Lawrence Public Library

Letters to Mrs. H.C. Taylor regarding the history of the Boston and Maine Railroad, 1946

eng

no index present

non fiction

Letters to Mrs. H.C. Taylor regarding the history of the Boston and Maine Railroad

965550148

Both are addressed to a Mrs. H. C. Taylor of North Andover (no address). A penciled notation with an asterisk next to the name of Mrs. Taylor reads: "Has given this information to the Library for our files". The Lawrence Public Library stamp is in the upper right hand corner. The first letter is dated Dec. 11, 1946 responding to Mrs. Taylor's letter of November 26 of that year. It does not specifically say what the request was, but suggests that the information may be in the company's Passenger Traffic Dept. or the Contract Dept. The second paragraph says that their records indicate that the railroad between Boston and Wilmington Jct. (junction) was open July 1, 1845 "with continuation of trackage acquired from the Andover and Haverhill Railroad from Wilmington Jct. to the Massachusetts-New Hampshire state line, about the same time. It would be over this trackage that the first Boston to Lawrence train would operate, and I would think that it first carried passenger only, as the carrying of freight was a subsequent development." The writer of the letter, C.F. Palmer, General Passenger Agent, closes in the last paragraph that Mrs. Taylor might consult the Baker Library at Harvard. The second letter is also to Mrs. Taylor and is dated Dec. 14, 1946 and is written by L.E. Boyden, Supervisor of Contracts. He quotes at some length a portion of the B&M Railroad Annual report of 1848 which refers to locations in Lawrence. Reference is made to the new railroad bridge just completed which will deliver passengers to the north side of the river in Lawrence. Within the year they were expecting the line to proceed to the New Hampshire border