount Vernon mansion and tomb, and then moved on to his father’s relatives in Virginia that his mother had encouraged him to visit. Returning to Washington in late March, he witnessed the death of President Harrison one month after his inauguration and the swearing in to office of John Tyler. The death of President Harrison and inauguration of Vice President John Tyler as president affected Ashley so much that he stayed in his room for several days.
Ashley the Newspaperman
As soon as he felt strong enough to travel, Ashley went home to Ohio for a period of rest and regaining his health. He worked in the western Virginia lumber camps for a while, but as one of his biographers, John M. Morgan put it, “he was invited to leave because of his anti-slavery sentiments.[11] He returned to Portsmouth where he accepted a position as clerk and bookkeeper with Waller & McCabe, dry goods and general merchants at Portsmouth, Ohio. Ashley did not enjoy being a clerk and his ambition still settled on the newspaper business. He learned the printer’s trade and performed the general work required in printing offices in the weekly newspapers that were published in those days.
Ashley proved to be quick typesetter, earning the highest wages at the time which were 12 cents per thousand ems. His skill made him employable on most newspapers in the county. He obtained his first regular newspaper work in the office of the Weekly Tribune in Portsmouth, a Whig paper owned and edited by General Hamilton. He worked briefly as editor of a democratic paper called the Scioto Valley Republican and later with the help of Edward Jordan, later Solicitor of the Treasury under Secretary S.P. Chase, he founded The Democratic Inquirer. Altogether, Ashley worked on newspapers in Wheeling, West Virginia, Maysville and Louisville, Kentucky, St. Louis and New Orleans. He enjoyed the newspaper life, but since he had promised his mother that he would find a more profitable line of work than being a boatman or newspaper person, he began actively searching for gainful employment. [12]
Ashley the Abolitionist
According to Ashley, he had to give up publishing The Democratic Inquirer, his newspaper in Portsmouth because of his anti-slavery views and pro-slavery sentiment in his part of Ohio resembled that of the deep South. Every where he worked as he put it he found himself “at war with the prevailing opinions about slavery, and determined to locate in one of the northwestern states.”[13]
Influenced by his father, his experiences with Vice President Richard Johnson, and his own sympathetic and humane nature, Ashley by this time was a confirmed Abolitionist. The Compromise of 1850 with his stringent and far-reaching fugitive slave law strengthened Ashley’s Abolitionist sympathies. He expressed his opinion of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 by saying that it had been enacted into law by:
A congress of plotting conspirators
northern political nondescripts and dough face imbeciles
with the approval of acting President Fillmore—the copperhead
betrayer. [14]
By 1851 Ashley had had helped many fugitive slaves escape to freedom, so many that the slave catchers considered him as dangerous as anti-slavery pamphlets. He also ran for the mayor of Portsmouth that year and lost by only sixty votes. His defeat convinced him that for him the future lay beyond Portsmouth and established a pattern for future Ashley elections- a close count, win or lose. Since he no longer felt safe in southeastern Ohio, Ashley decided to move to Minneapolis, Minnesota, but on his way west he made a stop in Toledo. He had heard favorable things about Abolitionism in Toledo and he quickly formed his own opinion:
The favorite underground route in northwestern Ohio
to Canada was via Toledo. There were then sleuth hounds
here in northern Ohio who were rotary states
standing candidates for Congressional nominations,
who would rather have seen us in state prison at Columbus,
than in Congress at Washington.[15]
In November of 1851, Ashley returned to Portsmouth and married Emma J. Smith. Journeying to Toledo with his new bride, Ashley opened a drug store on the corner of Summit and Jefferson. The drug store provided a living for his family, but rumor had it that he spent more time talking to his fellow Toledoans in front of the drug store than he did behind the counter. The store burnt in 1857 and Ashley did not rebuild it. He also resumed his Underground Railroad activities. One time he hired a gambler to drive an escaped slave across treacherous Lake Erie ice to Canada. By 1861, the beginning of the Civil War, he had accumulated a number of experiences in Toledo in aiding escaping slaves that were quite as dangerous as his experiences in Portsmouth.[16]
Ashley the Politician
In his search of a more stable future, Ashley had read law with Charles O. Tracy in Portsmouth, Ohio while he worked on his Portsmouth newspapers. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1849, but the law did not interest him much and he rarely practiced it. As he put it: “I did not undertake to follow the profession because the practice was distasteful to me.”[17] Instead, he developed an interest in politics mostly because of his experiences in Washington in 1841 and 1842 and he dedicated his political life to the abolition of slavery. He attended the Democratic National Convention of 1844 as a Van Buren supporter he blamed Van Buren’s defeat for the nomination on the slave interests.[18]
After he moved to Toledo in late 1851, Ashley continued to be interested in politics. In July 1852, Ashley changed his party allegiance to Republican. He is recorded as voting with the Republican party, which subsequently formed after withdrawing from the Democratic party on account of the slavery agitation.[19] Ashley was involved in the campaign of 1854, chiefly distinguished for the popular uprising that stemmed from the attempt to repeal the Missouri Compromise line of 1820 that divided free and slave territory in the United States.
This action was connected with the organization of the territories of Kansas and Nebraska with the right of property in slaves until they should become states. In the North this movement inflamed smoldering Anti-Slavery sentiment existing in both the Whig and Democratic parties that led to combined action against the policy. The Whig party and a large number of Democrats merged into what was temporarily known as the “Anti-Nebraska” party and soon came to be called the Republican party. Former Mayor of Toledo Richard Mott ran as a Republican candidate for the Thirty-fourth and Thirty-fifth Congress (March 4, 1855-March 3, 1859) and Ashley as his friend and fellow Republican was in the thick of this fight. He described it this way:
In 1854, under the general uprising of the
in all the free states against the repeal of the
of the Missouri Compromise and with the
active cooperation of the “Know Somethings”
a secret anti slavery organization, Mr. Motts Majority
was over 3,000. In 1856, Mr. Motts majority was cut down to
861. A large number of the “Know-Something” organization
(which disbanded) and a few of the Anti-Nebraska democrats who battled
the party in 1854, returned to their old party affiliations and voted
in 1856 for Buchanan and Fillmore and against Mr. Mott, who supported
Freemont.[20]
In 1856, Ashley made a speech at Montpelier, Ohio, in Williams County supporting the Republican ticket and summarizing his views at this point in his life. He devoted the main part of his speech to inciting hatred and contempt for slaveholders and the more conservative Northerners. He quoted from Southern Black Codes and told stories of slaves being sold instead of receiving the freedom they had been promised. He said that every man who takes the oath to defend the Constitution has the duty to interpret it as best he can and not uncritically accept the interpretations of others. He felt that the Constitution granted Congress only the powers specifically enumerated in it and since the Constitution does not specify a fugitive slave act, Ashley denied the constitutionality of such laws. He said:
I should hold, that under our national Constitution,
neither the Congress of the United States
nor the legislature of any state, had the power
to make a slave, any more than to make a king.[21]
He concluded this speech as he did many of his other orations with a quotation from the anti-slavery poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier. Ashley won a delegate’s position to the 1856 Republican National Convention and in 1858, he ran for Congress, winning by a small margin. When he went to Washington in 1859, he route led him through Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, where his aides tried to prevent him from leaving the train. They were afraid that he might cause some trouble because the state of Virginia was in the process of hanging John Brown, the passionate Abolitionist. Circumventing General Taliaferro, Robert E. Lee and a large body of troops, Ashley entered Harper’s Ferry and interviewed both John Brown and his wife. After John Brown was hanged, Ashley carried the body of the old Abolitionist to his family.[22]
Reelected in 1860 and 1862, while in Congress, Ashley served as chairman of the committee on territories, and spearheaded the organizing of the territories of Arizona, Idaho, and Montana. He helped establish the procedures to separate West Virginia from Virginia and admit it to the Union as a state. [23] He cut a dashing and substantial figure in Washington as the friend of President Abraham Lincoln. In 1862 he introduced legislation in Congress to outlaw slavery in Washington D.C. William H. Young, president of the Afro-American League of Tennessee and AME Bishop Benjamin W. Arnett presented him with a souvenir booklet honoring his antislavery contributions.[24] In 1863, at the zenith of his political career, he introduced the first proposition to amend the Constitution of the U.S. to abolish slavery. [25] In 1864 he was reelected to Congress and in 1865 he helped secure passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery in the United States. [26]
In August 1866 Ashley was a delegate to the Loyalist Convention held in Philadelphia. The defeated Southern States and representatives from the victorious North, including Radical Republicans, tried to agree on approval in their state constitutions of the Fourteenth Amendment guaranteeing citizenship to blacks. As a delegate, Ashley fought for the rights of blacks from his Radical Republican viewpoint.[27]
After his 1866 reelection, Ashley planned to initiate plans in 1867 to impeach President Andrew Johnson. He believed that Andrew Johnson was a co-conspirator in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.[28] He played a vocal role in trying to have Johnson impeached and convicted, but he never could come up with hard evidence to back up his words about the supposed conspiracy. In 1868 he was defeated in the Congressional election, perhaps because his campaign to give the Negro the vote ran against the prevailing sentiment in his home state of Ohio. President U.S. Grant appointed James Ashley as governor of Montana territory and he served from 1869-1871. In Montana, Governor Ashley’s career took one of its many ironic twists. As governor, he won the fight to assign the land that the Federal Government granted Montana Territory for a public school system. In winning this fight, Ashley alienated railroad men who wanted part of the government land grant for the line they wanted to build. Applying pressure in Washington, they managed to have Ashley removed from his governorship, but too late to block passage of his land-for-education project.
Returning to his law practice in Toledo, Ashley participated in the Liberal Republican convention in 1872 and soon after that switched to the Democratic Party.[29] Fellow Democrats proposed Ashley for Congress several times, but he never won the nomination. In a wry comment to a friend, he said that he was out of a job in politics, so he decided to build a railroad.[30]
Ashley the Railroad Man
Mid-nineteenth century America was bustling and extending tentacles of commercial growth across the Continent. The Trans-continental railroad stretched shining rails across the prairies and equally glittering commercial dreams into the future. In an article celebrating the building of the ferry boat Great Western, the second car ferry of any type on the Great Lakes to carry goods across the Detroit River, the Detroit Free Press summed up the mood in the country and foreshadowed Ashley’s contributions to its growth when it noted:
New lines of railroads are being opened, and still
numerous others are being projected.. The carry
facilities of the old established lines are being
greatly increased… [31]
The article pointed out that one of the obstacles in the way of a smooth, continuously operating railroad line for mid west was adjusting the differing gauges between railroads such as the Atlantic and Great Western, the Great Central Route that included the New York Central, Great Western (of Canada) Michigan Central and Illinois Central. The other obstacle was the Detroit River and to conquer this, the Great Western Railway constructed the Great Western ferryboat, completed in the spring of 1866. From his no- political- office, no- active- business position in Toledo, Ashley took note of the commercial climate of the country and re-ignited his early passion for railroads. Railroads were the wave of future, a great business investment, an opportunity for adventure and a way to eliminate his son’s long wait at Detroit for a train to Toledo. His son’s tedious stopover reminded Ashley of one of his earlier visions – building a direct railroad line from Toledo to Ann Arbor. The fact that his two oldest sons, James Jr. and Henry were going to attend the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor fit like a jigsaw piece into his overall puzzle of what to do next.
By1875, Ashley had moved to Ann Arbor Michigan and was investigating the possibility of a railroad extending from Toledo across to the Michigan peninsula. By 1877 Toledo already had literally built itself a reputation as one of the major rail hubs of the nations. Railroad networks stretched like spider veins east, south and west of Toledo and still do today thanks to James Ashley, despite changes of name and management. North of Toledo, a direct line ran to Detroit. The rest of the lines in Michigan – the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern, the Canada Southern, the northern branch of the Wabash, the Michigan Central, the Detroit & Lansing and the Grand Trunk – all ran east and west with Detroit as the center. The Grand Rapids & Indiana ran north and south along the shore of Lake Michigan. Ashley studied the railroad situation and how it fit into his plans. He immediately saw that towns were usually served by only one line, so there was no competition, driving the rates upward. The second factor Ashley considered was that the only way for cross traffic to transfer from one line to the other was by going either east or west all the way to the lakes.[32]
In 1877 Ashley purchased railroad terminals at Toledo and began to build the road north of Lake Michigan that became Toledo, Ann Arbor and Northern Michigan Railroad. He was its president for the next sixteen years and in the process linked his destiny with Ann Arbor’s.
According to a Peninsular Courier newspaper editorial Ann Arbor had allowed “golden opportunities to pass, sleeping like Rip Van Winkle while railroads were built north and south, along the lines where small towns sprang up creating a market for produce which formerly came to Ann Arbor. ..”Shall we take the tide at its food, or omit it?" ”the Courier asked. [33]
The editorial explained at length the difficulty of getting a second railroad to come to Ann Arbor, besides the Michigan Central and the Courier rationalized that every town could not be a commercial hub, especially if like Ann Arbor, its future was forever “linked to the success of the University.” The Toledo, Ann Arbor and Saginaw Railroad Company came together in 1866 and in 1870 Ann Arbor citizens approved a loan of $100,000 to complete the road that was now called the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Northern Railroad.[34] This company sank into the bottom of the Panic of 1873. It took James M. Ashley until 1878 to make the dream of a working north-south railway come true.[35]
When Ashley decided to go into the railroad business, he turned to his friend Thomas Scott, president of the Pennsylvania Railroad and a member of President Lincoln’s cabinet. The Owosso-Argus Press characterized Ashley as the typical pioneer railroad builder who “pushed steel rails across deserts, bridged rivers, and pierced mountains to bind the country with a network of tracks, the nucleus of the American transportation system of the day.”[36]
Ashley built his Ann Arbor railroad a few miles at a time. With Toledo as a starting point and the southern terminal, he pushed the rails northward. He originally intended to run the railroad from Toledo to Ann Arbor and from Ann Arbor to some place in northern Michigan, with a port on Lake Michigan as the northern terminal but with the destination not known.
By this time, Ashley knew something of the history and geography of Michigan and this knowledge must have influenced his next moves. Michigan grew wheat on a large scale and Ashley’s Toledo support, including his son H.W., had interests in focusing the Michigan grain market toward Toledo and away from Detroit. Ashley studiously and intentionally avoided running his new railroad near or in Detroit.
Ashley had a general idea of the northward route that his railroad would take. When he built to one point he played the towns ahead for competitive bids to determine the exact route. He was not above shifting his line a few miles right or left if an ambitious community offered him a reasonable bonus to pass through the town. He begged, borrowed and appropriated everything he could to put into the railroad. He talked farmers into donating right-of-way and into holding “bees,” bringing their horses and plows to grade the line. He convinced them to donate ties and money. He solicited local capitalists along the route and sold them a bond or two. He raised money in dribbles and drabs, collecting it as he went along. His bank balance showed little and his credit imbalance reached the limit.
Other railroads benefited by the new Ann Arbor connection, often aided financially and otherwise. These roads give him some of their old rolling stock and loaned him locomotives and often gave him old but still serviceable rails or sold them for a song. At one point, Ashley found himself with an empty bank account, exhausted credit and no rails with no one to give or sell him any.
Finally, he completed grading a right-of-way north of Ann Arbor. The ties were on the ground but no steel. For a time it looked as if the end had come for “Big Jim” Ashley, but he solved his problem in a creative way. Just when things looked darkest for Ashley, a steel company shipped 32 carloads of rails to a contractor building a road north of Saginaw. These cars were routed over the Ann Arbor tracks and when the cars were safely on his tracks, Ashley confiscated the rails, brought them to Ann Arbor and finished his stretch of road. The authorities arrested him for this unethical procedure and took him to jail, but his friends came to his aid, helped him settle with the steel company and he was out and back on the job in a few days. The rails remained where he laid them.
Big Jim Ashley’s most loyal friend was his big Irish contractor named Jack Carlin who was famous for holding the loyalty of his gangs against delays in payrolls and other hardships as long as he furnished them with a place to sleep and plenty to eat. His “boys” were tough, whiskey-drinking fighters to the last man. In those days, railroads always fought when crossed by other railroads. These crossing controversies usually started in court and generally ended in a pitched battle at the point of intersection with the side having the toughest fighters holding the crossing.
Big Jim Ashley and Jack Carlin seldom went to court. When they came to a crossing Carlin marshaled his gangs and with fists and clubs, and fought his way across. Carlin’s customary strategy was surprise attack. He could complete the grade and lay the rails until he reached the right of way of the opposing road. About that time the other railroad rushed men to the place to “hold the crossing” against the threatened trespass. Carlin would load the construction train with rails and other necessary material and go into camp about five miles back from the right of way. When he considered the time appropriate to strike, he distributed axe handles to his warriors and swept down on the crossing.
The fight at Ann Pere, near Howell, was the site of one of the most famous crossing fights in Michigan railroad history. When the Ann Arbor crossed the Detroit, Lansing & Northern Railroad about three hundred men went to battle. Rocks flew and clubs cracked heads. A gondola loaded with stone was ditched on the crossing to block the offending right-of-way. The battle raged around this car. Carlin and his boys took the crossing and held it against counter attacks. They blew the derailed car into bits with dynamite, graded the few feet of intervening roadbed, laid the rails and ran the construction train across. When the train passed over the crossing the battle came to an abrupt end. It was the unwritten law of old time railroading that when a single car was moved over it, the crossing was completed and there was nothing more to be done about it.
James M. Ashley first started work on his railroad in 1877. In spite of handicaps and lack of money he pushed his line north to Ann Arbor, reaching the city in 1878. On June 20, 1878, the first excursion on the Toledo Ann Arbor took place when 1,360 Ann Arbor citizens came to Toledo. The Toledo Cadets with a band and the Toledo Temperance Reform Club met them. A little over a week later on June 28, 600 men and women, including the Toledo Bench and Bar Association boarded the morning train for Ann Arbor. The nine-car train also carried Milverstedt’s 16th regimental band, and Captain Hopkins 4th battery that keep booming salutes all of the way up the line. A two and a half hour ride over a smooth roadway brought them to Ann Arbor in time to witness conferring 136 degrees at the University of Michigan commencement. The ladies of Ann Arbor provided lunch and the visiting Toledoans explored the city until the train left. Regularly scheduled service from Toledo to Ann Arbor began on July 1, 1878.[37]
The railroad’s effect on Ann Arbor became apparent almost before the sound of its first locomotive whistle reached the city. In July 1879, the Ann Arbor Weekly Argus announced that the Ann Arbor Road was competing with the Michigan Central so effectively that the rate on a ton of coal had fallen from $2.25 to .55 cents. The Ann Arbor grain market had increased from 128,000 bushes of grain for the year ending in June 1878 to 480,000 bushels ending in June 1879. The producers received six cents a bushel more by using the Toledo route.[38] In 1883 the Argus said that the worse case scenario for Ann Arbor would be if the Toledo road fell into the hands of the Michigan Central, but, continued the Argus the Ashleys had “the pluck and ability to hold the fort.”[39]
During the next few years Ashley focused on attaining two goals. He wanted to retain control of his railroad and he wanted to expand the line north into the northwest part of the Lower Peninsula. He began by building north to Mt. Pleasant, 171 miles from Toledo, entering Mt. Pleasant in 1886. The railroad passed through a well-developed district with considerable local wealth and financing the project was not so difficult. The idea of financing in those days was to build the road on local aid and bonds. This meant that communities and districts that the railroad passed through bonded themselves to finance the project through their districts. This method was popular at that time, but the Supreme Court later invalidated the bonds.
After Ashley and his road reached Mt. Pleasant, he looked for new directions. He had originally planned to run the railroad through St. Louis, Michigan and was negotiating with interests in St. Louis for financial support when he met Ammi W. Wright, millionaire Alma lumberman. Formerly from St. Louis, Wright had quarreled with officials and businessmen of the town and moved to Alma, just three miles away and a town that he had practically founded.
When Wright heard about Ashley’s negotiations to bring his railroad to St. Louis, he put in a bid on Alma’s behalf and Ashley decided to go to Alma instead. Wright owned a well-graded logging road from Alma to a point near Mt. Pleasant. He finished this track into Mt. Pleasant and sold the 22-mile system to Ashley for a few hundred dollars. Ashley concluded negotiations for this stretch of rail in the last part of 1886 and immediately made plans to continue the line from Alma to Cadillac. Before the first Ann Arbor locomotive entered Alma over the new line, Ashley was busy organizing the Toledo, Ann Arbor & Cadillac Company to build and operate the Alma-Cadillac section. This division was completed in 1888.
Aided by Cadillac capital, and the Cummers interests in particular, Ashley started the last lap of his system- the stretch from Cadillac to Frankfort. Some of his right of way had been graded by the lumber company controlled by Cummers and was given to Ashley outright. The summer of 1889 saw the Ann Arbor rails reach Frankfort and the first through train from Toledo to Frankfort entered the little Michigan lake port on November 17, 1889.
Big Jim Ashley had realized his most cherished dream. Despite all of the obstacles he had built a railroad through the heart of Michigan’s wheat and lumber districts and reached Lake Michigan, 291 miles from the Ohio terminal. In addition he had built 76 miles of sidings and spurs in Michigan. His railroad moved wheat southward to the Toledo market and also lumber from the great pine forests it traversed. Gross earnings in 1889, the first year of operations from Toledo to Frankfort, reached $1,014,306 and it realized a fair net profit in spite of excessive construction expense.
All of the time he was building the Toledo and Ann Arbor, Big Jim kept a watchful eye out for other rich districts of the state where commerce might be brought to his main line. As a result he promoted several railroads that acted as “feeders” for the Ann Arbor, but he personally invested in only one – The Toledo, Saginaw & Muskegon Road running from Ashley, Michigan to Muskegon, 93miles away. The last rail of this line was laid in 1887 and it was absorbed by the Grand Trunk System.
In 1888, he promoted the Toledo, Saginaw & Mackinac Company to build from Durand to Saginaw. He attempted to build this line at the time he was incurring heavy expenditures on the Frankfort division of his main line. Lack of money forced him to give up this project. Wellington R. Burt of Saginaw whose daughter had married Ashley’s son finished this road which the Grand Trunk also absorbed.
Ashley was prominent in the organization of the Detroit, Charlevoix & Mackinaw Company in 1887 that proposed to build 140 miles of track from Petoskey south via Charlevoix, Bellaire, Kalkaska and connect with the Ann Arbor at Marion. He also planned a road from Saginaw to Mackinaw and another from Mt. Pleasant via Big Rapids to Manistee. While the Chippewa Valley Railroad Company was organized to build this last project, the road was never finished. The Saginaw-Mackinaw line was surveyed but was not built in Ashley’s time.
James M. Ashley built more miles of railroad on less money than any other builder of his time and place. As an organizer, promoter and builder of railroads, he stands without peer in American railroading. His financing of them was a little shaky when it came to accumulating money. He built is railroads on resources the length of a railroad spike, but his human resources were always plentiful. Associated with him on his board of directors in 1890 were well known men in business, lumber, and financial circles of the time. His directors besides himself were: A.W. Wright, Alma lumberman; Henry W. Ashley, his son; James M. Ashley, Jr., is son; Wellington R. Burt, Saginaw millionaire lumberman and his father-in-law; William Baker, Charles M. Whitney, E.A. Todd, T.W. Childs, S. Dean and David Robinson Jr. Many of these men were with him from the start and aided personally with both money and credit.
Big Jim’s next frontier proved to be Lake Michigan itself. It appeared that the wide blue waters of Lake Michigan were unconquerable for man or railroad, but Big Jim’s vision saw across 70 miles of Lake Michigan waves to the resources on the Wisconsin and northern Michigan shore. This vision produced his crowning achievement – the bridging of Lake Michigan by ferryboat. He constructed and operated the first loaded car ferry in America. He saw the possibility of using a number of big western roads and bringing their business to the Lake Michigan gateway. He saw Frankfort not just as a railroad terminal but as an open doorway to the west.
The idea and existence of ferryboats is as old as Charon and the River Styx, but the idea of a ferryboat loaded with freight cars crossing a lake as wide as Lake Michigan was startling and new. The financing and building of this railroad, ferryboat system would be as practical as a car ferry across the Atlantic Ocean. Railroad men scoffed at the idea of railroad cars on water much as Lake Men had scoffed at the plans for the first all steel freighter. Steel and railroad cars could not float separately, and certainly not together!
Big Jim disagreed, respectfully and otherwise. After canvassing the shipbuilders he found a builder, Craig Shipbuilding Company in Toledo, willing to take a chance with certain reservations. Craig Shipbuilding Company agreed to construct a boat easily convertible into a passenger steamer providing that Big Jim could guarantee a sale for the craft if the carferry idea proved impractical. Big Jim found a vessel line willing to buy the boat if the railroad couldn’t use it and with this assurance of ultimate sale, Craig Ship Building company laid the keel of Ann Arbor Carferry No. 1.[40]
Craig Ship Building built Ann Arbor No. 1 in 1892 with grain holds, three horizontal compound engines, three fire box boilers and four tracks for 24 RR Cars.[41]
Railroad executives from coast to coast shook their heads in disbelief. Officials of the Ann Arbor railroad followed the ship’s construction intently and gravely. Big Jim forged ahead. The boat launched, but Big Jim immediately ran into another big obstacle. Freight shippers adamantly refused to ship their goods by carferry. Their goods were consigned to very material destinations in Wisconsin and points beyond and not to the bottom of Lake Michigan! Big Jim argued, threatened, cajoled, but could not get freight for the ferryboat.
After months of trying, Big Jim finally got his first boat load. He told a Pennsylvania coal company supplying the Ann Arbor Road with coal that unless it routed a few carloads of Wisconsin coal consignments via the Ann Arbor and its new carferry, he would give the Ann Arbor’s coal business to another company. Desiring to keep Big Jim’s account, the Pennsylvania Company allowed him to twist its arm.
The day the carferry made her maiden voyage loaded with coal cars, she chugged into a 40-mile gale. Ashley and his companions watched anxiously from Frankfort, afraid that the carferry would founder, but she made the trip across to Wisconsin in five hours. Ashley immediately obtained funds to build another carferry.
Also in 1892, Craig Shipbuilding built Ann Arbor No. 2 Carferry. It had grain holds, three horizontal engines, and three firebox boilers. Well built and durable, Ann Arbor No. 2 served the railroad for over twenty-five years.[42]
The Toledo and Ann Arbor road earned a profit and grew in importance. Ashley improved it until it became such a desirable property that Eastern financial interests stet out to acquire the system and it passed out of Ashley’s control. It was reorganized under Newman Erb, an eastern railroad man. For awhile it made money, then it passed through a period of financial difficulties ending in bankruptcy. Finally the Wabash railroad purchased it and reorganized and operated it as a unit of the Wabash system, using it as a new direct route from the east to the northwest.
W. Frank Bradley, former superintendent of the Ann Arbor Railroad, a close associate of Ashley’s, told his version of the founding of the railroad in a story in the Owosso Argus-Press in June 1936. According to Bradley, The Pennsylvania Railroad had started to build a line north from Toledo and had almost reached the Ohio state line when a change in policy stopped the building. Simultaneously, the Pennsylvania Railroad took control of the Grand Rapids & Ironton Railroad.[43]
Thomas Scott sold the Grand Rapids & Ironton Railroad to Ashley and Ashley sold his 6 percent bonds for 60 cents on the dollar. Following a practice common in those days, he got townships, countries and villages to vote bonds as a bonus to promote the building of the railroad. There were so many large systems pushing their lines west that at this time the market was glutted with high grade bonds. This made a bad financial structure for the railroad. The high rate of interest was a handicap that the railroad always labored under, in effect paying ten percent of their capital. Ashley first called it the Toledo and Ann Arbor and to push the road further north he sold bonds on the property.
Different corporations made up the railroad and issued the first mortgage bonds. From Owosso north, the railroad was called the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Mt. Pleasant Railroad. From Mt. Pleasant to Cadillac, it was the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Lake Michigan Railroad but these various corporations were owned by the Toledo, Ann Arbor and North Michigan Railroad.
The Ann Arbor Road labored under another handicap besides paying a high rate of interest on bonds. The other handicap was that both the Pere Marquette and The Grand Rapids & Ironton were land grant railroads. A land grant often meant great forests of white pine where a single section would provide funds to build twenty miles of railroad. These grants that gave the railroad ownership of lands within a certain distance each side of the roads, but if settlers had preempted the land, they had the option of selecting the sections of land still owned by the government. The development of the Ann Arbor Railroad through these lands owned by their competitors, enhanced the value of lands owned by the competing corporations. This was a curious parallel to Ashley’s Montana position when he fought against the railroad men for his land grant-education policy.
Ashley had three extremely individualistic sons, so individualistic that each one often pursued a separate policy about railway matters without consulting each other. James Ashley Jr. was vice president who later worked out of the New York office of The Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway Co.[44] But before he made New York his base of operations James Ashley Jr. moved to Ann Arbor with his parents and earned a law degree from the University of Michigan while he lived there. In 1875, his father put him in charge of construction for the Toledo, Ann Arbor and Northern Michigan Railroad and later James Jr. helped design the Ann Arbor car ferries.[45] H.W. was general manager in Toledo and Charles was chief attorney. When the question of ferrying cars across the lake came up, James Jr., as vice-president, let a contract for building two car ferries to the Craig Ship Building company in Toledo, Ohio. H.W., as railroad general manager in Toledo, did not know anything about the car ferries for several weeks.
Great Lakes shipbuilding entrepreneur John Craig’s success story parallels Ashleys. Craig and his family began life on the Great Lakes in 1866 when his brother-in-law Robert Linn informed Craig that his schooner designs were acceptable. The Craigs traveled from New York to Gibraltar, Michigan and Craig became part of the firm of Linn & Craig. By the 1870s John Craig had recognized the advantages of producing steel hulled vessels and eventually he left the partnership with his brother-in-law to open his own yard at Gibraltar. 1877 they purchased a new yard in Toledo Ohio. Spurred on by H.W. Ashley, production began in 1888. Contracts poured in to the Toledo yard and Craig became a leader in vessel design. [46]
With the apparent success of the car ferries, James Jr. in New York had weighted the share market from about $4.00 a share to $48.00 per share in a depressed market. With improved credit because of the success of the car ferries, the Ashley brothers purchased on an Equipment Trust Plan ten locomotives, 1,000 boxcars on a small payment down and monthly payments.
At this time, W.R. Burt of Saginaw, H.W. Ashley’s father-in-law, purchased a private car and the Ashleys used it extensively. The railroad had always paid low wages to its officers and employees and the purchase of all of this new equipment angered the employees since they did not know that the purchases were based on the $1.00 down principal. The employees demanded more wages. Chief P. M. Arthur, then grand chief of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, met several times with H.W. Ashley. He was an old Scotchman and all he asked for was recognition of the Union. He warned H.W. Ashley that if the men went on a strike, employees of other roads would refuse to move cars going to connections. Ashley and Arthur broke off and Arthur called a strike. The general office of the Engineers had an ample war chest and they went into the market and sold the shares short. Once the shares began to go down the Bears of Wall Street attacked the shares and in a few days the shares dropped from $48 to $4 per share. Arthur and his associates probably made a tidy profit. This act demonstrated the individualism of the Ashleys. J.M. in New York did all he could to boom the shares and H.W. precipitated a fight that had disastrous results.
These and other factors resulted in a receivership of the Ann Arbor Road. The Craig Shipbuilding Company as a creditor, applied to the U.S. Court and W.R. Burt was appointed receiver. Sam Sloan was President of Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad and his son-in-law was principal owner in the Kawanna, Green Bay & Western Sloan resolved to link these roads together and quietly purchased the shares of stock necessary to do this. At this time there was no default on the bond’s interest and the principal creditor, the ship building company, could be cared for and remove the receiver. There was clause in the bylaws of the company, stipulating that tellers were elected at one meeting for the next meeting. The tellers were Ashley men so that the Ashleys would control the stock. Sloan came to the annual meeting, prepared to vote the Ashleys out. The meeting broke up in a slugging match and each side tallied the results.
In the meantime, Burt, as receiver, had taken Mr. Billings, a one-man railroad commission for the State of Michigan, over the road. Billing issued an order to put the road in safe condition or he would close it up. Mr. Burt appeared in the U.S. Court of Toledo and Judge Taft gave him authority to issue Receiver’s Certificates to put the road in safe condition. These securities had precedence over shares and bonds. Burt issued them to such an extent that the shareholders soon found their securities washed out and the bonds dropped to 50 percent of the face in the market. In either of two years they moved more cubic yards of earth in improving grades and alignment, than they did in building the road. There were 42 miles put on a new right of way and nine miles shortened the line. In time the road was reincorporated as the Ann Arbor Railroad and Burt became president. The reorganization was quite drastic in financial structure.
There was but seven million of 4 per cent bonds and a like amount of common stock, with a small issue of preferred stock and the $250,000 would pay the interest each year. Mr. Burt also built up a cash surplus of $500,000, largely because of the low wage rate for officers and employees that prevailed for a long time after the strike. This $500,000 cash attracted the attention of speculators. Mr. Burt sold out in 1904 and for a long time the railroad was owned by one syndicate and then another. Finally, in May 1925, the Wabash Railroad took it over. According to Bradley, the Ann Arbor Road did not fit into the Wabash system of things. He predicted that the Ann Arbor would probably become part of the B&O Railroad and then the system “would cross Michigan and the Ann Arbor fits nicely into this scheme.” [47]
Despite Bradley’s prediction, the Ann Arbor did not merge with the B & O Railroad. The Wabash Railroad operated the Ann Arbor from 1925 through August 1963, when the Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Railroad took over the Ann Arbor Railroad. On September 30, 1977, Conrail assumed control of the Ann Arbor as part of the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act. The State of Michigan kept it from being absorbed into Conrail by purchasing the line. In October 1988, the Ann Arbor Acquisition Corporation bought the Ann Arbor Railroad. In January 1999, the Ottawa Yard, the Ann Arbor’s main yard in Toledo, was moved to accommodate the expansion of the Toledo Jeep plant. In 2001 the historical steam back shops were demolished and in 2003 much of the former Owosso steam shop and roundhouse area was sold to the Michigan State Trust for Railway Preservation for use as a steam locomotive technology museum.[48]
Ashley was also instrumental in organizing the Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon Railway Company in December 1886. The road extended from Ashley, Michigan on the Toledo, Ann Arbor and North Michigan Railway to Muskegon on Lake Michigan, a distance of 95 miles.[49] The stockholders of the Toledo, Saginaw and Muskegon were J.M. Ashley, Win. Baker, John Cummings and D. Robison Jr. of Toledo and E. Middleton of Greenville Michigan and L.G. Mason of Muskegon, Michigan.[50]
According to Bradley, the Ashleys died leaving modest estates except H.W. whose estate amounted to almost one million dollars. Bradley concluded: Mr. Hoover speaks of the rugged individualist;
you could see a fine example of rugged
individualism in the Ashleys. But in this
case it produced a colossal failure which
cooperation might have prevented. [51]
Ashley ultimately failed in his goal of keeping family control of his railroad lines. He leased the Muskegon branch to the Grand Trunk in 1888 and finally selling it. The Toledo, Saginaw and Mackinaw operated was abandoned in 1890. The Ashleys lost control of the Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan in 1893. In 1891 sixty-eight year old James M. Ashley turned over active management of the Toledo Road over to his sons. Henry served as general manager, James, Jr. vice-president and Charles as lawyer. Ashley retained his title as president, but since his financial condition had improved he took a trip to Europe with his wife and daughter. When he returned he occupied his time with political matters and lectures and never resumed active direction of the road.[52]
A combination of events forced the Toledo and Ann Arbor into receivership. After Ashley retired from active management, his sons ran the railroad erratically. The Panic of 1893 did not directly hurt the Toledo and Ann Arbor, but the bad times guaranteed that the railroad could not obtain new loans. The ferocious northern Michigan winter of 1892-1893 froze railroad profits. The car ferries got through the ice on Lake Michigan, but snow and ice on the land route reduced traffic and revenues. The strike of March 8,1893 called by Chief P.M. Arthur of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers brought about a default of bond interest . The Ashleys fought to retain control of the Toledo & Ann Arbor but finally the road was sold for $2,627,000, less than half of its bonded debit, and the Ashley equity was wiped out.[53]
Ashley met his second goal of extending his railroad. The litmus test of history has proven that Bradley’s assessment of the Ashley railroads as being as “colossal failure” because of the lack of cooperation between rugged individualists is colossally off the mark. If Ashley had not been such a rugged individualist he would not have worked to make his dream of a railroad from Toledo to Ann Arbor a reality. If he had not been a rugged individualist he would not have combined his idealism that increased the speed of the Underground Railroad and his pragmatism that slowly created railroads from land grants and land grants from railroads to a system still operating in the 21st century.[54]
End Notes
[1] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960. Second Chapter, p. 4. Canaday Center. Ward M/ Canaday Center for Special Collections, University of Toledo.
[2] Letter to John Morgan, Canaday Center, University of Toledo from Mrs. Grace F. Ashley Fogel, Denver, Colorado. In the letter, dated October 1, 1959, Mrs. Fogel said that James was born in 1822, but the rest of the published biographical sources state 1824. In his autobiographical material in the James Ashley papers, Canaday Center, University of Toledo, the date is given as November 24, 1822. James had four brothers and three sisters. John K. Ashley was born in Pittsburgh on July 24, 1824. (He and James were often confused. In fact, Ashley, Michigan, was supposedly named after John, but the correct railroad baron brother is most likely James.) John studied medicine with a Dr. Carpenter in Athens, Ohio and practiced in Masterston, now called Lebanon in Monroe County, Ohio until 1852. Then he moved to Illinois and over the next fifty years practiced medicine in various towns around Wayne City, Illinois. He died May 26, 1905 and is buried in Stine Cemetery, Ciane, Illinois.
Benjamin Ashley was born in Pittsburgh in January 1826. He learned the baking and candy making business in Cincinnati, Ohio and established a baking and candy business in McConnellsville, Ohio. He died there in 1848.
William Henry Ashley was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on July 22, 1828. He learned the cigar business in St. Louis, Missouri and served in the Mexican War. He was a U.S. Deputy surveyor in Colorado from 1861 to 1880. He lived on a farm near Hope, Idaho and died May 28, 1907 at Sandpoint, Idaho.
Eli M. Ashley was born in Portsmouth, Ohio on May 28, 1833. He was educated at the Western Liberal Institute at Marietta, Ohio and engaged in the drug business in Toledo, Ohio from 1854-1861. He moved to Colorado, arriving in Denver on July 17, 1861. He was the chief clerk of the U.S. Surveyor General’s office in Colorado for seventeen years, and was president of the Denver Board of Education in 1875. In 1886, he organized the Western Chemical Company and was elected its president. In 1887 he served as president of the Denver Chamber of Commerce and the chairman of the Republican State Committee in 1891 and 1892.
Mary Jane Ashley was born in Portsmouth, Ohio, in 1831. She died April 20, 1849 and was buried beside her mother, Mary Ann Kirkpatrick Ashley in Paw Paw Cemetery in Lebanon, Ohio.
Louisa Ashley was born in 1835 and another sister Anna Maria Ashley in 1837.
[3] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960. Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, The University of Toledo, p. 32.
[4] A sect that broke from the Baptist Church that believed in practicing the primitive Christian or New Testament faith. By 1827, they had formally been excluded from the Baptist denominations and they were called the Disciples of Christ or the Campbellites. Their sect spread rapidly throughout Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky and Virginia. Rev. Philip Schaff, Rev. Samuel Macauley, Editors, A Religious Encyclopedia or Dictionary. (New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1894) p.377.
[5] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960. Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections. The University of Toledo, p. 24.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid, p. 25.
[8] Ibid., p. 26.
[9] Ibid, p. 27.
[10] Ibid.
[11] John M. Morgan. “Railroad Built on Wind: James M. Ashley and the Ann Arbor Railroad.” Masters Thesis, University of Toledo. Copy in the Ward M. Canaday Center, Mss-002, James M. Ashley Papers, 1860-1960. Box 2.
[12] A biography of Ashley in the Woodlawn Cemetery Necrology, Toledo’s Attic, http://www.attic.utoledo.edu/att/WOOD/ashley.html states that he failed at the newspaper business. The evidence clearly shows that he did not fail at it, but on the contrary, grew tired of being an itinerant newspaperman and voluntarily and with the encouragement of his mother, chose another profession.
[13] Memoirs of James M. Ashley. Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960. Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, The University of Toledo p. 32.
[14] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, The University of Toledo, Second Chapter p. 1.
[15] Ibid, p. 5.
[16] Clark Waggoner, History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County Ohio. (New York: Munsell & Co., 1888) p. 83.
[17] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, The University of Toledo, p. 35.
[18] James M. Ashley and Emancipation, A Thesis Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. John M Morgan, the University of Toledo, 1940.
[19] Clark Waggoner, History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County Ohio (New York: Munsell & Co., 1888 ) p. 27.
[20] Memoirs of James M. Ashley, Mss-002, James M. Ashley, 1860-1960, Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections. Chapter on my Congressional Campaigns, Chapter X. p. 1.
[21] Clark Waggoner, History of Toledo and Lucas County, p. 28.
[22] John Morgan, “Railroad Built on Wind: James M. Ashley and the Ann Arbor Railroad.” Master’s Thesis, University of Toledo. P. 3. Morgan tells this interesting John Brown story, but it does not appear in Ashley’s memoirs.
[23] “James Monroe Ashley”. Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography, edited by James Grant Wilson and John Fiske. Six volumes, New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1887-1889 & edited Stanley L. Klos, 1999. This source states Ashley’s middle name as Monroe, but all of the others state that it is Mitchell.
[24] Souvenir presented to James M. Ashley on Emancipation Day, September 2, 1893. Philadelphia: Publishing hose of the A.M.E. Church, 1894. African American Perspectives: Pamphlets from the Daniel A.P. Murray Collection, 1818-1907. American Memory. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/aap:@field(M010+@band(91-898107)):
[25] Speech of Hon. J.M. Ashley, of Ohio: delivered in the House of Representatives, on Friday, January 6, 1865; on the constitutional amendment for the abolition of slavery. New York: W.C. Bryant & Co., printers, 1865.
[26] Sherman W. Jackson. “Representative James M. Ashley and the Midwestern Origins of Amendment Thirteen.” Lincoln Herald 80 (Summer 1978): 83-95.
[27] “The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson” . Harper’s Weekly, December 29, 1866. http://www.impeach~andrewjohnson.com/06FirstImpeachmentDiscussions/iiib-18.htm
[28] Robert Horowitz, Great Impeacher: A Political Biography of James M. Ashley (New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1979) p. 15.
[29] Maxine B. Kahn, “Congressman Ashley in the Post –Civil War Years.” Northwest Ohio Quarterly 36 (1964): 116-133, 194-210.
[30] Memoir by Charles S. Ashley. Contributions to the Historical Society of Montana, Vol. VI, p. 197.
[31] The New Iron Steamer. An Enterprise of Much Commercial Importance. A Ferry Capable of Transporting a Train of Cars Across the River. Detroit Free Press, September 26, 1865.
[32] Toledo Blade, November 17, 1882. P. 1.
[33] J. Fraser Cocks, III, General Editor. Pictorial History of Ann Arbor, 1824-1974. Michigan Historical Collections/Bentley Historical Library, Ann Arbor Sesquicentennial Committee, 1974. Michigan Historical Collections, The University of Michigan.
[34] Henry E. Riggs, The Ann Arbor Railroad Fifty Years Ago. Published by the Ann Arbor Railroad Company, 1947. The Michigan Central Railroad had come to Ann Arbor in 1839 and the record as early as 1845 indicated that the Michigan Central charged what citizens considered to be excessive rates.
[35] Ibid, p. 1.
[36] The Owosso Argus-Press, Owosso, Michigan , November 23, 1915. Big Jim Ashley Built the Ann Arbor on Shoe String.
[37] Toledo Blade, June 28, 1878, p. 3.
[38] Ann Arbor Weekly Argus, July 11, 1879, p. 2.
[39] Ann Arbor Weekly Argus, August 17, 1883, p. 2.
[40] Ann Arbor No. 1, Ann Arbor, No. 2, Father Edward J. Dowling, S.J. Marine Historical Collection Data Base, University of Detroit-Mercy Libraries. http://shipping.dalnet.lib.mi.us/ipac.jsp?session=10832JK5262P8.207&menu=search
[41] In 1896 the forward boiler and engine were removed and in 1901 the American Shipbuilding Company of Cleveland, Ohio installed new boilers. In 1910, it burned to the water line at Manitowoc, Wisconsin and the hull was sold to The Love Construction Company of Muskegon, Michigan for use as a sand scow. Ann Arbor R.R. Carferries. http://www.1dnweb.com/~bessey/AnnArbor.html
[42] Ann Arbor No. 2 was taken out of service in September 1912 and in 1914 sold to Manistee Iron Works for scrap. Ann Arbor R.R. Carferries. http://www.1dnweb.com/~bessey/AnnArbor.html
[43] Inside Story of How Jim Ashley Put the Ann Arbor Road Over, The Owosso Argus-Press, Tuesday, June 30, 1936. By W. Frank Bradley. Although 78 years old when he wrote the story, Bradley was still active as president of the Ohio & Michigan Sand & Gravel Company of Ohio. C.E. Bradley, his brother, worked as a machinist at the Ann Arbor shops since 1894.
[44] Letter Addressed to Honor. Thos. Cooley. Letter head Toledo, Ann Arbor & North Michigan Railway Co., Vice President’s Office; Broadway; J.M. Ashley, President Dated October 21, 1884. Ward M. Canaday Center for Special Collections, University of Toledo.
[45] When World War I broke out, James Ashley Jr. joined patriotic groups like the Defense League, the Liberty Loan and the Red Cross. He died of a heart attack in November 1919. “Jim Ashley, Railroader, Patriot Dies,” Toledo Blade, November 3, 1919.
[46] Historical Collections of the Great Lakes, Craig Shipbuilding Company Collection, Bowling Green State University.
[47] Inside Story of How Jim Ashley Put the Ann Arbor Road Over, The Owosso Argus Press, Tuesday, June 30, 1936. By W. Frank Bradley
[48] A Brief History of the Ann Arbor Railroad. http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Rampart/8294/aahist1.html
[49] According to the Ashley, Michigan website the village was platted by Ansel H. Phinney, George P. Dudley and Miles W. Bullock in 1883. Phinney became its first postmaster in January 1884, and in 1887 Ashley was incorporated as a village. The website says that the village was named for “John M. Ashley, promoter and builder of the Toledo, Saginaw & Muskegon Railroad, but James M. Ashley is the person who was one of the founders of the Toledo, Saginaw & Muskegon Railroad.
[50] Clark Waggoner, History of the City of Toledo and Lucas County, Ohio (New York: Munsell & Company, 1888) p. 38.
[51] Inside Story of How Jim Ashley Put the Ann Arbor Road Over, The Owosso Argus-Press, Tuesday, June 30, 1936. By W. Frank Bradley.
[52] Owosso Argus Press, June 30, 1936.
[53] Toledo Blade, October 23, 1893, p. 1.
[54]A severe diabetic attack slowed Ashley down in 1893 and while he was on a fishing trip in the summer of 1896 the severe attacks returned. He died on September 16, 1896 of a heart attack. His body was return to Toledo from Ann Arbor and he was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery.